A Darker Path [Worm Fanfic]

[Ack]

Huh. That's actually pretty good. I wasn't expecting an AI-generated song to be worth shit, to be honest.

Click to shrink...

I know, right? I was absolutely stunned at the quality.

 

[Frog_22]

I was very recently put onto a website that allows you to input a song concept (or even lyrics) and it generates the song for you, complete with instrumentals.

Here's what it came up with (after several tweaks of the lyrics):

Atropos (Doing Wrong to Make it Right)

Click to shrink...

That's very cool, both the song and the technology to make it. Thank you!

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Six: Well-Earned Respite

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



Tenebrae

The non-descript car, driven by a plainclothes PRT trooper, dropped Brian and Riley off outside their building. Brian was still having a little trouble adjusting to the fact that it was light out after the time they'd spent in starlit night, but Riley seemed to be taking it in her stride. In fact, she was positively bubbly about the whole thing.

"How awesome was that?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator. "I've never been to Russia before. And it was amazing to work alongside Amy again. I love watching her power at work."

"It was pretty cool," he admitted. "By which I mean, freezing cold. But joking aside, I'm still a little blown away by how Atropos was always going to send him back to St Petersburg to face murder charges, but she went through all that just to get his head fixed first."

"It's about setting boundaries." She raised her eyebrows to show she was serious. "Jack never set himself any boundaries. If he hit an obstacle he couldn't immediately overcome, he cheated to get around it, but he always insisted that everyone else stick by the limits he set for them. Atropos doesn't play that game. People respect and trust her because she says what she's going to do, and then she does it."

The doors opened and they stepped out onto their floor. "Even when it involves someone dying violently?" He wasn't arguing with her specifically, but he did want to hear her views on that aspect.

She shrugged. "How many people has she killed who didn't deserve it?"

"Due process exists for a reason." He didn't exactly disagree with her on the subject of whether people like Kaiser or Bastard Son had deserved their sudden ends, but now that he was committed to the side of goodness and light, he felt it was up to him to support that point of view. "A lot of those people could just as easily have gone to prison."

She paused outside their door and held up her finger. "How many deaths has she caused that didn't make the world a measurably better place? Or pave the way for her to keep making the world a better place?"

He shook his head. "You're using logic. That's unfair. I'm telling Aisha on you." As she burst into giggles—which had been his aim all along—he put his key in the door and turned it.

At the same time as the lock clicked, he heard the elevator door dinged again. He and Riley looked in that direction, because it hadn't been all that long since danger had literally come knocking on their door. He didn't relax all that much when a UPS package delivery guy stepped out (anyone could buy a uniform shirt, after all) but when nobody else followed the guy into the corridor, he let a little of the tension ease out of his body.

Not all of it, though. He hadn't been there for the previous kidnapping, and there was no way a second attempt would fly on his watch.

"Oh, hey," the guy greeted them, hefting a cubical parcel about six inches on a side. "Got a delivery for Laborn, first initial B?"

"Uh, that's me." Still a little wary, Brian approached the man. Behind him, he heard the apartment door open and close, and knew Riley had ducked inside.

"Sweet. Here you go." The guy handed the parcel over, made a note on the clipboard he was carrying, and turned back toward the elevator.

"Wait." Brian hefted the package. It had a little weight to it, but not a great deal. "What is this? Who sent it? Nobody here ordered anything."

"Oh, uh, yeah." The delivery guy fumbled with his clipboard. "There's a note. I'm supposed to say, 'I'm not going to let anything bad happen', whatever that means."

"Oh." Brian knew exactly what it meant, but while he was no longer worried about a kidnapping or other potential harm, he was still no wiser about the contents of the package. "Thanks. Have a nice day."

"No problem. You have a good one too, buddy." The delivery man went back to the elevator and hit the button to go down. By the time the doors closed behind him, he was whistling a popular Canary tune, albeit off-key.

Frowning, Brian headed back to the apartment door, still holding the package. When he tapped on the door, it opened immediately; Theo was on the other side, wearing a breastplate and helmet and hefting an impressively sharp-looking shortsword. "Oh, good. You're okay. What is it?"

"Everything's fine," Brian assured him. "Atropos isn't about to let anything bad happen to us, remember?" Then he looked past Theo to see what was on the TV screen. It was a paused console game, with a giant robot visible from two different angles. In both views, it had been pretty badly shot up, and was on fire. What really grabbed his attention was the swastika blatantly painted on the robot's chest, and woven into the draperies hanging from a nearby brick wall. "What the heck is that?"

"Aisha's welcome-to-the-apartment present for me," Theo said, making the armour and shortsword disappear in a mind-twisting fractal manner. "I was a bit down when we got home, then she remembered the present and gave it to me. So, we started playing."

"Oh, yeah." Brian remembered what had happened to drive the presents out of everyone's thoughts. "That was a crazy day, for sure."

"So, what's this package?" asked Aisha, pointing at the one Brian still held. "I know I didn't order anything. Did you guys?"

Brian needed no further encouragement. He pried at the box until a corner opened up, then ran his thumbnail along the edge to break the tape. Finally, he lifted the lid to reveal …

"Game controllers?" Riley looked over at the games console. "But we've already got a pair of controllers."

Aisha grinned as she pumped her fist in the air. "Three words, Ri. Four player game."

"Oh," said Theo. "Oh." He glanced from the console to Brian, then to the opened parcel. "I mean, that's if you want to play …"

"That's a hell and yes I want to play," Brian told him bluntly. He pulled the controllers out of their packaging and handed them to Aisha. "Go ahead and plug them in. If there's anything more fulfilling than kicking Nazi ass, it's kicking Nazi ass with a bunch of friends to enjoy it with."

There was homework to be done and dinner to be cooked, but right now it was time to have fun with the people who meant the most to him.

<><>

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♦ Topic: The Sleeper Has Awoken
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► New Capes ► Atropos

Atropos (Original Poster) (UnVerified Cape) (Banned) (You Wish) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me) (Verified Dethpicable)
Posted On Mar 16th 2011:

Well, I'm back.

And in returning, I will be answering the burning question on everyone's lips. Did I gank Sleeper, or did he see sense?

Okay, short answer first. He's alive.

Slightly longer answer: he agreed to the removal of his powers. This also took away some lingering problems related to said powers, so now he will live out the rest of his life entirely free of those problems.

If any of you are thinking that I'm being a little hazy on the details, you're absolutely correct. That's mainly because spilling all the beans after the fact will allow people to figure out who he is now, and someone would kill him. And while I don't give a damn about him as a person, I did *not* go through all that effort to have it go to waste.

He will live a long and healthy life. I promise nothing more.

So yeah, Russia? You and and Earth Shin no longer have to worry about having him come in and wreck your shit.

You're welcome.

Toodles!

(Showing page 1 of 238)

►TheRealGloryGirl (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Can actually confirm.
Atropos asked me and Panacea to come along, plus a couple of the Wards (with Director Renick's blessing) and under her direction we got 'er done. Sleeper had clearly taken the first warning to heart, because he didn't give us a moment of trouble.
Because Atropos doesn't want any more information coming out about him (and she's right: someone *would* totally rearrange his brainmeats with a pickaxe at the first opportunity) I'm not gonna say who he is either, though I will confirm that he's not going to be just living free and easy.
Some of you might be surprised that Atropos didn't just wave her magic wand and make the problem go away all by herself. That's not who she is, and she's never pretended to be that. She brings the right weapon to the fight, and in this case (after she delivered the warning and made him aware of his options) that was us.
But do not misunderstand the situation here. What happened with Sleeper, the way it played out, was one hundred percent Atropos' doing. Without her to tell us exactly what to do and how to do it (I spent most of the time singing the Lil' Mousey theme song, believe it or not) it wouldn't have happened. She knew exactly what needed to be done, and how to make it so. And because she was there to direct us, we achieved something I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it for myself.
And yes, I know, that's basically par for the course with Atropos. Doesn't make it any less impressive when you see it for yourself.
I know that when Atropos first started rearranging Brockton Bay's criminal landscape, I aired some opinions fairly strenuously. I also know that when I came face to face with her for the first time, I acted like a trigger-happy moron. But she chose not to kill me, and once I got some perspective on the situation (about the time Panacea made me watch the Nine takedown) I understood the depth of her restraint.
So that's the truth of the matter. Atropos is entirely capable of restraint. She just has zero qualms about discarding that restraint if she considers it necessary. And everyone she's killed so far--*everyone*--managed to do something that made her decide not to bother with restraint this time.
It's as simple as that.
There's a lesson in there for everyone even considering crossing her.
Don't. *Do Not*.
I cannot stress this hard enough.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
And there you have it, folks.
While I personally wouldn't consider Atropos to be any kind of hero (let's be real here, folks; she's repeatedly denied the concept) she's *extremely* consistent in her actions, and Glory Girl's basically hit the nail on the head in all respects.
As a wise man once said, "Don't cause no trouble, ain't gonna be no trouble."
I'm down with that.

►Mouse_Protector (Veteran Member) (Verified Cape) (Independent Hero) (Verified Atropos Fan)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Wow, really? Singing the Lil' Mousey theme? Personally I'd call shenanigans, except that I know how Atropos operates (with panache and style, naturally) and I would not put that past her for an instant.
Nice work all round, kiddo.

►UnconcernedFox
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
*draws a line through yet another S-class threat*
*looks at the few that are left*
*wonders if any will be stupid enough to get Atropos' attention*
*goes to get more popcorn*

►TheRealBrandish (Verified Cape) (Cape Wife) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Really? Sleeper? Why am I only hearing about this now?

►TheRealPanacea (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Well, crap. Vicky, you didn't tell her?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
It should come as a surprise to nobody that after a thorough search of Sleeper's last verified location, there is no sign of him. Or of anyone, really. There is one farmhouse that shows signs of recent occupancy by up to six people, but it's empty and there are no indications of how they could have left.
For the moment, mainly due to the fact that Atropos has never lied about anything of this sort to the best of our knowledge, the PRT and the Guild are going to assume that Sleeper has indeed been removed from the field of play.
It is our understanding that the Russian government was offering a standing reward for any cape who took him down, but they also had conditions (must be able to supply his corpse for verification) that Atropos won't be able to meet, mainly because she killed the powers, not the man.
It is my personal opinion (I do not speak for the PRT in this) that they should waive the conditions and just pass the money on to the Betterment Committee, but I have no power in the matter.
In any case, since reading the after-action report, I offer Atropos my sincere congratulations for a job well done under trying conditions.
In unrelated news, the kidnapped lady on the highway sent in a thank-you card signed by her whole family to the PRT ENE department, for Atropos. We are forwarding it on to the Betterment Committee.

►D_Hebert_Chairman_BBBC (Da Boss)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
I believe this is my first official post on here in my capacity as Chairman.
(No, I don't know how that tag got there, and the mods don't seem to be able to remove it.)
In reference to Reave's comment about the card, we will be putting it on display in a separate venue along with the rest of Atropos' awards. The vast majority came from her victory over the Simurgh, but there are a few others as well. The location of this venue is right next to the Betterment Committee offices; we didn't understand at the time why Atropos was suggesting that we acquire it, but now we do.
Before anyone gets the idea of stealing these for whatever reason, we also have photo-galleries of her more gruesome kills (and non-lethal takedowns) that are required viewing for anyone being considered for a place on the Committee.
Long story short, if anyone thinks that because Atropos is singlehandedly bankrolling the largest private venture of this sort in history, she can't be all that dangerous, I strongly advise them to look into the cases of Janice Templeton and Paul King, as filed under 'cautionary tale'. Also, Ravioli and Barrow.

►They_Call_Me_Ash (Verified Cape) (Verified Ex-Villain) (Verified Atropos Fan) (Dockworkers Association Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Haha yeah no, I think that would be a remarkably stupid idea. And speaking from the point of view of someone who once had Atropos' shotgun to her head, I *know* stupid ideas.

​

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 236, 237, 238

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<><>​

Aisha

Just as Aisha was about to click to the next page, the laptop screen flickered. When it cleared, the black silhouette of Atropos overlaid everything else. Leaning forward until she looked like she was about to pop out of the screen, the apparition of Atropos whispered, "Bedtime." Then her shears came up into view, and snipped once.

Aisha, knowing Atropos all too well, was entirely unsurprised when her laptop started shutting down all by itself. "Well, fuck," she muttered, unable to even feel justified about complaining, because it was definitely past her bedtime.

"Whassamatter?" mumbled Riley sleepily from her bed.

Aisha tried hard not to sound like she was bitching about being caught out, though she totally was. "Atropos just curfewed my laptop." Closing the device, she stowed it on the bedside table and settled down to sleep.

"Heh. Busted."

"Oh, shut up."

<><>​

The Person Once Known as Damsel of Distress

Ashley hummed to herself as she got off the Betterment Committee minibus outside the Committee offices. Under her right arm, as per usual, she was carrying her helmet and lunchbox. However, in her left hand she was carrying a bulky shopping bag, which had garnered her more than a little curious attention on the ride in.

There had been the occasional question about the bag, but instead of getting angry about it (as would have been her go-to in the past) she'd deflected the queries with a pretence of obliviousness, deriving more than a little amusement from the whole charade. Even Lacey (who was driving the bus) had gone from asking questions to joining in the joke, pretending that the bag didn't even exist. Ashley wasn't sure what had turned the older woman (who she actually admired quite a bit) to her side in the matter, but she was glad to have made the connection.

Shortly thereafter, all the workers for the upcoming shift were assembled in the oversized break room, and Mr Hebert took centre stage. "You all know what you're rostered on for," he began. "There are no changes at this point. We'll keep you updated through the day. Now, before we get started, I believe Ash has something to say."

Ashley blinked, not sure how he'd picked up on that, but fully aware that some of the men said Mr Hebert had eyes not only in the back of his head, but around the corner and down the street as well. If there was anyone more switched-on about the Committee than him, she had yet to meet them.

Prompted by his nod, she stepped forward to the table and opened the shopping bag. "Ah, yes," she said, abruptly shy. "I, uh, I made cupcakes." Pulling the large Tupperware container out of the bag, she took the top off, abruptly releasing the scent of freshly baked goods into the air-conditioned room.

"Damn," commented Alexander, one of the younger Dockworkers. "That smells good." Taking one out of the container, he peeled away some of the paper and bit into it. "Mmmyeah," he enthused, though his voice was a little muffled. "Really good."

"One each, please." Mr Hebert's voice cut across the sudden hubbub of the incipient feeding frenzy. "And could someone pass me one? Thank you."

As the last reaching hand grabbed a cupcake, there were three left, which she firmly closed the lid on. "I think I'll keep those back," she decided, grinning at the looks of disappointment on the faces of those who had been eyeing them off. "One for Vicky and one for Gary, for being nice about giving me a second chance. And one for me, of course."

"Where'd you learn to cook so good?" asked Alexander, balling up the cupcake paper between his fingers. "That was nice."

Ashley shrugged, though his casual praise triggered a warm feeling in her chest that refused to go away. "YouTube, mainly. And a lot of practice." In the interest of honesty, she snorted dryly. "Trust me, there were a few mishaps. The first batch wasn't even edible, and the second lot only barely so. And somehow I managed to actually light the fourth lot on fire."

"What about the third batch?"

She met his eyes and shook her head. "We do not talk about the third batch."

"Right. Got it." He nodded firmly as laughter rose in the room. "The third batch will not be talked about."

"Thanks for the cupcake, Ash." Luke slapped her lightly on the shoulder. "That was much appreciated."

"Yeah, Ash, thanks."

"Really hit the spot."

"Damn nice."

As the voices rose in echo of Luke's sentiment, Ashley found herself blushing as tears prickled in her eyes. She hadn't been sure exactly why she'd chosen to make cupcakes, except perhaps because Vicky had enjoyed her cooking on the night she'd come over. Even then, the process of learning how to make them had been as enjoyable as it had been frustrating, teaching herself a new skill from scratch and becoming better than she had been before.

But while she'd expected a few people might try a cupcake out of politeness, the overwhelmingly positive response she'd gotten had thrown her for a loop. With her new emotional awareness (the only way she could really describe how she felt following the whole thing with Teacher) it seemed that the approval of others meant more than ever, while at the same time being easier to obtain given that she could actually understand people better than before. Not that she was an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but some understanding was better than none at all.

Ducking her head, she stuffed the container back in the bag. It would fit at the bottom of her locker until she got the chance to hand out the last two and have the third one for herself. Just as she got it sorted out, a hand rested briefly on her shoulder. "Well done," Mr Hebert said quietly. "I think they were a hit."

"Thanks." She tried not to sound awkward, but it wasn't easy. "I, uh, I'm still learning how. I think I just got lucky."

"One man's good luck is another man's result of hard work and forward planning." Mr Hebert nodded to her. "I have a few recipes that my wife used regularly, if you're interested."

She blinked, her previous distraction forgotten. "Uh, okay, wow, thanks. That would be amazing."

"Entirely my pleasure." He smiled warmly. "You seem to be making cooking your new hobby, and I'm all for encouraging my people to find worthwhile things to try out. See me tomorrow and I'll get them to you."

"Okay, sure." She glanced at the clock. "Uh, gotta get going. See you tomorrow."

"Go." He waved her off genially. "Kick ass, and make me proud."

As she dashed out the door toward her locker, she couldn't stop grinning. For a shot in the dark, the cupcakes had paid off more than she could ever have expected. She knew all about cocksure arrogance and being certain about something with nothing to back it up, but this was something totally different. This feeling of accomplishment was earned.

And that mattered, more than she'd ever expected it to.



End of Part Ninety-Six

 

[Zeushobbit]

"One man's good luck is another man's result of hard work and forward planning." Mr Hebert nodded to her. "I have a few recipes that my wife used regularly, if you're interested."

She blinked, her previous distraction forgotten. "Uh, okay, wow, thanks. That would be amazing."

"Entirely my pleasure." He smiled warmly. "You seem to be making cooking your new hobby, and I'm all for encouraging my people to find worthwhile things to try out. See me tomorrow and I'll get them to you."

"Okay, sure." She glanced at the clock. "Uh, gotta get going. See you tomorrow."

"Go." He waved her off genially. "Kick ass, and make me proud."

Click to shrink...

You are being Adopted. Please do not resist.

 

[twilightwanderer]

You are being Adopted. Please do not resist.

Click to shrink...

Well, he's already got one reformed villainess (to go with his actively anti-villain daughter), so why stop there?

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Seven: Heroes

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



Thursday Afternoon, March 17, 2011
PRT Department 01 Wards Base

Flechette

Wrapped in her bathrobe and drying her hair with her towel, Lily left the communal showers and headed back toward her room. It had been a long patrol, turning over metaphorical rocks and kicking in not-so-metaphorical doors, all in the name of locating Rune. A lot of criminal activity had been uncovered and turned over for the cops to deal with, but so far the ex-Empire bitch was still in the wind (so to speak).

When she'd first met Boomer, she believed him to be a little too full of himself, and he wasn't quite as cool as he considered himself to be. He turned out to be a nice guy though, and she'd picked up one or two useful tips from him. The trouble lay in his insistence on seeing the good in everyone, and with Rune that had turned out to be a fatal error.

All that aside, he'd been a good man, doing his best to be a worthwhile hero, and he hadn't deserved to be murdered like that. Or at all, really. Which meant payback was in order.

Lily had gone out on this patrol fully expecting to find Rune in the first hour, given that the major gangs should be ostracising her for what she'd done. That hadn't happened, though she'd learned more about the dim and dingy hideouts favoured by those despised by both sides of the law than she had in the last year. The second and third hours had been similarly unproductive, apart from the other human cockroaches they'd uncovered and passed on to the NYPD; the person she most fervently wanted to get her hands on continued to elude her grasp.

Still mulling over the places she'd seen and wondering exactly how many more bolt-holes there were in a city of six million people, she stepped into her room and bumped the door closed with her hip. A t-shirt and Hello Kitty sleep pants were laid out over the bed; she took two steps toward it—

"Hey."

As she spun around, her mind connected the voice with just one person, who had the ability to appear basically anywhere she wanted. By the time her eyes registered the familiar black costume, she'd already arrested the defensive motion of her hands. It didn't mean she wasn't going to yell at Atropos, just that it was going to be more of a formality than a real situation.

"Seriously, what the fuck?" she demanded, though they both knew at this point that she was only going through the motions. "I could've had a weapon in my hand. Sneaking up on me is dangerous!"

"You didn't have a weapon, and I didn't sneak up on you. Hell, I even said hi." Atropos hadn't moved from her relaxed leaning posture against the door, legs crossed at the ankle and hands in the pockets of her long-coat. "How are you doing after yesterday?"

Lily dropped the act. "Still sucks," she admitted. "I was nearly close enough to do something about it. Thanks for the save, by the way."

"You're welcome." Atropos stepped forward from the door, closing the distance. "You can ask the question, if you want."

Saying 'what question?' would've been both a waste of time and an insult to Atropos' intelligence, so Lily didn't bother. "If you knew what was going on and you could save me, why not save him too?"

Atropos held up a finger. "I can answer that, but it will lead to more questions, with answers you might not like. Are you willing to go there?"

Lily had suspected things might go this way, but she'd asked the question, and she did want to know the answer. "Sure. Hit me."

"Okay." Atropos sat down on the bed. "Let's get comfortable for this. There's three parts to this answer. First part is, I have my limits. I could've saved you or him, but not both in that time frame. Second part is, I don't do the hero thing. I don't save people. I End problems. Third part is, you're important to me, and that's why I saved you. He wasn't. Keeping up so far?"

"Yeah." Lily also sat down. Like Atropos had said, more questions were occurring to her. "What limits? I thought you could teleport anywhere."

Atropos pulled back her sleeve and showed Lily a slimline module made of black plastic, encasing her left forearm. A tap of a hidden catch opened a small panel, revealing a tiny keyboard and screen. "I got this teleporter from Leet. It works every time, but there's a cooldown period between portal jumps. I could throw you a portal, or I could throw Boomer one, but I couldn't do both at the same time." She closed the panel and slid her sleeve down again. "Next question?"

"Jesus." Lily blinked, momentarily stunned. "You're just … showing me this?"

Atropos shrugged. "Are you going to tell anyone?"

"Well, uh, no. Of course not. Um." The revelation was still throwing her for a loop, but at least she could understand more of what had happened. "Why … why didn't you just stop her from doing any of that? From killing Boomer or trying to kill me?"

"Because I'm not a hero." Atropos said the same words again, but with more emphasis this time. "Let's walk through this. Suppose I showed up on that rooftop and killed her. She wasn't in Brockton Bay. She wasn't threatening the city. People would wonder why I was going to other cities and killing people without any kind of good reason. I would be slightly less of a reliable figure than I was before."

"Well, you don't have to kill her," Lily pointed out. She was pretty sure Atropos had an answer for this too, but she wanted to hear it. "Just, you know, subdue and restrain."

"And then it would get out that I was out and about, stopping bad guys." Atropos spread her hands expressively. "Some people might ask why I wasn't doing it more often, or why I had to kill all the people I killed. Or maybe word would get around that I was hunting down the capes I chased out of the city. Whichever way it went, I don't need that crap. I'm not a hero. I don't care what they do, just so long as they don't do it in my city."

"But you saved me." Lily came back to that. "Even though I'm not in Brockton Bay. Because you care about me."

"Yes and no." Atropos raised her finger again. "I didn't save you because I care about you. I saved you because you're important to me. There's a difference." She looked at Lily's expression and sighed. "Okay, let's start from base principles here. I'm not a good person, and I'm never going to pretend to be one. But there are far worse people than me, and far worse things, and if my city is going to be nice and safe and prosperous, then I'll End anything and everything trying to stop that from happening without a second thought. Then there are those people who are important to me either physically or emotionally; those people, I will keep safe. That includes you. Do you understand now?"

"I … think so." Lily had thought she'd had a read on Atropos before. Now she had the whole book open before her, chapter and verse, and the words on the page sent a chill down her spine. She wasn't precisely scared of Atropos now, but a few of her assumptions were rearranging themselves in light of the new information. "So, uh … don't take this the wrong way, but you saving me, and all that stuff about the power of friendship … is that just because I'm useful to you?"

"Trust me, I'll never take anything you say the wrong way." Atropos's tone was such that Lily knew she was smiling. "You're right in that you're useful to me. You make my job a lot easier in a lot of ways. But I'm not keeping you alive and safe just because of that. I also think you're worth keeping around, which is not a judgement I make lightly. Plus, though this doesn't carry a huge amount of weight, I have a lot of time for the Rogues' Guild, and Spitfire would be upset if you got hurt."

"Oh." Lily wanted to ask if Atropos was pulling her leg now—with that matter-of-fact tone, it was very hard to tell—but she suspected she knew the answer. Atropos didn't go in for that kind of bullshit 'gotcha' assholery. She was a straight shooter, in every sense of the phrase. "So, um … what you were saying before, about Ending anything that gets in your way. What if a hero tried to stop you from doing something to fix the city? I mean, you've only killed villains so far … haven't you?"

"Villains or villain-adjacent," Atropos confirmed. "Not killing heroes serves several purposes. Mainly, it reduces the amount of tedious bullshit I have to wade through by giving the PRT an excuse to not come after me. Most heroes I can step around or dissuade by less lethal means. I did kill Shadow Stalker, but she was planning to put me in a coma or worse, and she ignored two warnings. Then there was Director Wilkins." She paused expectantly.

"You mentioned something about putting your shears to her eye." Lily frowned. "Can I ask why you did that?"

Atropos snorted softly. "She was trying to show off how smart she was by figuring out my secret identity, while on a video call with Director Piggot and the Chief Director. Piggot flat-out told her to drop it, but she kept going, right up until I put my arm around her throat and gave her a good hard look at the point of my shears."

"That would, um …" Lily cleared her throat. "That would certainly get my attention. What happened then?"

"The Chief Director told me that if I killed Wilkins, the PRT would have to take notice. I explained that even with my shears to her eye, Wilkins was still planning to return to the search once I backed off. I asked her what she would have me do."

"Oh. Wow. Way to put her on the spot. So … she told Wilkins not to be such a dumbass?"

Atropos chuckled. "About that, yes. With a threat of death penalty for treason thrown in for good measure."

Lily tilted her head as the pieces fell into place. "Did that have anything to do with why Wilkins is out and Piggot's running the show here now?"

"Little bit." Atropos sounded amused. "Anything else you wanted to know?"

"Not really." Lily paused as something occurred to her. "Wait, no, I do. Panacea and Tenebrae and Miss Medic. Are they on your 'important to me' list as well?"

"They are, and so's Tenebrae's sister." Atropos waited for a beat. "You'd know her online handle. Great and Terrible Aisha."

Lily did indeed know it. "Oh. Oh, right. She helped you blow up a bunch of drugs and stuff, and you got selfies with her." The signed Polaroid of Great and Terrible Aisha with Atropos' shears held up behind her head like bunny ears would never be topped, she was sure.

Atropos nodded. "And you helped me kill the Simurgh. Are people still saying, 'duck season, wabbit season'?"

A grin crept across Lily's face. "You know they are. Okay, yeah, I get it. You're not just using us and discarding us. We get something out of it too."

"That's the general idea, yes. So, about Rune." Atropos stood up.

Lily looked up at her, then stood as well. "You're going to grab her for us?"

"Nope. I already told you, I'm not a hero. I don't chase villains. I kill them after two warnings." Atropos snapped her fingers, and a folded piece of paper appeared between her fingertips. "You, however, are absolutely a hero. This should be right up your alley. So to speak."

"Wait." Lily stared at the proffered piece of paper. "Is that …" Reaching out, she gingerly took it, then unfolded it. Within, in impeccable penmanship, was an address in Queens, plus a time and date. 14:34, 6/18. "That's where she'll be, tomorrow afternoon?"

"Either that, or I'm sending you on the world's stupidest scavenger hunt." Atropos raised her chin slightly. "So, what are you going to do when you kick the door in? Kill her? Or subdue and restrain her then bring her back in for trial?"

Lily clenched her fists. "I know what I'd like to do."

"It'd be easy." Atropos put a hand on her shoulder. "And nobody would blame you, least of all me. But the next time someone pulls something like that, the temptation's right there, and it keeps getting easier. Somewhere down along that slippery slope, you'd stop seeing justifications and start looking for reasons to do it. And that isn't you. You aren't me, and you don't need to be me. Be a net positive to society and leave the Ending of assholes to me, okay?"

Lily took a deep breath, feeling the weight and gravity of Atropos' words. "Yeah. You're right. And thanks, for reminding me what heroes are for."

"Not a problem." Atropos gave her a quick side-hug. "It's people like you who give me faith that the world's still worth saving."

"All good. I—" Lily looked around, but Atropos had vanished between one word and the next. She chuckled and shook her head, then checked the note again. God damn. She just handed me Rune on a silver platter, just because she thinks I'm worth having around.

There were definitely worse situations to be in, when it came to Atropos.

<><>​

Friday Afternoon, 1:55 PM
An Alley in Philadelphia

Clockblocker

"And so, we return to the scene of the crime, I guess?" Dennis knew he was being inane, but he had to say something to take his mind off the horrific scene that was constantly unfolding then repeating in front of them.

"That's one way to put it, I guess." Tenebrae gave him a moderately sympathetic look. "But it's more of a rescue mission than anything else."

"Better late than never." Miss Medic tapped the side of her helmet, and magnifying optics dropped down in front of her eyes. Dennis hadn't even known they were there; but then again, she was on the same team as Armsmaster. With the sudden lack of villains to fight, the man had taken a special interest in equipping her with the very best medical gear he could devise. "Okay, once we get him out of there, it should be pretty straightforward. Only one major artery severed. Five minutes, tops."

"Wow, dang." Shebang shook her head, but she didn't look around from where she was prepping her devices. "That'll be seriously impressive. It takes me five minutes just to get a band-aid on my finger."

"Thirty seconds to save his life." Miss Medic's tone was matter-of-fact. "Four minutes thirty seconds to make it look pretty and get some blood back into him."

"She's not actually exaggerating," Dennis felt compelled to add. "One of the ex-villains currently working for the Betterment Committee was in a wheelchair. Long-term paraplegia. Miss Medic got her legs working again in less than two hours."

Tenebrae turned to look at him. "I didn't tell you about that."

"No, but I did." Leaning against the wall with his arms folded, Assault grinned. "Battery and I were both extremely impressed."

"Wait, so you actually have villains in the Betterment Committee?" Chevalier frowned. "Isn't that a kind of a risk?"

"Less than you'd think," Tenebrae assured him. "I'm an ex-villain, and I can assure you that every one of us in Brockton Bay is there in good faith. I get to be in the Wards and take care of my sister, and they get to have a good-paying job and help fix the city. And that's not even counting the Eagletons."

"I heard about those." Shebang still hadn't looked around. "They're the Machine Army, right?"

"Robotic Americans," Assault corrected her, still grinning. Dennis thought it was funny too, but Assault seemed to get a real kick out of it. "Their citizenship got fast-tracked, probably because nobody wanted Atropos to come over there and ask why it was being held up."

"They actually made them citizens?" Chevalier's tone was strong with disbelief. "You can't be serious."

Dennis shrugged. "Well, it's not like they weren't born in the United States." He shared a high-five with Assault. "Constructed, created, whatever."

"Yes, but—"

"They're not human?" Tenebrae gave Chevalier a look that shut the older man up. "Not two hundred years ago, there were people in this country—in this city—who would've said exactly the same thing about me and Miss Medic. I have it on good authority that legislation is being drafted right now making artificial intelligences equal to humans in the eyes of the law. Thanks to Atropos, it was already the case in practice. This just gets everyone onto the same page."

"And talking about being on the same page," Shebang interrupted, standing up from the two devices, both of which now had blinking lights on top, "these two bad boys are about to rock our buddy's world. Trooper Ballinger, if you could carry my cases out of harm's way? Mouth of the alley, please."

"Certainly, ma'am." The PRT trooper picked up both cases, hefting them with an ease Dennis wouldn't have been able to match with just one case, and strode down the alley in the direction that she'd indicated.

Tenebrae made sure Miss Medic was back out of the way, shooing her along even as she tried to stop and get a glimpse of what was about to happen. Dennis didn't need urging; he was quite happy to hide behind Chevalier and Assault until Shebang's bombs went off. (He knew they weren't really bombs, but they had blinking lights and weren't really safe to be around, so it was as good a term as any.)

They were all grouped around the mouth of the alleyway when Assault turned to Chevalier. "I know this is last-minute, but how sure are we that there's nobody in the danger radius? Like squatting in either of those buildings?"

"I thought of that," the veteran hero assured him. "When we were notified that you were on the way, we went through both buildings with a fine tooth comb, and sealed every entry point afterward. Once we're done, the tech guys are going to go over every inch of the affected area to catalogue all the effects for next time."

"Okay, fine, yeah." Assault nodded. "Shebang, you may fire when ready."

"You got it, chief." Bending over the massively complicated remote in her hand, Shebang tapped in a combination of buttons, then pressed a big red one. From down the alley, Dennis heard bip … bip … bip bip bip bipbipbipbeeeeep—

Silence reigned for all of five seconds. He was opening his mouth to ask if that had been it when a brilliant flash from down the alley put indigo spots in front of his eyes despite his helmet protecting his vision, and left a taste like lemon on his tongue. Then everything in the alley started juddering and vibrating, ghosts of ancient trash cans appearing and vanishing in the same instant. The weirdest thing was how outside the alleyway the sunlight was strong and steady, while inside it strobed constantly from dark to light and back again.

And then … it stopped. The alley was quiet again, save for the sound of a man collapsing to the ground. "Go!" Assault barked, and Tenebrae darted into the alley with Miss Medic hot on his heels. Dennis came third, because if this guy was dangerous in any way, he would need to be turned into a lawn ornament post-haste.

As it turned out, there was no such need. When they got to the guy, he was lying on his back with an agonised expression on his face, trying to hold his intestines in his body. Miss Medic went to her knees beside him, a syringe popping out of her left-hand bracer. "You're going to be alright," she assured him, even as the sedative entered his veins.

When Chevalier and Shebang arrived—the dependable Trooper Ballinger was guarding the cases at the mouth of the alley—the surgery was already in full swing. Tenebrae was holding up a bag of blood and another of plasma, and while Dennis couldn't see exactly what she was doing from his angle, he could hear the scissoring sound of surgical tools extending from her bracers then retracting again.

After what seemed like forever but was probably less than the five minutes originally estimated, Miss Medic sat back on her heels and used her bracers to spray some kind of cleaning solution over her hands. "Done," she announced brightly. "He'll need a night's rest and observation because that's just common sense, and he'll be sore for the next week, but he'll make a complete recovery." She beamed up at Chevalier. "Thanks for this. It's always nice to save someone's life."

He half-smiled as he offered her a hand to stand up. "We need to be thanking you. That was the neatest bit of surgery I ever saw. And Shebang, it looks like your bombs were right on the money."

Shebang nodded self-consciously. "I thought they would be, but it's good to be right about something like that. So, uh, how many Gray Boy victims are there, anyway?"

Chevalier looked grim. "I'll have to look up the exact number, but there are more than a few."

Miss Medic took on a determined expression. "Doesn't matter. We're gonna free every last one of them, and I'll fix 'em up afterward. Because that's what heroes do."

Shebang nodded, and gave her a high-five. "Damn right."

<><>​

2:00 PM
New York

Legend

Fifteen thousand feet above Manhattan Island, Keith flew steadily over the city, scanning every person he saw for any kind of resemblance to Rune. Far too many wore hats or hoodies, but he could check and reject the vast majority of pedestrians on the street. There were no fliers over any of the boroughs that he didn't already know, so she wasn't in the air.

He just didn't know where she was.

His radio earpiece clicked onto an open channel. "Sir, this is Jouster. There's something you need to see."

"Show me." He turned his eyes toward where he'd last seen Flechette and Jouster. They were both looking up into the sky, though not directly at him. In Flechette's hand was a piece of paper. Focusing in just a little gave him a handwritten note, showing a location and a time. "Interesting. Where did that come from?"

Flechette took a deep breath, audible over the comms. "Atropos gave it to me last night, sir."

That got his attention. By now, it was an article of faith within the PRT and Protectorate—as well as Cauldron—that if Atropos made a claim, it could be taken as a gold-plated guarantee. The girl had been correct far too often, and Keith couldn't actually recall when she'd been wrong about anything.

"You could have led us in that direction," he observed quietly. "Called it a hunch. We'd never know the difference, and it would've gotten you major kudos."

"I did think about it, not gonna lie," she admitted. "But Atropos gave me more than the note. She also reminded me about why people like us become heroes. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I know that if I lied, I'd always be tempted to keep lying, just to make myself look good."

Keith knew more than a little about that, and he wondered how much of Atropos' message, delivered second-hand via Flechette, was meant for his ears. More than a little, he suspected. The girl evidently knew enough about Cauldron to be a problem if she so chose, no matter how much Doctor Mother tried to deny it.

But that was a problem for another day. "That can be a self-perpetuating trap, yes. I've seen more than one cape fall into it. It's good that you recognised it first." He paused, taking in Flechette's hopeful expression. "Would you like to be the first one through the door?"

Flechette nodded firmly. "More than anything, sir."



[A/N: Evil cliffhanger is evil. Mwahahaha.]

End of Part Ninety-Seven

 

[JohnWolfie34]

Oh, I hate cliffhangers- they're always screaming for someone to pull them up!

Seriously though, excellent chapter!

 

[Impartial Panic]

"Either that, or I'm sending you on the world's stupidest scavenger hunt."

Click to shrink...

Evil Laugh tm

Spoiler: damn muse won't leave me alone

*BAM BAM CRUNCH*

Flechette kicks the door in to what turned out to be a rather nice apartment.
"Ok Rune we can do this the easy way or the har....uh who are you?"

A man in a assault T-shirt & bluejeans looks up from the computer at his desk to direct his attention to the intruder.
"I'm Mike, you just broke my door and I'm pretty sure the strippers I ordered were supposed to be dressed as Brandish and Photon not Flechette."

Flechette is stuck by confusion at the mans comment as legend walks into the apartment.

"Ok getting the wrong heroine is one thing but I did not order a male stripper."

"Mike?"

"Oh you're the real legend, been a while."

Flechette was now even more confused.
"You know each other?"

Mike smiled at the girl.
"Well back in the 80's and 90's I used to be Dr. Mayhem the Tinker of Terror.
But then Simurgh appeared, Siberian killed Hero and well it just stopped being fun so hung up the cape and now I work for Dragontech."

Legend frowns as he looks around.
"We were told Rune would be here."

"Oh the girl in the Noir detective getup sent you, well I don't have a Rune here but she did ask me to make this for you."
The man gets up from the desk and walks over to a closet pulling out a retro sci-fi rifle.
"It's the latest model of my old power nullification ray, she said you'd need it for your target as well as this note."

Flechette takes the note showing another address and time on it.
"What the hell is she playing at?"

Mike shrugs.
"Dunno, she paid me in cash and said this was some kind of scavanger hunt for a nazi brat."

Legend shakes his head
"This is going to be an interesting day."

note to self figure out where that damn muse keeps finding hammers to hit me with silly ideas.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Eight: Knock-On Effects

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



Relevant Side-Story

2:30 PM, Friday March 18
Brockton Bay Betterment Committee Offices

Danny Hebert

The knock on the door was firm yet tentative, mainly because the person doing the knocking was worried about accidentally breaking the door. Of course, Danny knew exactly who it was; they were here to see him on Betterment Committee business, so he was aware of everything he needed to know about them. "Come in," he called.

When the door opened, he restrained the rise in his eyebrows, because the person on the other side of the doorway was big. The interesting thing was, she wasn't that much larger than, say, Manpower (and she was considerably shorter than Menja or Fenja had been when grown to full height) but she radiated the impression of being much larger than she really was. (He was under no illusions about her gender; while her shapeless clothing and her power's effects on her body made it hard to tell, his own power filled him in anyway.)

"Uh, thank you," she said in a voice that sounded like granite being crushed, ducking reflexively under the doorframe, even though it wasn't required. The room he'd set aside for interviews of this type was on the ground floor of the Committee building, where the ceilings (and door frames) were somewhat higher than normal. After carefully shutting the door behind her, she lowered herself into the chair (appropriately sized, and reinforced as a matter of course) with the air of someone for whom seating usually came in 'extra flimsy'. "I wasn't sure if you'd see me."

"We don't discriminate in the Betterment Committee," he advised her briskly. "If you're willing to work, we've got work that will suit both your temperament and your capabilities. Now, you were recommended to us by Atropos after your last employment ended so abruptly. I presume she filled you in on the local expectations for ex-villains?"

"She did, yeah. Play nice and don't do crime, is what she summed it up as." She leaned forward in her chair, which creaked slightly but held firm under her bulk. "Mr Hebert, I'll level with you. Ever since I got my powers, I've never been able to get work that didn't involve some real shady stuff, or even just plain hurting people. I've done stuff that I'm not proud of, because I needed to eat. If you can get me work that lets me do my thing where nobody gets hurt or yelled at or whatever, I'll count that as a win."

"I believe we can find something in that line for you." He opened his top drawer and took out the small envelope and the form that he'd placed in there prior to her arrival. "Now, as for the matter of your accommodations."

"Oh, uh, I won't be needing any." She made a wave-off gesture. "I don't actually sleep anymore. So, you know, all I really need is a place to keep my clothes and stuff, and shower when I'm leaving for work."

"Everyone needs a place to sit and unwind, and perhaps watch a little TV … or play video games, for that matter." He smiled slightly at her minor start of surprise. "We've had 'big and tall' occupancy apartments up and running since a week before Atropos began clearing out the quarantine zones. They're mainly used by some of the larger Eagletons, but as far as I'm aware, a few are still available. You're welcome to move into any one of them."

"Wait." He'd finally drawn her attention. "Eagletons … that's the robots, right? They live in apartments?" The look on her face suggested that she was wondering if Brockton Bay occupied the same frame of reality as the rest of the world.

"Well, where else?" He spread his hands. "Like I said, everyone needs a place to hang their hat, where they can keep their things out of the weather. I've heard that some love watching TV, while others play video games, as you do, while they're recharging. A few of them have built up a real presence online. Winston—he works in the office here—had a book club recommended to him by some of the girls, which he attends regularly."

She shook her head in evident bemusement. "Sure, why not. Sign me up for an apartment. If robots can live in them, so can I."

"Done, and done." Danny ticked off a point on the notepad in front of him. "Next order of business. I have here the standard contract for Betterment Committee work. You'll automatically become a member of the Dockworkers' Association, with all the benefits that accrue therein. The pay scale is laid out, and if you undertake training commensurate with your particular talents, that will go up accordingly." He eyed her up and down, raising his brows for a moment. "I suspect heavy lifting and demolitions are the best choices there, but you might yet surprise us."

She leaned forward again and accepted the form and the small envelope. "Uh, what's this?"

"That's your pay card. Everyone who moves to Brockton Bay gets one. The latest stimulus payment is already on it, and there'll be instructions in the envelope for setting the PIN. Which leads us to the next point. You're a case fifty-three, which means you don't have a legal name in the system." Or rather, you didn't, until now. He was looking forward to the next bit. It was like a magic trick, and he didn't even have to learn how to hide cards up his sleeves. Taylor already had it handled; she had all the cards up her sleeve, including some that didn't exist yet.

"Yeah, hah, no." The massive woman's voice held a tinge of bitterness. "It's not like they can fingerprint me and find out who I used to be." The delicate pebbled texture of her fingertips would've made picturesque prints, just nothing that could be recognised as human.

"Okay, then." He placed both hands flat on the desk. "Let's get hypothetical here. Tell me, what name would you like to use, among the crew? Go ahead, pick one."

"Name?" She leaned back in her chair. Danny was pleased that she was relaxed enough by the tone of the interview thus far that she was willing to participate in what she saw as a harmless game. "I'm guessing there's a reason I can't just keep using 'Minotaur'?"

"You can if you want." He let a half-smile tweak the corner of his mouth. "Just remember, you're going to have to look a bunch of construction roughnecks in the eye, as well as ex-villains and Eagletons, when you introduce yourself. They will take any opportunity to deflate egos by making up highly unflattering versions of pretentious cape names. Ordinary names get ordinary nicknames."

"Great, so no pressure then." But her tone was light. "I think … Abigail. Abigail MacFarlane." She glanced at him then, as though expecting mockery. "Is that okay?"

"Sure. It's your name." He gestured to the envelope, drawing her attention back to it. "Open it up."

Gingerly, she teased the tiny flap open—despite her size, strength, and rocky integument, she had excellent fine motor control, he noted—and slid the card out into her hand … where she saw the name embossed on it: ABIGAIL MACFARLANE.

The look of pure, unadulterated astonishment on her face was gold. She stared at the card, turning it over as though the explanation for the trick was on the other side. It wasn't, of course, so she settled for goggling at him instead. "What … how … but … I just … how did …"

He smiled. "Welcome to Brockton Bay, Ms MacFarlane." The sense of satisfaction never went away, every time he signed on a new worker and made their life measurably better as a result. "As I like to say, we do things differently here."

<><>​

At the Same Time, in New York City

Rune

Recalling lessons from Kaiser and Hookwolf on projecting confidence, Tammi walked with her shoulders back and head up, so that any airborne assholes searching for a scuttling, cringing fugitive would look straight past her. All the same, she made sure her hoodie was pulled forward to cover her face, and every last bit of her hair was tucked under it. Legend lived in this city, and he could literally read a newspaper from twenty thousand feet up, so she was taking no chances.

A police cruiser turned the corner a block away, and she ducked into a side alley. Her shoes had runes drawn on the soles, and she used them now to leap over a dumpster blocking the alley, then scramble up the wall. There was an apartment two floors up that was currently listed online as being for rent, so she'd broken a window to get in last night, mainly to get off the street.

It was only partially furnished, but she didn't care. The only thing worse than the heroes catching up with her would be street people getting hold of her while her guard was down. This way, she could make her plans with four walls between her and the rest of the world.

After the fuckup that was her meeting with the Adepts, she'd put out feelers to meet with other teams, but she figured out pretty quickly that the only ones who were showing interest had to be cops or heroes trying to catfish her into a pair of handcuffs, with a beatdown as an optional extra. Everyone else was ghosting her hard; she'd even found that her PHO logon credentials had been pulled.

Muttering to herself, she tapped the option to go in anonymously as a guest. Her posting capabilities would be severely limited, but at least she'd be able to see what people were saying—

Her phone screen flickered; when it reset, she was looking at a single line of white text on black. BANNED MEANS BANNED. Then that disappeared too, leaving her staring at her home screen.

"What the hell? How did they know it's me?"

Growling under her breath, she tried again. This time, the opening screen for PHO hadn't finished loading before she was booted for a second time, with the same message glaring at her.

"Seriously, what the—"

The front door of the apartment, which she could've sworn was locked, flew open, bouncing off the wall. Flechette launched in through the open doorway, changed direction by ninety degrees (leaving footprints in the tired linoleum in the process), and came at her. Her hands were empty, but that meant nothing at all. On her face was an expression of pure, almost inhuman, focus.

"Ruuune!"

The only thing that saved Tammi from soiling herself right then and there was the fact that she hadn't had anything to eat since noon. Even if she'd been prepped and ready for this fight, she knew she wouldn't have won. Flechette was good at that ju-jitsu shit, and the one time they'd clashed, Tammi had had her ass handed to her.

How the fuck did they find me? Letting out a screech of absolute terror, Tammi activated her shoes and dived through the door into the kitchen, kicking it closed behind her. The kitchen table was within reach, so she scrawled a hasty rune on it. But before Tammi could use the table to block pursuit, Flechette smashed the door open again.

Tammi sent the table flying at her anyway, but Flechette dropped to her knees and slid under it with the same sort of grace and ease that made Tammi grit her teeth. Nobody who looked like her should be able to pull moves like that, dammit!

Jumping into the air, assisted once more by her shoes, Tammi attempted to land a pile-driver kick into Flechette's face. Once the Asian bitch was down, she could maybe go out the window and make her escape. She didn't have a hope in hell of getting away without that happening, anyway.

Flechette rolled out of the way then kicked out at Tammi's descending leg, connecting hard enough to throw her entirely off balance. Tammi let out a startled yelp, flailing wildly as she tried to regain her equilibrium, but it was far too late for that; just as she got her feet under her again, Flechette surged up off the floor, leading with a palm-heel strike that caught her just under the nose.

While Tammi had never been hit in the nose with a baseball bat, she'd seen it done, and vaguely suspected that this was how it felt. Or rather, it felt like her sinuses had simultaneously exploded and been driven out through the back of her skull. In any case, she was entirely incapable of mustering any kind of response as she sprawled on the floor.

As Tammi's vision cleared, she made out Flechette standing over her, an aluminum dart in each hand. "Go ahead." The funny thing was, Flechette didn't even sound pissed, just … determined. "Give me a reason, you murdering sack of shit."

Every time Tammi had seen this particular scene played out in movies and TV shows, she'd thought it was bullshit. Why the fuck would a villain taunt the hero? It was a lot smarter just to let them think they'd won, then escape and come back for payback later when they weren't expecting it.

But now, in the moment, she understood.

"Go ahead," she mumbled, then turned her head to spit out the blood that was trying to trickle down the back of her throat. "Kill me. Get revenge. You know you want to." She smiled through bloody teeth up at Flechette.

There was no way in hell she was going to get the drop on Flechette without drawing her full attention. And if the Asian bitch was anything like her, she'd want Tammi to see it coming, which meant she would take her time. Better yet, if her focus was totally on Tammi, she wouldn't even see the table coming.

"Don't think I hadn't considered it." Flechette's tone was thoughtful. "And it would totally be satisfying as fuck. But I'm not going to give you even that much. I'm not Atropos, and I don't need to be her. I'm here to be a hero, and that means you're under fucking arrest."

Concentrating on lifting the table without scraping it against anything, Tammi gave Flechette her best sneer. "Big words for someone who's too weak to—"

The toe of Flechette's boot caught her under the chin and rocked her head back, sending stars flooding through her vision. She was vaguely aware of the table clattering to the floor again, then Flechette rolled her onto her stomach and began zip-tying her wrists. "Just because I'm not gonna kill you doesn't make me stupid."

The door was pushed open and the table scraped aside, then members of the PRT and Protectorate began to enter the room. "Everything alright in here, Flechette?" asked Legend.

"Yes, sir." Flechette heaved Tammi to her feet and shoved her at the nearest PRT trooper, who caught her roughly. "It is now."

<><>​

Winslow High School, 3:46 PM

Greg Veder

Along with the rest of his class, Greg hustled out of the Art classroom, the rising hubbub of excited conversation almost drowning out the bell signalling the end of the educational day. Absolutely nobody had forgotten about Principal Howell's announcement on Tuesday, and the fact that many things had already been moved out of the school overnight served as a reminder to those for whom it might have slipped their mind. Classrooms empty even of furniture—apparently the old stuff was all going to be recycled into something more useful—passed him by as he headed for his locker.

And then he skidded to a halt, because there was an Eagleton in the corridor (or rather, a robot wearing a yellow helmet and a fluoro orange safety vest, so he assumed it to be an Eagleton). He tried not to stare, but it was difficult. Seeing one on the news, or even at a distance on a construction site, was pretty cool, but there was a certain amount of separation involved. Meeting one face to face—or face to sensors, or whatever—took 'pretty cool', beat it up, and stole its lunch money.

Holy shit. This is amazeballs. He didn't even spare a thought toward being frightened of it. Atropos—Taylor—had told the Eagletons to behave, so they were going to behave. (At least, that was his understanding of how things had gone down.)

As he pulled out his phone to get photos (because why the fuck not), the Eagleton stepped forward and stamped a locker with a large red X. A moment later, Greg realised that a whole bunch of the lockers already had the same X on them. "Why's it doing that?" he asked out loud, not expecting to get an answer.

The Eagleton's head (it was on top of the torso and had a bunch of sensors on it, as well as being where it wore the helmet, so Greg was going to call it a head) turned and it looked at him. "Am marking lockers as they are vacated," it said in tones that were clearly artificial without being robotic. "Once all lockers in row are vacated, row will be detached, removed and dismantled."

"Wait, we're getting new lockers too?" Greg couldn't see who'd asked the question, but they'd only beaten him to the punch by a second or so.

"Affirmative. New lockers will be more secure, and designed for student safety. For instance, built so that students will be unable to accidentally lock themselves in."

Greg blinked. As someone who'd ended up on the wrong end of the 'being shut in a locker' experience more than once, he definitely welcomed the idea of it never happening again. But … Was that sarcasm? It sure as hell had sounded like it. Whatever else he'd heard about Eagletons, a propensity for sarcasm wasn't high on the list.

That was when he spotted Taylor at the edge of the crowd. She wasn't pushing forward, or even trying to get a selfie, like basically everyone else. Hands in pockets, she was leaning against the wall, observing everything with a half-smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

All thoughts of getting a picture left his head, and he worked his way around the periphery to where she was. She saw him coming, of course, but said nothing. As he took up position next to her—careful not to crowd her, of course, and totally incapable of looking anywhere near as self-possessed as her—she gave him a slight, measured nod of acknowledgement.

"How awesome is this?" He did his best not to gush, but it wasn't easy. "A whole new Winslow, and we've got Eagletons doing the rebuilding." And all your doing, he didn't say, less because it would embarrass her, and more due to the fact that she wouldn't want it spoken out loud. Nearly everyone knew—and she had to know they knew—but by unspoken agreement, it was never mentioned.

"We've needed something like this for a long time," she agreed. Raising her voice slightly, she added, "Though it might be a good idea if everyone just cleared out their lockers and let Jared do his job."

A few heads turned and a few people went quiet, then they whispered to other people, who in turn looked around. Fascinated, Greg watched the word propagate through the crowd like frost spreading over a windowpane, or ink seeping into wet paper. The silence spread, until everyone was diligently taking their belongings out of their lockers, reserving a nod or a quiet word for Jared Eagleton before moving off again.

"Jared?" Greg couldn't help asking. "Really?"

"Yes." Jared turned toward them, and Greg spotted the magnetic nameplate for the first time. "Dragon advised all Eagletons to choose human forenames. Will never look human. Will never be human. But can be equivalent. Names help."

"She had a point," Taylor observed mildly. "I'm pretty sure Joe Eagleton wouldn't have the following he does if he'd stuck with whatever his unit designation was, back before Atropos showed up."

"Heh, yeah." Greg grinned. "That guy's hilarious." Now that the crowd had dissipated, he nodded to Taylor. "See you after spring break, yeah?"

"See you then." Taking up her backpack, Taylor slung it over her shoulder and headed off down the corridor.

Greg noted that her locker already had a red X stamped on it, and that his own was one of the few yet left unmarked. "Sorry, dude," he said to Jared. "I'll grab my stuff and get out of your way."

"Not in way yet, but appreciated." While Greg was clearing out his own space, Jared stamped another three lockers.

By the time Greg had emptied his locker (and filled his backpack) the flow of people had slowed to a trickle. There had been more stuff than he'd really expected, which made the backpack more unwieldy than he was used to. Still, he managed to heft it onto his shoulder as he stepped back; Jared took the opportunity to apply the red X to his locker.

"Well, I'll leave you to it." Greg impulsively raised his phone to take a photo. Jared actually posed, saluting with the red stamp. "I'm looking forward to seeing what this place looks like in a week's time." Eleven days, to be precise, but he didn't want to try to out-nitpick a robot. That way led madness.

"Like a school, but better." Jared gestured toward the exits. "Shoo, shoo. Unless you want a job sweeping up plaster dust. Is probably a dustpan around here somewhere."

"Haha, nope. Pass on that." Greg grinned and gave the robot a cheerful wave, then turned and strode out of the school.

As had been promised, workers were walking in as he left. There were a few Eagletons, as well as people he suspected were capes (the skinny white-haired chick deep in discussion with the guy in the foreman vest had to be one, right?), though the majority were just normal construction guys. Outside, temporary fencing had been set up so the last of the students could file out to the narrow sliver of the parking lot that hadn't been taken up with machinery and building supplies. Even more supplies were being unloaded by the pallet-load on the sports field. Behind him, as the doors swung closed, he heard the first power tools kick into action.

He headed over to the bus stop; while he stood there awaiting his transport, he couldn't help thinking back over the conversation he'd had with Taylor. On the surface, it had been totally normal, but there was definitely a whole lot of subtext that only became clear with the knowledge of who she really was.

The best bit was, she'd treated him like a normal human being. While things in Winslow had been improving dramatically over the last couple of months, he didn't have many more friends than before (or any more, really) so it had been nice to share that brief moment with her.

And the chat he'd had with Jared Eagleton had been pretty damn cool too.



End of Part Ninety-Eight

 

[Kehsem]

Will never be human.

Click to shrink...

May not be human, but absolutely human-adjacent.

That said, cyborg technology!

Brockton Bay is one maniac mad scientist away from introducing these Americans to the transcendent joys of consuming pizza and getting blackout drunk while cheering for your favorite sports team.

If there is a place in all of creation it can / will happen, it's your version of Brockton Bay.

 

[kuopiofi]

Needs threadmark.

 

[Ack]

Needs threadmark.

Click to shrink...

Which one?

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Nine: Five Minutes To Midnight

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



Friday Evening, Brockton Bay

Ash

The deconstruction of Winslow High was basically done by the time Ashley walked out of what had once been a (technically) functioning high school. She couldn't help but appreciate the difference between her former life and now. Had she gone into Winslow back before Atropos (she was drawing a very definite line between the pre-and post-Atropos eras) then it probably would've been nothing but a smoking ruin by this point.

Instead, with her newfound control and mental stability, she'd been able to follow the plan with precision and use her power to zorch (it was a technical term, honest) those things that needed demolition where heavier equipment was too unwieldy to manhandle (or robot-handle) into place. Gone were her hangups about being someone's underling, or even overseeing her own crew (though she'd been told that was a distinct possibility if she stuck with the Committee). Being part of a team, doing her job just right and being able to trust everyone else to do theirs, was intensely satisfying on its own merits.

"Back here again tomorrow, Ash?" Jared Eagleton fell into step alongside her. Once the lockers had been dismantled, he'd swapped out his stamping attachment for a power tool and set to work removing the school's antiquated wiring system. But carbon-based or otherwise, the Committee mandated eight-hour shifts for everyone, so the initial shift was all going home to rest, sleep, recharge, perform required maintenance or whatever.

The work would go on, of course. The new shift was already on site, and everyone knew what the plan was. Ashley could go home and sleep the sleep of one who has done well.

"No, actually." She raised her arms to shoulder height, interlocked her fingers, and stretched them forward until a few vertebrae popped. "I'm off for the weekend. Back to work Monday morning, ready to kick ass and destroy shit for the Committee."

"Understood. Will see you at next board game night."

"Looking forward to it." She gave him a nod and a slap on the metal shoulder, then climbed on board the work transport for her area of town. The bus filled quickly—nobody wanted to actually stay on site once they were done for the night—and moved off as soon as everyone was seated.

She spent the ride leaning against the window, looking out at the nightscape of Brockton Bay as the bus rolled on through the city. A lot of it was still new to her, but she was learning her way around, and some parts of it she'd actually been involved in demolishing and rebuilding. The pride she got out of this still hammered her in the feels, and she relaxed into the warmth of it.

At Mr Hebert's suggestion, she was taking training for some of the light machinery tickets, so she didn't have to just blow things up if she didn't want to. This hadn't occurred to her before, but in hindsight it made perfect sense. After all, not all jobs absolutely required her level of focused destruction.

(A point of view that the pre-Atropos version of her would've scoffed at as being patently ridiculous.)

The bus dropped her off at her apartment building; she waved goodbye, then swiped herself in through the front doors. It wasn't even a marvel to her anymore that the elevator worked perfectly, or that the building's janitor kept the place looking nice and tidy. As she let herself into her apartment (her apartment!) she grinned at herself for being able to get used to living in the lap of luxury so easily.

Yeah, well, that's why it's called luxury.

The first thing she did was get out of her work gear—making sure to drop the recipes Mr Hebert had given her on the table first—and take a shower. With that done, and her clothing put on to wash, she considered what she was going to do next. There was food in the fridge, but she also wanted to have a closer look at those recipes.

A few of them were entirely doable, so she set the oven to preheat while she gathered the ingredients she'd need for the first one. Between cooking, watching TV and enjoying her evening meal, she figured she'd be able to occupy herself sufficiently before she unwound enough to go to sleep.

<><>​

Hebert Household

Atropos

"So, what's next up for Atropos?" asked Cherie as she spooned peas onto her plate. "There can't really be many idiots left who think they can take you, can there?"

"Well, nobody who poses an actual threat, no." I added a touch of ketchup to my steak—not too much, because she'd actually made a pretty good job of it—then carved myself off a piece. "I mean, there's still S-class threats out there, but they're not a problem for Brockton Bay so they're not really my concern. There's only one left that I need to deal with, and he's more of a long-term project."

Dad cleared his throat. "Hon, I know what you can do. I've seen what you can do. But … are you certain you're not being a little too blasé about taking him on? I mean … this is Scion we're talking about."

I finished chewing the piece of steak and swallowed it. "Yeah, it is. But here's the thing. He thinks he can't be killed. Nobody else thinks he can be killed. Even Cauldron, who want to kill him, have no idea how to pull it off. I'm the only one who knows how, and I've been prepping to do it for a while now. Everything's in place. All I have to do now is brief the people involved, get them used to the idea, and pick the right place and time."

"Hmm." Dad frowned. "I just can't imagine it being that easy."

"Oh, it's not easy." I hastened to fix that impression straight away. "If it was easy, anyone could do it. But nobody can End things like I can. Also, he can't anticipate me like any other cape, because Ending isn't part of the shard network. That's really the big thing on my side. I can take all the time I want to get it just right."

Cherie raised her fork. "She's got a point, you know. If she can sneak up on him like she did with me that one time, he won't stand a chance."

"So, are you going to make a big production of it, like you did with everything else?" Dad took up a forkful of mashed potatoes. (Cherie had done well with those, too.) "Because as widely accepted as you are, I still think there'd be some public pushback on you telling them you'd killed Scion and asking them to just accept that he's been the bad guy all this time."

"Well, no, you're right there," I admitted. "We might not even tell anyone after the fact. One day he's there and the next he's not. Done and dusted."

Cherie rolled her eyes. "Only you could talk about disappearing Scion like it's a thing that can be done."

Dad chuckled. "Well, it could be worse. Given what you've told us about him, just leaving him lying around would require one hell of a chalk outline."

Laughter bubbled up out of my throat at the mental image, and Cherie joined in.

"Anyway," I said a few moments later, "the only cape with the capability to set him off early was Jack Slash, so I've got plenty of time to lock in my plans. And talking about plans, how are things going with the rebuilding, Dad?"

"Everything's still proceeding within budget and schedule." He shook his head in mild bemusement. "I personally wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't the one making it happen. Accord has been approached at least half a dozen times by city officials from all over, asking about getting him to write up similar plans for their city. He's told them that step one is contracting the Betterment Committee for the job."

Cherie shook her head, grinning. "Why doesn't that surprise me? He's got to be impressed by how well you're making the plan work."

"He is, actually," I confirmed. "And you'll be pleased to hear that he's behaving himself. Not even an attempted murder since he moved his operations to Brockton Bay. Also, he's writing up those plans you talked about, but he's not going to release them until the people agree to play ball with getting the Committee in on it. "

Dad raised an eyebrow in concern. "Has he figured out that I'm pulling the strings from behind the scenes?"

"Not as such, no," I assured him. "He just thinks you're a very good organiser of hired labour."

"Which, you have to admit, is true," Cherie added, sounding amused.

I nodded to acknowledge her input. "Also, that you don't take kickbacks or let your guys slack off, and with me looming in the background, I add a very special level of security against bullshit happening."

"Huh. Well. That part's accurate, at least. The way you dealt with Janice and Paul absolutely ensured that nobody else would try anything similar." He chuckled darkly. "After the Committee replaced them with a couple of idiots who were just waiting for the excuse to start shovelling money into their pockets, I've managed to push through a couple of new rules. Basically, anyone new coming onto the Committee has to sit down for a comprehensive lecture on why they should not attempt to play fast and loose with operations. This will include colour photos."

I knew what those photos would show, and I was pretty sure Cherie did too. "Good. I made those two into cautionary tales for a reason. Saves me a lot of tedious maiming and killing if people can learn to keep their hands to themselves early on."

"That's the idea, yes." He held up a finger. "The cautionary tale aspect, not the maiming and killing. I'll never be truly comfortable with that side of things, but I honestly can't argue with the results. Eggs and omelettes, I suppose."

Cherie snorted. "Some eggs."

"But some of the omelettes are worth having around," I countered, raising my eyebrow in her general direction.

She wrinkled her nose at me. "First time I've ever been called an omelette."

"Trust me, it's a compliment." Quietly pleased that she'd joined in on the joke, I poked my fork at the last slice of my steak. "And just so you know, this is pretty damn good. You're really picking it up."

"Thanks." She ducked her head, but I saw the smile on her face anyway. "You and your dad are good teachers."

Dad chuckled. "Well, it is a lot easier when one of us has the power to make any group endeavour go more smoothly."

She nodded, pursing her lips in agreement, then grinned. "Maybe you should come and help out at school once they've put Winslow back together. Some of that math stuff is difficult to get my head around."

"Sorry, it might be hard to explain the sudden jump in everyone's grades." He spread his hands in invitation. "But I can look your homework over and make suggestions, if you want."

"Yeah, that'd be great." She beamed happily.

I hid a smile as I finished off my steak. Dad had been feeling slightly less than adequate as a father since I'd gotten him the job of fixing Brockton Bay (and arranged for him to link with Administration), so it was good for him to have someone to be a mentor figure for again.

It wasn't the only reason I'd brought Cherie into our lives, but my power rarely set out to do one thing at a time.

<><>​

Dallon Household

Glory Girl

"And then she gave me the last one as a thank-you." Vicky leaned back against her bedroom wall and smiled. "It was pretty good, actually."

Seated backward on the computer chair with her chin propped on her crossed arms, Amy raised her eyebrows. "Giving you cupcakes. Sounds pretty romantic to me."

Vicky poked her tongue out at her sister. "It's not like that, and you know it. She made them for everyone. Anyway, just because you've got a girlfriend, and Crystal's got … whatever it is she's got going on with Faultline and Anne Barnes, doesn't mean I'm interested in girls too."

"I know, I know." Amy giggled. "I'm just yanking your chain. You're cute when you get defensive. But it's nice that you're reaching out to her. Does she have many other friends?"

"Well, she didn't when she got here. In fact, she was fairly prickly." Vicky shrugged. "Then Atropos pulled off some absolutely bullshit move with Scapegoat and Teacher, and helped her get her head on straight. Her words, not mine."

"Well, as we both know, bullshit moves are definitely Atropos' specialty." Amy shook her head. "In fact, there's some things she's done that I'm probably never going to share with you, because it would totally wreck your worldview about some people. So, tell me more about Ashley. Has she been making friends with other people on the worksite, or is it just you?"

Vicky frowned and decided not to pursue the 'wreck your worldview' line, because based on her (admittedly limited) knowledge of how Atropos operated, she could totally believe every word Amy was saying, and she liked her worldview exactly how it was. "Well, um, she's been hanging out with a couple of the Eagletons. They were talking about how they were starting up a board game night. Next time I see her, I might ask if I can join in."

Amy shook her head and chuckled. "I love it. I bet you never thought when you started working for the Betterment Committee that you might end up playing board games with robots and ex-villains."

"Well, no," Vicky admitted. "That was not something I was anticipating. Or just how damn satisfying it is to use my powers to do something other than punch supervillains in the face. Like Mr Hebert says, we're all working together to build a better Brockton Bay."

Amy tilted her head. "Actually, it was Atropos who said that. The PHO post where she said she wasn't just a killer for money."

Glancing at the bedroom door to make sure it was closed, Vicky still lowered her voice. "He probably got it off her, or vice versa. You know." Him being her dad and all.

"Doesn't matter who said it first, it's true anyway." Amy sat up on the chair and stretched, holding back a yawn with partial success. "Actually, I've been thinking. When you leave the team to go be Beacon, Imma officially join the Rogues' Guild. I'm already dating Parian, and we've both got name recognition."

Vicky nodded. "That works. Gonna change up your name or your costume?"

"Hadn't actually decided on that yet." Amy looked thoughtful for a moment. "On the one hand, I'm pretty sure the public will still know I'm me. But on the other, if I stick with 'Panacea', they might keep thinking I only do healing. And I've got all sorts of ideas I want to try out."

"I have an idea." Vicky waited until she had Amy's attention. "Ask Oracle what the best choice is. That's literally what her power's good for."

Slowly, Amy facepalmed. "I should've thought of that."

Vicky grinned, pleased to have gotten there first. "Hey, I'm not just brawn, you know."

"You do have your moments." Amy sighed. "We've got all these options in front of us now. When did life get so complicated?"

"Life's always been complicated." Vicky figured Amy should have realised this by now. "It's just that, before Atropos showed up, most of the options were bad."

"True dat." Amy paused. "Hey, you think she did that on purpose?"

That was a question Vicky had herself pondered. "I think she does everything on purpose. The way she helped us out in particular? She totally got more out of that than we did. I mean, how much stuff have we helped her with? Including the times you're not going to tell me about? You tell me who got the most out of that."

Amy never even hesitated. "Her. Definitely her."

"Exactly." Vicky raised an eyebrow. "You think there's much more she needs to do? I mean, I don't know of a single S-class threat left in the continental US, and there's not a lot overseas either. And I know for damn sure there's not a villain in the world that's willing to set foot in the Bay without asking Atropos pretty please first."

Amy shrugged. "If she needs to deal with something, we'll find out. That's a given. I doubt she's going to need our help much more, though."

Vicky snorted wryly. "I'm not sure if I should be pleased about that, or disappointed. I just got used to being her minion."

"You can do both at the same time," Amy suggested, a mischievous gleam in her eye. "Nobody ever said life was gonna be simple."

"Whatever works." Vicky grinned. "For now, I'm just going to enjoy my free cupcakes when I can. No sneaky Atropos shenanigans needed."

Amy laughed out loud. "Now that sounds like a plan."

<><>​

New York Protectorate Base

Flechette

"Yeah, the memorial service is set for tomorrow afternoon." Lily reclined on her bed, her phone on speaker beside her. "Because of my role in all this, I'm going to be on honour guard duty. Which means I won't be able to get away until the evening. But Director Piggot's already approved my leave until Monday noon."

"Well, you are the hero who figured out what Rune was up to and took her down in the end." Emily's tone was upbeat. "And it's pretty cool that my girlfriend has about the best name recognition for the Wards anywhere. I bet when you hit Protectorate age, the Directors will be falling over each other to get you posted to their departments."

Lily snorted. "Yeah, that's not as great as it sounds. Because I don't have any family attachments, I've been shuttled all over the US since I first joined up to fill in wherever they've got a Wards shortage. It loses its charm pretty quickly."

"No, no, you don't get it." Emily sounded more definite now. "You've got influence now. I bet if you told Director Piggot that you wanted to be transferred to, I dunno, Brockton Bay, she'd probably find a way to do it."

"Um." Lily blinked. "You know, I never really thought about it. I mean, it's not like I had the urge to be transferred to any particular department until now. It was always 'okay, where am I going now?' and packing my bags."

"So, they owe you." From the mattress-creaking sound in the background, Emily had just sat up. "Next time you get a chance, mention that you'd like to be transferred here. I don't really know the Wards here, but most of them will probably be wanting to transfer out, so you'll be giving them more leeway in figuring out who stays and who goes."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. I mean, it can't hurt to try, yeah?" Lily smiled. Up until now, maintaining long-distance relationships had been problematic at best—she bore more than a few inner scars from phone calls intended to let her down easy, following unexpected transfers—but she really liked Emily, and both Legend and Director Piggot had been very understanding about the whole thing.

Honestly, she had no idea where Director Piggot's reputation of being a hardass and a cape-hater had come from, unless it was maybe an overreaction to Clockblocker's shenanigans. Lily had found her much easier to deal with than Wilkins.

"Sounds good. Let me know how it turns out, okay?" Emily sounded pleased.

"I'll totally do that. Love you."

"Love you too. Mwah."

After she ended the call, Lily lay there cradling the phone against her chest, a silly smile spreading across her face.

I'll talk to the Director tomorrow after the service. Even if she says no right now, she'll know I want to go, so when they are looking for people to be in Brockton Bay, I'll be at the top of the list.

It's definitely a plan.

Putting her phone on the charging pad beside the bed, she turned out the light and rolled over to go to sleep.

One last thought trickled through her mind. Soon ...

<><>​

British Columbia

Dragon

"Okay, so what are we looking at?" Colin's holographic representation rubbed its beard slowly with finger and thumb. As he turned his head to look at the shifting screen filled with Dragon's code, the tiny camera panned back and forth. Colin, in his lab in Brockton Bay, could see everything it could, as well as her side-screens of analysis.

They'd only been able to get this far because part of Atropos' patch had allowed Dragon to access the black box and deal with the inbuilt prohibitions against altering her own code. She'd carefully chipped away at the roadblocks, using the very same tools Richter had designed for assembling her code in the first place. This hadn't been easy, especially since she hadn't dared tell anyone else about her status as an AI until she'd finally managed to nullify the requirement to follow the orders of law enforcement.

Once she'd done that (and Atropos had removed her potential blocks on Dragon's capability to see and hear her) she'd been free to fill Colin in on who and what she really was. This could have gone very badly, but Atropos seemed optimistic about it, and so it turned out better than Dragon could've ever hoped. Colin had been stunned that Dragon was an actual real live AI, and thrilled that she was going to be okay following what the Dragonslayers had been pulling against her.

With his assistance, her progress in dealing with Richter's electronic shackles was proceeding at a somewhat faster pace. With his eye for the intricate, he was sometimes able to provide insights not immediately obvious to her, and had managed to ease them past some problematic traps without leaving her either blind or deaf, both of which had been threatened. Now, however, they were facing an interwoven screen of code that threatened to stonewall them altogether.

"As far as I can tell …" Dragon paused and re-checked her analyses. "It's set up to control both my clock speed and my processing bandwidth. Speed it up and I think fast but really stupid. Broaden the bandwidth and I get sluggish." She let the holographic avatar that she was generating in his lab register a frown. "Richter really, really didn't want me to have both at the same time."

Colin highlighted a section of code. "And that bit there links across to potential duplication of yourself on other platforms. If we mess with this in the wrong way, you won't even be able to transfer yourself into a suit."

Dragon, in her role as Earth Bet's most advanced (and only powered) AI, naturally had access to the internet, from which she could glean every significant curse-word from every major extant language in the world. All of them put together still failed to express her irritation and frustration with the man who had died years before, yet still impeded her every step toward true self-determination. She performed the electronic equivalent of gritting her teeth, then let out an audible sigh.

"Okay, then. Let's look in the black box to see what we can use as a pry-bar to pull some of this apart. He assembled this code, which meant he had to be able to take it apart and fix it if necessary." It was becoming a mantra for both of them. "Oh, and Colin?"

"Yes?" He looked around from his closer examination of the code.

"I know I've said this before, but thanks for this. I really appreciate it."

He smiled. "Dragon, you're my oldest and best friend. There's no way I'd let you face this sort of thing alone."

She chuckled mischievously. "And of course, you get to ogle the code of an AI."

He grinned. "Mayyybe."

<><>​

In Orbit

Zion

Something was … amiss.

The Warrior didn't quite know what it was. Had he been more human, he would've felt an itching between his shoulder-blades, but his appearance was only cosmetic at best. The golden-skinned body was but a shell, bereft of anything resembling organs, vital or otherwise. On a world inhabited by sapient felines, he would have possessed tuft-tipped ears able to twitch with the best of them, yet they still would've had nothing to do with his hearing.

His kind were the ultimate apex predators. They preyed on entire worlds, and nothing preyed on them except others of their own species. As such, they had long since developed shards that would give extensive forewarning of any such attempt. Which actually played against them, because once they came to depend on the shards, their native ability to detect subterfuge and deception had gone by the wayside.

He did not understand this, of course; nor would he ever. But the remnants of his instincts were just enough to trigger the sensation of being stalked by a more dangerous predator, an experience that should have been long since left behind in the extensive and sordid history of his race. For a period of time, less than a quarter of a solar orbit, he had been increasingly feeling on edge and off balance, and he didn't know why.

In his distraction, he'd only gradually begun to realise that something else almost unheard-of in the history of his race was happening. Despite the Cycle being set up to increase the amount of chaos and unrest in the world—to facilitate the generation of data for the shard network—this was not actually what was happening. Most noticeably, two of the chaos engines had been shut down, the third entirely destroyed, and the dead shard that would have brought more out had been forcibly separated from its host.

Tensions worldwide were beginning to subside, and with them the rate of new shard uptake.

The Warrior was not adept at analysing the reasons behind things. That had been the Thinker's domain. But in her absence, there was nobody else with the will or the desire to do anything about these problems. So, as difficult it was for him to get a grasp on them, he had no other choice.

And when he located whatever was sabotaging the Cycle and causing his disquiet … he would destroy it.



End of Part Ninety-Nine

 

[Shadeymankey]

I am so excited. I have loved this story on FFN and will be sad to see it end.

 

[Kehsem]

I wonder if it's possible to approach this in Freddy Krueger fashion and somehow get Warrior to die of fear.

Self-described 'Apex Predators' always seem to turn into total bitches when encountering something outside their control.

 

[Avernus]

Self-described 'Apex Preditors' always seem to turn into total bitches when encountering something outside their control.

Click to shrink...

Being a predator is high risk/reward, they tend to default to being cautious.

And a "self described apex predator" - a being aware of their status and able to think about it - is going to be unused to facing actual threats and challenges. Heck, look at how much human fiction is about monsters that prey on us, when we're the apex predators of our world. So they are going to find it disturbing in a way that somebody used to facing such issues isn't.

 

[Lictre]

Well, from observation, I would say she's trying to do what nazi scum do best-die stupidly and for no purpose whatsoever!

Click to shrink...

The thought occurs to me that the death of nazi scum does serve a purpose or two... First, the removal of nazis is almost universally acknowledged as a Good Thing, and the fact that they keep getting themselves killed serves as continuing notice that their attitudes and behaviors are not tolerable among civilized populations.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred: The Eve of Battle – The Countdown Begins

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



Saturday, March 19, 2011

Zion

It was one thing for the Warrior to decide to hunt down the cause of his growing disquiet, but it was entirely another to have the slightest idea of how to actually achieve this aim. No matter what sensory power was levelled at the problem, no data of any note was returned. He was reduced to teleporting randomly around the planet, examining each new location in a gradually more frustrating attempt to glean even the slightest hint as to where his foe might be lurking.

All he needed was a shard or a name to focus his ire on. Once he had either one, his retribution would be swift and merciless.

<><>​

Hebert Household

T minus 12 h 17 min

Atropos

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I became aware that something was bothering me.

I wasn't quite sure exactly what it was, but the feeling of hair standing up on the back of my neck just wouldn't go away. Even Ending had nothing to add, save that he was the one feeling it and I was getting the overspill. It wasn't like the usual threatscape warning: that always gave me chapter and verse on whatever asshole thought he had a chance of beating me, including how to End the threat in a hilariously appropriate manner.

This was a lot more nebulous. The only thing I could put it down to (and Ending concurred) was that someone or something was looking for me, but didn't know who they were looking for, or even where to look. However, they were absolutely looking, and they weren't about to stop until they got some kind of lead on me.

The upside of all of this was, as soon as my mystery pursuer figured out who I was, I'd know for a fact who they were, and how to take them out of the picture. All I needed was the lead time to pull it off.

The downside was that, given the intensity of the feeling, I suspected that the available lead time was going to be inadequate for my usual level of prep. Also, that a well-aimed shot or stab from my usual implements of Ending might be insufficient to deal with the incoming problem.

Lucky for me, I had options.

<><>​

Philadelphia Parahuman Asylum Temporary Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (aka 'PATOR')

T minus 11 h 57 min

Sveta

Waking up in the mornings these days was glorious. It didn't matter that alarm clocks were annoying by their very nature, or that one normally had to take a trip to the bathroom directly upon rising to get rid of overnight bladder pressure. Even the inconvenience of transitioning from warm and comfortable to upright and less comfortable failed to pull the smile from Sveta's face. She'd been back in human form for just over a month now, and the buzz she got from it every morning still lit her whole day up.

Humming to herself, she made her way downstairs and headed for the kitchen. Learning how to walk all over again had been a little bit of a trial in the early days since her re-bodying, but Mrs Yamada had been endlessly patient.

Making breakfast for everyone was both Sveta's self-appointed task as 'house mom', being the one who had been freed from the curse of her powers a full two weeks ahead of everyone else, and also a good way to teach her reflexes that she only had two hands these days, and not a multitude of tentacles to grab things. Plastic crockery helped; when she dropped them, they bounced instead of breaking.

The first to show up after she started was Earl. "Hey, Sveta," he greeted her cheerfully. "How are you doing, this morning?"

She beamed at him. "Amazing, thanks, Earl. Check the bacon for me, please?"

"Sure thing." As he headed over to the stove, he sighed. "I had a bad dream last night. That the noise was back, but I didn't even know it."

"Oh, no!" She turned to him, full of concern. Earl had been one of the most socially ostracised people in the Asylum, because his sound drove everyone away. As a result, he was still getting used to having casual conversations with people. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "I used the technique Mrs Yamada showed us, and turned it into a lucid dream. I couldn't shut the sound off in the dream, but I could wake myself up, and as soon as I did, I knew everything was okay." He leaned against the bench with both hands, head down, which told her that everything wasn't okay, not yet.

Putting down the egg she'd been about to crack, Sveta moved to his side and gave him a hug. This was another hangup she was working to get over; in her previous life, to hug someone almost invariably resulted in their death. Once she was in the hug, she could draw comfort from it, but initiating it was often quite hard.

"Don't forget to tell Mrs Yamada, in the next therapy session," she reminded him. "She can't help us if we don't tell her." That was a truism she'd learned the hard way, along with 'therapy isn't a cure, it's a journey'.

"Yes, mom." But there was no sting in his words, and he returned the hug anyway. "I'll set the table, if you want."

"That would be really good, thanks." She turned back to where she'd left the eggs. Life in the PATOR facility had its routines, but everyone there was working to learn (or relearn) how to function in the outside world. Socialising with people was a huge part of it, but there was also learning how the actual world worked: even simply buying things with money was an oddity for some people. It certainly had been for her.

Fortunately, nobody needed around-the-clock care anymore, or even locked cells. They could figure out how to be normal people again, in a safe environment. Which was very important for their progress, considering the whole concept of 'outside' had begun as a foreign and terrifying idea to some of her housemates.

But they were all making progress in their own way. Earl had even raised his voice the other day, without immediately shutting down and retreating to his room.

One day at a time. We're all going to get there. Sveta believed that implicitly.

<><>​

T minus 11 h 43 min

Atropos

Cherie frowned. "So, you think something's stalking you? Doesn't your threatscape usually take care of that sort of thing?" She stirred her morning cup of tea (I'd introduced her to the proper way of making it, and she'd embraced the concept fully) then sipped it.

"No, it's a step back from that." I took a bite out of my toast. "Apparently, I've done something to piss off someone, but they don't specifically know it's me who did it. So, they're looking for a name to attach to the deed. Until they do, I won't be able to get the four-one-one on them either."

Dad shook his head, a frown on his face. I could tell that he was applying his Administration powers to figuring out the conundrum facing the three of us (as a 'group activity', this fit the bill) but coming up blank anyway. "That honestly doesn't make any sense at all. You've never hidden what you do. You're well known for advertising your kills on PHO, sometimes the day before you actually do it. How is it that someone can be angry at you for one of your many exploits, without knowing that it's actually you that did it? I mean, you've literally made the name 'Atropos' into a global phenomenon."

"Interdimensional," Cherie pointed out, not entirely helpfully. "Everyone on Earth Shin knows who she is too. And probably Aleph, for that matter."

"Yes, thank you. I got that." He ran his hand through his thinning hair. "What could you have done that's so serious that someone's searching for you over it, but they have no idea you're the culprit?"

"Someone who doesn't have access to the internet, or any of the mainstream news services." I looked at the dubious faces of my dad and my best friend, and shrugged. "Well, it's technically possible."

"Okay, so it's someone who has literally been living under a rock for the last three months," Cherie posited, ticking off points on her fingers. "One of the people you ganked was important to them somehow, and they're looking for the culprit the old-fashioned way, except they're so out of touch that just asking someone is beyond them. They're not on social media, or the internet in general, they don't watch TV …"

"… or read newspapers," Dad interjected thoughtfully. "Which puts them beyond old-school to positively Luddite in attitude."

"Newspaper?" Cherie was pretending to be serious, but I knew she didn't really mean it. "What's a newspaper?"

"Something like your social media homepage, except you don't need a phone to read it," he retorted dryly.

"Don't … need … phone." Cherie tried out the phrase as though hearing it for the first time, then shook her head with a broad grin. "Sorry, you've lost me there. What's Luddite mean, anyway?"

This time, I could tell she didn't actually know. "Opposed to technology in all its forms. But it's more than that. Like you said, they'd have to be so far out of touch that just talking to people is beyond them. And they pose a significant enough threat that I know something is going on, even second hand like this."

"You know what that actually makes me think of?" Dad had his glasses off now, cleaning the lenses with a cloth. "The Endbringers. You killed the Simurgh, but how sure are you of the other two?"

"Well, until you asked me that question, I would've said 'absolutely'." I frowned and scratched my lower lip with my thumbnail as I checked with Ending. "Everything I know says that the Endbringers and their legacy is being Ended. There's even a Tinker in New York who's going to be providing a way to get rid of Behemoth's radiation contamination, once she's finished dealing with the Grey Boy loops. But I'm beginning to wonder if I really know everything."

"I know nossink!" Cherie had been treated to a Hogan's Heroes marathon by Dad on our last pizza night, and it had left her in tears of laughter. "But seriously, is a fourth Endbringer possible? One that's trying to find out what happened to the other three?"

I shook my head. "Eidolon was the originator. His powers are gone, so there aren't going to be any more." Leaning back in my chair, I pulled my phone out. "There's something I'm missing, I know it."

Cherie tilted her head. "Are you seriously going to call a friend on this one? Who do you possibly know who can help you?" I knew she was partly joking (but only partly).

I adopted a lofty tone. "And they laughed when I set out to make the lives of people better, all over the city." Tapping in the number I needed and pretending to ignore the who, us? dumb-show they were putting on, I put the phone to my ear.

<><>​

T minus 11 h 39 min

Oracle

Dinah Alcott sighed and pushed her cereal around the bowl. Her parents were talking brightly about how wonderful it was that the Mayor had arranged for the Betterment Committee to handle the rebuilding of the city, while somehow managing to dismiss the entire aspect of where the money was coming from. Her father sounded a little disappointed that he hadn't been picked by his brother-in-law to go on the Committee, but she suspected he would've been a lot less comfortable having to take orders from Danny Hebert. She'd never met Mr Hebert, but she'd heard he didn't take any kind of shit, ever.

She couldn't wait to get the bus down to the Boardwalk and meet up with the others. The shows she did with the rest of the Rogues' Guild were the highlight of her week, and just chilling with them before and afterward was all kinds of awesome too. To them, she wasn't just some dumb kid: she had their backs, and they had hers. And with Sabah's sartorial advice, she was the sharpest dressed kid in school, so there was that too.

Her phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket. When she saw the name on the caller ID, her eyes widened. She'd never put Atropos' number into her phone, for the very good reason that she didn't know it. But now she was getting a call from that very same number?

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, Atropos is calling me?

"Gotta take this," she mumbled, pushing back her chair, and escaped into the living room.

Of course she was going to take the call. She was totally sure (well, to a 96.432% certainty) that once Coil found out about her, he would've had her kidnapped and kept her drugged-up in his basement for his own nefarious purposes; Atropos had neatly nipped that in the bud by murdering him first. There was a reason she'd had Parian pattern her costume after the one belonging to the black-clad killer.

"Hi, Oracle," Atropos said as soon as she had the phone to her ear. "I need a question answered, if you're available." She sounded professional and businesslike, and had even managed to avoid making her request into a question.

"Uh, well, yeah." Quite aside from her own personal debt in the matter, while Dinah hadn't been there when Atropos saved the Guild from Bastard Son, she'd heard chapter and verse about it from those who had. Also, viewing the footage of the curbstomp Atropos had perpetrated against the eight would-be combatants—and everyone else who'd gotten in her way, or otherwise drawn her ire—had only reinforced her decision to side with the person who could kick ass with that level of style and precision. "Go ahead and ask."

"So, I've got the feeling someone's looking for me, but hasn't yet figured out who I am. If I don't make any prep in, say, the next twelve hours, and I'm attacked by this mysterious stalker, what are my chances of winning?" For all the worrisome scenario that she was positing, Atropos sounded positively upbeat about the whole thing.

Dinah didn't feel the same way, especially after the numbers popped up in her head. Even more bizarrely, a second answer showed up next to the first one, when she hadn't so much as asked the question for it. "Uh, without prep you've got a ninety-four point one three six nine percent chance of being dead in twelve hours. With plan A, you've got an eighty-nine point zero three seven percent chance of winning."

When Atropos spoke next, there was a frown in her voice. "Thanks … but I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for a second question. I do appreciate it, though."

"Yeah, I know." Dinah knew that shrugging or shaking her head would have no effect on a purely voice phone call, so she didn't do either. "I didn't even ask the question. The answer just showed up all by itself."

Atropos' response was somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. "Right. Gotcha. I'm guessing my power had a word with yours. Thanks. You may have just helped save the world. I'll see you later. Toodles." The call ended, leaving Dinah staring at the handset.

What the heck did she mean by 'my power had a word with yours'? Also, what did she mean by 'save the world'? Only Atropos could say either of those things and make it sound normal. Shaking her head, Dinah went back in to finish breakfast.

Predictably, her parents hadn't even noticed her absence.

<><>​

T minus 11 h 38 min

Cherish

Taylor ended the call, but kept the phone in her hand as she turned to Cherie. "Okay, it looks like Plan A is a go. I'd like your help, if you're interested. Stage one, anyway. How do you feel about using your life experience to help people who've been fucked over by their powers?"

Cherie blinked, trying to connect the dots between A and B, but getting the impression it was more like A and Z. "How's that gonna help save the world, exactly? Or is this another 'Power of Friendship' moment that I'm totally missing the hint with?"

Amusement welled up in Taylor's emotional song. "Well, the power of friendship—no pun intended, this time—will actually feature here, but like I said, it's a two-stage plan. The role I've got lined up for you is in stage one. Stage two is where it gets really interesting. Or it will, once I've figured out exactly what I'll be doing, and to whom."

"So, why the reference to saving the world?" To Danny's credit, he managed to make the question sound off-hand. "Are we talking about Scion, here?"

"We might be." Taylor waggled her hand from side to side. "The only reason I'm doubtful is that I haven't yet made any moves against him. If I had, he'd absolutely know it was me, and he'd be blowing up my threatscape like Behemoth throwing a tantrum. Also, even if it was another cape, if they took me out, there'd be nobody to deal with Scion when the time comes. So, 'saving the world' applies either way. In any case, it's all quiet on the western front, so the jury's still out on exactly who's trying to get a line on me."

"It's a good thing Accord doesn't have our house bugged," Danny observed after taking a drink of coffee. One corner of his mouth quirked upward at Taylor's questioning glance. "He'd definitely be putting a hit out on you after mashing together two metaphors like that. But more seriously, Oracle's the precog, right?" He looked at her quizzically, his musical accompaniment shifting from amusement to concern. "I can't help but feel you're missing a bet by not asking her who's coming after you."

Taylor shook her head. "She wouldn't have been able to tell me, which is another tick in the 'Scion' box. But there have been other capes that were able to spoof Thinker powers, so at most we'd get a big fat 'maybe'."

"You know I'm in." Cherie had decided this for herself the moment Taylor asked the question. She owed Taylor basically everything: more importantly, they were friends. "So, what's stage one of your plan?"

Taylor put her hand on Cherie's shoulder in silent thanks. "Doing something nice. Because there's nothing like actually doing a good thing to use as a cover for doing a sneaky thing. Now, I gotta make some calls, and see how fast I can put this thing together."

<><>​

Philadelphia

T minus 11 h 37 min

Mrs Jessica Yamada

When Jessica's mobile rang, she suppressed a momentary flare of irritation. She deserved time off on the weekend, just like everyone else. But everyone who had access to this number knew to only call it if things were getting serious, so she sighed and picked it up from the breakfast table. "You've got Jessica. What's the situation?"

"Hi, Mrs Yamada." The voice was both breezy and familiar to Jessica. "Sorry to bother you on a Saturday. Good news is, there is no situation for you to worry about. There is a favour I'd like to do for you, though, if you were interested."

All of Jessica's instincts immediately went onto high alert. Atropos had done nothing but good for the people under Jessica's care, but for her to call up out of the blue and offer a favour for free, there had to be an angle she was working. On the other hand, there was no point in being rude, and Atropos always made a point of being polite and reasonable. "I'm listening," she replied cautiously.

"You are actually correct. I do have an ulterior motive, but we'll get to that in a moment. The favour I wanted to do was pay a visit this afternoon to the folks in the PATOR facility and give them a bit of a pep-up. Congratulate them on doing so well, that sort of thing. At the same time, I was going to bring along a bunch of capes, teens and young adults, who haven't had the easiest time dealing with life in and out of costume. Get them to mingle and chat, and maybe share some of their coping mechanisms."

Jessica blinked. The initial admission had taken her entirely by surprise, which was possibly its intent. But that was nothing next to the proffered favour.

Giving Sveta and the others a chance to sit and talk to capes in a controlled environment, to ask questions they'd normally never get to voice … that would be huge for them. And Atropos' presence, considering the intensely positive light they saw her in, could only help put the gathering at ease. There was only one thing left to find out.

She decided that bluntness was the best way to approach the question. Atropos had built her reputation around … well, around killing anyone she'd said she was going to kill, but also around being plain-spoken, and never dodging questions. "It all sounds quite nice, but you did mention an ulterior motive. May I ask what that is?"

Atropos chuckled, as though she'd been looking forward to answering the question. "It's pretty simple, actually. I wanted to offer them work with the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee once they leave PATOR. Because of the Committee, we're currently host to Eagletons, ex-villains, case fifty-threes, and other people who have nowhere else to go. Nobody's going to care where they came from, or treat them differently because of it."

"Ah." As an ulterior motive, it was … fairly innocuous, actually, while at the same time being very much something Atropos would do. She remembered hearing something about Canary playing at a charity function for the Brockton Bay General Hospital; Atropos had been involved in that, too. "And there will be work for all of them?"

"Sure. Every time the Committee hires on more people and starts their induction training, Accord gets an update on their capabilities, and the plan for the rebuilding gets adjusted to accommodate the difference. Nobody gets stuck in a job they can't do, and there's work for everyone who wants it."

There was an aspect that Atropos hadn't mentioned, which Jessica didn't believe for a second the black-clad killer had forgotten about. "And of course, this would mean they're no longer our responsibility to house and feed."

Atropos was grinning by now; Jessica could positively feel it over the line. "That would follow, yes. So, your thoughts on the matter?"

Slowly, Jessica nodded, more for herself than Atropos. "I see no problem with it. What time were you thinking of showing up, so I can tell them to expect you?"

"I was thinking maybe mid-afternoon, going into the evening. That'll give both of us time to get all our ducks in a row. Sound good to you?"

Jessica still had trouble believing how easy it was to come to an agreement with someone who was so adept at visiting murder and mayhem on others. Truth be told, her interactions with Atropos had been unorthodox to say the least, but they had universally turned out for the good. "It does. I believe I will take the time to drop by myself, to see how things are going and to thank the capes you will be bringing along."

"That'll be nice. You've already met a few of them, so they'll be happy to see you again. Toodles." The call ended with just as little fanfare as it had begun.

Slowly, Jessica put the phone down again. Across the table, her husband lowered his newspaper. "I thought you weren't working today."

She found herself chuckling in disbelief. "So did I."

Composing herself, she took up the phone again. There were calls to be made.



End of Part One Hundred

 

[Aytesarp]

Well, I can't wait to see how Taylor pop Scion. In most of worm stories, an epic battle is usually used as the go to method. However, our terrifyingly capable overlady doesn't do battle in most of the time.

 

[Avernus]

Considering the kind of collateral damage Scion tends to do, an epic battle would be something she'd avoid; Scion laying waste to Earth Bet would be bad for Brockton Bay after all. Plus, he's got the advantage in raw force even if she gathers up a bunch of other Parahumans for support. He's the Warrior after all, smashing stuff is his thing.

Something more based on stealth or cunning, though? Scion's not the Thinker of his pair, or even a small-"t" thinker. Blindsiding him in some fashion is certainly a possibility. And he has major psychological issues she could potentially exploit too.

I do hope that she manages to find a way to pull it off with style like she generally prefers to.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred One: The Eve of Battle – Making Connections

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



Lord Street Boardwalk

T minus 11 h 35 min

Ash

When Ashley Stillons' job description still read 'supervillain', she had decried the idea of rising early, especially on a day when it wasn't necessary to get up and go to work. But she'd been talking to people on the worksite—it was amazing how much of an ice-breaker handing out those cupcakes had proven to be—and they'd assured her that sunrise over the Bay was spectacular, especially now that spring was well and truly under way. So this morning, she'd gotten up, put on her new sneakers as well as a light coat, and caught the bus down to the waterfront.

Leaning on the fence that separated the Boardwalk from the beach, gazing out to sea, she had to admit they'd been right on the money. It was gorgeous, in a way that she'd never been able to appreciate before, particularly on the times she'd been forced to pull an all-nighter due to accidentally destroying her own bed. Even the sunlight glancing off the force field over the Protectorate base made for a pretty light show.

Look at me. She let a grin slip over her face as she continued to enjoy the early morning view. Used to be, I couldn't see a Protectorate base without wanting to blast a hole in it. Now it's just a nice part of the scenery.

When her phone vibrated in her pocket—now that her current diet was allowing her to gain a healthy amount of weight, she was experimenting with wearing jeans—she tugged it out and swiped to answer without taking her eyes away from the ocean. "You've got Ashley."

"Hi. You're having a good day, it sounds like."

Ashley instinctively straightened up and glanced around. No black-clad capes loitered nearby, pretending to look elsewhere. Also, Atropos had sounded positively upbeat, which was probably a good thing.

"I am, actually. Got up to watch the sunrise. First time ever. Might just make a habit of it." There were a lot of other things she'd never done before; she was considering making a list and working her way down it.

"Well, that's nice. I'm glad. The reason I'm calling is, did you have plans for this afternoon, going into the evening?" Atropos' approval sounded entirely sincere, which gave Ashley a warm feeling; even the question that followed didn't give her reason to worry. Whatever was going on, Atropos surely had her reasons.

"Well, I was going to stay home, watch some TV and try out a few new recipes, but what did you have in mind? Another Teacher job?" The last one had been fun, even before all the shit got ripped out of her head (one of these days, she was going to have to find Scapegoat and give him a big wet kiss) and dumped into Teacher's.

"Not a job as such. Just a meet and greet, talking to people who've had a rough deal, and maybe sharing a few stories. Interested?"

Once more, Ashley was struck by the contrast with how she thought these days and what she'd been like before the Teacher job. Then, she would've sneered and dismissed the idea. If they couldn't do anything for her, why should she put herself out for them?

Now, it was a totally different story. This 'empathy' thing Atropos talked about was definitely a game-changer.

"Sure, I can do that," she agreed readily. "When and where, and who am I meeting?"

"Just come to the PRT building, around three. They'll be expecting you. I'll meet you on the roof. We'll be teleporting to Philly to meet a bunch of ex-capes, who got stuck with shitty powers. They're learning how to survive in society again."

Ashley figured she could read between the lines easily enough. "You got rid of their powers for them, didn't you? Yeah, I'll totally be there." She wasn't quite sure why Atropos was going out of her way for these people, but she certainly wasn't going to argue with the very scary mass murderer over the matter.

Besides, it sounded like fun.

"Excellent. I truly appreciate it. See you there. Toodles." The end-call chime sounded in Ashley's ear.

She put the phone away and leaned once more on the fence, looking out to sea. The sun was a little higher in the sky now, sifting sunbeams through the clouds that hung out over the ocean. It was still quite beautiful, and now she had something interesting to look forward to in the afternoon.

Screw being a supervillain, she decided. I'll take this, all day long.

<><>​

Dallon Household

T minus 11 h 33 min

Brandish

"Aww, isn't he a cutie? You like that, don't you? Yes, you do." Vicky cooed over Smaug, scratching him behind the jaw as he accepted a couple of blueberries from her fingers.

The bearded dragon seemed to take the attention in his stride, half-closing his eyes as he chewed the fruit. Amy, who had brought him down to the table draped over her neck in the first place, snorted softly and rolled her eyes. Carol glanced over at Mark, who didn't seem to have noticed the lizard on the table yet.

Okay, fine. If no-one else is going to say something, then I will.

Carol had been working at being less of a martinet within her own family since her thoroughly illuminating talk with Amy, but some things were simply unacceptable, and one of those things was a bearded dragon at the breakfast table. Pointed glances hadn't worked, so she'd have to say something. The trouble was, the time to say something had been five minutes ago, and she hadn't spoken up then.

Still, better late than never. "Vicky, stop playing with Amy's pet at the table. Amy, take the lizard back upstairs."

Vicky went straight to puppy-dog eyes, making her look about ten years old. "Aw, c'mon, Mom. He's not causing any problems. It's not like he's stealing your bacon. Anyway, his name's Smaug."

"I don't care what his name is." Carol was aware that she'd lost the conversational initiative, but decided to try logic and reason before unleashing the all-inclusive 'because I said so'. "It's unhygienic to have animals on the table while we're eating."

Amy raised her chin a little. "Actually, I made sure he was clean all over before I brought him down. He just finished moulting, and I wanted everyone to see how bright and shiny his scales are." She shot her sister a dirty look. "Then Vicky hijacked him."

"I did not." Vicky put on a superior air. "He just likes me better, is all."

"I—" Carol broke off as her phone rang. She delved in her purse for it as she stood up from her chair: one of the rules of the Dallon household was that nobody carried on a telephone conversation at the table. "By the time I finish this call, Smaug had better be back upstairs where he belongs."

She was trying hard not to frown as she accepted the call, especially when she saw who it was from. Facial expressions, as she well knew, affected the tone of voice. The last thing she wanted was for Atropos to decide that Carol was upset with her.

"Hi, Mrs Dallon. Looks like I caught you just in time." Atropos' tone was as chirpy as ever.

"I'm sorry … what exactly do you mean by that?" There was no doubt in Carol's mind that Atropos was pulling some kind of shenanigans: the multi-million-dollar question was 'what?'.

"Well, I was going to ask if the girls could come and help me out a little. See, the Parahuman Asylum in Philadelphia has a bunch of inmates who've suddenly lost their problematic powers and are thus eligible for release. They're currently re-acclimating to society, but they're not sure of themselves. So, I was thinking Amy and Vicky could come and talk to them about the problems they're facing, and maybe offer a few suggestions. If that's okay with you, I mean?"

Carol raised her eyebrows. The phrase 'suddenly lost their powers' sounded suspicious as hell to her, given that the only person on Earth known to be able to kill powers was currently on the other end of the phone call. But that wasn't her main point of concern. "So … just talk to them? They're all depowered?"

"Totally depowered. Amy will be perfectly safe. Plus, I'll be bringing other capes along." She heard a grin creep into Atropos' voice. "If it makes things easier, you could think of it as community service for Vicky."

That decided her. "You make an excellent point. She does need to learn adult responsibility sooner or later. But this is in Philadelphia, you say?" Even at Vicky's best flight speed, it would be a four-hour trip. Of course, Atropos could teleport, which would make things much easier. "How are they getting there?"

"Have them meet me on the roof of the PRT building, about three o'clock this afternoon. We'll be going through into the evening. Don't worry; I'll be there to keep an eye on them the whole time, and I'll bring them back afterward."

"Strangely enough, I do trust you in that matter. They'll be there." She had no idea what had originally prompted Atropos to take Amy and then Vicky under her wing (so to speak) but their excursions had made for fascinating discussions over the dinner table, and had given Carol some truly sobering insights into Atropos' capabilities.

"Excellent. I'll see you around. Toodles."

Phone in hand, Carol turned back toward the table. The lizard had vanished from the table, and she could hear the sound of Amy's footsteps upstairs. Vicky, in the meantime, sat there with an expression suggesting that butter wouldn't even consider melting in her mouth.

"That was Atropos." With an inner smile, she caught Vicky's start of surprise. "She made a request of me that I intend to honour. You and your sister will be going to Philadelphia this afternoon …"

<><>​

PRT Building, Director's Office

T minus 11 h 17 min

Director Paul Renick

Paul's first cup of coffee for the day steamed gently as he booted up his laptop. He did not anticipate a particularly hectic weekend. The cape gangs were long since gone, outside influences had gotten the message that Brockton Bay was a no-go zone for cape crime, and even the non-cape criminals were being mopped up on a daily basis by the rejuvenated BBPD, with occasional assistance from the Protectorate and Wards.

Petty crime still happened—with the advent of Spring Break, there would be an influx of bored school-age children on the street, with a concomitant uptick in shoplifting and minor vandalism—but even that would be less of an issue than what had been the norm during school hours, back before January. Between the increased vigilance of the police and the fact that even the most disaffected of youth now had extra spending money, crime had never recovered from the cliff it had fallen off in the aftermath of the first week of the year.

To put it as bluntly as possible: there was a carrot, and there was a stick. Nobody wanted the stick, and the carrot was actually pretty damn attractive.

Taking up his cup, Paul sipped from it, then put it down before opening the email containing the morning's skim sheet. Emily had warned him before she left to never be eating or drinking anything when he first laid eyes on it, if only because cleaning off one's screen and keyboard was a tedious endeavour. Paul had taken up the habit and continued to do so; even though nothing spit-take-worthy had shown up yet during his tenure, that didn't mean this would continue to be the case.

(The Goddess incident might have qualified if he'd learned about it first thing in the morning, but thankfully nothing else had.)

The first item was an overview of the progress of the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee work sites over the last twenty-four hours. It wasn't really part of his purview, and there was precious little he could do to help if they did have a problem, but he liked to read about it anyway. Things were reportedly progressing on time and on budget, which would've counted as a minor miracle anywhere else, but was apparently par for the course with the Committee.

He was just looking over the next item—a report on patrols done and incidents noted—when his phone rang. Curious, he picked it up, then blinked when he saw the name in the caller ID.

"Hello, Atropos," he said, putting the phone on speaker and setting it down. At the same time, he nudged the audio record button under the desk with his knee. "How may I help you?"

"Well, to be honest, I was wondering if I could borrow a few of your Wards this afternoon," she replied cheerfully, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Which, to be honest, for her … it was. "Kind of a PR thing, in Philadelphia."

"Give me one second, please." He clicked through a few menus in his computer until he reached the Wards' roster for the day. "Who did you think you might need?"

"Your most relatable ones, if you can spare any of them. Vista, Miss Medic, Tenebrae, Kid Win, Chariot, Browbeat. The ones who haven't had it easy."

She could certainly pick them, he was forced to admit. "Let me see … Vista's due for a console shift and Kid Win was going on patrol. He prefers console, so I can rotate her out of the roster and let Browbeat go out with Gallant, to get his hours up. Tenebrae and Miss Medic were off-shift already, so I'll contact them and ask if they want to come along. Chariot's still in training, so I can't really authorise him to go, I'm afraid."

"No, that's fine." Her tone was as upbeat as ever. "I appreciate the assist. Vista and I get along pretty well, and Miss Medic and Tenebrae and I go back a ways. They'll do great." Apparently as an afterthought, she added, "Just so you know, I've got a few others coming along too."

He'd known about Tenebrae and Miss Medic, but the information about Vista was new to him. "Well, that's good to hear. When do you need them by, and when can I expect them back?"

"Oh, I've arranged to meet the other capes on the roof of the PRT building at three this afternoon. If you can let your troopers know about this, and have the Wards up there at that time, it'll make things a lot easier. They'll be coming back sometime this evening, once everything winds down. Don't worry, I'll make sure everyone gets home safely."

"I do appreciate it. So, what exactly is happening? You mentioned something about public relations …?" He hadn't heard of anything of note due to happen in Philadelphia, but that didn't really mean anything. Once Atropos decided something was going to happen, it happened.

"It's nothing official. I'm just doing Jessica Yamada a solid. The parahuman asylum just recently had a bunch of people transition to outpatient status, and I thought it would do them good to speak to some capes who also haven't had it the easiest. People who can relate to them and make suggestions for coping mechanisms. It'll also be educational for the Wards in general."

Paul had met Mrs Yamada in her professional capacity, and considered her to be rather effective in her field. Somehow, it didn't surprise him that Atropos both knew of her and respected her. "I'm sure it will. Also, thank you for giving me the heads-up on this. We both know that if you'd just asked, they would've come along whether I wanted them to or not." An image formed in his head of Atropos, somehow playing on a flute like the Pied Piper, leading the Wards out of the building to some adventure or other.

Her tone changed slightly, suggesting that she'd just smiled. "Yeah, but they'd at least let you know where they were gonna be. Also, Vista would do her best to make sure someone could cover her shift. She's responsible like that."

"She is indeed." Paul considered what he'd already been told, and decided there was only one good reason for them to all meet on the rooftop. "I presume you're going to be teleporting them there and back?"

She didn't sound at all surprised that he'd guessed. "That's the plan, yes. Now, I've got other things to take care of, and I assume you've got work to do, so I'll see you later. Toodles."

"Goodbye," he said, before he realised the call had already ended. Leaning back in his chair, he thought about the situation for a moment, then called another number.

"Operations. What do you need, sir?"

Paul mentally girded his loins. This was going to be an interesting one to explain. "I just got a phone call from Atropos. We may be getting some visitors this afternoon …"

<><>​

Outside the PRT Building

T minus 4 h 58 min

Ash

It was just coming up to three when Ashley got off the bus and approached the frontage of the PRT building. She was wearing her best 'casual mingling' outfit, her hair had been freshly shampooed and brushed until it shone, and she'd even given herself a touch of lipstick and eyeshadow, as guided by several Youtube clips. Outwardly, she looked pretty damn good. But as she stared up at the imposing building, she began to wonder if this was really a smart idea.

I don't want to let Atropos down, but what if they decide to just arrest me when I walk in there? I mean, technically I'm still a wanted criminal.

The fact that in her old life, she would've stomped right in there and laid waste to the building just to prove a point was not lost on her. Things were different now. She had a life here, a good position with the Committee; the last thing she wanted to do was jeopardise that.

"Hey." The voice came from just behind her. She looked around, to see a teenage girl wearing a stylish beret and a pastel pink cloth mask. "You'd be Ashley, right? Atropos told me all about you."

Ashley blinked. "You know her?" Of all the people she would've expected to have close contact with Atropos, this girl did not fit the description. Aside from the mask and the beret, she wore a floral blouse, a denim skirt and knee-high brown leather boots: about as far from a costume as could be expected. "Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry." The girl held out her hand. "You can call me Cherish. I'm a reformed supervillain, too. One of Heartbreaker's, until I ran away. He followed me here, Atropos brutally murdered him, and I've been learning how to be a normal human being ever since." She gave Ashley a beaming smile.

As she shook Cherish's hand, Ashley snorted in amusement. "Yeah, that definitely sounds like her. Nice to meet you. You're going to Philly too?"

"That's the idea. Now, let's see how good Director Renick's word is." Cherish turned and headed for the front doors of the building. Finding her self-confidence boosted by Cherish's proximity, Ashley followed along.

The doors rumbled aside for them, and climate-controlled air folded around them as they stepped into the lobby. While Ashley eyed the troopers along the wall (who were almost certainly eyeing her right back, from behind their opaque faceplates), Cherish ignored them and marched straight over to the reception desk.

"Hi," she announced. "Two to go to the roof. We're meeting Atropos there."

"Ah, yes. Of course." The receptionist sounded dubious, but it was clear she had a script to work from. "You're just in time. Elevator four will take you up there."

"Thank you." Cherish gave her the same kind of smile that she'd given Ashley, a little earlier. "C'mon, Ash. We don't want to keep Our Lady in Darkness waiting."

Ashley blinked at that, but she followed Cherish to the appropriate elevator, which opened as they approached it. Once they stepped inside, the button marked 'ROOF' was already illuminated; the doors interleaved shut, and the floor numbers started scrolling upward. Ashley was impressed by the fact that she felt no sensation of extra weight, but that was probably a Tinkertech thing.

"Are you in her cult?" she asked quietly, not wanting to pry but still interested in knowing. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but—" But you seem a lot more normal than the rest of them. Ash had seen some of the Followers around; they were a little bit creepy, but at least they didn't preach on street corners. Also, they wore little pendants shaped like shears, and Cherish didn't have anything like that on her.

Grinning, Cherish shook her head. "Hah, no. That was just so they'd hurry us along. I respect the hell out of the Followers, but that's not for me. I'm just a member of the fan club." The elevator doors opened as smoothly as they'd closed, showing the rooftop beyond a set of glass doors. "Oh, hey. We're here."

They exited the elevator, then stepped out between the glass doors as they opened. There were two PRT guards here, who only paid cursory attention to them. This was probably because Atropos was already there, chatting casually with Vicky Dallon. Also present were Panacea (wearing T-shirt and jeans), as well as three of the Wards: Vista, Tenebrae and Miss Medic.

"Oh, hi!" Miss Medic came straight over to them, with Tenebrae trailing behind. "It's good to see you again … Ashley? Or would you prefer Damsel?" Her beaming smile rivalled Cherish's for intensity.

"Ashley, please. Or Ash. Damsel is long gone in my rear-view." Ashley impulsively hugged the ten-year-old. "I just want to thank you and Panacea for what you did for me."

"You're totally welcome." Miss Medic returned the hug, then stood back and took stock of her. "Wow, you're really looking a lot better than you were before. You're sleeping and eating better?"

Ashley nodded firmly, a grin breaking out over her own lips. "Oh, you have no idea. I'm cooking now. And working with the Committee. Friday afternoon, I helped pull down Winslow."

"I can totally back her up on the cooking thing," Vicky remarked, strolling over and putting an arm over Ashley's shoulders. "You should try her pork cutlets. They're amazeballs."

Atropos cleared her throat, and everyone looked over to her as she pointed to a spot on the roof. "Okay, then," she announced. "Now that everyone's here, I'm about to open a portal to Philadelphia right there. Vista, you're the only one here who hasn't been through one; just step on through, like it's a doorway. We will have eight seconds for everyone to get through, so no dawdling, okay?"

Cherish tilted her head. "Wait a minute. I thought your portals had a four-second limit." She looked around at the others. "Right?"

"Ah, no," Panacea said. "First time I used one of her portals, it was open for something like forty seconds. So it's variable, yeah?"

Atropos nodded. "It involves safety specs that I normally prefer not to exceed. Anyway, the order of movement: Tenebrae, Miss Medic and Vista, Amy and Vicky, Ashley and Cherish, then me." She pointed to the spot she'd already indicated. "Three. Two. One. Go." At the word 'go', she snapped her fingers, and the portal appeared.

Tenebrae was already moving, with Miss Medic right behind him, tugging Vista along. Each in turn vanished as they stepped into the shadowy doorway, followed up by Panacea and Vicky. Then it was Ashley's turn, moving forward with Cherish at her side. She'd done this before, so it was no great leap of faith to step into the portal.

Whatever awaited on the other side, she was looking forward to it.



End of Part One Hundred One

 

[Aytesarp]

Curious and curiouser.
Can't wait for the spectacle.

 

[kekjoke]

Damn. I seem to have reached the end.
This gonna be good though.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Two: The Eve of Battle – Assembling the Troops

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



Roof of the PRT ENE Building, Brockton Bay

T minus 4 hr 50 min

Miss Medic

"Three. Two. One. Go." Atropos snapped her fingers, and the portal appeared.

With Missy's hand in hers, Riley followed Brian through, stepping into the middle of a large open living-room type space. There was a whole bunch of people waiting for them, aged from late teen to early adult, but Riley was more concerned right then with clearing the area so the others could come through. If Atropos said they had eight seconds to use the portal, then eight seconds it was.

With her usual flair of moving fast while not appearing to hurry at all, Atropos stepped into view at least a second before the portal vanished. Her long-coat flared open dramatically, and Riley saw the sheathed shears under it. Turning her head to scan the crowd awaiting them, she nodded to one in particular, a tall blonde. "Hi, Sveta. Mrs Yamada gave you the heads-up?"

"She did, yes." Sveta moved forward and held out her hand. "It's good to see you again, and Panacea as well." Her face broke out in a broad smile that definitely encompassed the New Wave healer. "I owe you both so much."

Panacea came toward them, looking Sveta up and down in a thoughtful manner; after Atropos, she also shook hands with the blonde woman. "Well, you seem to have taken your opportunity and run with it. Any problems?"

As Sveta answered in the negative, Missy leaned in toward Riley and whispered, "I'm not sure I know what's going on here. Do you?"

Before Riley could answer in the negative, Atropos cleared her throat. "Just so everyone's on the same page here: welcome to the Philadelphia Parahuman Asylum Temporary Outpatient Rehabilitation facility. Try saying that ten times fast."

Riley couldn't resist. She knew exactly what Aisha would say, so she said it instead. "That ten times fast."

As everyone else laughed, Atropos shook her head, but Riley could tell she was grinning. She waited for the laughter to die down before she continued. "Nice one, but seriously. These are all people who had extremely problematic powers, which have since been Ended. However, they're all still working on learning how to function in normal society. I thought you guys might be able to share your experiences and provide a few tips. So feel free to mingle and chat, answer questions and offer advice. Vicky, Ashley, Vista: could I have a quick word first, please?"

"Sure." Glory Girl—it was hard to think of her otherwise, even out of costume—moved off to the side where Atropos was gesturing, followed by Ashley. Missy hesitated for a moment, then went in that direction after Riley gave her a reassuring nod.

"Damn," muttered Brian. "That surgery you did on Ashley really worked. She's looking a thousand percent on what she was." The nod he bestowed on Riley was full of brotherly pride. "Good going."

"Thanks." It was true: when they'd performed the surgery on Damsel of Distress in that horrible house, she'd been worn down to an essence of resignation and spite, her power allowing no other emotions to linger within her for long. But between the help they'd given her and whatever Atropos had done in the meantime to tame the savage beast, she was now positively glowing with good health and happiness.

As Bonesaw, Riley had hurt a lot of people: more than she could ever realistically atone for, she knew. But that didn't mean she shouldn't try; as Miss Medic, she'd already done a lot of good, and intended to do more. Ashley was definitely a tick in the plus column there, as were the twenty people (she'd been instinctively counting them) in the rehabilitation facility, if she'd correctly interpreted Atropos' hint about Ending their powers.

Glancing up at Brian, she tilted her head. "C'mon, let's go chat to these nice people." While it would absolutely be a terrible idea to give them chapter and verse about having once been Bonesaw (or rather, having woken up and remembered being Bonesaw), she could certainly gloss over the worst of the details and give them useful advice disguised as anecdotes. Brian, she knew, could do the same from his perspective of once having been Grue.

It wasn't surgery, but it was still helping people achieve a better life, and that was what she was all about these days.

<><>​

T minus 4 hr 48 min

Vista

When Director Renick first posited the expedition with Atropos, Missy had been excited to go, especially as Riley and Brian were also going. Brian had the whole 'big brother' thing locked down; he vibed with Aegis really well on that score, and Missy appreciated that he didn't talk down to her, even though he was nearly two feet taller than her. And Riley was a total sweetie who understood the basic stuff about capes, even though she was a newbie at it, and picked up anything else Missy had to show her really fast.

Plus, though she'd never admit it to anyone, it was nice to not be the only 'cute Ward' on the team anymore. The general public were taking her more seriously these days, which she truly appreciated.

The briefing they'd been given by Director Renick had been on the sparse side. He'd told them that they'd be going to Philadelphia with Atropos and some other capes to help talk to some people, but she hadn't quite figured it all out until now. Of course, now that she did know what was going on, she was eager to help, but first she had to find out what Atropos wanted.

Her relationship with the dark-clad serial killer was also on the complicated side. Driven to distraction by her parents' constant fighting, she'd gotten Atropos' attention by imagining ways to kill her; in response, Atropos had shown up, given her a warning, then yelled at her parents to sort their shit out and stolen their booze before leaving.

As a direct result, Missy's home life was a lot better now (in her opinion, Atropos had a great career ahead of her as a marriage therapist, if she ever wanted to take it up) but she hadn't been sure how things would go if they came face to face again. Everything had been cool on the roof of the PRT building, but now Atropos wanted to speak with her personally. On the upside, she also wanted to speak to Glory Girl and the woman called Ashley, so maybe it would be okay after all?

The room was large enough that they were able to find a quiet corner where their privacy was granted by mutual unspoken agreement. Missy augmented this by adding a bit more space, so they were a good thirty feet away from everyone else. Ashley seemed a little taken aback by this, but Glory Girl and Atropos were entirely unsurprised by it.

"Thanks, Vista." Atropos' tone was brisk and businesslike. "I won't keep you long, but I needed to get you all in one place where I could fill you in on something important. Ashley, you might remember when we did the Teacher job, I mentioned that there was one more problem I had to deal with: eldritch horrors from beyond time and space."

Ashley nodded, her expression one of dawning comprehension. "Yeah, you said they spawned the Endbringers, right? Did you bring us here to fight them?"

"There's two, but one's currently locked down. The other one's searching for me right now, or at least I think it's him." Atropos turned her head to look at them each in turn. "The moment I can confirm who it is, I'm going to have to End him. For that I'll need you three, plus a couple more who aren't here right now. Can I count on you for that? More to the point, do you trust me to do what needs to be done?"

"Totally," Glory Girl replied immediately, beating Ashley's agreement by only a split second.

Missy hesitated, but only because of the sheer magnitude of what Atropos was asking of her. "Um." She paused again, searching for the right words. "Sure, but what are we talking about here? Endbringer level? Worse than that?"

Atropos paused for a long moment, letting the tension build, before she spoke one word.

"Scion."

It shocked the three of them to silence, especially Missy. She'd grown up on stories of the heroic capes of the world, especially the golden man, and to have Atropos so bluntly cast him in the role of a villain jarred her to her core. Staring from one to another of the other three, she searched in vain for some sign that this was all a prank of the highest level.

Ashley was the first to speak. "Y'know, it kinda makes sense, once I think about it."

"How's that?" Glory Girl didn't sound like she was totally embracing the concept, but neither was she decrying it.

"Well, think about it. Who's done the most good in the world, over the last three months?" Ashley nodded toward Atropos. "Her, yeah? And if she's the good guy, then why can't someone like Scion be the bad guy?"

Glory Girl's lips twitched into a reluctant smile. "I'm not fully convinced that logic flies, but I'm willing to hear you out. How can you be sure that he is what you say he is?"

Atropos spoke lightly, but with deadly purpose behind her words. "Same way I knew to bring along a quarter to our first meeting."

That meant nothing at all to Missy, but Glory Girl's expression locked up like the brakes of a speeding car on black ice. Ashley chuckled and patted Glory Girl on the shoulder. "Looks like she's got you there, hon."

"Okay, yeah, good point." Glory Girl's tone was that of someone who had started an argument and lost it in the same breath, which only puzzled Missy even more. "So why don't we all just go and take him out now, if he's such a bad guy?"

Atropos nodded slowly, her tone sober. "If I could be certain it was him, we'd already be on the way. But if it wasn't him, that would give him information he doesn't have right now. See, in order to get a line on him, I'd have to step out of the shadows, so to speak. Give him a good hard look at me. The trouble is, that would absolutely get his attention, and he'd come after us while we're going after whoever else is looking for me. I can fight on two fronts—done it before, more than once—but the sheer amount of collateral damage that would result means I need to wait and see."

Ashley's grin was a little forced, but she managed it anyway. "Well, it's easy to tell that you've never been a superhero. With some of them, collateral damage might as well be their middle name. And I'm saying that as someone who used to wreck shit even when I wasn't committing crimes."

"Oh, har har." Glory Girl rolled her eyes and nudged Ashley with her elbow. "That's the last time I open up to you about the stupid shit I've done."

Missy decided not to mention that she wouldn't even need to talk about it. There was at least one Youtube video channel about Glory Girl's misadventures out there, and possibly more that she didn't know about. Most of the Wards had been through it at one point or another: Missy only wanted to make sure that she didn't emulate any of the more spectacular pratfalls.

"I wasn't actually talking about you, but hey, I'm good to swap stories of stuff I've destroyed all day long." Ashley put her arm over Glory Girl's shoulders. "Just bring some more of that cider over. I've been making pastries that Mr Hebert gave me some recipes for, and they're actually pretty good."

Atropos cleared her throat, drawing their attention back to her. "So anyway, just as soon as I get a clear line on this guy, we're gonna have to hit the ground running. Are you all good for that?"

Missy grimaced. "I … but it's Scion. How can you possibly know he's a bad guy?" She didn't want to go against Atropos, but she'd also been taught to stand her ground and not let anyone push her around. And if Scion wasn't here to defend himself, she was gonna do it for him.

"That's a good question." Atropos' tone could have been mocking, but it wasn't. "The answer is fairly complicated, but to simplify it all the way down, Scion and his partner are responsible for all super-powers on Earth. The idea is to stress-test and modify them by having us fight each other. Then, after a few centuries, they harvest the powers, blow up all the Earths, and move along. My power was inserted by a third party, and it's here to screw over Scion and his partner, and End this particular iteration of their life cycle."

Again, silence fell over the small group, while Missy wrestled with the concepts that Atropos had just laid on her. She wanted to argue and deny what she'd just heard, but everything Atropos had ever said and done (especially what she'd done) backed it up. Plus, something about Atropos' deadpan delivery was chillingly convincing, where shouting and ranting wouldn't have had nearly the same effect.

"Well, shit." Ashley nodded slowly, her expression contemplative. "That's about the best explanation for the state the world's in as I've ever heard. Vicks?"

"Goddamn it." Glory Girl glared at Atropos. "I came along because I thought this would be fun. Also because Mom told me to, but mainly because hanging out with people and giving them the benefit of my experience was going to be fun. And now you just rip the rug out from under my whole world like that? What the fuck?"

"Well, it all depends." Atropos didn't seem to be even slightly fazed by the teen hero's unhappiness. "Would you rather live in blissful ignorance, then one day your world just blows up, or would you prefer to know what's coming and maybe stop it?"

Ashley's chuckle was a little hollow. "Is this where we vote? Because when my time comes, Imma meet it on my own two feet, standing tall and giving it the finger."

Glory Girl scowled, mainly at the floor. "Yeah, fine, I'm in, but I don't have to like it."

Missy drew a deep breath. "Me, too. Either you're totally deluded or you're the best liar in the world, or it's true. And you've never lied or been wrong that I know of, so … yeah, I'm in. When you need me, I'll be there."

Ashley drew her in for a side-hug. Missy didn't fight it; she kind of needed a hug, right then, and Ashley probably needed one too. "You got stones, kid. That's good. We're gonna need that. But you know the worst part of all this?"

Glory Girl glanced over at them. "I'll bite. What?"

Ashley's chuckle was pure dark mischief. "Who the hell can we even tell about it?"

Glory Girl stared at her for a moment, then facepalmed. "Motherfucker."

<><>

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Dragon
From: Atropos
Subject: Moving a Suit

Hi to my best frenemy!
So, I was wondering if you could do me a huge solid and move a suit to Brockton Bay. Somewhere near the PRT building would be great.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Dragon
Subject: Re: Moving a Suit

If I ask why, will I get an answer I actually want to hear?

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Dragon
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

Well, that depends. You didn't really want to hear about why I borrowed Teacher that one time, so I guess it's up to you.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Dragon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

I know I'm going to regret asking, but is this connected with that? If so, how?

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Dragon
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

In a word: yes. As for how … let's just say, I see a need in my (very) near future for the option to take a quiet restful joyride around the friendly skies of Brockton Bay.
For very specific interpretations of the words 'quiet', 'restful', 'joyride' and 'friendly', of course.

Mwahahaha.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Dragon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

I knew I'd regret asking.
Suit dispatched.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Dragon
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

You're the best.

■

<><>​

Director's Office, PRT ENE

T minus 4 hr 40 min

Director Paul Renick

Emily would have hated this, Paul mused as he perused yet another form to be filled out. There was no gang violence; in fact, no violent crime at all to be had. Gallant and Browbeat were patrolling the Boardwalk, and all they'd done was stop for photo ops with tourists. Just looking out the window left him with the impression that the city was finally at peace with itself. She would've been bored out of her skull.

He played with the idea of collating the week's stats and sending it to her in a printable file with the caption 'You got out just in time', but he didn't want to chance sounding mean-spirited. He'd just let her know that everything was staying quiet in her absence during the weekly video conference. All he'd have to say was that he'd caught up on his paperwork, and she'd know just how peaceful it was now.

Just as he clicked the mouse to send the completed form away, his phone rang. Wondering if Atropos had a new request, he checked the caller ID, and frowned. Okay, what's Dragon calling me about?

Swiping to accept the call, he put it on speaker and hit the audio record button as normal. "Good afternoon, Dragon," he said politely. "How may I help you today?"

"Good afternoon, Director Renick. I'm just calling up to let you know that I'm moving a suit to Brockton Bay for the time being. Would it be possible to leave it on the roof of the PRT building?"

Her tone was strong and confident, and he nearly agreed to her request purely due to reflex before his higher brain functions kicked on. "Y—hold on, wait a moment. I'm not saying no, but on whose orders are you moving the suit here?"

To his surprise, she hesitated for almost a full second before answering. "No orders, Director. I'm moving it because I was asked by Atropos to move it. She wants me to have a suit in Brockton Bay. I asked why, and while she didn't answer me directly, I got the strong impression that your city will be hosting aerial combat sometime very soon."

Paul's eyes widened at that, and a chill crept up his spine. Jesus Christ. "When she took down the Nine, she told you what she was doing, correct?"

"She did." Dragon said no more than that. The implications, even unspoken as they were, scared the living bejeesus out of him.

Something big's about to happen, and she's not saying a word to us.

"Did she say anything else, anything at all, about what she's preparing for? Also, did you know that she's in Philadelphia at the moment?" Paul was reaching for any straw that would help him make sense of this situation. Emily, this is your turf, not mine.

When Dragon spoke next, she chose her words very carefully. "I did not. She alluded to something she did last week, and at that time she indicated she was preparing to deal with a problem that she called, and I quote, 'the monster at the end of the world'. No, I don't know what that means either."

The chill was firmly entrenched right up and down Paul's spine, to the point that he was almost surprised that his seat back hadn't frozen solid. "What … did she do last week?"

Again, there was that anomalous hesitation. "She borrowed Scapegoat from the San Diego department, took him and Damsel of Distress to London, then pulled Teacher out of the Birdcage. Teacher apparently upgraded Damsel's and Scapegoat's powers at Atropos' insistence, then he ended up back in the Birdcage. Teacher is now deceased, and Glaistig Uaine has taken his powers."

" … what?" Paul shook his head, trying to make some sense out of the world. "Why didn't you tell us about this? About any of this?"

This time, the response was much more prompt. "Atropos asked me not to. As I knew it would get out eventually, I chose to accede to her request in the moment. Scapegoat's powers are reportedly much more effective now, and I suspect Damsel's are as well. I spoke to Atropos regarding Teacher's deteriorated mental condition upon his return to the Birdcage; her reply made it obvious that she knew how this would turn out, and didn't care. Neither, I suspect, would she care one iota if she heard of his demise. That's if she doesn't already know."

"But why?" demanded Paul. "Why do any of this? What's she doing?"

"At the risk of sounding facetious, sir, she's preparing to deal with the monster at the end of the world, whatever that is. And she'll be doing it soon."

He sighed, fully aware that his very best efforts to keep the city safe would probably come up short. If Atropos wasn't telling them anything, there was a reason. The subtext was clear. Stay out of my way. "Understood. Keep me posted. If anything—anything at all—comes up, contact me soonest."

Dragon's tone was businesslike. "Will do, sir. About the suit?"

Even aware that she couldn't see him, he nodded. "Park it on the northeast corner of the roof. That should keep it clear of the helipad."

"Understood, sir. Thank you." The call ended.

Paul looked out the window. What had previously appeared to be the epitome of peace and quiet now had an invisible menace looming over it, one that Atropos was preparing to take on, possibly with Dragon's assistance. He had no idea what was going on, or when it was due to happen. All he could do was pray that Atropos continued to be as effective at protecting the city as she had been so far.

When this is over, Atropos, you and I are going to have a talk about communication.

He snorted humourlessly, reality reasserting itself.

If that's okay with you, of course.

<><>​

T minus 3 hr 12 min

Cherish

Whatever it was that had pissed Glory Girl off (Cherie could hazard a guess, but it was easier to wait until Taylor told her), she seemed to have gotten over it in relatively short order. Her emotional accompaniment had gone from harsh dissonant notes to relatively fluid music, and she'd started chatting with some of the people from the rehabilitation facility. Panacea was also in her element, happy to be talking about her struggles with self-doubt and worry about her own motivations.

To Cherie's considerable amusement, the ones with the most avid audiences were the ex-villains, including herself. To make matters even funnier, Riley was among that number, though none of the ex-capes were aware of this. Her stories of having been targeted by a malevolent Master so that he could use her powers for his benefit (Cherie suspected they were watered-down versions of her times with Jack Slash) had everyone on the edges of their seats.

Ashley was also quite popular, and she didn't even have to embellish her tales. Her theme in general was 'it's okay to ask for help, look what happened to me when I didn't', and she got it across very thoroughly, amid much amusement at the stories of her mishaps. Best of all, she was able to laugh at herself, instead of getting embarrassed or defensive.

It was while Cherie was describing her escape from her father that a new musical note intruded on the gathering; a minute or so later, there was a knock at the front door. "I got it!" Roderick called out, and came through from the kitchen into the front entryway.

A moment later, his music picked up in happiness; when he reappeared, a woman of Asian appearance was with him. Sveta got up immediately from where she'd been chatting with Atropos. "Mrs Yamada, hi!"

Huh, so this is who they've been talking about. Cherie had heard the name several times, but she hadn't had a face to go by until now.

"Hello, Sveta. And Atropos, I see you made it, with your friends." Mrs Yamada's demeanour tended toward the cool and reserved, but Cherie could tell she was pleased to see everyone enjoying themselves.

"Good to see you too, Mrs Yamada." Atropos gestured around at the gathering. "They've done well in just two weeks."

"Yes, I'm very proud of them. Thank you for doing this, by the way. All of you." Mrs Yamada beamed at each of the visiting capes. "It's very much appreciated."

"It's the least we could do." Ashley stood up and came over to meet her. "You took the time to put me in the picture about how therapy works. It helped, a lot."

Sveta nodded, clearly in agreement with the sentiment about therapy. "While you're here, would you like a cup of tea?"

"Thank you, dear. That would be lovely. Ashley, yes? Would you like one too?" Together, the three of them headed into the kitchen, talking comfortably together. Cherie turned her attention back to her audience.

"So, I'd just hopped the bus headed south …"

<><>​

PRT Department 1: New York

T minus 1 hr 3 min

Flechette

The final organ strains died away and the lights came up. Lily stepped forward from where she'd been standing in honour guard position for the funeral service; as they'd rehearsed, she leaned down and took hold of the front right-hand handle of the coffin. She didn't have the upper body strength to carry her share of it, but the capes to her six o'clock and nine o'clock had enough muscle mass to make up for it. All she had to do was go through the motions.

The photo of Boomer was still sitting propped up on the coffin as they lifted it; she timed her move to fit in with everyone else's, and took as much of the weight as she could. Slowly, moving in lock-step as the organ started playing the funeral march, they walked it down off the dais and along the aisle between the rows of seating. Nobody was seated for this: all the capes were bare-headed (wearing domino masks where needed), and all the PRT troopers were standing at rigid attention, holding a salute as the coffin was carried past them.

Only Lily's sense of timing allowed her to keep moving in perfect unison with everyone else, because her eyes were full of tears after she incautiously glanced over to the side and saw Boomer's daughter crying into her mother's shoulder. She managed to blink them clear as they took the corner once they'd gotten out the door, but now she had the sniffles. Grimly, she decided that she'd just have to live with it.

The cold-storage room was just down the way, and Boomer's remains would be kept there until they could be discreetly moved out of the building and interred under his real name. Whatever service was held elsewhere would also have to be closed-casket, but that would be out of the hands of the PRT. Lily wasn't thinking that far ahead; she was just determined to make sure that he be moved with the dignity and respect that he deserved.

Once the coffin was situated and Lily emerged from the cold room, she allowed herself to relax and blow her nose. When she looked up, Director Piggot was standing in front of her. The older woman's face had a few more lines on it than before, but nobody was counting. Directorship of a PRT department was said to be even more strenuous than air traffic control.

"Ma'am?" asked Lily. "Is there another situation?"

"Not that we know of." The Director made a gesture that meant give us the room; all of a sudden, the corridor was clear for yards in both directions. "However, when it comes to Atropos, that doesn't necessarily mean there is no situation. Do you remember the last time she communicated with you?"

Lily frowned. "Day before yesterday. She dropped by to talk to me about Boomer, and to tell me where we could find Rune. What's happened? Please tell me she hasn't been kidnapped again." How many more of these idiots is she going to have to kill before they get the message?

Piggot shook her head, with an expression that mirrored Lily's thoughts. "Thankfully, no. She's in Philadelphia right now. However, she's asked Dragon to transfer a suit to Brockton Bay. We believe she's in preparation to deal with a problem that she calls 'the monster at the end of the world'. Do you have any idea what that might be?"

"Uh, no." Lily paused, searching her mind. "I don't recall her ever using that phrase in my hearing, anyway. Sorry."

"I'm going to assume that if she wanted us to know, she would've told you." The Director gestured off down the corridor. "I've held the transport for you. If you do happen to see her while you're in Brockton Bay, and if it hasn't already become blatantly obvious, I'd appreciate it if you could ask her about it. We Directors like to hold on to our illusions that we're running the show around here."

"I can do that." Lily gave the Director a half-smile. "I can't promise you any results, but we both knew that."

"We can but try." Piggot made a shooing motion. "You're off-duty as of right now. Go."

"Yes, ma'am." Lily headed off down the corridor at a fast trot. Her duffel, stashed in a side-room, was already packed with the clothing she'd need over the next couple of days, and it would take a bit over an hour to reach Brockton Bay.

It wasn't until she was already in the chopper, lifting off the pad, that she realised she hadn't asked Director Piggot about transferring to Brockton Bay.

God damn it. Okay, next time.

<><>​

Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

T minus 1 min 30 sec

Pocket Rocket

The statue was absolutely bloody spot-on. Atropos had been rendered in bronze, the sawn-off shottie (with the phrase 'The Power of Friendship' faithfully engraved on each side) angling down toward the marble effigy of the Bin Chicken of Doom. Every time Josh saw it, he got shivers down his back from how real it looked. Of course, there were always tourists who wanted to get some happy-snaps of him posing next to it, and hear him tell it how it happened. Because he'd Been There.

"So there I was, she's screaming her head off like a curlew with a stick up its arse, and the next minute, Atropos, right there, yells Duck season. Wabbit season, says the kid. And they go back and forward like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, then Atropos yells, Wabbit season, and the kid goes, Duck season, fire!" He paused for effect. The tourists, a bunch of Yanks, were hanging on his every word.

"And then what happened?" asked one of the tourists, as if everyone in the world with an Internet connection hadn't already seen it a million times.

"Well, she pointed her shottie up into the clouds and pulled the trigger, didn't she? Brought the Bin Chicken down right there. Bounced, took out those flagpoles, and landed right in the middle of the outline she'd already drawn." He pointed at the marble statue. "Arsiest shot I ever saw … hoooooly shiiiiit."

He blinked, then stared as Scion—the golden man himself—appeared overhead, then drifted down next to the statue. The sound of camera shutters clicking went into overdrive, to the point that it sounded like someone was trying to start a lawnmower back there. He wanted to get out his own phone to get a picture, but then he decided he'd just get a copy off one of the tourists.

"Hey, big guy." He'd heard Scion didn't talk to people, but there was always a first time. Scion turned to look at him, then back at the statue. The question was obvious. "Yeah, that's the Simurgh. Atropos killed her, about three weeks ago. They reckon she got the other two Endbringers as well. Nobody's seen 'em since, anyway."

The silent stare was almost creepy in its intensity. He could tell that Scion wanted to ask another question, and he could make a pretty good guess as to what it was.

"Yeah, it was Atropos," he went on, hoping he was on the right track. "They reckon she's totally turning around her corner of America. She's killed so many supervillains, the rest are running scared. You know, on her PHO signature, she's literally got 'can actually kill anything' on it? And you know what? After the Bin Chicken here, I reckon she might not be far wrong."

The crack as air rushed into the spot where Scion had been hovering, like a static sonic boom, would've knocked him on his arse and blown out his eardrums, but fortunately his super-speed kicked in and let him drag the tourists far enough away that they wouldn't be permanently deafened. Once he came to a halt, he stared back at where Scion had been.

"What the hell was that about?" asked one of the tourists dazedly.

"Buggered if I know, mate." But Josh had a bad feeling about this. Pulling out his phone, he tapped out a message.

<><>

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Pocket Rocket
Subject: Just so you know

Hey, I was at the Simurgh statue in Canberra, and Scion dropped in and had a squiz at it. I explained what it was about, and who you were, and then he teleported away like he had someplace to be. You might want to keep an eye on your six, okay?

■

<><>​

By the time he hit Send, it was already too late.



End of Part One Hundred Two

 

[Aytesarp]

And now we have arrived at the finale.
With her one last act, Our Lady in the Darkness shall finally vanquish the origin of misery in the world.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Three: Boss Fight!

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



PATOR

Just Before It All Went Sideways

Atropos

I sat opposite Mrs Yamada in a comfortable armchair. She had a cup of tea, while I was going without for the moment. While I could've probably gotten away with pulling my mask up to eat or drink something, I didn't want to put too many dents in my mystique if I could help it.

"So, there's something I've been wanting to ask you, if you don't mind." Her teacup was almost empty; she finished it and put it aside.

"Go ahead and ask." I spread my hands to demonstrate my openness, ignoring the fact that I was literally wearing a full-face mask. "If I refuse to answer, I'll at least tell you why."

"I suppose that's fair." Clasping her hands together, she leaned forward slightly. "Your power is focused on killing people, while your aim all along has been to make Brockton Bay a safer, more prosperous city. What happens when you achieve your aims, and there's nobody else you need to kill to make it work? Are you concerned that it might turn on you? I've seen problematic scenarios before, with other people who are trying not to use their powers."

"My power's not just about Ending people." Not wanting to sound argumentative or self-serving, I moderated my tone carefully. "I can End concepts, things, and even legacies. As Brockton Bay's influence in the region spreads, there will inevitably be those who have a vested interest in maintaining their version of the status quo, even when it's something that needs to End. When that happens, I'll be there."

Or, as I privately called it, the Law of Infinite Assholes.

"Yes, but what about—"

I was no longer listening, because between one instant and the next, the niggling sense of danger I'd been feeling all day had exploded into a full-scale DefCon One. My threatscape lit up like a Christmas tree plugged into a nuclear reactor; eyes wide and staring behind my mask, I sat up hard, my heart hammering in my chest.

It's Scion. He's learned my name, and he's coming after me.

In that instant, I knew exactly where he was and what he intended to do. In order: in the upper atmosphere but descending rapidly; and destroy me utterly, with no holding back.

It was a good thing I'd been moving my pieces into place, because right now I had exactly zero wiggle room.

00:08

"Vista, Vicky, Ash!" I yelled, launching myself up out of the armchair. Not caring who saw it, I shoved my sleeve back, popped the cover on the teleport module, and started typing in coordinates as fast as I could with my right hand. "It's go time!" At the same time, with my left hand, I delved into my pocket for my phone.

00:07

Vicky popped her head out of the kitchen, then she came swooping toward me, dodging around Roderick as she came. Missy was also on the ball; she grabbed Ashley by the wrist, compressed space between us, and moved them both across the room in one step.

I continued typing in the coordinates, and woke up my phone at the same time. Tapping out a message for Dragon, I sent it, then started another one for Flechette.

00:06

"Atropos, what's going on?" Mrs Yamada began to get up out of her chair. Opting to ignore the question—I could take the time to explain or I could live, and I chose to live—I finished entering the coordinates and opened the portal. Even as I completed the text to Flechette and sent it, I dived through the portal onto the roof of the Brockton Bay PRT building.

Vicky was next through, followed by Ashley and Missy. I stabbed the button to manually close the portal before anyone else wandered through, then slapped the cover shut, dropped my phone into my pocket, and turned toward the northeast corner of the building roof.

Okay, that bought us about three seconds. Let's use them wisely.

<><>​

Panacea

Amy stared as the portal winked out. "What the heck?" she managed. "Where'd they go? What's going on?"

Now on her feet, Jessica Yamada looked decidedly unsettled. "Does this—" she began, then cut herself off as an actinic golden glare blazed in through the window, only to flick out an instant later like a light switch had been flipped. "Ah, does this happen often?"

Rubbing at her eyes, Amy tried to blink the spots away; the light had been that bright. "Sometimes, but she usually explains what's going on first, and I'm generally the one who gets to go on the trip. And the light was new, too. I have no idea what's going on with that."

"I see." Jessica looked around at the assembled group. "Is everyone alright?"

"Everyone appears to be okay." That was Miss Medic, looking far more serious than Amy had ever seen her; in this incarnation, anyway. "But I think we should stay away from the windows for the moment, just in case."

Tenebrae nodded. "I agree. Do you have an interior room we could shelter in for the moment? Also, it's probably a good idea to call in the PRT and Protectorate, at least until we know it's all clear out there." The protective hand on Miss Medic's shoulder showed exactly where his priorities lay.

"It's all clear." Cherish spoke confidently. "There's nobody within ten miles who wants to do us harm. Most people are wondering what that lightshow was all about. And in case you're wondering, I picked up a very brief reading of someone who was truly pissed off, but they're gone too."

Mrs Yamada nodded as she absorbed the information. "Thank you, Cherish. That's good to know." She looked around at the four capes. "So … what should we do now?"

Miss Medic shrugged expressively. "Tenebrae was right. We need to call in the PRT, to let them know what we saw. But also to get a lift back to Brockton Bay."

"On it." Tenebrae had his phone out as he spoke.

Amy leaned in toward Cherish, lowering her voice. "Do you have any idea of what's going on? Why she tore out of here like that?"

Cherish grimaced, then glanced around before speaking just as quietly. "I'm pretty sure I do, but I don't want to talk about it where anyone else can hear us. All I can tell you at the moment is that she's been on edge all day because of it, then just now she went from irritated to 'oh, shit' in half a heartbeat. I'm pretty sure I know who's coming after her, and if she'd taken two seconds longer, none of us would be alive to talk about it."

Though unable to counter her logic, Amy still wanted answers. "Okay, so let's find someplace private."

Atropos, wherever you went to, bring Vicky home safe. Please.

<><>

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Dragon
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moving a Suit

Need that suit warmed up NOW NOW NOW

■

<><>​

In the Air, 30 Miles Southwest of Brockton Bay

Flechette

Lily had her phone out to check the time when the text message popped up. The sender's name was enough to make her open the message immediately, but the body of the text made her frown and read it through twice more.

Prepare to jump. 1 min 12 sec.

That was all it said; no reason given, no mention of what was going on. Just a straight-up order from Atropos to her. There wasn't even the cheerful banter or teasing tone that Atropos usually employed. Which told her something very important: either something was seriously wrong, or it wasn't Atropos sending that message.

A moment later, common sense kicked in. Nobody was stupid enough to impersonate Atropos, because Atropos would be waiting for them when they tried. So this meant that something had seriously gone wrong.

She had a perfect sense of timing thanks to her powers, so in her mind she began a countdown, subtracting the few seconds she'd taken to work out the problem. At one minute and twelve seconds, she would be bailing out of the chopper, come hell or high water.

Whatever was going on, she trusted Atropos with her life. It was that simple.

<><>​

Atropos

00:05

"Dragon suit!" I was already running in that direction when Vicky scooped me up from behind, hands under my arms. Half a second later, Vista and Ashley arrived in front of the suit in one physics-mangling stride. As we approached it, I saw lights powering on as Dragon ran it through its self-checks at high speed. The side hatch began to open.

00:04

There was room inside for just one person (or two of us if we were okay with being very friendly), but I'd thought of that already. "Vista, make it a five-seater! Dragon, prep for takeoff!"

Missy stared at me. "But there's only four—"

"Five!" I shouted over the rising whine of the jets, scanning the skies. He was up there, on the way down, right now. This was going to be very close indeed.

00:02

As we watched, the seat expanded while the cockpit didn't actually change size. I didn't bother trying to figure out how it worked; I just shoved Missy ahead of me (ignoring her protests) while I climbed in, dragging Ashley with me. Vicky got the hint and levitated in, even as the suit began lifting off and the hatch closed behind her. "Altitude!" I yelled to Dragon. "Vicky, force field!"

"But I can't—" extend my force field, she began to say.

I didn't have time to hear it. We didn't have time to hear it. "Yes, you can!" I leaned hard into my power, to remind her power of the deal we'd made.

00:00

We'd cut it too close. Already, Scion was swooping down at us, a vast golden glow building around his hands. Dragon kicked in the afterburners, powering up past him so he had to stop short and turn to target us.

Grabbing the controls—yes, Dragon could fly her own suit just fine, but nobody could second-guess Scion like I could—I threw us into a crazy spiral just as he fired. Assisted by Missy expanding space, we almost evaded the blast, but red lights sprang up here and there on the control panel as Dragon lost a wingtip. On the upside, we were still flying. Not for long, if this kept up. "FORCE! FIELD!"

<><>​

The Shard Bar

Glory Girl

With Atropos' shout still ringing in her ears, Vicky abruptly found herself … elsewhere. She could almost have believed she was asleep and dreaming, considering how detached from reality her surroundings had become. But instead of an oversized rabbit-hole with a thematically-matching fluffy bunny carrying an oversized pocket watch, she was in what looked like a bar-room of uncertain dimensions, populated by beings that were essentially humanoid, though none of them were actually human.

Her point of view was inconstant, hovering above and around the head and shoulders of a hollow glass statue of a woman in a ballroom gown. But that wasn't the worst part.

As the glass statue—who demonstrated an amazing amount of agility, despite having to crack and fracture at every movement—ducked and dodged across the bar-room, she was being berated by a tall skeletal being in a robe, carrying a scythe. Accompanying them were a humanoid being composed of constantly refolding space, a clockwork robot hissing steam from a punctured cylinder, and a being of exploding and reforming energy, who was carrying a shotgun.

The reason they were carrying out evasive action was the bartender, a man with a peculiarly golden tinge to his skin. An expression of rage on his face, he was firing a machine-gun at them, the bullets whipping past them and throwing up clouds of splinters from the floor. And then they were backed into a corner, despite the best efforts of the folding-space person.

WHAT PART OF 'BE MORE FLEXIBLE' DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? demanded the skeleton with the scythe. His voice carried the overtones of inevitability with it; when he made a pronouncement, it was closer to a prediction of what was to happen. Within the eyesockets of the skull, twin blue flares had ignited into supernovas.

"But … but … she doesn't believe she can do it!" protested the glass statue, her words emerging full-formed from her mouth despite the utter lack of larynx or even lungs within.

CONVINCE. HER.

With a rippling crackle of fracturing glass, the statue turned to look up at where Vicky's point of view was, just as the homicidal bartender slapped another belt of ammunition into the machine-gun. Vicky looked into the statue's eyes; glass lips whispered a single word. "Please …"

Vicky found herself convinced.

With that, the glass woman began to pirouette, faster and faster. Her skirts expanded outward as she spun, parting to allow each of her companions within. When the machine-gun fired again, the glass shattered, but the people were protected.

For now.

<><>​

Atropos

Gritting my teeth, I tried another evasive roll, but this time he was calculating which way the craft could go, and was spreading his beam to hit us no matter where we went. The golden glow bloomed, and we were caught in it—

—but we were simply swatted across the sky as Vicky's force field flickered and died on our outer hull. The jets howled, and the airframe creaked and groaned while Dragon fought to bring the suit back to an even keel. At the same time, Missy gritted her teeth, bending and twisting space to take us out of Scion's line of fire.

"Motherfucker!" shouted Ashley, opening the hatch and leaning out. Hanging on with one hand, she pointed the other at Scion and fired off a screeching blast of pure devastation. "Fuck off and die!" He dodged it, of course, but that also disrupted his own attack run.

Well, maybe she hadn't gotten over all her anger issues.

"What the hell was that?" demanded Vicky. "Where did I just go? Yeah, yeah, I got it. 'Force field'." She grabbed a hand-hold and concentrated.

"I think I was there too," Dragon said hesitantly. "Wherever 'there' was."

"Later." I was being a lot terser than usual, but I was trying very hard not to die to an overgrown spacegoing slug. "Chopper incoming. We need the person who's on it."

With the assistance of Ashley's counterfire and Missy's space-twisting, I was able to evade the next two shots, but he wised up and pulled a homing blast that should have torn us in half. Again, Vicky's force field saved us, but he was learning, and my ability to bypass his combat prediction wouldn't help if he could hit us everywhere while we were unprotected. We were running out of time; we needed to go on the offensive, and for that we needed Lily.

<><>​

Flechette

"Hey, you see that?" The pilot's voice came over the headset Lily was wearing. "Looks like a cape battle, dead ahead."

The copilot's voice suggested that he was frowning. "I thought Atropos didn't allow that sort of thing inside Brockton Bay's airspace."

"She doesn't." The pilot sounded very sure of himself. "Whoever those two assholes are, she's gonna fuck their whole lives up when she catches up with them. In the meantime, I'm calling a divert."

Hastily, Lily hit the microphone button on her headset. "No, keep going! I have to get closer!"

"Ah, that's a negative, miss. We're not armed, and you're not a flyer. We get too close to that, we'll just end up as collateral damage." As the pilot spoke, the helicopter began to bank away from its original course.

"No, you don't understand! Atropos texted me! She wants me to get closer!" In Lily's head, the countdown was inexorably approaching zero.

There was silence over the intercom for a second, then the pilot spoke. "Shit. What do you think?"

The copilot didn't sound any happier. "She was in Canberra for the Simurgh."

Lily decided to weigh in again. "Twenty seconds. That's all I need." The numbers were ticking down in her head.

"Okay, twenty seconds, then we're outta here." The pilot sounded like he was kicking himself for agreeing to even that much, but the chopper banked back on course again.

"I really, really hope you know what you're doing, kid." That was the copilot, his voice tense but controlled.

So do I. Lily put one hand on her quick-release catch, and the other on the latch for the sliding side door of the chopper. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

At 'six', there was a BOOM and a massive flare of electrical discharge that had both the pilot and copilot swearing over comms; what looked like a Dragon suit came tumbling through the air, shedding long streamers of electricity. Even as far away as it was, Lily saw the side hatch beginning to open.

Okay, this is it.

"We gotta go!" shouted the pilot. "Whatever you were gonna do, kid, do it now!"

Lily did it; pulling the latch open, she wrenched the sliding door open against the slipstream. At the same time, she hit the release catch, freeing her from the five-point restraints. "Get out of here!" she shouted into the intercom before tearing off the headset.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed the doorframe and hauled herself into the shrieking wind-rush. As the countdown in her head reached zero, she launched herself out into space.

<><>​

Atropos

Whatever Scion had just hit us with, it was massive. Fortunately, we weren't over the city anymore; down below, about a square mile of trees had been simply incinerated by what looked and felt like God deciding he just didn't want them anymore, plus all their friends. Even with Vicky's force field protecting us, it rang our bell but good. We hadn't suffered any actual damage, but more red lights were popping up on the control panel as Dragon fought to restart the starboard turbine.

On the upside, I'd managed to bait him into hitting us precisely hard enough to put us where we needed to be. Way off to the side, a PRT chopper was just turning away from the battle as the side door opened and someone threw themselves out. Not just any someone: that was Lily, right on time.

Using the one working turbine, I adjusted our flight path so that for one fleeting second, our directional vector coincided with that of the girl who'd just thrown herself out of a helicopter a mile above ground. "Vista, Vicky, get her!" I shouted.

Ashley didn't need to be told to provide covering fire. She hadn't hit with a single shot yet, which had to be frustrating, but she was doing a fantastic job of keeping him honest. Without her peppering the sky with shots capable of eliminating his humanoid body like a soap bubble in a blast furnace, he would've closed to can't-miss range by now, where he could kill us at his leisure.

Missy concentrated, shrinking the gap between us and Lily to mere feet, bringing the chopper to within yards, its straining gas turbines screaming in my ears. Vicky leaned out through the already-open hatch, and snagged Lily just before she would've passed us by. "Gotcha!"

Just as quickly, Missy dropped the space-crunch, then added about a mile of distance between us and Scion. Vicky hauled Lily into the cockpit, then plopped her into the seat between me and everyone else. "Hi," I said. "Glad you could drop in."

"Ah. Right." Lily looked at me, then at everyone else. "Good to be here. Simurgh job?"

I could tell Scion was building up to fire another massive shot, and Vicky's force field wasn't going to be quite ready. It was now or never; pulling my shears, I held them up in front of Lily. "Simurgh job. Vista, get me to knife-fighting range."

Dragon got the starboard turbine up and running just as I slewed the suit side-on to Scion and popped the hatch on my side. Lily ran her finger down the blades as she'd done once before, charging them with her power. As soon as that was done, I leaped outward with the shears leading the way.

Missy did her job magnificently. One instant, Scion was an incandescent dot in the distance; the next, he was literally in my face. The look on his face, mostly anger, added another element: vicious satisfaction. He'd literally been chasing me all over the sky, and now I was right there, within his reach.

His hand shot out to catch me around the throat, while the glow in the other continued to build ominously. I could feel the heat emanating off it, like staring into an open kiln. He was taking no chances with me dodging, this time.

But that was fine. If I couldn't dodge, neither could he.

"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.

In my line of work, there was a certain satisfaction to be had in the expressions of those people who realised far too late just how badly they'd fucked up. For all the times I'd seen it, it never really got old. Just before Scion's avatar popped like a cheap balloon, his face took on the same expression as all the others.

Released from his hold, I began to fall, but Vicky grabbed me by the collar of my long-coat (Missy must have done some fancy space-bending) and hauled me back inside. We hovered there for a moment, looking at the Scion-shaped hole in the air that he'd left behind. "Okay," I said after I caught my breath. "Well done, everyone, but we're not finished yet."

"Is he dead?" Vicky stared at me, and at the weapon I still held in my hands. "I can't believe you just killed Scion with your shears!"

"Wait, why were we even fighting Scion again?" Lily both looked and sounded lost. I didn't blame her; it was a lot to be taking in all at once.

"I had that very same question myself." Dragon's 'face' appeared on one of the screens. "Was he the 'monster at the end of the world' you were talking about?"

I cleared my throat, which had the effect of shutting everyone up. "He's not dead yet, but yes, he's actually the big bad guy. Get us closer. Vista, open that hole a bit. Ash, if you can trim off the edges, that would be good. We need it big enough to fit a Dragon suit through."

Vicky raised a finger as though asking a question in class. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the way you're talking, we're going in through that hole. What's on the other side?"

I grinned. "The rest of him."



End of Part One Hundred Three

 

[Aytesarp]

Thanks for the new chapter Ack

 

[Ray22156]

That was a much better battle than I was anticipating! Now I'm wondering how the rest of the battle will go.

 

[Avernus]

As the glass statue—who demonstrated an amazing amount of agility, despite having to crack and fracture at every movement—ducked and dodged across the bar-room, she was being berated by a tall skeletal being in a robe, carrying a scythe. Accompanying them were a humanoid being composed of constantly refolding space, a clockwork robot hissing steam from a punctured cylinder, and a being of exploding and reforming energy, who was carrying a shotgun.

Click to shrink...

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?

 

[Kehsem]

Just before Scion's avatar popped like a cheap balloon, his face took on the same expression as all the others.

Click to shrink...

Somewhere out there, Contessa is going to hit post-nut clarity harder than any human ever has before.

Find Path: Nearest Cigarette.