Another Way (Worm AU fanfic)

Another Way

Part Twenty-Five: Shenanigans

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

Marchioness

The transition from Orlando back to Brockton Bay was as flawless as the trip down had been. Claire, Earl, Kayden, Justin, Robert, Jonas, and the Mercia appeared on the roof of the PRT building, along with the Protectorate and Brockton Bay Brigade members who had also attended. The only real indication that they’d moved—apart from the shift in scenery—was a minor reduction in temperature and humidity. Back to what they should be, in Claire’s opinion.

Assault and the others showed the effects again, of course, but Claire wasn't worried about that. They'd get over it.

“Whoof,” said Strider. “That was a big one. Good going, by the way. Nice to have met you all.” He tipped them a mock salute, two fingers tapping the brim of the peaked cap he wore, then vanished with a muted crack of displaced air.

“Ahh, it’s good to be home again,” Earl said. He nodded to Armsmaster. “A pleasure working alongside you. I shall attempt to keep the unpleasantness between us to a minimum.”

“Trust me, what your people achieved today was impressive.” The armoured hero shook his head. “If we can keep going the way we are, I’ll be fine with that.” He turned to Claire. “And thank you too, Marchioness. We would’ve lost some good people today, if it wasn’t for you.”

“Not to mention, half of Florida would still be under water,” Assault jibed. He was still a little green around the gills—apparently, teleportation didn’t agree with him—but he was right on point with the humour. “Watching it all just drain away like that was spectacular.”

Claire shrugged. “My dad might be a villain, but I’m not about to stand back and let people suffer or die when I can do something about it. You might call it heroic. I just call it doing what I can.” She was pleased to see that Armsmaster’s attitude was genuine. When she’d originally met him, he had exuded an air of unhappiness, but right now he seemed to be riding the rush of victory.

Having watched Leviathan being pitched out to sea like the world’s longest-range fastball would’ve done a lot to improve everyone’s mood, she figured.

She also knew, just as Armsmaster did, that her commitment to healing people (both in Brockton General and Endbringer fights) was what kept the PRT from pursuing her father in any significant manner. As it happened, she was fine with that; helping people was something she enjoyed doing. If she could tweak Director Piggot’s tail just a little in the process, that was a bonus.

“Well, I’m not one for puns, but if anyone could be said to have turned the tide, it was you and your … what did you call it again? Mr. Bloom?” Armsmaster paused, ignoring Assault, who had just facepalmed. “Uh … just a question … it can’t …”

“Travel?” Claire shook her head. “No, he’s very likely going to spend his time soaking up the sunshine in Florida. Now, if someone else threatens Orlando or the local area with large-scale destruction, he might wake up again and deal with it, but I can pretty well guarantee he’s never going to show up in Brockton Bay.”

Armsmaster hid his reaction well, but Claire was standing close enough to tell when his stance relaxed very subtly. “Good,” he said. “That’s somewhat of a relief.”

“But what’s gonna happen now when someone goes to cut their lawn, and their flower garden objects?” This time, Assault seemed a little more serious. “If it—he—is all the plants, things could get messy.”

Claire shook her head. “Mr. Bloom is bigger than that. The bit that got up, that was all he needed to deal with Leviathan. At that scale, it would be like you getting upset with your eyelash mites for eating your dead skin cells. He literally won’t notice. Unless someone decides to bulldoze an entire forest or something.”

“Eyelash mites?” Assault’s eyes were mostly hidden behind his tinted visor, but he seemed to be trying to look cross-eyed at his own eyelashes. “I have eyelash mites?”

“Everyone does,” Armsmaster said impatiently. “What’s likely to happen if someone does set about demolishing a forest?”

She knew exactly what would happen, but she made a show of rubbing her chin. “Well, I have told him to play nice with people, so his first response would probably be to grow back all the trees that were knocked down. If they did it again … well, their bulldozers and chainsaws wouldn’t actually survive the experience. And by that time, he’d most likely be in contact with me.”

Earl put his hand on Claire’s shoulder. “And then we’d take an interest.”

Armsmaster seemed to freeze for a second. “It … he … can communicate with you from there?”

“If he really, really has to … yeah.” Claire raised an eyebrow. “When people talk about contacting someone over the ‘grapevine’, it’s not necessarily a figure of speech.”

Assault facepalmed again.

“So, uh, hey, how about we show Marchioness and Marquis our appreciation by giving them a lift down to ground level?” asked Mega Girl brightly. “I mean, the elevator can do it, but it’s kinda crowded, y’know?”

“I’m on board with that idea,” Lady Photon agreed. The left sleeve of her costume had been torn away and the ragged edge was a little bloodstained, but nowhere near as badly as it had been when she was injured. “We all owe them a huge debt of thanks. Laserdream, Shielder, if you could link your shields with mine?”

She moved into a clear area of the roof along with her two children—the family resemblance was too strong for it to be otherwise—and placed a glowing force field flat on the roof. Shielder, who looked about ten or eleven, reinforced it with his own, while Laserdream added more around the edges and added a safety rail. Lady Photon looked it over critically, made a few minor adjustments, then nodded toward Earl in an unspoken invitation.

“Thank you, dear lady,” he responded. With Claire at his side, he boarded the glowing structure. Kayden chose to light off her powers instead and flew a dozen yards upward, clearly waiting to escort them down. Lacking the ability to fly, the rest of Earl’s contingent stepped on board as well.

Moving steadily, in a manner they’d clearly practised, Lady Photon and the two younger heroes carried Claire and the others up off the roof and descended alongside the PRT building like the smoothest of outdoor elevators. Kayden drifted down on one side, and Mega Girl on the other. Even though she knew treachery was not being planned, and she was pretty sure her comrades had figured it out too, Claire could still feel the tension permeating those around her. There was always the chance something could go wrong, after all.

They reached the ground without incident and Lady Photon dissolved her force field, followed a moment later by the other two. “Well,” she said. “I want to thank you again for saving my life. I don’t remember much about it, but Mega Girl says it was bad.” She held out her hand.

“You’re welcome.” Claire had saved too many lives in the hospital to be feeling awkward about this, but still she found herself wanting to blush in response to the unreserved gratitude. Repressing the instinct, she shook Lady Photon’s hand firmly. “There’s no reason capes can’t work together when it really matters.”

“And be friends, right?” Mega Girl landed beside Claire and hugged her. “’Cause you’re a hero in my book for saving Lady Photon.”

Claire hugged her right back. “Always. I might not be a hero like you, but you’re one of my best friends here in Brockton Bay.”

That broke the ice, and first Laserdream then Shielder took turns at hugging Marchioness. “Thanks for saving Mom,” muttered the boy as they broke apart.

“Hey!” hissed Laserdream, elbowing him. “No secret identities, twerp!”

“It’s alright,” Claire assured her. “I’d already figured it out, and I’m pretty sure it’s an open secret in Brockton Bay anyway.”

“Yeah,” rumbled Jonas, looming next to Claire. “It is.”

Laserdream blinked and stared at the huge man, and Claire grinned. While Jonas wasn’t as tall as Manpower, he was broader in the shoulders. She’d designed his enhancements to give him both power and presence, and they absolutely worked. “See?” she said cheerfully. “Even Watchman knows about it.”

“Well,” Earl said briskly. “We have to be on our way, and you no doubt have things which you wish to attend to. Allow me to bid you a good day, and let us hope that our next meeting will be equally harmonious.”

Lady Photon nodded to him. “I’ll second that. Come on, kids.” A moment later, she was airborne; Mega Girl and the other two followed on.

Earl dusted his hands off. “Mercia; you’ve all done very well. Go home, rest up. Bring the pony bottles and first-aid kits back in when you report for duty. Everyone else, let’s return home as well, and see if anything unusual has transpired in our absence.”

As the long-coated men vanished into alleys and side-streets—whether rooftop-running or sticking to street level, they could cover ground across the city at a frankly astounding pace—Claire followed her father to where the SUV awaited. It was less conspicuous than a limo, and the flip-plates prevented casual identification. They all climbed in, and Jonas started it moving. After a few moments of watching the mirrors, he nodded and removed his domino mask. “Nobody following us, sir, and no radio emissions coming from the car.”

“Good.” Earl turned his head from where he was sitting in the front passenger seat and smiled thinly. “The Endbringer Truce is a thing, but I have little faith in people to stick with such an agreement if they believe they’ve hit upon a foolproof way to get around it.”

Robert relaxed, allowing the metal armour to recede into his body. “They’d do that, even after what we achieved in Orlando?”

“Yeah, they would,” Claire said as she reached forward and returned Earl and then Kayden to their ‘civilian’ appearances. “Some people fixate on ‘us versus them’ and ‘win at all costs’ to the point that it actually negates any advantage they’d get out of it. And they still don’t see where they went wrong.”

Kayden rolled her eyes. “Oh, trust me. I know how that one goes. And I suspect you do too, Justin.”

“Yeah.” Justin nodded as he removed his helmet. “Panzer was so hell-bent on getting revenge on everyone for everything that she didn’t even stop to think about how she maybe would’ve been better off just walking away.”

“Thus embodying the very essence of the sunk cost fallacy,” Earl agreed. “Of course, it’s a particularly insidious problem. Simply cutting one’s losses before they get too great is a lesson many people simply refuse to learn. Even knowing this, it took me a certain amount of soul-searching before I could convince my more combative instincts that it was a good idea to take my dear Claire and relocate to Boston. But in the end, I believe it was the best possible move.”

“But … heroes.” Robert seemed to be struggling with the concept. “I mean, I understand villains being dicks to each other. You guys not included,” he added hastily. “Other villains, sure. But not heroes … right?”

Earl chuckled. “Oh, we’ve performed our share of shenanigans against other villains. Skidmark wasn’t even bothering us before we went and ensured that his merry band of misfits wouldn’t pollute the streets of Brockton Bay with their poisons anymore. As for Kaiser, he attacked us first, but we did much more than give him a slap on the wrist in retaliation. However, yes, heroes are just as capable of such activities as villains. They merely possess better public relations, so that people are less prone to believe it of them.” He paused, frowning in thought. “Except, oddly enough, those who are most earnestly and actively heroic; the general public are ready to believe bad things about them in a heartbeat. It’s somewhat of a paradox, to be honest.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “I’m actually wondering if the other heroes don’t talk smack about them behind their backs, to make them look bad. So when an actual rumour comes along, people are ready to believe it.”

“Being the only non-cape in the car, chick,” rumbled Jonas from the front seat, “I’m thinking you might have the right of it there. Never seen so many prima donnas in one place until I came to Brockton Bay with you and Mr. Marchant.”

The laughter lasted all the way back to the house.

<><>​

When Claire got out of the SUV in the undercover parking area, Abigail and Marcus were there to greet them. What gave her pause, however, was the fact that Abigail’s arm was in a sling and Marcus had a split lip.

“What’s been going on here?” Earl moved toward them with fast steps. “Did a sparring session get out of hand?”

Claire almost didn’t catch the lightning-fast flicker of Abigail’s eyes to her and back to Earl, but then the Irish woman’s shoulders slumped in resignation. They both knew that as good as Abigail’s body control was, not even she could successfully lie to Claire.

Which raised the question of exactly what Abigail might want to lie about. Claire knew damn well that her old bodyguard—and her father’s ex-lover—wouldn’t betray them under even the most stringent of circumstances. And it was highly doubtful that anyone could’ve convinced her otherwise in the few hours they’d been gone.

“I wish we could say that was all it was, Earl darlin’,” Abigail said. “Unfortunately, it was a sight more than that. Not more’n half an hour after you left, the Mercia you had patrollin’ your territory sent in a report of the blasted green an’ reds causin’ problems. No sign of th’ big lizard, though. Not at first, anyway.”

Earl tilted his head curiously. “I’m not hearing anything yet about why you’re reluctant to tell me what happened.” He rested his left elbow in his right hand, and rubbed his left index finger knuckle over his lips. “Unless you’re about to tell me that you personally engaged Lung yourself.” Claire saw his eyes flick sideways to the teen boy. “Or you let Marcus do it.”

“That’d be a little bit o’ yes, and a little bit o’ no,” Abigail said hastily, as Kayden began to fuss over Marcus. Claire moved a little closer so that her power could start accelerating the healing for both of them, but her attention remained on Abigail’s story. “Y’see, it kinda went like this …”

<><>​

Abigail
Four Hours Previously

Twenty minutes after Jonas drove away with Marquis and Claire and the others, Abigail muttered one of the less offensive Gaelic swears she knew, and got to her feet. The lounge was comfortable, God knew—if there was something Earl Marchant could do, it was supply luxurious living conditions—but right now she didn’t need comfortable. She needed something to do.

“What’s wrong, Ms. Beltane?” asked Marcus, also looking up from the movie they’d been watching.

“Nothing, Marcus storeen,” she said, linking her hands over her head and stretching upward as hard as she could. “I mislike sitting still for too long. Think ye that you can show me where your uncail Earl has hidden his gymnasium in this monster of a house? ’Tis exercising I have a mind to do.” That there would be a gym, she had zero doubt. Jonas needed someplace to store the car axles she suspected he used as bar-bells these days.

“Oh, sure,” Marcus said, jumping up off the sofa as well. He grabbed the remote and paused the movie, then led the way out through one of the doors. “We’ve also got an indoor heated pool, if you wanted to do some swimming. I’m sure Kayden wouldn’t mind loaning you one of her swimsuits.”

She smiled at his ready enthusiasm. “And I’m likewise sure that she’d be much appreciative if we asked before borrowing. Just the gym will be doing me fine for the moment.”

His reply was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing. He glanced around, then darted down the corridor a few yards to where an antique-looking phone was perched in a nook. Taking up the receiver, he visibly composed himself. “Hello?”

Abigail’s hearing was good, but not good enough to make out words from the tinny buzz coming through the earpiece. Marcus, on the other hand, evidently heard everything that was said. “Speaking. Report.”

Now, what’s going on here? Abigail knew full-well that Earl Marchant rarely had just one iron in the fire, and (to stretch the metaphor a little) was not averse to starting new fires, just so that he could put irons in them. Whatever this was, however, Marcus hadn’t been expecting it.

Slowly, after what seemed like several minutes of unintelligible speech from the person on the other end of the phone and terse questions from Marcus, the teenager slowly put the phone down. “Well, shit,” he muttered.

“Well, don’t be keepin’ me in suspense,” Abigail urged. “Why the serious face? What’s the craic?” This was the first flaw she’d seen in the young man’s well-mannered façade, and she wanted to know what had caused it.

He visibly steeled himself and turned to her. “You know that Uncle Earl—Marquis—controls a large amount of territory, mainly taken over from when the Merchants and the Empire left town, yes?”

“I did not know that specifically, but it surprises me not at all,” she replied. “Your uncail and I have little love for the Empire, to be sure. Have they returned?”

“Not them, no. It’s the Asian Bad Boyz. Lung’s gang. They tried pushing in on us a few months ago, and Kayden literally threw Lung out of Uncle Earl’s territory. The Mercia are reporting probing attacks, no real damage yet, just thrown rocks and bricks. So far, nobody’s trying anything more.” He looked pensive. “If Uncle Earl was here, he’d know what to do. And I know what he’d tell me to do. Stay right here.”

“He’d want you to be safe while he went out and took care of business, sure and he would,” Abigail agreed. “So, this Lung fellow would likely be front and centre, aye? Where are they sayin’ he’s at?”

Marcus shook his head. “They’re not. Nobody’s seen him yet, and that’s what worries me. I haven’t been doing this as long as Uncle Earl, but I know that’s not like him at all. He’s got to be in the spotlight.”

Abigail fancied she could see the pieces of the puzzle clicking together. “If that’s what your uncail says, then I’d be of a mind to believe it. Have ye a map to show me where the Marquis territory extends?”

“Uh huh.” Marcus nodded, transparently relieved that Abigail seemed to know what she was doing.

Not that she did, exactly, but she’d been in a lot of tight places over the years, and she had a few hunches about what was going on. And it was always better to have more information about the situation.

Exercise forgotten, she followed him to what looked suspiciously like Earl’s study from back in Boston, transposed to the new house. All the same books, in the same order, on the same bookshelves. Marcus pulled a folded map off a shelf and spread it out on the desk, clicking on the lamp to show the detail. “The house is here. We control this area here …” His finger traced over the paper. “Around to here. ABB territory is here. The Mercia who called it in said the attacks are happening here, here, here and here.”

Abigail studied the map. She wasn’t what anyone would mistake for an expert in strategy, but a few things suggested themselves to her. “So, no attacks on this quarter, at all?” Her fingernail ran over the map, covering a short distance.

“None that he mentioned,” Marcus confirmed with a frown.

“And all your men are currently engaged, keeping the current ones at bay, aye?” The idea that was forming in her head was one she didn’t like, but this wasn’t a popularity contest.

“All the ones we’ve got in town right this second, yeah.” He gestured in what was possibly a southerly direction. “Uncle Earl and Claire took the rest down to Florida with them, to fight Leviathan.”

“And Lung would almost certainly know that, by fair means or foul.” Abigail nodded slowly. “How quickly can we get there?” Again, her nail tapped the gap in coverage. “If Lung is anywhere, this is where he’ll be. Moving in, finding a target, and showing that Marquis isn’t the boss of him.”

Marcus grimaced. “He’s going to kill people, isn’t he?”

“Aye, Marcus storeen,” she said soberly. “Your uncail has set a store of his reputation in this area. To me it sounds as though Lung is bound and determined to undermine that, by any means he can. And folk like that care not who they hurt, so long as they get what they desire.”

“But Uncle Earl will go after him, then.” The boy seemed to have trouble parsing the concept. “He has to know that.”

“They also look not overly far into the future,” she said. “Also, mayhap he believes doing this will enrage your uncail to the point that he will attack without caution. After all, if it is the same Lung I’ve heard of a time or three, he withstood the worst Leviathan could throw at him once before.”

“It is,” Marcus confirmed. “But—”

“I had not finished,” Abigail said. “There is the other concern, that he will simply murder all witnesses and claim innocence of the entire affair.”

Marcus looked horrified. “We can’t let that happen!” He turned and dashed out the door.

Young and fast he may have been; Abigail was older, wiser and a good deal faster. She caught up with him just a few strides down the corridor, and brought him to a halt by the expedient of hooking two fingers into the back of his collar. “Whoa down there a wee while, me bucko. Something needs to be done, to be sure and all, but far fewer have died from stopping and having a crafty ponder than from not doing it. First of all, how were you going to get there in time?”

“We’ve got vehicles in the garage,” he said, not quite pulling against the hold she had on him, but not relaxing either. “Jonas has been teaching me how to drive.”

“Stick shift?” she asked, raising an eyebrow interrogatively. For as long as she’d known him, Earl Marchant had stuck with manual-transmission vehicles.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got to do something!”

“And we will,” she assured him, her decision crystallising into place. “But I’m driving.”

<><>​

Marcus

As the four-by-four drifted around yet another corner, tyres smoking and howling, Marcus hung on for dear life. He’d been reasonably confident in his ability to drive, but Ms. Beltane’s mastery of the wheel blew that all the way out the window. There would’ve been no way in hell he could’ve gotten them across town as fast as she had, and certainly not without hitting something.

This wasn’t to say she hadn’t broken a few road rules. As far as he could see, she’d broken them all; at least, the ones he was aware of. Of the few she hadn’t shattered outright, the majority of those were probably severely bent and traumatised as well. Two separate police cars had made abortive attempts at giving chase, and had been left behind with equal ease.

“How close are we?” she asked, only needing to raise her voice a little to compensate for the roar of the engine; in every other way, she could’ve been taking the vehicle on a nice leisurely Sunday drive down to the Boardwalk and back.

“Next block!” he called back, sticking his head out the window at the sound of another police siren. Yeah, it was definitely following them. “We’ve got another one!”

“Just when we don’t want one,” she said, as if complaining about a mild summer shower. “Marcus storeen, your uncail used to be able to drop tyre-poppers, caltrop style. Has he shown you that technique, yet?”

“Yeah.” Marcus didn’t like using his powers extensively, because snapping off something he’d formed was always painful. Uncle Earl had assured him that it always would be. Still, he didn’t want to disappoint Ms. Beltane. “Give me a second.”

Taking a deep breath, he formed a ball of bone in his left hand, then used his right to snap it off. He clenched his teeth as he did so, but the sharp stab of pain up his arm was over quickly, and now he held the primary weapon he shared with his uncle. Holding it partly out the window, he caused it to grow and spawn caltrops, one after the other, as fast as he could manage it. When he leaned forward to look in the mirror, he could see the tiny white objects bouncing and skittering in the wake of the four-by-four, but the oncoming cop car hadn’t hit any yet, so he kept making them.

And then it abruptly swerved sideways and skidded to a halt, halfway up on the sidewalk. “Yes!” he exulted. “Got him!”

“’Tis not out of the woods yet we are, fear óg,” she reminded him, slowing the vehicle to normal driving speed. “The damage is done, now ye’d best be removing the evidence.”

“Ah. Right.” A little chastened that he’d needed reminding, he reached out with his power and dissolved all the bone he’d dropped back along the way, included the sharpened piece that had punctured the car tyre. Though they may harbour deep suspicions, none of the investigators looking into the crash would find more than the finest of dust, blowing in the wind.

And besides, nobody outside the household knew about him yet. The only other osteokinetic in Brockton Bay was safely in Florida, fighting Leviathan. Even if they identified the powder as being bone-related, Uncle Earl had the best alibi on the planet.

The piece he’d been growing the caltrops from, he kept. It was not outside the realms of possibility that he would need more bone in a hurry, after all.

“Okay, done,” he said once he’d felt the last caltrop collapse into fine powder. “Let’s go. I think I know where he’s headed.”

Immediately, the four-by-four accelerated once more. They had a dragon to stop.

<><>​

Lung

This had been a long time coming. Kenta knew that some would see it as weak to strike when his enemy wasn’t even in the city, but it was merely good tactics. One did not attack the foe where they were strong, after all.

The point wasn’t to attack Marquis and best him in a one-to-one struggle. If Kenta could make the man stand still long enough to burn him to a crisp, that would be ideal, but as Marquis consistently declined to fight like that, he had to do it this way. Proving to the bone manipulator that there was no place safe from Lung if he put his mind to it might just bring Marquis to battle once and for all. And once the fool had been cremated (Kenta had heard that Marquis didn’t allow drugs or run prostitutes in his area at all, which was the true mark of a fool) the mantle of Brockton Bay supreme crime lord would fall to him at last.

But that would come later. For now, he was savouring the fear he could feel from the shopkeepers and residents on either side of the street. They’d thought they were safe under Marquis’ dominion? He would teach them otherwise.

But just up ahead was his target. This was where he’d literally been ejected from Marquis’ territory two months ago, making him a laughing-stock of the underworld. The jokes had even circulated among the ABB—albeit briefly—bringing him more shame than he’d ever felt in his life before.

Now … he was going to take back his pride.

It was a heady feeling … one that lasted right up until the familiar bone-clad figure stepped around the corner in front of him. At the sight of Marquis, the ABB men around Kenta stopped in their tracks, looking around nervously.

“I thought he said Marquis wasn’t here,” one muttered.

“How can he be back already?” hissed another.

“Careful,” murmured another. “Lung might hear you.”

Lung had indeed heard, and he felt anger growing in his heart over the cowardice of his men. He was the one they needed to fear, not Marquis! Marquis was nothing! A pretender who played with bones! Kenta was a dragon, who grew as large as he needed to be, and whose fire could hold even an Endbringer at bay!

Still, if he was here, the rest of his motley group might be around somewhere, so it was wise to watch his back. Keeping a cautious eye out for Purity—he knew of the name change, but it didn’t fool him—Kenta moved toward Marquis. He wasn’t as big as he’d like to be certain of dealing with his foe, so he didn’t immediately rush to the attack.

“That’s far enough, Lung.”

Kenta stopped, his hands flexing. Despite the trademark bone armour, Marquis didn’t sound quite his usual confident self. Had he been injured in the fight with Leviathan? And where was the rest of his gang?

“Step aside,” he ordered brusquely. “You cannot win against me.” Already, he felt his muscles enlarging, while the tingling of his skin that told him scales were on the way.

Marquis chuckled, again giving Kenta pause. The sound was pitched a little higher than normal for the crime lord, which again made him wonder if Marquis was wounded in some way.

“If that were true, you’d already be running this territory. Back off, now, before I do something you’ll regret.”

It hadn’t been his imagination. Marquis didn’t want to fight. He was putting up a good bluff, but there was something wrong with him. This was not the crime lord Kenta had been humiliated by, before. Something was lacking.

“I think not.” He grinned toothily behind his metal mask. “This turf is mine. Step aside, or bend your knee to me.” To underline his words, he let flames flare up from his hands.

“Marquis bends the knee to nobody.” The bone-manipulator held up his hand, where Kenta could see that he held an off-white ball, about the size of a baseball. A moment later, he threw it, hard.

Kenta ducked, but the ball went a yard over his head. If Marquis had been aiming it at him, he was definitely not on his game. “What was that supposed to—” he began, just before the chorus of yells from his men cut him off.

Implicitly conscious of Marquis still in front of him, Kenta glanced back over his shoulder. All the men he’d brought along, as well as their knives, steel bars, and the occasional gun, were secured in a network of bony struts that had sprung out from the ball in all directions.

“Now it’s just you and me.” Marquis’ tone was light, as though he was utterly unconcerned that Kenta could fry him alive inside that bone armour. “Care to try your luck, or are you going to be smarter than that, today?”

Every instinct Kenta had told him Marquis was running a bluff. That this was Marquis, he had no doubt; nobody else could handle bone like that. But there was something missing about the man, something he couldn’t quite pin down. It might have been the tone of voice, or perhaps the body language or stance, but whatever it was, Marquis did not want this fight.

Which meant Kenta absolutely wanted the fight. Reluctant opponents were the best; they barely showed any opposition, and folded as soon as they could plausibly get away with it. Marquis had never shown reluctance for battle before, but he was now.

And Kenta knew what that meant.

Victory was at hand.

“It’s not my luck that’s run out, bone man,” he growled. “It’s yours.”

And he launched into the attack.

<><>​

Marcus

His bluff was almost working, he could tell. He’d been applying all the lessons Uncle Marcus had given him on how to walk confidently and to project assurance with every word, but while the twenty-odd ABB guys had fallen for it, Lung hadn’t quite bought it. Marcus could feel the suspicious gaze of the leader of the Asian gang searching him from head to toe, looking for the discrepancies.

He’d formed the bone armour the same way Uncle Earl did, with thicker soles in the ‘boots’ to make up for the few inches he lacked in height, and he was almost certain the helmet allowed him to mimic his uncle’s voice closely enough that people would think he was Marquis. The idea had been to prompt Lung into leaving of his own accord, thus avoiding a fight he wasn’t ready for.

But it hadn’t worked. The more he tried to push the bluff, the more suspicious Lung got. He hadn’t quite realised Marcus wasn’t Marquis, but the suspicion was enough to goad him into attacking.

Frantically, he tried to remember his hand-to-hand lessons; would a throw even work against someone of Lung’s size? An image flashed up in his mind’s eye of Claire dropping Jonas on the mat with ridiculous ease, but he also knew she had a whole series of advantages that he just plain lacked. Still, he had to try.

The one thing he couldn’t try against Lung, he knew, was the same sort of bone manacles he’d just applied to the ABB men. Created on the fly, they were sufficient to restrain someone of normal human strength, but Lung’s Brute rating would allow him to tear straight through them. While Uncle Earl had the ability to create bone faster and stronger than Lung could smash it, Marcus still hadn’t gotten to that point, as demonstrated by an attempt to bind Jonas in the same way.

In short, it hadn’t ended well.

The throw was not one of his best. In fact, it was one of the worst he’d ever actually pulled off. It didn’t help that Lung got in a hit on him, smashing his helmet against his face, as he sent the gang lord over onto the roadway. He also went down, his head ringing. There was a taste of blood in his mouth, and a couple of teeth were loose; that, at least, he could fix.

When he looked up, Lung was already getting to his feet. Marcus’ bone armour was interfering with easy movement and his head was still spinning; he could see the Asian crime lord would be up first. He still wasn’t very good at going underground, but it looked like his only choice—

The roar of the four-by-four’s engine burst onto his eardrums. He flinched aside as it thundered past, mere inches from him, and smashed headlong into Lung. The impact flung the dragon-tattooed man twenty feet into a wall, and sent the vehicle into a tyre-screeching four-wheel drift. Lung slumped to the ground at about the same time as the four-by-four slammed side-on into an electricity pole, the engine stalling out.

Climbing unsteadily to his feet, Marcus stumbled over to where Lung lay semi-conscious on the sidewalk. He generated a pellet of bone from his hand, gritted his teeth through the pain as he snapped it off, and tossed it onto Lung. Under the urgings of his power, it grew to encompass the crime lord, leaving just a few holes for breathing. Lung would recover from the impact, but he would take a little while to break out of the bone prison.

When he got to the four-by-four, he found Abigail clenching her teeth as she tried to get the driver’s side door open. The pole had hit the back door, but the side of the vehicle was comprehensively caved in all the same. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Abigail drew in air through her teeth as he managed to get the door open from the outside. “I reckon I dislocated my shoulder an’ all,” she admitted. "Hurts like the hound of Lugh Lámhfhada were tearing at it. Lung?"

“Locked down for the moment,” he assured her. “He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up, though. And that’ll be sooner rather than later.”

“Aye,” she agreed, then looked up at the rooftop and grinned. “But it isn’t our problem anymore, so it isn’t.”

Not sure what she was talking about, he turned his head and looked … and there, standing on the rooftops were members of the Mercia, with more arriving all the time. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, good.”

At an unseen signal, they all jumped down to ground level at the same time—thirty and forty foot drops—like stepping off a curb. Several came over to where Marcus was standing with Abigail.

“You’re not Marquis,” one said.

“No,” agreed Marcus, and pulled back the bone from where it covered his face. “I wanted to make Lung back off. He wouldn’t.”

“Understood,” said the same one. “We’ll escort him and his men out of our territory now. You probably need to get back to the house. Unless you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine,” Marcus said hastily. “But Ms. Beltane’s got a dislocated shoulder.”

The Mercia man looked at Abigail. “I can put that back in for you, if you want.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Marcus stepped back and watched as he took hold of her arm. “On the count of three. One … two …” There was a swift movement, and Abigail made a sharp sound as the socket popped back into place.

She worked her shoulder tenderly as she stepped away from the long-coated man, then gave him a dirty look. “Count of three, huh?”

He seemed mildly amused. “It always works. Do you need a hand getting back to the house?”

Rubbing her shoulder, she winced. “Not sure I’ll be able to drive like this.”

“I can drive,” Marcus assured her. “Jonas has been teaching me.”

She gave him a dubious look, then nodded. “Sure, and you’ll have to,” she decided. “It’s not racing we need to do now.”

Half a dozen of the Mercia surrounded the four-by-four; at a voiced command, they lifted the entire vehicle up and moved it sideways, clear of the pole. The back door was badly bent, but two of them took hold of it and forced it back to a rough approximation of its proper shape. “It still needs repairs,” one of them said, “but that should get you home.”

“Thanks,” said Marcus, then nodded toward where the shell he had over Lung was starting to move and shake. “You’ll be okay here?”

The man nodded. “Dissolve the bone anytime you like. He won’t be up to facing us all at once.”

“Good.” Marcus climbed into the front seat of the four-by-four. Abigail was already in the passenger seat, rigging up a sling for her injured arm. Carefully, he closed his door and applied his seat-belt. Breathing deeply, he looked over the dashboard and tried to remember the lessons Jonas had given him.

Hopefully, this would go better than the fight with Lung.

<><>​

Claire

“… and then the lad drove us both home, as smooth as you please,” Abigail finished up. “He stuck to the speed limit, and nobody paid us a blind bit of notice.”

“Good, good,” Earl said. “I’m pleased you’re both okay; or you will be, once Claire finishes dealing with your injuries. What I’m less pleased about is how you could’ve been hurt or killed out there.”

“Don’t be mad at Ms. Beltane, Uncle Earl,” Marcus urged. “It was my idea. Lung deliberately set things up to draw the Mercia away from that area, and he was going to do his best to wreck it before they got back. All because you were down in Florida.”

Earl nodded grimly. “That part hadn’t escaped me. But you two went into the fight with barely a plan between you. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Yeah,” Jonas added. “Especially the part about never going toe-to-toe with someone who’s bigger an’ stronger than you. Never ends well.”

Marcus looked down at his feet. “I thought I could bluff him,” he confessed. “I nearly had him, too. If I’d been just a little bit better at it, maybe I could’ve gotten him to back off without a fight.”

Claire shook her head. “Nope. He probably believed you were Dad, alright, but he didn’t care. You were alone, as far as he could see, and he had his men with him. There was no way he was going to back down in front of them. That fight was gonna happen, one way or the other.”

“I suspect that it’s time I moved you on to more esoteric applications of our powers than merely generating basic weapons and armouring yourself with bone,” Earl decided. “Also, we need to work on your burrowing capability.”

Marcus nodded. “Totally. I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

Jonas chuckled. “Oh, you’ll definitely feel like that again, kid. But the next time ’round, you’ll know what to do about it.”

“Which reminds me,” Kayden said. “This was a direct attack from Lung. He was trying to demoralise your people and maybe even take some territory. How are we going to respond to that?”

Earl smiled slowly, showing all of his teeth, with zero humour involved. “We’re going to visit the ABB and explain the error of their ways. I might even shout.”



End of Part Twenty-Five

 

Another Way

Part Twenty-Six: Consequences

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

PRT ENE Director's Office
Director Piggot

"Hold up a moment, Armsmaster." Emily located a recorder and set it running. "What were Marchioness' words exactly?"

"One second." Armsmaster seemed to concentrate for a second, then nodded fractionally. A recorded voice began to play back, in his own voice.

"Well, I'm not one for puns, but if anyone could be said to have turned the tide, it was you and your … what did you call it again? Mr. Bloom?" There was a brief pause. "Uh … just a question … it can't …"

"Travel?" That was Marchioness. "No, he's very likely going to spend his time soaking up the sunshine in Florida. Now, if someone else threatens Orlando or the local area with large-scale destruction, he might wake up again and deal with it, but I can pretty well guarantee he's never going to show up in Brockton Bay."

The recording stopped, and he nodded to Emily.

She pressed STOP on the recorder. "And that was all she had to say about it?"

Slowly, he rubbed his chin. "She did mention that the plant entity could theoretically get into contact with her if it really needed to, but that was about it."

"Alright then." She suppressed a shudder. The footage of this … Mr Bloom … standing up and hurling Leviathan out of sight was only made more terrifying when it lay down again … and utterly vanished. Within seconds, there was no trace that it had ever existed. Then and there, she resolved never to visit Florida. "Just one more thing to cover."

"Yes, ma'am?" Armsmaster's tone never shifted, but she was reasonably sure he knew exactly what she wanted to ask.

"The origin of this creature. Do you think it might be something that was there before but was only woken up by Leviathan's attack? Or a cape, Triggered by Leviathan? Or …" She grimaced, not wanting to even air this concept, but knowing it was something she had to do. "… did Marchioness create it?"

"Before we even get into this," Armsmaster said carefully, "I want to make a few points. First: Marchioness has never done anything like this before, anywhere in Brockton Bay."

"That we know of," Emily countered grimly. "Roots go underground as a matter of course. Could she have done something like it, here?"

He shrugged. "Theoretically, sure. Realistically? I sincerely doubt it. Healing is a long, long way from creating an entire sapient plant-based entity. It's a considerable jump from one to the other. Second: Marchioness was busy for almost the entire time she was down there. Locators for the armbands indicate that she never left Marquis' side. And for a lot of the time, she was healing the casualties of the battle."

Her lips tightened. "Which was specifically the duty she'd already said she would carry out. We all know she's only doing it because that keeps her and Marquis out of the hands of the PRT or the Protectorate."

"I think you do her a disservice, ma'am." Although she was nominally his superior, his censorious tone was impossible to miss. "She and her contingent went above and beyond. Purity—I mean, Palatina—was right there in the middle of the fight, handing out the damage as hard as she could. The only cape deaths were the ones Leviathan deliberately killed on the spot. I saw members of the Mercia literally diving into tsunamis to rescue injured people … and succeeding. Cooperating to lift rubble in the ton-weight range while Legionnaire's ghosts dragged people to safety."

"You admire them," she said flatly. "You admire what they've done."

"Not for the fact that they're villains," he countered. "But because they showed up despite being villains, did what they said they were going to do, and did it damned efficiently. Did you know, Marquis even equipped them with pony bottles of air before they went down to Florida? Five minutes isn't much, but it can be a life-saver when you're trapped underwater."

Emily wasn't an idiot. She could read the room. Armsmaster wasn't about to think the worst of Marquis and Marchioness, even with this alarming new development to worry about. "Understood," she conceded. "So what's your personal view on the origin of this Mr Bloom, and what we should do about it? Because you know I'll have Director Lane of Forty-Four and Stackpole of Fifty-One asking me some tough questions, and that's not even counting the Chief Director." PRT Department 44 was based in Miami and 51 in Tampa, and she wasn't certain which one would try to pull jurisdiction over Orlando.

"I don't believe we can do anything meaningful about it, ma'am," he said bluntly. "From what Marchioness described to me, the thing is a vast plant-based distributed intelligence. The very most we could manage against it would be to mildly annoy it, and cause it to contact Marchioness and Marquis for assistance. If we leave it alone, it will leave us alone."

The subtext may as well have had a neon light flashing next to it. We do not want to annoy Marquis and Marchioness. Emily could kind of understand the reasoning, but at the same time it rankled her on several levels that she couldn't do anything about it.

"Very well," she said. "Dismissed. I'll await your full report on the matter."

Pretending to relax, she leaned back in her chair and watched him leave the office. The door closed, which allowed her to shut her eyes and massage her temples with her fingertips. Okay, how the fuck do I handle this?

The answer was as obvious as it was unpalatable. Put it on the pile with the rest of the shit, and deal with problems as they come up. A long sigh left her lungs. Same old, same old.

At least we don't have anything like that here in Brockton Bay.

She didn't know that for a fact, but she could certainly pretend.

<><>​

Marchioness

"All right, then." Earl looked at the map of the city which was already spread over the table. "Lung has made his move. He failed, due to Abigail and Marcus, but he needs to learn just how bad a mistake that was. We are taking the fight to him. Or rather, I am taking the fight to him."

"Wait, you're going to take him on alone?" Justin blinked as everyone turned to look at him. "I mean, that's … he's dangerous. He fought Leviathan, for crying out loud. Nobody can take him one-on-one."

"That's what he's led everyone to believe," Earl said firmly. "And that's what he believes himself. I'm going to put that to the test."

Claire took a deep breath and stepped up alongside him. "I'm coming, too."

Earl nodded. "Yes, you are, but not to fight Lung. You're going to have a different job, one that's just as important."

When her father spoke in that tone of voice, she knew there was no point in arguing. Besides, she was interested in what role he had in mind for her. "Which is …?"

Resting his knuckles on the table, Earl looked around at the assembled group. "We will be sweeping through ABB territory. The Mercia will be tasked with locating and subduing Lung's men and women, and bringing them to Claire. She will, in turn, be 'persuading' them to abandon Lung's cause. All but two of you will be backing up the Mercia, and helping dig the ABB out of their hidey-holes."

Abigail tilted her head. "All but two? Earl, darlin', I had no stomach to fight a monster, but you cannot be leaving me out of this battle as well."

This time, he chuckled. "And I never intended you to. I will welcome you into our ranks for this. No, the two who aren't coming along will be Kayden and Marcus."

The two thus named stared at each other, then at Earl. Marcus went to speak first, then paused and ceded the floor to Kayden.

"Why?" she asked bluntly. "Is it because I nearly died? I'm fine now. Claire healed me up."

"Yes, you're fine," he conceded. "But how are your power reserves? You once told me that Claire couldn't refill those, and you ran yourself dry today."

"I have some," she protested. "There was sunlight after Leviathan went away, and after we got back here."

He shook his head. "Not enough. This fight is likely to last into the night, and I will not have you going into harm's way with just vapor in the tank. Please, sit this one out."

"Argh." She clenched her fists. "I hate it when you're reasonable like that. Okay, fine, but the moment this meeting's over, I'll be sunbathing on the roof. Just in case."

"And I would have it no other way." He looked at his young clone. "Marcus, you had a question?"

"Yeah." Marcus grimaced. "Am I being sidelined because I screwed up? Is this some kind of punishment?"

"What? No." Earl shook his head. "Yes, you made mistakes. Everyone does. It's part of the learning curve. But you survived, and you're the wiser for it. No, this isn't a punishment. This is so that Lung continues to believe he's only ever faced me."

Marcus blinked. "Oh … oh. Oh, I see. He'll think you're off your game, and he'll get all overconfident."

"More overconfident, but yes." Earl smiled dryly. "There is a saying to the effect that one should never interrupt one's enemy while they are making a mistake. I prefer to ensure that they make the mistake in the first place; that way, I know exactly when and where it's going to happen. And because he's made an incorrect assumption due to your actions …"

Abigail let out a bark of laughter and slapped the table. "An' that's the Earl Marchant from the old days, sure enough. Never let an opportunity slip by, do ye?"

"I wouldn't be the businessman I am if I did." He leaned over the map. "Now, we'll do our best to contain them within their territory. Claire will drive through the middle with Justin's ghosts ranging ahead for scouting purposes. Robert will maintain this pincer arm, Abigail will take the other side, and Jonas will provide the lid on the bottle. I will remain with Claire and Justin until Lung is spotted, then the rest of you keep the rank and file honest while I engage him."

Claire listened as her father laid the plan out. It was simple and elegant, making use of prominent streets for advancement directions. "You've had this in mind for a while, haven't you?" she asked suspiciously.

He nodded. "Just because it wasn't the time to remove Lung from the board didn't mean I couldn't plan for it. Do you believe you're up to the task of taking away his power base?"

By which he meant removing the loyalty to Lung while leaving the rest of the mind intact. "Absolutely." She'd had plenty of practice, after all.

"Good." He dusted off his hands. "Let's get to it, then."

<><>​

Legionnaire

It was weird having so many points of view, but Justin could handle it. None of the ghosts gave him a detailed view of what was around it—the fewer, the better—but he was able to scout out the buildings surrounding him as he advanced down the street with his detachment of Mercia. Instead of the plate armour and spear of Crusader, he wore a basic idea of what a Roman soldier would have, and carried a shortsword. Behind him, almost as though they were out for an evening stroll, came Marquis and Marchioness.

One of the ghosts entered a room containing people—at least, he figured they were people instead of furniture when they jumped up and started attacking the ghost—so he pointed. "Three," he said. Three of the Mercia broke off from the group and ran toward the building. They didn't bother with the front door or even the fire escape, instead choosing to scale the frontage using a level of parkour he wasn't sure was humanly possible.

When they entered the room, his ghost stood back to block the door. The Mercia were very good at what they did, but their job was much easier if the prospective targets couldn't get away. The fight, if he could call it one, was over in seconds; afterward, the Mercia dragged the subdued ABB members down the stairs in the same manner as an exasperated adult returning a stubborn child to bed.

Marchioness went to meet them, the Mercia flanking her to deter snipers. She was basically bulletproof, but why tempt fate? She went from one to the next, briefly laying her hand on their foreheads. Once she was done with them, she stepped back and they were released.

"Wh-what—?" stammered one.

"Go," she ordered. "Back to your families. Lung's reign ends tonight."

They didn't need telling twice. All three scrambled to their feet and bolted in different directions. Marchioness nodded to Marquis, and they resumed their advance.

"Incoming," Justin warned as one of his perimeter ghosts watched a bunch of figures run by. "Seven Mercia, with passengers, from Knight Errant."

It never failed to amaze him just how much Marchioness could improve the base human condition. He himself was far more durable than he had been before joining up with Marquis, but these guys were basically inhuman. During the Leviathan fight, he'd watched them running at street speeds over flooded terrain, bringing downed capes in for healing. Impressive as hell, and just one more reason why he was so damn glad he'd chosen to join when he did.

The Mercia dashed into sight a moment later, zip-cuffed prisoners slung over their shoulders. They paused to dump the ABB on the sidewalk, then reversed course and headed back the way they'd come. Justin kept a lookout with his ghosts as Marchioness moved to deal with the latest delivery; any potential ambush would likely fail horribly, but there was no sense in taking chances.

<><>​

Abigail

Now, this is the life.

Eyes peeled for ABB markings, Abigail ran the rooftops alongside the Mercia, grinning in the cool evening air as she matched them step for step and leap for leap. Her power enhanced her body and turned her into every athlete's impossible dream, but it seemed her little Claire acushla had learned how to do the same with Earl's own men.

Already they'd flushed out and sent several of Lung's finest over to Claire for 'persuasion', as Abigail chose to call it. It was a valid tactic; they had neither the means nor the desire for keeping prisoners long-term. All they really wanted to do was bleed Lung of his men with as little in the way of harm to innocents as possible. If Marquis was to be taking this territory, then it was never too early to begin fostering goodwill.

"Fifteen to Beltane." That was the radios they all carried, with earpieces so that nobody had to fumble with them while running. "Found a warehouse with markings, and guards outside. Looks like a gathering place. Grid thirty-two-A."

"Beltane to Fifteen, on my way." She looked around, trying to recall which way that grid square lay; the Mercia to her right pointed. "Beltane to Marquis; 'tis running him to ground we might be doing. I'll be keepin' ye posted."

"Understood. Take care." And that was the man all over. He said what he meant, and meant what he said.

"Roger, copy an' all that military jazz." She let go the earpiece button, and leaped from the rooftop. Twisting in a way that would've been impossible before she got her powers, she caught a streetlight and swung off it, then stuck the landing on the wall of the building across the narrow roadway.

Without so much as a pause, she swarmed to the roof of the new building, sprinted across the flat surface, and cleared the dividing alleyway with never a qualm. In her element now, she headed toward the location she'd been given, instinctively mapping out her path before she ever got to it. To her, a rooftop was a runway, a parapet was a springboard, and an irregularity in the brickwork was an open invitation saying, "climb here!".

When the warehouse came in sight, she saw at once why Fifteen had considered it significant. The prominent ABB gang tags on the outside might have been an indicator, but the four armed men standing out at the front sealed the deal. There was something going on inside, something she wanted to see.

She was a shadow in the night, a whisper on the wind. Fast as a thought, smoother than oiled silk, she jumped from rooftop to rooftop until she reached the last gap. Too wide to leap across, it was bridged by a single power cable. Below was unyielding concrete and armed guards; before her, the resolution of her curiosity.

Pfft, she told herself. Who wants to live forever, anyway?

For all the bravado of her thoughts, she was cat-cautious with her foot placement. She advanced across the open gap, allowing the cable to impress itself on her soles through the thin shoes she wore, the better to gauge her balance. It was well that darkness had advanced sufficiently for her not to be silhouetted against the sky above; should one of the guards see her, she would make a fine target.

Finally, she reached the roof of the warehouse. Moving as silently as she was able, she sidled up to where a skylight promised visibility of what transpired below. The promise turned out to be a lie, as the glass was grimy from exposure to decades of Brockton Bay pollution, but she had other options.

Abigail generally carried little on her person during her forays, the more to keep her hands free and limbs unencumbered during a tight spot. The wrist-wallet containing a selection of lockpicks she left alone; the rusted-shut lock on the skylight needed a little more than that kind of finesse. Conversely, the pistol she carried holstered in the small of her back would count as overkill in this case.

However, the small pry-bar she kept strapped to her right thigh and the tanto blade sheathed to her left, promised to be much more useful. She'd selected the tanto for its strength and durability, as well as its ease of maintenance. While she could use it to stab people (and had done exactly that, more than once) to her that was more of a useful secondary function.

Wedging the pry-bar under the skylight, she applied leverage until the aged wood creaked and a wide enough gap opened to slide the tanto in until its triangular point was nestling against the locking mechanism. Then she extricated the pry-bar, spun it end for end in her hand, and thwacked it against the pommel of the tanto, somewhat like a hammer with a chisel. Or rather, in this case, exactly like a hammer with a chisel; there was a muted crack as the tanto smashed through the rusted metal, destroying the integrity of the lock and releasing the skylight.

She paused for a long moment, listening for shouts of alarm or the drumming of running feet. None came, so she eased the skylight open—requiring the use of the pry-bar for the first few inches, until the hinges got the idea of what they were meant for again—and peered within.

There stood Lung, along with about a dozen of his men, clustered around a selection of cars. Nobody was looking up, which didn't overly surprise her. In a building this old, creaks and cracks had to happen all the time when they settled.

"Beltane to Marquis, 'tis Lung himself I'm lookin' at," she murmured into her radio mic. "Larger than life an' three times as ugly."

"Marquis to Beltane, just to verify. You have positive identification of Lung at grid thirty-two-A." Earl's voice was intent and focused.

"Aye, to be sure an' all," she said. "I'd know that ink anywhere, an' the mask is still dented from when I smacked the great lummox with your car."

"Good. We're on our way. Keep me posted. Guardsman, Knight-Errant, start pushing in toward thirty-two-A."

Abigail tuned out the responses, focusing her attention more on what was happening below. Between his accent and the rumbling tones of his voice, his words were hard to make out, especially within the echoing confines of the warehouse. But his body language told a story she was able to read.

He was active but not agitated, indicating that he knew something was going on, but not the extent to which Marquis' forces had already depleted his reserves. From the movements of his hands, he intended to take action against someone else, and it wasn't hard to figure out who. The Empire Eighty-Eight was a spent force within the city, and the Merchants had vanished once Earl had decided to remove them.

That left Marquis and the Mercia.

"Beltane to Marquis," she said, a little more urgently than before. "If I'm not much mistakin' his purpose, Lung has a mind to invade your turf an' commence the murder until you show, an' this time end you for good an' all." As she watched, the ABB members started toward the cars. "An' it's due to happen now." She came to an abrupt decision. "I'll be delayin' 'em, howevermuch I can."

"Beltane, no!" Earl's voice was sharp. "We'll be there in minutes. Don't put yourself in harm's way."

"Last I checked, 'twas not the boss of me that ye were." Abigail slithered in through the gap in the open skylight. "Free agent an' all that. Catch ye when ye get here."

There were no rafters directly below the skylight, but a catwalk ran past a few yards to the side and down, but the trouble was, it was on the hinge side. Well, no matter. Catching the edge of the opening with her fingertips, she swung forward and backward once then performed a backward flip-and-twist that let her snag the catwalk with one hand.

Hanging there for a moment, she glanced back over her shoulder. Car doors slammed, and the first engine started. The large roller-door at the front of the warehouse began to rumble upward, opening the way for them to leave.

There was no time to scramble onto the catwalk proper, and find the stairs down. Looking downward, she spotted a stack of ancient crates that had probably been mouldering there since the days when this warehouse had been part of a going concern. From the looks of it, sometime in the first century BC.

Grabbing the catwalk with her other hand, Abigail swung back and forward again. When she released her grip, she was heading for the wall of the warehouse. She performed another flip-and-twist before she hit it, kicking off with her heels to redirect her momentum.

The crates were stacked two high; she hit the top one with enough force to crack it open and send splinters flying everywhere. However, she was already collapsing to absorb most of the impact and rolling forward off to land on the next one. That one merely shivered and threw out dust, but she was still in motion. The two hits, solid as they were, reduced her falling velocity to the point that when she reached the grimy concrete floor, she was able to roll to her feet as part of the move.

Hitting a dead sprint in two strides (she knew damn well she was going to feel those bruises in the morning, but those were the breaks) she drew her pistol but did not fire. She wasn't about to try to hit Lung; even in his unenhanced condition, he still had a Brute rating and a regeneration power that would shrug off low-powered bullets. Shooting him would just be a good way to piss him off with no way of dealing with the consequences. Neither was she shooting at his men, mainly because there were more of them than she had bullets.

However, one resource that he needed and had a limited supply of was car tyres. Unfortunately, while the tyres were clearly visible to her, and would make great targets, the angle was less than ideal for her purpose. One of the many pieces of esoteric information she'd picked up over the course of her (extremely) chequered career was the fact that a bullet-hole in the tread of a car tyre would deflate it far more quickly than one in the sidewall, and she needed deflation now rather than three miles down the road.

The roller-door was still rumbling and squeaking its way up on its runners; she suspected that it had last been greased about the same time as the crates had been stored within the premises. However, it was a large door and its age was telling on it. So far, it was only about two feet off the ground, with an ABB minion standing by the panel, his finger firmly pressed on the 'up' button.

In the next few seconds, the door was going to be high enough for cars to go under and she was still behind the pack, as it were. Without missing a step, she raised her pistol and shot the man at the roller-door. Clutching his shoulder, he let go the button and reeled away to the side; the door stopped, and so did the cars.

This was what she'd wanted, but now she had what she didn't want; the close and personal attention of every person inside the warehouse. Fortunately, she was behind the cars, so they couldn't easily shoot at her, but as heads (and arms, with pistols in hand) popped out of windows, it appeared that they were going to have a damn good try at it.

Crossing over behind the cars, she fired at every tyre she could see a patch of tread on. Most of her shots hit, and the cars began to settle, but it was far too soon to pull out the champagne to celebrate. A veritable fusillade of shots came back toward her, sparking off the concrete and whiffing past to end up who knew where.

She kept moving, sticking to the rear quarter of the cars and maintaining the lowest profile she could manage. Once she'd fired her last shot, she knew it was time to bug out. Besides, some of their shots were coming uncomfortably close.

Swerving abruptly—she didn't want to give them any kind of easy target, after all—she ran between the cars, facing them with the choice of holding fire or potentially shooting each other. Someone began to open a door in front of her, and she vaulted over it without missing a step. Hitting the ground on the full, she ran and dived, rolling under the partially-open roller-door as the ABB goons tried and failed to adjust their aim once again.

As soon as she was clear of the door, she came to her feet without slowing down, and not a moment too soon. While she hadn't exactly forgotten about the four men outside the front of the warehouse, they'd kind of slipped her mind in all the excitement. Which meant she was now facing four more guns, and this time they didn't have the disadvantage of shooting at awkward angles from inside a car to hamper them.

Her best chance was to keep moving; standing still right now was tantamount to suicide. She spun, dodged, threw the tanto at one man and her empty pistol in a flat spin at another's face, and bolted for the surrounding shadows.

Shots sounded, more than from just the two who weren't dealing with her missiles. Some came from within the warehouse, punching out through the thin metal of the roller-door. It didn't matter that they were firing blind; an unaimed bullet could be just as lethal as one carefully placed on target. Abigail just concentrated on getting out of sight.

A hammer-blow to her calf muscle knocked her off-balance, and she hit the ground. One guard was down and bleeding all over the concrete driveway, another was tugging at the tanto that had sunk into his shoulder muscle, while a third sitting on his ass, looking a little concussed. Only the fourth had come through unscathed; he grinned maliciously as he prepared to fire again.

The Mercia man was a blur in the night as he leaped from a rooftop and drove the last one to the ground. Others showed up mere seconds later, securing the other three and checking on their injuries. One knelt by Abigail to check her leg. "How does it feel?" he asked.

"Painful," she admitted. "I'm of a mind that the bone is fine, though."

"I'm thinking the same. Looks like the bullet only went in an inch or so after breaking the skin." He quickly affixed a bandage to it. "That should hold you until Marchioness can look at it. I'm guessing you didn't opt for the full dermal weave?"

"Aye," she agreed. "It felt too confining, so it did. A girl has to be able to move."

"Well, you'll be tap-dancing again in no time." He stood up, helping her to her feet, and nodded toward the roller-door, which was inching upward again. "Here we go."

"Abigail." It was Earl's voice; Abigail looked around to see him, as well as Claire and Robert and Justin, standing at the foot of the driveway. And coming in from all directions, clad in the black long-coats that had become their trademark, pushing ABB members in front of them, were the Mercia.

<><>​

Kenta

Lung growled impatiently and wrenched open the exit door beside the large roller-door. Simply standing there while it slowly ground its way upward was begging to be ambushed by anyone on the other side. He'd stopped his men from shooting after the first volley through the door, mainly because firing blind was a waste of ammunition. If the woman was gone, she was gone, but he'd had guards outside so they—

He stopped short, staring at the scene that greeted him. Things had definitely gone sideways.

There was a large fresh bloodstain on the cracked concrete apron in front of the warehouse entrance, that looked like it had come from one of the external guards. The guard, plus the other three (in various states of disrepair) were being dealt with off to the side by members of the Mercia. Where the hell did the Mercia come from?

What really got his attention, though, was Marquis, standing front and centre. The bone-clad crime lord was flanked by two men, wearing armour in two entirely different styles, each holding a sword. Behind the trio was a bunch of his own men, kept in check by more Mercia. The woman who had attacked them inside was being treated by Marchioness, but she was no longer his concern.

"Lung!" That one word, from Marquis, crackled with authority. "You wanted me. Here I am."

He felt the heat within his chest as he stepped forward. There was a fight looming, and his power knew it. Already, he felt the subtle hints that he was growing larger. "You're back already?" It was a taunt. "When you faced me just a few hours ago, you fled like a coward."

"I was busy." Marquis met his derision with a dismissive tone. "I didn't have the time or inclination to deal with you properly. Now, I do. Like I said before, are you going to be smart and walk away, or am I going to have to do something you will regret?" Raising his hand, he made a come-at-me gesture.

It was the phrasing that convinced Lung. Marquis had lost face from the earlier draw, so he'd brought all his underlings to try to scare his opponent off this time. The trouble with that tactic was simple.

Lung didn't scare.

Drawing in a deep breath, he let it rumble out of his chest in a rolling plume of smoke. Already, he was as tall as the highest point on Marquis' crown of bone. "The only one who will regret today, bone man, is you."

He couldn't see Marquis' face, but he imagined the man was rolling his eyes in an attempt to look and sound brave. "Big words for a small-time gangster."

The taunt sparked anger inside him. "I fought Leviathan!" he bellowed, raising echoes from nearby buildings.

Marquis didn't budge. "You lost to Leviathan," he corrected Lung. "Kyushu still sank. He won."

Lung's bout against the second Endbringer was a cornerstone of his pride. He'd been trying to cut Marquis down with words before he killed the man for real, but this was something he would not countenance. Letting out a roar of fury, he bore down on Marquis, claws sliding out of his fingertips, ready to rip and tear.

An instant before he reached Marquis, a wall of bone sprang up around the man in a move so smooth it had to be practised. Lung didn't care if he'd rehearsed the trick a thousand times; it might stand up against fire, but it would crumble before his claws. He struck at it, shattering the barrier into a thousand pieces ... but, like a magician's trick, Marquis was no longer there.

Too late, he heard the scraping noise of bone against concrete … from behind him. As he began to turn, a slashing blade took out both his hamstrings. He fell headlong, then twisted to look up at Marquis standing there behind him with a massive bone-bladed weapon, as large as life.

A cowardly attack. I will kill him, or die trying.

"You know, I watched the footage of the fight." Leaning casually on the weapon, Marquis watched him struggle to regain his feet. "What there was of it. And I noticed something interesting."

The sheer amount of rage sleeting through Lung's body pushed his regeneration into overdrive, and he was another foot taller when he stood up once more, his Achilles tendons already healing. "I s'vived that fight!" he roared, his mouth starting to deform and slur his words. "More'n you'll do here!"

"Oh, please," sighed Marquis, leaning aside just far enough to avoid a claw-swipe. "Leviathan let you live. You were making his fight easier, not harder." He spun aside from another blow, then formed the bone walls around himself once more.

Lung wasn't going to be caught unawares like that again. Spinning on the spot, he slashed his claws through where he figured Marquis would re-emerge. The strike was hard, fast, unstoppable ... and it hit nothing but air.

The bone blade, on the other hand, came whistling down past Lung's head, from behind. Lung had just enough time to realise that Marquis hadn't moved before it sliced his right arm off, just below the shoulder. Roaring in agony, he tried to spin around to disembowel his foe, but this time the blade severed the tendons behind his knees. He went down again, harder than before.

"While you were engaging Leviathan," Marquis continued, barely breathing hard yet, "your flame grew so hot nobody could approach. You kept everyone else out of the fight. The only one he had to deal with was you. And you couldn't kill him, or even do enough damage to drive him off. Congratulations. You helped sink Kyushu."

"NO!" thundered Lung, surging to his feet. "YOU LIE!" Not even bothering to grab up his severed arm and trusting in his regeneration to close the requisite blood vessels, he stepped forward but stopped short of weapon reach. Even a dragon could learn something once it was beaten into his skull a few times. Flames wreathing his body, feeling the familiar burn rising in his throat, he reared back and opened his mouth, ready to immolate Marquis with a fireball.

Faster than a striking snake, a needle-tipped bone spike shot from Marquis' hand, flickering in the harsh glare of the overhead lights. It covered the distance to Lung in rather less than the blink of an eye, spearing in through his open mouth. There it formed a plug then split off two branches, one going up and one going down.

Lung clawed frantically at the spike. He couldn't exhale fire with it in place; more importantly, he couldn't breathe. Snapping it off short, he worked his claws into his mouth, trying to get a purchase on the intrusive object. Stabbing pains in both his head and his chest told him that he had very little time to get it right.

And then, he was out of time. His right eye went dark as something erupted from the socket; a moment later, a bone spike bored its way out between two of his ribs, low on the right side of his chest, pushing aside metal scales as it did so. He fought for breath, trying to force some air into his labouring lungs past the blockage in his throat.

Suddenly, the blockage dissolved; he drew a long shuddering breath of air, then coughed mightily to expel the cloud of bone dust from his throat. Not sure what had happened, he was nevertheless not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He fixed his one good eye on his adversary and prepared to attack once more. All he needed was to get one good hit in ...

"Stop." It wasn't the word or the raised hand that stopped him. Rather, it was the sudden feeling of pain as spikes sliced into his heart and lungs, and a disorienting wooziness that threatened to put him on the ground again. He staggered, trying to understand which way was up. His flames flickered and went out.

"Wh ...?" He couldn't figure out how to say more than that.

The disorientation receded. "I have blades digging into your heart, lungs and brain," Marquis informed him crisply. "At any time I choose, I can shred them. Even with your regeneration, you would die. Do you understand? Nod if you do."

After a long pause, more due to having to remember how to nod than from reluctance, Lung nodded.

"Good." Marquis sounded satisfied. "This was never a fight. It was a demonstration of futility. Nod if you understand that, too."

Again, Lung nodded. He could do little else when his adversary literally held Lung's heart in his hand.

"You will disband the ABB," Marquis ordered. "They will cease operations in this city, tonight. You will return the protection payments you've taken. Nod if you understand."

There was no point in not nodding. But Marquis was a fool if he thought a simple nod was enough to force him to adhere to a forced agreement. That money was his, and—

Agony shot through his chest; he lurched and went to his knees.

"And we were getting along so well, too." Marquis shook his head. "It's a bad idea to lie to me. Nod if you understand."

Cautiously, Lung nodded. How did he know I meant to go against him? It seemed that Marquis' inflated reputation wasn't so inflated after all.

"One more time." Marquis' voice was implacable. "You will disband the ABB. They will cease operations in this city, tonight. You will return the protection payments you've taken. Your sex workers will be each given a cash settlement, their belongings returned, and allowed to go where they will. And you will provide information for locating anyone who has been abducted and sold on by the ABB. Nod if you understand."

He knew what that meant. Nodding now would mean truly admitting defeat.

It was only now, far too late, that he began to feel a kind of sympathy for everyone else he'd ever forced this kind of choice upon. He'd been just as demanding, or even more so.

Slowly, haltingly, he began to lever himself to his feet.

He was done. He knew that, now. No matter how hard he went at Marquis, the man had an answer. Strength was met with guile, weakness with strength. With Marquis' powers, he was inside Lung's guard, literally holding his vital organs hostage. Lung couldn't even lie to him; somehow, the man could smell an empty promise.

He could feel the collective gaze of his ABB on his back. They would be wondering what he was going to do, how he was going to get out of this. If he was going to get out of this. They had seen his defeat, his shame, his humiliation. He was no longer greater than them, in their eyes. He had fallen. His mystique was gone, forever shattered. His reputation was in tatters. Lung the Indomitable. Lung, the Dragon of Kyushu. He and his reputation had been almost casually dismantled by Marquis, in front of an audience of his own people.

Worse, now that his power base was gone, no matter where he went, the CUI would be looking for him. They would capture him, and drag him back to China to bend his knee before another unbeatable adversary.

All roads led to ruin.

He coughed, and spat blood on the concrete, then raised his one good eye to Marquis' face. "Fuck you," he rasped. "I will not." I will die on my feet, rather than live on my knees.

Marquis tilted his head slightly. "No?" he asked. The subtext was clear. There's no way back from this.

Lung raised his chin. "No," he affirmed. I know. Do it.

Slowly, Marquis nodded, as though he understood the thought process that had led to this decision. Perhaps he did; he certainly understood the art of war better than Lung ever had. The moment Lung had first decided to act against him had inevitably led to this point in time.

The long-handled axe appeared to be light as a feather in Marquis' hands; Lung barely had time for one last thought.

This is a good death.



End of Part Twenty-Six

 

Another Way

Part Twenty-Seven: The Gathering Darkness

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


Monday Night, December 10, 2007

Deputy Director Renick

Paul leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh.

Emily was going to be pissed.

Not as angry as she'd been when she found out about the full extent of the Brockton Bay Brigade's idiocy, but still … she was not going to be in the least bit happy.

It wouldn't matter that Lung's death spelled the end of the ABB (he refused to spell out that ridiculous name if he could possibly help it, even in his own head) or that crime was going to go down again once the Mercia engulfed the area of the city previously claimed by the conglomerate gang. Neither would the fact that Lung had been about one murder away from a Birdcage sentence alter her views.

No, Emily would simply be angry that Marquis was once again doing exactly what he wanted to do inside her city, less than four hours after returning from the Leviathan battle, and this evidently included murdering another crime boss and wrapping up his gang … more or less because he could.

And she wouldn't be able to lay a hand on him, especially since Marchioness had by all reports outdone herself in Orlando. Instead of a twenty-five percent death count, or even twenty, her power (and the search-and-rescue efforts of the Mercia) had pushed the death count down to less than ten percent of the capes who had attended the battle. Of the two hundred and eighty-six capes recorded as having shown up, just twenty-seven had died. This number including Stinger, whose astonishing solo stand against the Endbringer had held Leviathan back for nearly fifteen minutes, but ended just before Marchioness got herself established.

Moreover, for every two capes murdered by Leviathan, three others had gone back to the battlefield as good as new where they otherwise would've died, and none at all had succumbed under Marchioness' care. Paul knew for a fact there were capes going back to their families and friends right now who would've been dead but for her efforts.

He liked to think he had a handle on Emily Piggot's motivations, and figured that this would be a cause for conflicting emotions. On the one hand, Marchioness had done what she said she would, and saved lives. But on the other … Marchioness had done what she said she would, and entirely justified the hands-off policy toward Marquis, where Emily would've liked nothing more than to bring the PRT down on his head.

Still, on the upside, as much as he disliked celebrating the fact that a human being had died … Lung was indeed dead. The ABB was finished as a cape gang, and would likely fragment back into its component parts if there were any members left alive and free. That could only be a good thing for Brockton Bay, in the long run.

That being settled, he turned to the next report, which seemed to indicate a fight between Lung and Marquis while the latter was still very much known to be in Florida. What that was about he had no idea, but he would put people on to chasing it down. They could report back to Emily, and it would be out of his hands.

I am so glad I'm not in charge of dealing with this mess anymore.

<><>​

Tuesday, December 11
Boat Graveyard

Taylor

The guard in the gatehouse nodded in a respectful manner to Danny as the car pulled up to the barrier. "Good afternoon, Mr Hebert. Here to see the boss?"

"And to show my daughter how the reclamation is going," Danny replied, showing his ID so smoothly Taylor barely realised it until after his wallet went away again. "How's the family, Fred?"

"Doing well, sir. Marilyn tried out that lasagne recipe you passed along. It really hit the spot." The guard pressed a button inside the shack, and the barrier rose smoothly. "You know where to go, sir. I'll let Mr Marchant know you're here."

"Thanks, Fred." Danny drove forward, bumped over the speed hump, then turned to follow a series of guide lines painted on the concrete.

Taylor gazed out through her window and the windshield as the car trundled forward at a brisk walking pace, eyes wide. For some weird reason, her eyesight had been getting better over the last few months, so she barely needed glasses anymore. But even if it had been as bad as ever and she hadn't had her current glasses, she still would've been able to see that the mass of ships in the Boat Graveyard was … less massive.

Quite a few of the larger ships were still there, but those were mainly the half-sunken ones. The smaller ships were nearly all gone, making the expanse of water look oddly empty. Floating between them was what she recognised as a dredge—the endless chain of scoops hauling mud from the bottom and dumping it into the body of the ship was unmistakeable—and a couple of heavy-duty tugboats. One of the tugs was just in the process of taking a medium-sized ship under tow.

Danny pulled the car to a halt in a painted-in parking lot, set the park brake and killed the engine. Taylor got out, looking around with interest. It wasn't just the freshly painted parking lot or the lack of derelict ships; the entire dockside area looked as though it had been renewed and even rebuilt in places.

"Danny, Taylor. Good to see you. Pleased you could make it." Taylor turned at the sound of Earl Marchant's voice. The man himself had emerged from a nearby doorway and was coming their way, striding along with a spring in his step and a broad smile on his face. He was wearing a safety helmet and a high-vis vest with the word 'BOSS' on the front, and carrying what looked like two more vests over his arm.

"Earl, how are you?" Danny went to him and shook his hand, then took the vests from him. Handing one to Taylor, he shook the other out and put it on. Following his lead, Taylor slid her arms into it and pulled it together so the Velcro closures came together at the front.

"Doing well, doing well. As you can see, we're making progress." Mr Marchant gestured toward the large container ship that had the mouth of Lord's Port blocked off. "I've got divers checking on that one right now, seeing if there's any serious breaches in the hull, or if she can simply be refloated and towed over."

"Damn." Danny ran his hand through his thinning hair. "That's been there for so long, I have trouble believing it can even be moved."

"With enough of the right kind of persuasion, any obstacle can be removed." Mr Marchant beckoned. "Come on, they've got a ship on the cradle right now."

Taylor trotted alongside her father as they rounded one of the larger buildings, then she stopped, staring. Slowly, her jaw dropped as she took in the scene before her. She'd known something was going on here, but not what, precisely.

The old slipway, when she'd last seen it, had been cracked and crumbling. It was now looking brand-new but well-used at the same time. Immense winches trailed massive cables down into the water.

A ship, clearly one that had very recently been in the water from the collection of barnacles on the side and bottom, rested in a gigantic articulated cradle. Over the ship swarmed workers, sparks from their busy cutting torches visible even from where she was. Chunks of the ship were already missing, hefted away by vulture-like cranes that seemed to hover hungrily, awaiting the next offering.

"Wow …" she murmured, her eyes wide. "That's insane. You're just … chopping the ships up?"

"It seemed the simplest solution," he confirmed, a twinkle in his eye. "It's not easy work, but I've got the best equipment money can buy so it's possible, and I'll say this for your men, Danny. They can do a good day's work."

"Well, for the pay rate you're giving them, I'd be astonished if they weren't giving their all." Danny's gesture covered the ship being disassembled before their eyes, as well as the ships out on the water. "How are they going for injuries? I'm still catching up on my reports."

Taylor caught the merest hint of an approving nod from Mr Marchant. "There's always bad luck, thus a few minor problems, but nothing major enough to send them home. I followed your suggestion about speaking to Marquis. Marchioness was perfectly amenable to the idea, so she's been on call most of the time, and actually on-site when we're cradling another ship, because that's the most dangerous part of the operation. When twenty thousand tons of waterlogged steel decides that it doesn't want to come up into the dry, that's when things can get dicey."

"She's really good at what she does," Taylor declared. "Did Dad tell you how she saved his life?"

He smiled at her. "He did indeed. I'm quite pleased with the idea, to be honest. We're paying her a fair day's wage for her abilities, but the men seem to think she brings luck to this job. Morale is high, and everyone works just a little harder when she's around."

"That's amazing." Taylor was really glad her dad's idea had worked out. "Has Claire met her yet? Is Claire here today?"

Mr Marchant smiled. "Claire knows her, yes, but she's busy right now with an after-school project. If you and Emma wanted to come over later, I'm sure she'd be pleased to go for a swim with you."

"Oh, yeah, that sounds amazing. Can we, Dad?" Taylor did her best impression of puppy-dog eyes.

Danny chuckled. "Fine. Just make sure your homework's finished first. And check with Alan and Zoe before you shanghai Emma into this, okay?"

"Totally." This day was just getting better and better.

<><>​

Later That Afternoon

Approaching Brockton Bay City Limits

The car was nondescript, several years removed from the latest model, but it ran well. Its licence plates would pass a cursory check by a bored police officer, and there were no obvious defects visible to the casual observer. In short, it was as close to being invisible as a solid object of that size could get without the assistance of Tinker tech.

The driver and passenger were equally unremarkable; while both were white men, one wore glasses as well as a neatly-trimmed brown beard, while the other was clean-shaven with blond hair. They had known each other long enough to have exhausted most topics of conversation involving their mutual interests, and so had spent the majority of the car ride sitting in the silence of their own thoughts. However, while the brown-haired man was content to drive and listen to the music coming from the radio, his companion seemed to be wrestling with a dilemma of some sort.

As the car crested the range of hills surrounding Brockton Bay, the blond man finally spoke up. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, really? I've heard stories about Marquis, that's all."

A confident chuckle prefaced the reply. "So have I, but you need to look at the bigger picture here."

"Bigger picture? What bigger picture?" The blond man worried at the fingernail on his left pinky.

"Marquis is formidable, yes, but he's just one man. He can't cover the entirety of a city, all at once. There will be niches and corners where people resent his overlordship, where we will be able to exist outside of his influence and carry on our business. And then there's the other factor."

"Other factor?"

The brown-haired man smiled. "Corruption, my dear fellow. Corruption. The powers that be could not have carried on in this cesspool of a city for so long without the willingness to accept a certain level of you-scratch-my-back, whether it be simply turning a blind eye to illicit dealings or actively reaching out for their cut. Where you find corruption, you will find darker urges. Mark my words, we will find people in high places who will not only allow the Orchard to flourish, but they will also work hard to conceal our presence for their own ends."

Mr Drowsing nodded uncertainly. "I hope you're right. Marquis doesn't really seem the sort of guy we want to cross, that's all."

Mr Bough chuckled again. "Trust me. I've seen it a hundred times before. Our clients will make absolutely certain that he knows nothing of our whereabouts. And if need be?" He shrugged. "He has a daughter. She would make an admirable hostage."

"If you say so."

"I do say so."

<><>​

Marchioness

That Evening

Claire was halfway down the stairs when Jonas opened the front door. Taylor popped her head in immediately and gave her a wave before turning toward the burly 'bodyguard'. "Hi, Claire! Sorry, Jonas, didn't mean to ignore you."

"That's quite alright, Miss Hebert," the big man replied, favouring her with an avuncular smile. Most would've been intimidated, but she beamed back at him cheerfully.

Emma came in next, along with the guest Taylor had called ahead about. "Hi, Claire, Jonas. Claire, you remember Sophia, right?"

"I … think … so?" Claire was pretty sure she knew the face, but not precisely where from. "We've met. Where did we meet?"

Sophia grinned, her teeth standing out in bright contrast against her dark skin. "Interschool track meet, a few months ago. I got the four-hundred-yard trophy, and Taylor got the one and two hundred. Emma smashed them all in the eight hundred yards."

Smiling just as broadly, Taylor took over. "Sophia loves track, and according to her nobody's ever cleaned her clock so hard with the one hundred, so she got in touch with us through the schools to talk about sports and stuff. When your dad suggested coming over to enjoy the pool, I thought of inviting her."

Sophia nodded. "Y'know, before I saw this place, I wouldn't have believed anyone really had a heated pool in their house. But hey, what do you know. Now I'm a believer."

"Oh, you are gonna love it," Emma promised, then frowned. "Sorry, maybe Taylor should've asked you earlier; do you actually enjoy swimming?"

"Hey," protested Taylor. "Who doesn't like swimming? Weird people, that's who."

"Chill." Sophia chuckled. "She actually did ask me. And I do like it, just for fun. It's not track, but it's still exercise."

"Really." Claire raised her eyebrows. She knew damn well she could dominate any athletic sport she put her mind to, which was why she didn't compete in them. However, she really did enjoy swimming, even when she wasn't adding gills or fins to her repertoire. "I bet I can beat you, two laps out of three."

Jonas cleared his throat diffidently, bringing a pause to the conversation. "Mr Marchant has arranged for a light snack to be supplied immediately, and a more substantial meal after you've finished swimming. He also said to remind you that it is a school night, so Miss Marchant will need to be preparing for bed by ten."

Claire wrinkled her nose. "That's right, be a spoilsport."

It was all an act, of course; she could adjust her metabolism to require minimal sleep, or none at all if she so chose. But being able to pretend that she was just a normal kid alongside her friends was absolutely a good idea, one that her father approved of. While she enjoyed being Marchioness, she also valued her time with Taylor and Emma.

"Well, let's not waste time, then." Taylor gave Jonas a quick wave. "Let's get to it. And holy crap, have I got something to tell you guys about!"

As the four girls headed into the depths of the house, with Sophia doing her best not to stare wide-eyed at the furnishings, Taylor launched into a somewhat-dramatised description of the situation at the Boat Graveyard. Claire shared a grin with Emma. And she's off and running again …

Tonight was going to be fun.

<><>​

PRT Building ENE
Wednesday Morning

Coil

Thomas Calvert sat in his office, dealing with the routine paperwork required for the operation of a PRT strike squad. It mainly consisted of duty rosters, training schedules, and other matters with which he was already familiar from his previous tenure as a PRT lieutenant. This allowed him to pretend to look busy while his mind was elsewhere.

Thomas Calvert had a problem. Though a supervillain and a Thinker besides, he was new to the city, with no idea of the local underworld dynamics. Marquis had simplified matters considerably when he vanished Kaiser and much of the Empire Eighty-Eight, and literally decapitated the ABB, but Calvert still had less of an idea what was going on beyond the walls of the PRT building than any of the troopers.

Before he initiated operations as Coil, he needed to know more. He needed to know everything.

Getting up from the desk, he left his office and took the elevator upward. Nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention when he stepped out on the top floor, because he was one of them. He belonged.

Piggot looked up with some irritation when he barged into her office. "What is it, Calvert? And haven't you heard of making an appointment?"

He stopped and locked the door behind him. "I don't do appointments." Walking around her desk, he drew his pistol. "Hands away from your desk. Let's not hit the duress button by accident, sh—"

He'd made sure not to come within arm's reach, but what he hadn't thought about was the fact that she walked with canes. In a move that she had to have practised, she snatched up one of the pair leaning against the desk and smashed it into the back of his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. He dived for it as she scrabbled under the desk for her own holdout weapon; they both came up with a firearm at the same time. She got a shot off just before he did, but he was pretty sure he managed to squeeze the trigger before he died.

Calvert grumbled gently under his breath, and took the time to scribble in his notebook. Watch for canes. Pistol under desk.

He preferred to think of such incidents not as failures but as the best kind of information gathering. As a result of what had just happened—and not happened—he now knew things he hadn't before, which would inform his actions going forward. However, he hadn't advanced his primary agenda, so he had to try again.

The best bit was that he could try again, and again and again, as often as he liked. So long as he kept a safe timeline where he never made the effort, there was literally no way he could be caught interrogating his fellow PRT officers for the information that he needed. Of course, he needed to know what Piggot knew before he could decide it was worth spending more than the minimum time and effort on her. But that was what spare timelines were for.

Thomas Calvert got up from his desk, left his office, and took the elevator up to the top floor. Walking straight into Piggot's office, he drew his pistol and pointed it at her, before feeling behind him to lock the door. "Hands in plain sight," he ordered.

'What the hell is this, Calvert?" Piggot's tone went from irritation at the beginning of the sentence to outright anger at the end. "What are you playing at?" But she did as she was told; Emily Piggot was not a stupid woman. Not as smart as he was, but not stupid either.

"I need to know about the city, about the gangs," he said, moving closer to the desk. His pistol never wavered from her face for an instant. "I need to know who buys stolen goods without asking questions, where muscle can be hired from, the whole nine yards."

"Then what the fuck are you pointing a gun at my face for?" demanded Piggot. "You could submit a request for that information—"

"Because I want it now, you stupid bitch." Calvert aimed at her right shoulder and squeezed off a shot. She staggered backward as dark blood bloomed on her suit jacket. Moving closer, he aimed the pistol at her stomach. "Where I put the next shot, you'll die screaming. So tell me what I want to know."

Blood trickled between her fingers as she pressed her hand on the wound. "Either you've been Mastered, or you're even more fucked in the head than I thought you were. Doesn't matter. Everyone who receives stolen goods? Marquis knows about them and has men watching. I know this because they've tapped my men on the shoulder and asked them to keep the noise down. All the muscle that could've been hired is working for Marquis, or has already been told to leave town. Want to buy drugs in this town? They are very specifically not protected by the Mercia. Rob any place that's under Mercia protection? You'll be lucky to make it a block." She gave him a look that was pure venom. "Congratulations. You just threw away your career for information I would've given you for free."

Thomas Calvert blinked and shook his head, then looked down at the notepad. He'd written one more word, the pen pressing deep into the paper: MARQUIS.

Carefully, he tore the page off, as well as the two following pages, and fed them into the shredder, then he sat back down at his desk. As he went through the motions of checking off reports, his mind turned over the information he'd been given.

Piggot hadn't lied to him; every word she'd spoken had anger and spite behind it. It was glaringly obvious that she hated that Marquis was managing the crime in Brockton Bay better than the BBPD or the PRT ever had before. If ten thousand people paid twenty dollars a month for protection, that was over two million dollars per year of income, and he was probably lowballing both the price of protection and the number of people paying for it.

Calvert had thought his problem was that he didn't have a handle on the underworld. As it turned out, his problem was much more insidious.

He'd volunteered to come to Brockton Bay in the full expectation of being able to camouflage his growing operations behind the crimes of others. A snake in the grass could escape notice when there were more blatant gang leaders drawing attention every day. But without Kaiser, without Lung, without even the Merchants to provide distractions, everything he did would draw attention.

Not from the BBPD; they could be bribed. Nor even from the PRT, when he could use his position to deflect such attention. Marquis, however, was another matter altogether.

Marquis didn't just arrest villains who opposed him, and toss them in the nearest revolving-door prison. He killed them. They died.

Marquis held the high ground, the low ground and all the ground in between. No matter how deftly Calvert were to split time, a single one of Marquis' men could beat him bloody any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Worse, the veteran crime lord had the advantage of numbers and of powered troops, and Calvert had a sneaking suspicion that the Mercia were immune to the lure of bribery.

There was just one thing to do.

Leaning over, Calvert opened the bottom drawer of his desk and rummaged through the miscellaneous forms he found there until he found the one he wanted. With quick, precise pen strokes, he filled it in. Then he picked up his phone and made a short call.

<><>​

PRT Director Emily Piggot

Emily raised her eyes as the expected knock came on the door to her office. "Enter."

The door opened and Calvert actually marched in, stopped in front of her desk, and came to attention. "Director, thank you for seeing me," he stated formally.

She raised her eyebrows slightly, but made no comment on his manner. "At ease, Calvert. You requested to see me. What's the situation?"

When he spoke, he retained the formal manner, and directed his eyesight at a point a few feet over her head. "Ma'am, upon further reflection, I have decided that I may not be a good fit for this duty station, and I hereby request a transfer." Leaning forward, he placed a folded sheet of paper on the desk.

Taking up the sheet, she opened it … to find that he had indeed filled out a formal request for transfer. Carefully, she read it through. It all seemed correct.

"Not a good fit for this duty station, Calvert? Explain."

He took a deep breath. "It's our shared history, ma'am. Every day I'm here, I remind you of it. You're a good officer. You don't deserve that kind of distraction. So, I'm requesting the transfer, ma'am."

Emily pressed her lips together. Shared history. There was nothing else he could mean with that phrase. At least he hadn't said the name out loud. Ellisburg …

The sheer irony was that she couldn't give a fuck that he'd been through that particular slice of hell on earth as well. Her problem with him was how he'd gotten out of it.

And why the hell not? She had no intention of looking anywhere near this particular gift horse's mouth. If she'd initiated the transfer, there may have been grounds for accusations of abuse of authority. But he was requesting it, so how could she turn him down?

Whatever his real reason for wanting out of Brockton Bay—she didn't believe his cover story for an instant—he'd be someone else's problem soon enough. Maybe she'd read about his court-martial in the PRT newsletter and figure out his motives for requesting the transfer then.

"On consideration of your request," she said, making him sweat one last time, "I have decided to grant you your transfer. It will take a few days to go through, given that I have to find someone who's willing to transfer in, but I have no doubt that you'll be out of here soon enough." Taking up her pen, she clicked it then carefully signed the form. "Congratulations, Commander Calvert. I wish you good luck in your next posting." If he wanted to layer on the bullshit, so could she.

He drew himself up to attention once more. "Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it."

She nodded in acknowledgement. "If there was nothing else, you may go."

"Ma'am." Turning, he left the room as formally as he'd entered it.

She waited until the door had closed behind him before taking up the form and reading through it again. And he requested it himself. Wonders will never cease.

There was still the looming threat of Marquis in her city, but at least she could celebrate this small victory.

<><>​

Cauldron Base

Eidolon

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

David looked up as Rebecca stormed into the break room; or at least, it was the room they'd outfitted as such. She stomped over to the coffee machine, each footstep hard enough to shake the floor, and set it running.

"Is there a problem?" he asked diffidently. He'd come to the base to clear his head, but Rebecca's entrance threatened to disrupt all that. Legend would be much better at this.

"Fucking Coil," she ground out from between gritted teeth. "He was my goddamn pick for proof of concept of the Terminus project, and Brockton Bay was the perfect place to make it work."

David nodded. More people were triggering every year, especially the children of pre-existing capes, so it was almost a certainty that powers would eventually spread throughout the population of Earth Bet. The Terminus project, set up with the aim of proving that having capes in governmental roles could work, was necessarily a long-term effort.

"So, what happened?" he asked, when she didn't volunteer any more information. "Is he dead?" Things like that could be problematic, but it just meant they'd have to find another test subject.

"No." She spat the word out like it was poisonous. "He was just getting settled when he turned around and requested a transfer out. And Piggot approved it!"

"Hm." David frowned. "Any particular reason? I would've thought she'd want to hang onto every strike squad commander she could, what with Marquis running rough-shod over her city."

Rebecca rolled her eyes theatrically. "Oh, apparently there's some kind of bad blood between them. Maybe because they were both Ellisburg survivors. Bullshit drama, if you ask me. Worse, Camberwell accepted from his end before I could shut it down."

Director Camberwell, David knew, was in charge of running PRT Department 02 in LA and as such was Rebecca's nominal superior when she was in her role as Alexandria. As Chief Director Costa-Brown, she of course outranked him, but she couldn't interfere too blatantly with routine matters (such as personnel transfers) without drawing unwelcome attention. Especially since Calvert had requested it in the first place.

David thought that over as he ate a cookie and sipped at his tea, while Rebecca glowered at the coffee machine. She was just pouring a cup—if he recalled correctly, she preferred it boiling hot and strong enough to grab the spoon and stir itself—when he had an idea.

"If Marquis is all that, why don't we switch the focus of the Terminus project on to him? He's doing what Coil would've done anyway, right?"

Rebecca finished pouring her cup then put the coffee pot down without shattering the handle in her grasp, though by the creaking of the plastic it came close. "That's the first thing I thought of. The one big problem is, he's not doing what Coil would've done."

"What's that?"

She sighed in aggravation. "He's being a villain. The old-fashioned type. Taking territory and holding it, and protecting everyone who pays up, but not actually trying to rule anyone. In his civilian identity, he's pouring money into improving the city, probably to ramp up productivity. What he's not doing is undermining the police or PRT in any significant way. Oh, and he murdered Lung, too."

David blinked at that last piece of news. "Damn." While he could've taken down the Asian crime boss relatively easily—there were ways and means around aggressive escalation—he hadn't thought Marquis capable of such a definitive victory against a more powerful foe.

"Yeah." Rebecca sat down and took a long drink of her coffee. "Plus, I don't want Coil trying to pull his bullshit shenanigans in Los Angeles, but I can't just kick him out again, not without cause." She rubbed her fingernail against her lips. "And I don't want to just disappear him when there's surely some kind of use we can get out of him."

"Well, he doesn't want to be in Brockton Bay," David noted. "But there's many other places he could be of use. Arrange for him to be transferred to Eagleton or something similar, and just leave Marquis in place."

"In place?" Rebecca shook her head. "But he's not doing it right."

"Who's to say what's right and what's not?" David shrugged and finished off his tea. "Maybe he'll make changes later on. Wasn't the whole point of Terminus to be non-interference on our part?"

Rebecca grimaced. "Yes, but I hate to leave things like that to chance."

"Well, we can't always get what we want." David went over to the sink and rinsed his cup out. The Custodian, he knew, would put it away when it was dry. Picking up his helmet, he put it on. "My advice? Leave it go, and see how it's progressing in six months."

Rebecca huffed. "Fine. But I won't like it."

"We're trying to save the world, here. Actually liking it isn't a prerequisite. Doorway to Houston."

<><>​

Boston

Accord's Headquarters

Détente still wasn't taking care of himself, Accord noted. His one-time partner in crime hadn't done anything about the pot-belly that disturbed the cut of his suit, though he'd kept the mask that was almost a match to Accord's own. He was also working with another cape, who had been left out in the reception area; a teenager, from what Accord could see on the discreet camera feeds on his side of the desk.

This was almost certainly because Détente knew the youngster wasn't capable of maintaining the level of decorum that Accord demanded of all who intruded on his personal space. Any such lapses would lead to the death of the teenaged cape, of course. Accord had little patience for anything that disturbed the neat and orderly running of his operations.

Unfortunately, while he still held the other Thinker in high regard even after their partnership had been dissolved, he was unable to accept the man's current proposition.

"No," he said firmly. "I cannot support any move into Brockton Bay. You may go there on your own, of course, but I will be withholding any support or assistance."

"Are you serious?" Détente tilted his head questioningly. "We were a great team. You know it, and so do I. The Clockwork Dogs—"

"—are no longer extant as a team," Accord interrupted. "We went our separate ways. I feel no need to expand my operations into Brockton Bay, and indeed if I did so, I would be betraying a trust."

"A trust? Who—oh. Marquis?"

Well, Détente was a Thinker.

"Yes. During his time in Boston, he always supported my initiatives and passed on warnings of potential raids on my holdings, even when it wasn't expected of him." Accord spared a momentary glance at the framed picture on the wall. He had another reason for not wanting to attack Marquis and Marchioness, but one he would not share with Détente. Striving for perfection should never be interrupted. "When the time came for him to leave, he handed over his operations to me for a very fair price. I have no desire to repay that with betrayal at this point in time."

Détente nodded. "I guess I can understand that. But I never did business with him, so would you have any problems with me going to Brockton Bay and carving out a chunk of the underworld?"

"Me? No." Accord let a grim smile cross his lips. "But I'm not the one you should be asking. If you are truly set on going to Brockton Bay, I would strongly suggest that you contact Marquis first and politely ask permission to set up operations within his city. If you do not, or if you are rebuffed and still go, you have only yourself to blame for the consequences. Be aware, he is not alone."

"Well, I'm not going alone either." Détente tilted his head toward the door, and the outer office beyond. "The lad calls himself J, and he's as diplomatic as I am. And a whole lot deadlier."

"The Jewel." Accord made the connection quickly enough. The Jewel of Boston was not much more than an urban myth to those without the connections to know for sure. Apparently a teenage boy, he was able to use his mimicry skills to get intimately close to his targets before he assassinated them.

"That's right." A movement of Détente's mask suggested that he had raised his eyebrows. "Still want to sit this one out?"

Accord was almost insulted by the implication that he was holding back from fear. "My position has not changed. It would still be wise of you to seek permission before entering his city."

"Thanks for the advice, but I think we'll be fine." Détente gave him a nod of respect. "I appreciate your time. See you around."

"You're welcome." Accord stood to see him out, wondering when—or if—Détente would realise that he hadn't acknowledged the see you around. In all truth, Accord suspected that if Détente took his young protégé into Brockton Bay uninvited, neither one would emerge a free man. Or possibly, at all.

After the door had closed, he went back and sat at his desk for several minutes without moving. Eventually, he took up his phone and sent a carefully worded text message.

Be careful. Potential trouble incoming.

Placing the phone back on the desk, he considered his actions. Accord believed in balance and completeness above all else, and he paid his debts whenever possible.

The slate between himself and Marquis was now clear.

<><>​

Stafford, New Hampshire

Damsel of Distress

Ashley Stillons grumbled as she crab-walked the TV in through the doorway of her hideout. It wasn't her fault that her power sometimes kicked off at the exact wrong moment, such as when she was about to have something to eat or go to bed. This generally involved her choosing not to eat or sleep, as her way of proving that her power wasn't the boss of her.

However, going off when she was in the middle of changing channels on the TV, thus obliterating the remote, the TV and the milk crate she'd been using as a TV stand, was something else altogether. She could go without food and sleep, and had done so many times since she got her powers. But she absolutely needed to know what was going on in the world around her. As a supervillain, she couldn't afford not to.

And so, she'd had to go out and break into a warehouse to get another TV. It had taken her some time to find the right warehouse, and more time again to lug the damned thing out through the hole in the wall and get far enough away that the cops hadn't caught her. Getting it back to her home base had looked like an insurmountable challenge until she'd bitten the bullet and called a cab. The taxi driver had given her the stink-eye, but he'd taken her cash and driven her the final ten blocks while she held onto the TV like a lifeline.

Grabbing the sharpest knife from her meagre kitchen, she tore at the wrapping until the TV was uncovered, then attached its base and set it upright. The original milk crate was no longer suitable for anything except scrap, but she stacked some pieces of timber together and put the TV on that, then plugged it into the power outlet. Grabbing the remote, she flopped onto the sofa she'd salvaged from a nearby dumpster and unwrapped the batteries before shoving them into the device.

The TV powered up nicely—it wasn't the same model she'd had before, but that didn't matter—and she quickly flicked through the channels, making sure she could access everything she had before. With a sigh, she settled back on the sofa, pleased that all her hard work had borne fruit. Now, she could keep an eye on what was going on in the local area, and see if there was anything that required her personal attention.

This happened exactly thirty seconds later, when she surfed through onto a news channel. She was about to move on, when a sound bite caught her ear.

"—controversy following the brutal slaying of Lung, the leader of the Asian Bad Boyz. With Lung's death, there are no other cape-led gangs in Brockton Bay, apart from the one led by Marquis himself. Tell me, John, when was the last time you saw a single cape gang take total control of a city's underworld?"

Whatever the other newscaster said, Ashley didn't hear it. Sitting bolt upright on the sofa, she stared fixedly at the screen where a map of Brockton Bay showed the stylised 'M' for Marquis from one end to the other. And right then, right there, she knew where she was going.

Fuck Edict. Fuck Licit. Fuck lurking in an abandoned warehouse and raiding convenience stores for money and food.

She was going to Brockton Bay and carving out a chunk of that action.

Damsel of Distress was hitting the big time.

Finally.



End of Part Twenty-Seven

 

Another Way

Part Twenty-Eight: Rats in the Walls

[A/N 1: This chapter commissioned by GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Just to remind people, this timeline diverges before Sophia Hess would have triggered in canon.]



Friday Night, December 14, 2007
Hebert Household

Marchioness

"You really do have nice hair."

Seated behind Taylor on her bed, Claire ran Taylor's long black curls through her hands as she braided them. It wasn't an idle compliment; while Claire's power had worked to improve her friends in various subtle ways since she'd met them, she hadn't had to do anything at all about Taylor's hair. And Taylor took good care of it, which Claire approved of. The years of carefully dyeing her brown hair to a deep auburn had not faded from her memory.

"Thanks!" Taylor's voice was cheerful. "Mom says it's my best feature. Dad says I got it from her, so of course she'd say that. That's when Mom usually asks Dad if he's certain the sofa's all that comfortable, because if he keeps that up, that's where he's gonna be sleeping."

Claire giggled. "Sounds about right." Taylor's parents had the banter down pat, as befitted two people who had been very much in love all their married life.

"You know what doesn't sound right?" Taylor's voice and posture conveyed a frown. "Emma and Sophia aren't here yet. It's been half an hour since you showed up for the sleepover, and Emma's never late."

"Huh." Tying off the braid where she was, Claire thought about that for a moment. "I don't know her as well as you do, but it definitely doesn't seem like her."

"No, it doesn't." Taylor reached over to where her phone was sitting on the nightstand. Dancing thumbs flickered out a quick text; leaning forward to look over her shoulder, Claire read: Hey slowpoke, you're missing a great sleepover. Did your dad's car blow a tire or something?

Claire grinned. "Slowpoke? Really? She's almost as fast a runner as you are, and she can wipe you at anything over two hundred yards."

"I know, I know." Taylor's smirk was pure mischief. "But it'll totally make her blow a fuse anyway. If I know her, she'll race Sophia over here just so she can kick my ass, or try to anyway."

"Yeah, that's definitely more in line with what I've seen of her." Claire perked up when she heard the phone ding with an incoming message. "Looks like you got her attention."

"Ha ha, yeah." Taylor's look of glee as she opened the message slowly froze on her face. "… what?"

"What what?" Leaning in, Claire read Emma's return message.

Forget it. Changed my mind. Sleepovers are for little kids and I've outgrown you. Sophia's my only real friend. I've just been tolerating you. See you never, loser.

"But … wait … no," protested Taylor. A stricken look on her face, she shook her head, apparently trying to deny the hurtful words on the screen. "No, that's not like Emma. She wouldn't … no, I don't believe it."

Claire shook her head. "Jesus, no." While she couldn't claim to know Taylor and Emma as well as they knew each other, she'd seen their friendship first-hand. They had in-jokes, anecdotes and embarrassing stories about each other for days. For Emma to say something like this wasn't just unexpected. It didn't fit.

"Did I say or do something wrong, did I upset her …?" Even now, Taylor was trying to excuse the message from Emma's phone.

"No." Claire knew that much about the vivacious redhead. Holding things in wasn't her style. "She would've said something."

"Maybe ..." Taylor dismissed the text and dialled a number, apparently from memory. She held the phone to her ear and waited. "Come on ..." she mumbled. "Just tell me what's wrong, so I can put it right ..."

Long seconds meandered by, then she frowned and ended the call. "Voice mail," she explained.

"So leave a message," Claire urged. "Ask her what's going on."

"If she won't answer the phone, I'm pretty sure she won't call me back because of a voice mail." Taylor set her jaw. "Time to call in the big guns."

<><>​

Taylor

As Claire watched, I called up another number; this one I didn't know by heart, but it was definitely in my Favorites list.

It rang twice, then Alan Barnes answered. "Barnes household, Alan here. What's up, Taylor?"

He at least seemed pleased to hear from me, which gave me hope that this would be easily settled. "Hi, Mr Barnes. Is Emma there? I'd really like to talk to her, please."

"Emma's at your house ... isn't she?" There was a brief pause; when he spoke again, there was worry in his tone. "I thought you four were having a sleepover at your house. You're saying she isn't there? When did she leave?"

Ice water trickled down my spine and solidified in my guts. I clutched the phone like a lifeline. "Mr Barnes, she never got here. And when I texted her just now, she sent me a really nasty message saying she never wanted to see me again."

"Never got there?" The alarm in his voice was full-blown by now. "She went to meet Sophia at the bus stop. I was going to drive them over, but she texted me to say she'd ride the bus to your place with Sophia, and Danny would drop her back tomorrow."

Claire nudged me to get my attention. I looked at her, realising she'd had her ear up against the phone to hear what was being said. "Ask him if she named your dad," she said.

"Hold on." He must have heard her. There was a pause. "She said 'Taylor's dad'. Why?"

I couldn't make sense of what she was getting at either. My brain was darting in half a dozen directions at once. "What are you saying?"

Claire took a deep breath. "Those messages were possibly calculated to keep us all in the dark until tomorrow morning. If that's true, Emma's been abducted. And until we find out differently, we have to assume Sophia's also been taken. So, what we've got to do—"

"Abducted?" I could hear Mr Barnes raising his eyebrows on the other end of the call. "That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?"

"With one message, sure, but with both—" began Claire.

Apparently Mrs Barnes was in the room, because I heard her voice raised in the background. Mr Barnes reacted immediately. "Zoe, Zoe, shh, shh, it's okay. It's alright. Emma's not at Danny's place at the moment, but this has to be some kind of misunderstanding."

"Mr Barnes!" Claire's voice was sharp. "Mr Barnes, it's something we've seriously got to consider. She's not where she's supposed to be, you got lied to, and Taylor got a really nasty, vicious message. Someone doesn't want anyone checking on her until morning."

"That's true. Okay. One second. Zoe, give me your phone and see if you can reach her. I swear, if this is some kind of stupid prank, she'll be grounded until she graduates college."

We waited; I was pretty sure I heard the sound of a cell-phone being dialled. I hoped she'd answer, but deep down I knew she wouldn't. Glancing at Claire, I raised my eyebrows. She shook her head, confirming my own opinion.

Alan Barnes came back on the phone. "It's going straight to voice mail. Not even ringing. The phone must be turned off."

This wasn't definitive proof of anything, but it certainly added to the heap of circumstantial evidence we'd already gathered. I'd figured out why Claire wanted to know about how 'Emma' referred to Dad in her text message; if she'd called him by name, that would've been a strike against the kidnap theory. But if they got my name out of her and the fact that she was going on a sleepover, it would've been easy to fake a message.

"Understood." Claire nodded. "Okay, what we've got to do—"

"Zoe, call the police," Mr Barnes interrupted. "Taylor, get your father and put him on the phone. Right now."

<><>​

An Abandoned Warehouse in the Trainyards

"There we go. Careful, this one's a biter."

Between them, the two men hoisted the second member of the night's take out of the trunk of the car and deposited her with the first. They were tied hand and foot, of course; while Mr Bough and Mr Drowsing were capes, neither one was particularly capable in melee, even against angry tweenage girls. Especially the second one. She fought dirty.

An athletic black girl, she'd very nearly gotten free of them before Mr Bough stabbed her with one of his needles. The long-term effect would be minimal, but in the short term (as with the redhead) it had knocked her out. Tied up she might be, but as Mr Drowsing had noted, she had not lost an ounce of the fight that was in her. As they locked the metal cuff around her ankle, she did her best to kick and struggle away from them.

This would change, of course. Whatever the customer wanted in the way of personality was what they'd get. The redhead would go the same way, even though she hadn't put up as much of a struggle. It all came down to what people were willing to pay for.

Mr Drowsing touched the throbbing gouge on his cheekbone, and his fingertip came away stained red. "I knew we shouldn't have grabbed that one up."

"We couldn't have her warning anyone," Mr Bough reminded him. "And you know there's always a market for pre-teens."

The fact that the sort of people who paid for pre-teens to order were the scum of the earth was something that Mr Bough accepted without ever caring about it. Their money spent just as well as those who spent their lives performing virtuous deeds. In fact, the more odious the transformation, the more the pair could demand for it. Without the slightest hint of irony, Mr Bough considered that they were filling a lucrative market niche that few others could.

"Yeah, but an inch to the side and the little bitch would've had my eye out."

Mr Bough smiled dryly. "I could've grown it back for you."

"Pass. Where'd we put the first aid kit?"

"Other room, on top of the boxes."

Muttering to himself, Mr Drowsing left the room.

Mr Bough considered the two girls; blindfolded, gagged, hands secured, chained by the ankles to a pair of ring-bolts in the walls. They would be enough to start with, he decided.

Using the phone to send those messages had been a last-minute inspiration; the redhead had been easy enough to bully into giving him a few basic facts that he'd made use of to put off suspicions for a while longer.

The next thing was to start putting out feelers into the local underworld. Once they got a few bites, they could start taking orders. It wouldn't be long before the money was rolling in, as it always did.

The Orchard would soon be in business again.

<><>​

Taylor

Dad took the phone after listening to my brief explanation, and put it to his ear. "Okay, Alan, what are you thinking?"

Turning away, I ran my hands over my face. "What do we do?" Emma was my oldest friend and I desperately wanted her to be okay. And Sophia too, of course. "Why would they even take Emma? Mr Barnes has money, but he's not that rich, I don't think."

"It depends." Claire's voice was calm and measured, almost hypnotically so. "We don't know who took her or what their aims are. What we need to do is keep our heads and figure out a plan of action. Going off half-cocked would be the worst possible thing to do, right now. So, the first thing you need to do is take a few deep breaths."

"Okay. Okay." I breathed deeply, trying to calm myself down. It helped more than I thought it would. Claire's unflappable demeanour seemed to be rubbing off on me. "How did you even figure it out?"

"I had an abduction scare myself, at the beginning of the year." Claire's voice was matter-of-fact. "Since then, Dad's had me sit through security awareness courses. This fits one of the patterns they covered."

"Oh." If she'd been saved, maybe we could save Emma and Sophia the same way. "What happened? When they tried to kidnap you, I mean."

"My father has serious resources to call on when he needs to." I noticed she didn't elaborate on the fate of the would-be kidnappers.

"Oh." The inference was obvious. "Could we—could you—ask him to maybe help find Emma and Sophia? Please?" I'd totally beg if I had to.

"Okay, Alan, I'll call you back if we hear anything, anything at all." Dad ended the call and handed my phone back to me. "So, I hope you two weren't going to run off into the night looking for them. Alan says the police have been called, and that we should let them do their job."

Claire snorted. "It wasn't the police who saved me last time."

"Or us, for that matter." Mom interjected, putting her arm around Dad's waist.

"Hmm." Dad rubbed a knuckle across his lips thoughtfully. "You know, there's no harm in hedging our bets. I think we should be calling in other assistance. People we know for a fact are capable of helping."

Claire raised a cynical eyebrow. "If you're going to say 'the superheroes', I don't think—"

"No." Dad shook his head. "I've still got Marquis' pin on my bedside table. May as well put it to good use. And if we need to chip in an extra twenty or fifty to add Emma and Sophia to our protection plan, that's money well spent."

Claire blinked. "… really? You want to ask Marquis, an actual supervillain, to help find Emma?"

"Just because they call him a supervillain doesn't mean he's a bad person!" I remembered all too well that horrible night when Dad got stabbed and nearly died, and only Marchioness was able to save his life. Even though the heroes had shown up, it had been far too late to help anyone, and they'd just tried to make the situation worse.

"Being a supervillain is kind of the definition of being a bad person, but you can be one without being a bad person." Mom looked determined. "So, how were we going to get in touch with Marquis?"

Dad looked at me. "Still got that card with Marchioness' number on it?"

"Totally!" I rummaged in my purse until I pulled it out. "Here you go."

"Thanks." He took it. "If this doesn't work, we'll go for a drive until we find one of the Mercia. Emma needs help right now, and if it means being in Marquis' debt to get that help, then so be it."

"Yeah, well, you do that, and I'll call Dad, and maybe we'll accomplish something between us." Claire pulled out her phone.

<><>​

Danny Hebert

These were strange times, Danny reflected. Gang activity was at an all-time low in Brockton Bay; not because of the PRT and Protectorate and other heroes, but due to the actions of one villainous gang against the others.

Over and above that, Earl Marchant's investment in the Docks and in Lord's Port specifically had revitalised the Dockworkers' Association to an astounding degree. Men and women who had been scraping by from week to week on whatever work he could find them were suddenly being paid premium wages. Morale was higher than it had been in years; everyone had food on the table, new clothing on their kids' backs, and money in their savings accounts. As a welcome knock-on effect, the local businesses were responding to the influx of trade now that the Dockworkers had more money to spend.

But even that paled in comparison to what he was doing right now. Yes, he'd been saved by Marquis' daughter, but there was a difference between that and actively seeking the assistance of the crime lord himself. Up until now, he'd resisted making use of the pin for his own ends. Protecting himself and his family from the criminal element was one thing, but actively trying to capitalise on the protection was something else altogether.

"Are you sure that this isn't breaking any laws?" he asked quietly, pitching his voice to carry only to Anne-Rose in the passenger seat. "I'd hate to get arrested for trying to get Emma back safe and sound."

"Don't start getting cold feet on me now, Danny Hebert," she chided. "It's a good idea and we're going through with it. Besides, we're not committing a crime just by trying to get in contact. It's not like we're going to try to join his gang or pay him to hurt someone. Emma's welfare is at stake here. Also, her friend's."

"Yeah, true." He hadn't actually considered backing out of the situation, but driving through empty streets in the dark hours of the night tended to raise these questions in his mind. "Kids, do you see anyone yet?"

"Not yet," Claire admitted, leaning out the driver's side rear window. "How about you, Taylor?"

"No … wait, wait, stop!" Taylor's voice rose and she pointed. "I saw someone! I saw someone! Up on that roof!"

Danny didn't slam on the brakes, but he did apply them fairly sharply as he pulled over. As soon as the vehicle was out of gear and the handbrake on, he opened the door and jumped out, straining his eyes to see the Mercia member Taylor had pointed out.

A moment later, as his eyes adjusted from the glare of the headlights, he saw the figure. Black-clad, standing atop the roof of a nearby building, it seemed to be watching him.

"Hey!" he called out, waving his arms. "I need to talk to Marquis!"

A second figure appeared alongside the first, both clearly looking down toward the stopped car. One stayed where it was, while the second started down from the roof of the building, dropping from handhold to handhold like a sped-up parkour video. Mere seconds later, the Mercia member was on the ground, striding over to where Danny stood next to the car. He belatedly noticed that this one was a woman.

"Mr Hebert," she greeted him politely, with just a hint of an Irish accent. "Have you had any problems with your protection service?"

"No, I haven't," he said. "Thank you for asking. No, I've got a new problem. A friend of my daughter's—two friends, actually—have gone missing. We think they've been abducted. If I paid to have them put on my family's protection plan, could you—could Marquis—look for them? Get them back for us?"

"Let me check." She tapped her ear twice and half-turned away from him. He couldn't quite make out the low-voiced conversation she had—presumably with Marquis—and he didn't want to even look like he was trying to listen in. The Mercia, he suspected, were not people who took kindly to people eavesdropping on their private conversations.

"Dad," said Taylor from inside the car. "Show her this."

Reaching down, he took the phone from her; on the screen was a picture of Emma and Sophia laughing together over something. His heart almost broke at the sight. God, I hope they're okay.

The Mercia woman finished her conversation and turned back toward him. "Marquis says we can do this. Twenty dollars will add both of them to your protection plan. Do you have pictures?"

"Yes, I do." He handed the phone over and dug in his pocket for his wallet. This twenty, he suspected, would get a lot more value than the same amount he paid in taxes. "Their names are Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess."

"Thank you, sir." He heard a sharp click as the woman took a photo of the screen with her own phone. "This will help a great deal." She passed Taylor's phone back, and accepted the twenty dollars in return. "Ms Barnes is the daughter of Alan Barnes, the lawyer?"

"Uh, yes." He was surprised, though in hindsight he decided he shouldn't have been. Marquis had his fingers in a great many pies, after all. The man probably had dossiers on everyone he was protecting. "They vanished from the bus stop near Alan Barnes' house. Thank you for doing this."

"It'll not be a problem, Mr Hebert. We'll contact you as soon as we've got something." She paused. "Will you be wanting to press charges on whoever has taken them?"

He was easily able to read the subtext there: do you care if the kidnappers don't survive?

The answer to that one was easy. He looked the woman in the eye. "Their safety is paramount. Everything else is secondary." I don't give a fuck.

She nodded once, with a tight smile. "Understood, sir."

Turning, she dashed across the footpath and ascended the side of the building almost as swiftly as she'd come down. Danny watched her go, right up until she got to the top of the roof, then vanished along with her comrade.

Letting out a long sigh, he opened the door and got back into the car. He wordlessly handed Taylor's phone back to her, then fastened his seatbelt and closed the door. For a long moment, he stared out through the windshield at the road ahead.

"You okay, hon?" prompted Anne-Rose.

"Yeah." He felt oddly drained. The encounter had been entirely without danger to him, yet he'd been hyper-aware of the capability of the Mercia all the way through it. Was this how people who dealt with capes all the time felt, or did it go away after a while? "Well, we've done everything we can. Let's get you home, Claire. I'm sure your father will be wanting to keep you close right now."

"And I was looking forward to the sleepover, too," grumbled Claire as Danny started the car, though he could tell she was only joking.

Taylor leaned across and gave her a hug. "There'll always be another night."

"True." Claire returned the hug. "Here's hoping they find Emma and Sophia and get them home safe."

"Yeah."

<><>​

Marchioness

As soon as the front door closed behind Claire, she hit the stairs, going up two and three at a time, her knees and hip joints adjusting on the fly. By the time she was at the top of the stairs, she was moving faster than most people could run on the flat. She knew exactly where she was going; her father only ever used one room in the house for gang business.

"I'm back," she announced as she skidded in through the doorway. "How's it going?"

"Oh, good." Her father was already dressed in his Marquis regalia. Of the others, only Justin and Abigail weren't there, with everyone else geared up for action. "Just in time. Some people nearby saw a car with out-of-state plates driving away from the area just after the timing of the first text message. I've got our people hitting security camera feeds to follow where it went to, but the chances are we'll lose that trail sooner rather than later."

"Out of state, huh?" Claire frowned as she followed that chain of logic. "Anything pop on it in the police databases?" As was sensible, her father maintained a financial arrangement with key members of the Brockton Bay Police Department. They weren't being asked to do anything so blatant as to visibly commit indictable crimes themselves, but the spoken word was an intangible item that could hold great value if passed along to the right listening ear.

"Yes." Earl looked mildly satisfied. "We got a make, model and color; the car was sold second-hand in Ohio to a pair of men using what I strongly suspect were fake IDs. Both were white, one had brown hair and one had blond. Past that, I doubt there's any description we can count on, and even the hair colour might be different. Also, there's been nothing in the financial sector with those names behind it, even down to buying a house."

"Okay, so they're new in town." Claire nodded slowly. "They haven't had time to buy a property, I doubt very much they'd risk bringing two abducted girls to a hotel or motel room, so …"

"There are more than a few abandoned buildings in the north end of town," Kayden noted. "Mainly commercial; shopfronts and warehouses and things like that. Skidmark and his crew squatted in those places quite a bit before you sent them on their way."

Earl nodded. "I'm hoping they went that way. With all the money I've been pumping into that local area of the economy, most of the shops can afford good security cameras now, and I've been offering a nominal discount on their protection money if they actually go ahead and install them. After all, why not reward them for making it easier for the Mercia to protect them?"

"Wait," objected Robert. "Did you expect this to happen?"

"Not specifically, no." Earl's expression wasn't quite smug, but there was more than a bit of self-satisfaction going on there. "But something like it wasn't too hard to predict."

"And Justin's already out there, searching with his ghosts?" It was what Claire would've arranged. "I think I'll go and see what Mr Green has to say about all this." When every piece of greenery in the city was her snitch, including weeds, it was really hard to hide from her.

Earl smiled. "Let me know how it goes."

<><>​

Damsel of Distress

This was the best idea of my life. Ashley allowed herself a tiny smile of triumph as she poured tinned stew into the tiny saucepan and set about heating it over the camp stove. She'd been in Brockton Bay just a little while, but already she was beginning to bring together the core of a gang. Marquis had recruited many of the eighteen-plus wanna-be mooks who had been left hanging after the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB fell apart, but that still left a bunch of younger would-be delinquents with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Marquis' big mistake, she decided as she stirred the stew (it smelled fucking amazing, and she knew what she was talking about), was to not have a junior version of the Mercia, like Kaiser and Lung had had in their gangs. From what she gathered, he actually wanted them to go to school and learn about shit. That wasn't the way to get ahead in life.

"You need to grab the world by the throat," she mumbled, standing up and pacing away from the corner she'd colonised in the warehouse. There was a sofa she'd dragged out of a dumpster, and a chair she'd found somewhere; all the comforts of home. "People don't respect you if you knuckle under. So you push, and shove, and claw your way to the top. And once you're there, you make damn sure everyone knows who's the boss, and that it's not them."

The words helped clear her head, and she moved back toward the camp stove. One day, when she had established herself in Brockton Bay as a force to be reckoned with, she was going to deliver that speech or one like it, and everyone damn well better applaud if they knew what was good for them. She was destined for greatness, and the sooner people understood that, the better.

Sitting down on the chair again, she took up the saucepan and turned the camp stove off. The stew was nicely heated now, just right to eat. She had a neat little fork-knife-spoon package that she'd found in her old place back in Stafford, and she pulled that out now. Where it had come from she was never quite sure, but wondering about things like that made her head hurt so she didn't do it much.

Just as she dipped the spoon into the stew, she heard the unmistakeable sounds of her rubble barrier across the main entry door falling over. She hadn't been able to get hold of a padlock yet, so piling rubble was her next best bet. The door scraped open, and she heard quick footsteps and a murmured voice.

"What the fuck?" she muttered to herself. "Can't people just leave me the fuck alone?"

The only thing between her and the intruder was a large crate that formed part of the nook she'd set up in. Sticking her head up briefly, she saw a shadowy, dark-clad figure. Even though she ducked down again just as quickly, she thought she saw his head turn her way.

"Hey! Who's there?" It was a firm, masculine voice; the footsteps moved in her direction. "Come out where I can see you!"

He was telling her what to do. She hated being told what to do. Edict told her what to do all the goddamn time, and if she pushed back against it, she ended up blind in one eye or unable to stand upright or other annoying shit.

Nobody tells me what to do!

Putting the saucepan back on the upturned milk crate beside the camp stove, she stood up straight. The intruder was much closer now, and she stretched out her arm. Before she actually intended to, her power blasted across the distance between them, removing a corner of the crate along the way.

There was a dull thud as the after-effects of her power died away. Walking closer, she saw that it had been a guy, wearing black clothing and a long-coat. Her power had shredded his upper body, obliterating his right arm and destroying half his chest. Even though it hadn't been an aimed shot, the imprecise nature of her power had killed him anyway.

And then, as she leaned over him to try to figure out who or what he was supposed to be, his eyes snapped open and he lunged upward at her. Letting out something that she would forever after deny was a terrified shriek, she blasted him again. And again. And again.

By the time she was done, nothing remained of the intruder except for a largish crater in the concrete floor, reaching all the way down into the dirt in some places. Whoever the fuck he'd been, she had no idea. But he was dead now. More than dead, he was gone now. There was literally nothing left of him.

Serves him right for coming in and disturbing me.

Heading back to her little home base, she sat down and set about eating her stew. It was really good stew; she decided she'd get more of this type when she went shopping next.

She thought no more about the crater in the floor.

<><>​

Marchioness

Still absorbing and sorting the memories from the seed she'd popped into her mouth, Claire re-entered the action room. "Got them, I think," she announced with satisfaction.

Earl looked up from the map table; his fingertip was resting on a spot in the north end of the city. "So do we. Shall we compare data, my dear?"

"Sure." Visualising the information she'd garnered from the plant life across Brockton Bay, she touched her finger to the map. "Several shrubs saw them being abducted here, then weeds and trees followed them this way. They performed a few basic anti-surveillance maneuvers here and here, then finally ended up … here."

Earl blinked. Where she'd traced the path to was separate from where he was touching by several inches. "Are you absolutely certain? Because the Mercia is reporting that Brent just went off the air while checking this set of warehouses here. Even his phone is going straight to voicemail."

"Off the air?" That was a first to Claire. She knew for a fact that she'd rebuilt the Mercia to be more durable than that. Even a shotgun blast to the chest barely fazed them, and they had enough redundancies built into their systems that losing a limb or two was only a moderate inconvenience. "That's really concerning."

"Which is why I'm asking if you're certain." He tapped the location with his finger. "This is our best guess for where he was when he went dark."

"I'm absolutely sure." Claire examined the map again, just to clarify matters in her own head. "I've got an unbroken chain of observation to this spot here. That's where they are, I'd put money on it."

"Damnation." Earl grimaced. "This means we've got two problems in the city."

"I told you something like this would happen." Kayden put her hand on his arm. "And Accord sent you that message. We've created a vacuum, and supervillains will try to fill it."

"I know, I know." Earl ran his fingers through his hair. "I got complacent and let things get out of hand." His eyes fell on Marcus and Robert. "Let that be a lesson to you both. Always—always—keep your eye on the ball. Or someone will do their damnedest to take it away from you."

"So, what are we going to do?" asked Robert. "Split up?"

"Never a great idea." Earl's lips thinned as he looked down at the map. "I'll put a dozen Mercia to forming a cordon around the area where Brent vanished. Nothing gets in or out. In the meantime, we'll take the rest of the Mercia and secure the girls. Once they're safe, then we find out exactly what's happened to Brent."

It wasn't an ideal solution, but Claire knew full well that there often were no perfect answers to a problem. Brent was tougher than Emma and Sophia and could handle a lot more punishment: that was the beginning and the end of it. She knew, as did the others, that Brent himself would advocate for the girls to be rescued first. It was a point of pride among the Mercia that they were the toughest of the tough, the first in and last out.

"Okay, then." She nodded. "I've got a good idea of the surrounding area, so here's what I think we should do."

<><>​

Sophia

"I'm scared," whispered Emma. She didn't speak any louder, even though they'd gotten their gags out of the way, because getting the attention of the two men in the other room was a bad idea.

Sophia had sore ribs already from where the blond asshole had kicked her after she cursed him out. He seemed to bear some sort of grudge from when she'd nearly gotten his eye with her nails. Well, duh. You fuckin' kidnap me and my friend, see what you get. She hoped his face hurt as much as her side did.

"I am too," she murmured back, because it was true and anyone could tell that Emma needed some emotional support. "But we're gonna get out of this, I promise."

Behind her back, she'd never stopped trying to wriggle her wrists free of the flex-cuffs binding her. If they'd been ropes, she and Emma could've cooperated to untie each other, but the assholes had gone the whole hog on keeping their captives secured. This was not turning out like any of the teen movies she'd ever watched.

When she straightened her legs (also flex-cuffed together) the clink of the metal cuff and chain around her ankle reminded her that escape was going to be a little more difficult than those movies suggested. But she knew she couldn't afford to give up. Emma was depending on her to get them both free and out of there. The redhead was strong but she'd never had to struggle in her life, and it showed.

If she could just get herself and Emma free, they'd show these assholes why it was a bad idea to abduct a couple of track stars. Emma had the endurance to run all night and all day, and Sophia figured she could keep up for the most part. And there was no way two assholes with a car could catch up with them, not when they could climb fences and run down dumpster-clogged alleyways.

Getting free was the problem, of course. Sophia gritted her teeth at the sensation of abraded flesh, and twisted harder against the unforgiving plastic of the flex-cuffs. It hurt, but few things in life were painless. Come on, you fucker. Give me something to work with.

In the movies, spies could apparently dislocate their thumbs to get out of handcuffs. That was something else that Hollywood got wrong. Sophia didn't have the first idea of how to dislocate her thumbs, but she'd tried anyway.

The two assholes came back into the room just about then. They seemed to have a silent discussion between themselves, then one pointed at Emma and the other nodded.

This was bad. This was very bad. Sophia's last-ditch escape plan had been to be the first picked for whatever they had in mind, then fight her way free once they took the cuffs off. But picking Emma threw that all out of whack.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Leave her alone, you motherfucking cocksuckers! Take me! Don't touch her! I said, don't touch her!" Adrenaline flooding through her system, she threw herself from side to side, wrestling futilely with her bonds. "I'll kill you! I'll kill both of you!"

Blondie left Emma with his buddy for a moment and came over to her. She tried to evade the kick, but it still drove the wind out of her in a pained gasp. Then he crouched down alongside her; she snapped at his hand, but with a practised move, he grasped her around the throat and pushed her down to the floor again.

"Normally, I don't care one way or the other about who I do this to," he said, sounding almost bored. "But occasionally, I meet a little shit like you who makes me enjoy it. You see, once we're finished with your little friend, who she is now will be dead. She'll be a perfect little slave doll, a plaything for some rich guy to use and abuse, and throw away when he's finished with her. But before we sell her off, I'm going to bring her back in here so you can look her in the eye and understand that you're next."

The knowledge that he was serious terrified her, but she fought all the harder because of it. "Don't care what you do," she forced past his constricting hand. "I'll still be me. Kill you."

His laughter was harsh mockery. "They all say that. They all become what we make them. Enjoy being a spiteful little bitch, for what little time you have left. Pretty soon that'll all be gone. So will you."

And then he pulled her gag back into place and stood up again. Grabbing Emma's feet, he unfastened the metal cuff from her ankle then picked her up by the knees while the guy in the beard and glasses lifted her by the shoulders. Emma shrieked in terror as they carried her into the other room.

Sophia went ballistic.

<><>​

Emma

This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her, even worse than the time she got The Zit just before her first model shoot. Emma didn't know what the two men intended doing as they held her down on the table, and she didn't want to know. She tried struggling, which didn't do much, and she tried screaming for help, which only worked until one of them pulled the gag back over her mouth.

Through the mind-numbing terror that almost paralysed her, the one thing she clung to was the sound of Sophia throwing herself around like a wild animal, clanking and banging the chain against the floor and the wall. Sophia's screams—pure fury, not fear—had been muffled by the gag but not muted altogether, and Emma could still hear her. Get loose, Emma prayed. Get help.

"Okay, prep this one," said the blond one. "I'll go over the personality requirements again."

His partner nodded and held up his hand with one finger extended. A long needle extruded from the tip, and he looked down at Emma thoughtfully. "Here," he decided, more a murmur to himself, and punctured the skin just below Emma's collarbone. Emma flinched as it went in, not knowing what it was, but absolutely certain that she didn't want it.

A moment later, the brown haired one swayed on his feet and took an involuntary step sideways, pulling the needle out again. At the far end of the table, the blond one also looked somewhat dizzy. Both of them shook their heads, as if casting away some kind of passing dream.

It took Emma a few seconds to realise that Sophia had stopped shouting from the other room. And then, in the unexpected silence, she heard another sound: a single metallic clank, as of steel falling onto concrete.

"What was that?" asked the brown-haired man.

"And why's she stopped making noise?" His blond companion stared at the doorway. "Think she's knocked herself out?"

"Maybe. Go check it out. I've got work to do here." He held up the finger with the needle extending from it.

"You go check it out. I'll keep an eye on Red here."

The brown-haired man sighed. "Fine." He headed for the doorway.

At the same time, Emma saw something odd. In her current mental state, it took her longer than it should have, but she finally recognised the ghostly shape that had floated in through the wall and then out again. As with the rest of Brockton Bay, she was pretty sure that the cape calling himself Legionnaire had once been Crusader of the Empire Eighty-Eight, but right now she wasn't about to look any kind of gift horse in the teeth.

She was jerked out of these meanderings by a brief, ugly sound of pain from the other room. The brown-haired man fell backward into sight and collapsed onto the ground, clutching at his chest. And then, through the wall, came Sophia.

She was able to step through the wall because she was composed of some kind of misty shadow-stuff, but that wasn't the only thing different about her. From the elbow down, her right hand had morphed into a broad, stabbing spearhead, composed of pure blackness. Even when she cycled back to human form, the spearhead remained. Although it was surely what had done whatever it did to the brown-haired guy, it remained unstained by blood.

"Get away from her, you son of a bitch," Sophia snarled, stepping forward with pure menace in every movement.

"Uh, uh, uh," counted the blond man, snatching up a sharp-looking blade and holding it to Emma's throat. "Not so fast. One step closer, and you'll be seeing if your brand-new powers can fix her carotid artery."

"Kill her, and I kill you. Let her go, and I hand you to the cops alive." Sophia gestured with her spear-hand. "As much as I'd prefer otherwise."

The blond man put a hand on Emma's forehead. "If you don't—whoa!"

The outburst came when he was suddenly dragged back by half a dozen of Legionnaire's ghosts. As he struggled against them, Emma heard a crash from where she suspected the door to be, as well as the sound of shattering glass from the windows. Within moments, people had crowded into the room, all costumed and all members of Marquis' gang.

The man himself strode into the middle of the gathering as an armoured man leaned over Emma's bonds. She felt a knife slide through the flex-cuffs, and then they were gone.

"Good evening, ladies," Marquis announced. "I rather wish we had gotten here earlier, but I suppose late is better than never. Have they harmed you in any way?" The glower he turned on the blond man made Emma suddenly glad she wasn't his enemy.

"Uh, no," Emma ventured as Sophia stepped up protectively next to her. "I think they were just starting, then something weird happened."

"Yeah, no shit." Sophia held up her hand then cycled it through spearhead, sickle blade and trident head before it resumed its normal shape and shade. "I couldn't do this before."

"I see," murmured Marquis. "If you wish, Marchioness can look you both over and ensure you have no hidden health issues from this ordeal?"

Sophia nodded. "Check Emma out. I'm fine."

"You are not fine," chided the tall brunette in the evening dress. "Your wrists are all torn up and you've strained half a dozen tendons, and fractured your left wrist."

"Still didn't get loose, though," mumbled Sophia.

"But you tried." Emma hugged her friend. "And thank you for that. I would've totally lost it if you hadn't been there."

"Yeah, I guess." Sophia hugged her back. When she let go, Emma watched as she checked her wrists and found unmarked skin. Suspiciously, she looked at Marchioness. "You didn't even put a hand on me."

"Didn't have to." Marchioness smiled. "Area effect healing for the win. But what I'm curious about is this guy." She gestured at the brown-haired one, who was being supported by two more of Legionnaire's ghosts. "What did you do to him? He's debilitated, but I can't find any marks on him."

"Oh, it's this blade thing," Sophia said, then formed it around her hand and shifted to the shadow form and back. "When I'm all shadowy, it doesn't affect solid stuff, but it still hurt him. Not sure if I could kill someone that way." She glowered at the two men who had been holding them prisoner. "But I'd be willing to give it a damn good shot."

Marquis nodded. "That sounds remarkably intriguing, to be honest. Tell me; what are your aspirations for using your powers? Dull, boring heroism, or the exciting, dashing life of villainy?"

Emma had to grin at the contrasting descriptions. "Wow, if I didn't know better, I'd almost think you were biased."

For her part, Sophia looked Marquis in the eye. "I will totally think about it, and give you my answer later. But right now, we just want to go home. Okay?"

Marquis offered a slight bow. "And that's totally fair. I'll even provide a car. I bid you good night and safe travels."

"Thank you," said Emma. But the upbeat tone was a lie; as she walked out of the building with Sophia, she sagged against her friend.

"You okay?" Sophia's arm was around her waist, supporting her.

"Yeah." Emma felt the shakes coming on as she climbed into the back of the car.

Sophia slid in beside her and closed the door.

As the car drove off, they snuggled into each other's arms.



End of Part Twenty-Eight

[A/N: For the record, trauma is a thing. No shipping here.]

 

Another Way

Part Twenty-Nine: The Game is Afoot

[A/N 1: This chapter commissioned by GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Ugh. This chapter fought me tooth and nail. Enjoy.]


Taylor

"Are you sure they're okay?" The patterned concrete of the Barnes household driveway may as well have been red hot, from the way Taylor was dancing around on it. "Both of them?"

"Yes, I'm sure. That's what Marquis said on the phone." Danny looked fondly down at her. "You know, we could wait inside like everyone else. Standing outside in the cold like this isn't going to make them show up any sooner."

"But they might miss the house or something." Taylor searched up and down the road, eyes wide behind her glasses. "What if whoever he sends to drive them here has never been to Emma's house before?"

He chuckled and ruffled her hair. "Do you honestly think Emma wouldn't remember the way here? Or that Alan and Zoe have been any less worried than you?"

"Well …" She wanted to say yes! though she knew it wasn't really true. While Emma was her sister in all but name, she was Mr and Mrs Barnes' daughter, and Anne's actual sister. Taylor didn't know Sophia nearly as well as she did Emma or even Claire, but she liked her a lot too.

A car came rolling down the street. It was an older model sedan with faded paintwork, but the more Taylor looked at it, the more convinced she was that whoever was driving really didn't know their way around the neighbourhood. Then the driver must have seen the police cruiser parked at the curb—the officers were inside, interviewing Mr and Mrs Barnes—because the car slowed even more, and pulled over behind it. Wordlessly, Taylor pointed.

"Huh," mused Danny with a slight frown. "That's not the kind of car I'd expect Marquis to deliver someone home in."

Taylor had to agree. She'd only seen Marquis' personal choice of transport once, but it was sleek and black and (most importantly) didn't have a license plate. It also looked like it could be used to drive Presidents around in. This car fit neither of those criteria.

The front doors opened, and two people got out. The driver was a black woman who looked like she could be Sophia's mom, while the passenger was a teenage boy, about sixteen or seventeen. "Uh, hello?" called out the woman. "I'm looking for Alan Barnes?"

"He's just inside." Danny gestured to the house. "I'm Danny Hebert, and this is my daughter Taylor. I'm guessing you're Sophia's folks?"

Relief spread across the woman's features as they approached, but it was the boy who spoke first. "Wait, I know you. You're that girl from the track meet. I've never seen anyone beat Sophia off the mark like you did." He came up to Taylor and offered his hand. "Hi, I'm Terry."

"Hi." Taylor shook his hand. "Yeah, that's me. But she cleaned my clock on the four hundred. I just couldn't keep up the pace." She knew talking about something totally different might have come across as insensitive, but it was a good way to keep her mind from spiralling into what-might-have-beens.

"So, can you tell me what's going on?" Sophia's mom asked. "Mr Barnes just called me before and told me that Sophia had been rescued, and that she's on the way here. Is she here yet? I didn't even know she'd been abducted!"

"No, we're just waiting ourselves." Danny frowned. "The police didn't contact you at all? We thought you would've known by now."

"No, they didn't. Who kidnapped my daughter? How do you know she's safe now? Who got her back? Why don't the police know anything?" It was an emotional spill of words, one that Taylor understood quite well.

"We don't know who took Sophia and Emma," Danny said soothingly, "but we know the girls are safe because Marquis said so. It's his people who got them back."

"And that's why the cops don't know anything about it," Taylor couldn't resist adding.

"Whoa." Terry's eyes widened. "Marquis got Sophia back from whoever took her? How'd you pull that off?"

Taylor shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "We've got a protection plan with him, and when Emma and Sophia went missing, we went and found some Mercia. Dad paid a bit extra to put them on the plan, and the Mercia went hunting. It turns out that when Marquis says he'll offer protection, he really means it. We just got the good news ourselves a little while ago."

"And if I'm not much mistaken, that's them coming now." Danny pointed, then raised his voice. "Alan! Zoe! They're here!"

Taylor turned and looked; sure enough, a familiar black car had just turned the corner and was approaching the driveway.

<><>​

Sophia

"I believe this is your house, Ms Barnes?" The partition between the front and back seats meant that all communication with the driver came via an intercom, but Sophia didn't care. It had been the smoothest, most luxurious ride of her life, so much so that she was almost sad it was over.

The privacy that this gave them, along with the tinted windows, had allowed them both to let their emotions go. Sophia considered herself reasonably tough, but when Emma started crying into her shoulder, she'd let go a few tears of her own. It had been so damn terrifying, for both Emma's sake and her own.

Even when she'd gotten her powers, she hadn't been master of the situation. The asshole with the knife would've held Emma hostage until his buddy got up if Legionnaire hadn't grabbed him from behind. All she'd wanted to do was protect Emma—that was what strong people did, they protected others—and she'd never felt so helpless as in that moment.

So damn glad Marquis was there.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks again for the lift." Emma was sounding less shaky than she'd been earlier, though she probably still had a bit more to work through. Sophia definitely did.

"All part of the service, ladies. Have a pleasant evening." She recognised her mom's piece-of-shit car as they passed by it and a parked police cruiser, before they pulled into the driveway.

Emma opened the door and scrambled out, with Sophia following behind. She saw her mother and Terry, and in that moment everything else went out of her mind. Pushing the car door shut behind her, she made a beeline for her mom, wrapping her up in a hug and being wrapped up in turn. She was vaguely aware of Terry holding her as well, and freed up an arm to hug him too. Annoying big brother he might be, but he was her annoying big brother.

"Are you alright?" Her mother was still holding her tightly, though her momma-bear instincts had kicked in enough to ask questions. "Did they hurt you? Who did it?"

"I'm fine, mom, really." And physically, she was. Emotionally was another story, but that was for later, behind closed doors. "Marchioness checked us both over before we got in the car. Totally healthy. Fit as a fiddle."

"I still can't believe that Marquis saved you." That was Terry. "I thought he was a villain."

"Sure, but he's a different type." Sophia had been doing some thinking about this. "There's the ones who just like hurting people, and then there's the ones who've got an image. I mean, the guys who kidnapped us, he's not gonna hand 'em over to the PRT or the cops. They're just gonna be dead. I'd be surprised if anyone even finds the bodies."

Her mom shuddered. "You shouldn't be talking like that, about dying and death. We have laws for a reason."

"The law didn't save us this time." Sophia pulled back a bit, and looked her in the eye. "Marquis did. If he hadn't come looking for us, Emma and me would be dead. We'd still be walking around, but we wouldn't be us inside. That's what the blond one said. They were gonna turn us into robot slave dolls. And they've done it before, to a lot of people." She bared her teeth. "Whatever Marquis does to 'em before they die, they're getting off easy."

A new pair of arms slid around her waist from behind. "I am so glad you're okay," Taylor said. "Emma told us what happened. Marchioness is pretty cool, isn't she?" From what she said—or rather, from what she hadn't said—Sophia figured that Emma was keeping the news about her powers on the down-low for now, which was good.

"Yeah, she fixed me as good as new just by walking past." Sophia hadn't taken Taylor for a huggy type—she wasn't much for it herself—but right at that moment she was just fine with getting all the emotional support she could get. "What I don't know is how Marquis knew to even come looking for us. It's not like either of us managed to call the cops."

"Yeah, that was Claire." Taylor leaned against Sophia from behind. "When I showed her the text messages they sent from Emma's phone, she figured out straight away that you'd been kidnapped. We—my family and me—we're all under a protection plan, so Dad contacted Marquis and had you two put on it. I showed them that photo of you and Emma goofing around that time, and that was it. Dunno how they found you so fast, but I'm glad they did."

Sophia nodded. "Yeah, rich girl like her, I figure she'd have to learn about stuff like that. Still, next time I see her, I'm gonna give her the biggest hug." She paused, thinking about the rest of what Taylor had said. "Wow. So, he came and saved us because your dad asked him to? How much did it cost?" Whatever the price had been, she decided then and there that she was going to save up her allowance and pay back Taylor's dad every penny.

"I was a little curious about that myself," her mother admitted. "That money saved your life, Sophia."

"Twenty bucks for both of you together," Taylor confided. "Apparently it's how he does business."

Tw-twenty? Twenty bucks? Sophia's brain stuttered to a halt. The sheer audacity of the figure locked up all her mental processes. A powerful supervillain had stepped up to save her life and Emma's—and almost certainly killed two men—because he'd been paid twenty bucks. She didn't know whether to be grateful or insulted that the figure was so low.

<><>​

Emma

"Sophia?" Emma wasn't sure what the frozen look on Sophia's face was all about, but she was sure she'd find out sooner or later. "I'd like you to meet my dad."

Sophia shook herself out of it and turned to look at them, still being hugged by her mother and brother, and by Taylor as well. "Hi, Mr Barnes. Figured we'd meet sooner or later. Didn't think it'd be like this."

He nodded distractedly. "Emma says you broke your wrist trying to get free and help her."

She blinked. "Oh, ah, yeah, but it was only a fracture and Marchioness fixed me right up. See?" She extricated her arms from around her family members and held them out, flexing both wrists. "Good as new."

"Doesn't matter." He took her hand in his, squeezed it once, then let it go. "If you ever need anything, anything at all, just ask. I mean it."

"You don't have to do that," Sophia's mom protested. "Anyone else would've done the same thing."

Alan shook his head. "Maybe, but Sophia was the one who was there. From what Emma says, she fought back and delayed them long enough that Marquis' people were able to get there in time, before anything was done to Emma. I owe her for that. We all do."

"Taylor said Claire Marchant's the one who figured it out." Sophia was clearly embarrassed at being the centre of attention like this. "She's the one we should be thanking."

"And I will be." He nodded firmly. "But you're the one who was there. Whatever you need. Just ask."

"Okay, yeah, maybe I will." Sophia looked around. "Where is Claire, anyway? I wanted to thank her for being on the ball like that."

"Oh, her dad had her picked up," Taylor explained. "I guess this whole kidnap deal spooked him a bit, and he wanted her close by where he could keep an eye on her."

"Trust me," Danny Hebert said fervently, "I can totally understand that."

Alan Barnes curled his arms around Emma and held her close. "Hear, hear."

<><>​

A Little Earlier

Marchioness

As the car bearing Emma and Sophia drove away, I turned to Dad. "Okay, where did Brent vanish?"

"Not far from here, actually." He took his phone out and showed me the screen. "When I try to ping his GPS, the system says that it's not receiving a signal from him. This is the location of the last tower it connected to."

"Understood. Give me a second." I settled into myself, retrieving the information that had been woven into the seed I'd eaten earlier that evening, courtesy of the city-wide plant-based gestalt hive-mind I'd dubbed Mr Green. Initially, I'd only been interested in the abduction of Emma and Sophia, but now I began to follow other threads of information.

Mr Green stored all the information that his far-flung elements gathered, but there was no filing system and the closest thing to a time-date stamp was 'feels older' or 'feels newer'. This meant that I had to delve and search back and forth for the correct location and the right time. Added to which, the Mercia spent most of the time on the rooftops, where plants connected to the network were few and far between.

The image on Dad's phone gave me Brent's movements, which let me double-check matters. Finally, I saw where a clump of grass straggling up through a crack in a concrete curb had spotted a shadowy figure descending to ground level. Brent had approached a dilapidated warehouse and muscled a side door open, then gone inside. He hadn't emerged again. There'd been no flashes of gunfire or of power use. No other plants near the warehouse had detected him, and the location was comfortably within the overlapping circles of GPS location and tower pings.

On a hunch, I went backward along that particular thread, to see if anyone else had entered the warehouse. Eventually, aware that I'd been staring into space for more than a minute, I got a hit. "Okay …" I said with a frown. "That's weird."

"You're going to have to clarify that, my dear." Dad, as always, was the soul of patience. While we both knew I wasn't the kind of cape who could see back through time, my various resources let me cheat really, really well.

"The last view I have of Brent, he went into a warehouse right around that location, but someone else went in there a few hours earlier. Skinny white girl in a black dress. Long white hair. I didn't get a great look at her, but she didn't look nearly old enough to have hair that white."

"Hmm." He frowned in his turn. "A slender girl in a black dress, with white hair? That doesn't ring a bell. Did she look homeless?"

"Maybe?" I went back over the imagery. "She had a backpack, and she looked skinny enough to have missed a few meals, but her hair and dress were clean. And she didn't have that beaten-down look you get with people living on the streets. I got the impression that she figured she was on the way up, wherever 'up' is for her."

"Interesting. I believe I would like to speak with her. At the very least, she may be able to give us some indication regarding Brent's whereabouts. And if she happens to have had anything to do with his disappearance …" He pressed his lips together. "I will have some stringent questions to ask about her part in all this."

I nodded. "Gotcha. I know exactly where the place is. But what are we going to do with these two?" I gestured to where the kidnappers were being held by the Mercia, their hands enclosed in blocks of bone.

His eyes, as he looked at them, were as cold as I'd ever seen. "They came into my city uninvited and unannounced; that was bad enough. But it's your friends that they would have inflicted a fate far worse than death on. You may choose their fate, my dear Marchioness."

"Thank you." Reminded of what they'd tried to do to Emma and Sophia, I approached the two men, reshaping my arm as I went until it sported battle-claws. "I don't really know who you are, but I know what you've done. You picked the wrong city, and the wrong victims. Any last words?"

The brown-haired man stared at my arm, perhaps in admiration. His companion glared at me defiantly. "We're just the first. More will come, and sooner or later—"

I didn't need to listen to this shit. My arm flicked out, razor claws slicing into his neck. The batrachotoxin entered his bloodstream even as red flooded down his front. He struggled briefly and fruitlessly with the man holding him, then died. "I said last words, not a last speech." Then I turned to the other man. "You?"

"We-we could work together. Your ability—"

That was never going to happen. "Pass." Another slash left him gurgling for breath as the venom flooded through his body. He lasted even less time than his partner.

"Well done," Dad said, stepping up alongside me. "Quick and efficient." He nodded to the men holding the corpses. "Secure the bodies and clear the scene. We'll deal with them later."

Despite my earlier surety, I felt an odd hollowness in my chest as I reverted my arm to the appearance of normality. While I'd killed before, that had been in the heat of action, not as a cold, calculated action afterward.

I moved off down the street with him—Brent's last seen location wasn't that far, even on foot—until we were far enough away from the Mercia that they could plausibly pretend to not be able to hear us, then I turned to look at him. "Does it get any easier?"

He tilted his head slightly. "Killing someone who strongly deserves it? Or killing a helpless prisoner?"

"Both, I guess." I sighed. "I know they were bad people, but we're kind of bad people too." Especially now, my intrusive thoughts insisted on adding.

"There are different types of bad people in the world." His tone was professorial. "The nuances are many, but it boils down to those who try not to harm innocents while committing their crimes, those who don't care, and those who go out of their way to do it. The pair you just executed—Orchard—were specifically making money by reshaping innocents before mindwiping them, usually women and girls, and selling them off as slaves. It's theoretically possible to be more despicable than that, but they would've had to really work at it. If the true extent of their crimes had ever been exposed, they would likely have gained a kill order."

"Still doesn't make it right that I just killed them." I hunched my shoulders as I walked. "We've got laws and stuff for a reason."

"Yes, we do." His voice was serious. "And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they perform adequately to their function. The criminal is arrested, charged, and tried. Society as a whole feels safer. However, the question you need to ask yourself is this: had they not been Birdcaged or given a kill order, how soon do you think before they would've been out in the world again, unmaking innocents on a daily basis? For heroes and law enforcement, ending people like that is a moral dilemma; for us, a matter of sheer pragmatism. Whether we left them as enemies or prospective allies, we would always be looking over our shoulders."

"So, you would've killed them too?" I was pretty sure I knew the answer to this, but I wanted to hear him say it.

"In a heartbeat," he assured me. "More for the unannounced trespass into my city than the other crimes, but in the end it comes to the same thing."

It was just another reminder that my father's civilised exterior had been deliberately assumed rather than learned from birth. With anyone who didn't know him as well as me, it would've come as a jarring revelation. He didn't think the same way I did, but it was telling that we tended to reach the same conclusions, more often than not.

And that was good enough for me.

<><>​

Damsel of Distress

The wifi in the area wasn't great, but Ashley had enough cell connectivity to not really worry about it. Lying in the dark, she idly scrolled through the local PHO news; if she was going to become a power in the city, it was probably a smart idea to figure out who she was up against.

Marquis she already knew about, as a big player who'd been in Boston since before she'd gotten her powers, but had recently moved to Brockton Bay. Or was it 'back' to Brockton Bay? There seemed to be some suggestions that he was originally from there.

The Empire Eighty-Eight was gone (though a couple of members had apparently switched allegiance to Marquis) and the ABB was fragmenting since Lung had died facing Marquis. Apart from the two who'd joined him, Marquis had his daughter Marchioness who was some kind of healer, plus a knight with a flaming sword … and a bunch of Mover-Brute types called the Mercia, who got around in long coats and dark clothing.

She sat up on her inflatable mattress, wondering why that sounded way too familiar.

A few minutes later, after doing a search of news sites, she had her answer. A picture of the Mercia, wearing their long coats, looking exactly like the asshole who'd pushed his way into her warehouse. These were Marquis' enforcers, the ones who enforced his 'protection' mandate. They were universally noted as being exceedingly tough, having gone through the Endbringer battle in Florida without suffering any casualties.

Huh. Not so tough after all.

Though it had taken her two blasts to kill him, when one usually sufficed.

She lay back on the mattress, turning the phone off to conserve battery, and thought it over. Marquis couldn't have known she was in the warehouse, or he would've sent more of his long-coated goons. None had intruded on her in the hour since she'd disposed of the first one (and she'd set up the door alarm again) so he still had no idea she was carving out her own little slice of his turf.

I'm good. Rolling over, she pulled the thin blanket up to cover her shoulders, and rested her head on the rolled-up backpack that passed for a pillow. She'd go out again tomorrow and recruit a few more of the disaffected youths in town. Soon, she'd be running her own little operations and pulling in enough cash that she could afford to sleep on an actual bed, no matter how many she destroyed by accident in the meantime.

Just as her eyes were drifting shut, a ghost came in through the wall.

She thought for a second that she was already asleep and dreaming, but the discomfort of the mattress and the chill that the blanket wasn't quite managing to dispel proved otherwise. This was real, and the ghost was turning to look at her. Eyes opening wide, she recalled that one of Marquis' allies was the turncoat Crusader from the Empire, now calling himself Legionnaire.

Which meant they knew where she was after all. Fuck!

She was just pushing herself to a sitting position when her power went off unexpectedly. It wrecked her air mattress and threw her into the air, then scorched a trench across the floor and up the wall before it intersected the ghost, which popped. Thrown back against the crates that she'd been sleeping up against, she scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly.

Another ghost came at her, spectral sword gleaming oddly in the light coming in through a grimy pane. She blasted that one, and it popped as readily as the first one had.

Anger flared in her chest. They were attacking her? They had no idea who they were dealing with!

Pointing both hands at the floor and ignoring the fact that she was destroying most of her pitiful belongings, she triggered her power again, blasting herself into the air. It wasn't the easiest or most intuitive way to fly, and in fact she preferred not to do it this way at all. But if Marquis and his merry band of assholes wanted a fight, Damsel of Distress was going to show them a fight!

<><>​

Marchioness, Outside the Warehouse

As the spine-tingling screeching roar erupted within the building, Justin staggered and gasped. My power showed me the illusory pain flaring through his body; the trouble was, he hadn't been injured in any way. It was like someone with my abilities was plucking at his nerve endings. Another roar came, and he staggered again.

"What's up?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"She killed them," he said, the words coming as harsh pants. "My ghosts. Killed them."

"Killed them?" Dad sounded like he wanted to ask Justin if he was sure, but he restrained himself. "How? What was that sound?"

A moment later, we all found out as the sound swelled … and a good chunk of the front of the warehouse burst out in all directions. The girl I'd seen came flying out, spiralling and jinking in a way that left me unsure if she was in full control of her movement. Robert had stepped in front of us and raised his shield to ward off what little debris came our way. That might have been a mistake, because it caught her attention.

The thrust she was generating from her left hand—a darkly visible blast of shrieking, howling, fingernails-on-blackboard abomination of noise—left a smoking trench behind her as she came at us. Her other hand pointed in our direction, and the look in her eyes promised that she wasn't coming over to exchange cookie recipes.

Everyone moved at once. Dad shoved me behind him and generated a bone shield that covered from the concrete to well above my head, Robert jumped forward, growing as his sword flared bright with flame, and Jonas came in from the side to add extra protection. Unlike the time he'd been decapitated by the Empire, Dad was already as protected as I could make him, and my battle form had been hiding under the skin of my human façade.

As my mental processing speed accelerated with my proprietary version of adrenaline running through my veins, I figured we were good. Dad was a master with his bone-forming, Robert had literally gone toe-to-toe with Leviathan, and Jonas had once pummelled Hookwolf to a standstill. The trouble was, I hadn't yet connected all the dots to realise exactly how much danger we were in.

The first intimation of just how bad it was going to get came when Robert fell. Ten feet tall, with a sword almost as long, he was still growing when she cut him clear in half, her dark ravening energy burst burning through his shield, armour and flesh alike. Her backsweep sliced through Dad's bone shield like it was nothing and would have killed us both—or rather, killed Dad and injured me massively—if Jonas' enhanced reflexes hadn't been up to the task.

Surging forward, he wrapped his arms around both of us and made a heroic leap, taking us out of the danger zone. 'Heroic' was definitely one way to describe it, because he did it without part of his skull, some of his spine, and a usually-fatal number of his vital organs. The fact that his legs had made the leap without a direct connection to his brain meant that he was either in the process of jumping when he was hit, or the secondary nerve connections that I'd previously given him had proven their worth.

A dozen different emotions tried to overwhelm me at once, but I didn't have time for that. Almost automatically, I tweaked my hormonal balance to get rid of that distraction. I'll deal with it later, not right now.

We hit grimy concrete and rolled over and over. Something had happened to my left leg, but I told my autonomic systems to just deal with it and submit a report when I was less busy, because I was all of a sudden dealing with a lot more problems. Dad's right arm was gone at the shoulder, Jonas was dying before my eyes, I had no idea where Justin had gotten to, and she was still coming.

A length of steel pipe came flying at her javelin style, and she only barely managed to blast it into nothingness; the blast sent her spiralling off-balance, away from us. I was only barely aware of this, and of Abigail throwing more impromptu projectiles and dancing around her blasts, because I was dealing with two of the people who meant the most to me in my life. Dad's shoulder wound closed as soon as I concentrated on it, allowing me to focus on Jonas' horrific injuries.

His lungs and heart were mostly gone, and the secondary heart had been nicked, rendering it virtually useless. Worse, the blast hadn't bothered to cauterise anything, so almost his entire blood supply was now pooling on the cracked concrete around us.

I made my hand into a blade, speared it straight through his subdermal armour, and linked into his axillary artery, near the shoulder. Closing off blood vessels as fast as I could manage (assisted somewhat by the emergency shutoffs I'd installed in case of traumatic amputation), I enlarged my own heart and lungs, and started breathing for two. I was keeping half an eye on the battle in case it came our way, but it seemed Abigail was keeping the girl's attention.

And then, as I started to ruthlessly break down his more damaged tissues and convert them into added blood supply, a blast sent Abigail flying sideways into a wall. They were too far away for me to affect them either way, and Dad was still groggy from his injury. But then Justin's ghosts came at her, while more began to carry Abigail out of the way.

A sweeping blast shredded the attacking ghosts, deleting them from existence in a way I wouldn't have believed possible, and the ones carrying Abigail convulsed and dropped her again. Abigail struggled to get up, but her right leg was gone from the knee down. Even as I dithered between keeping Jonas alive and saving Abigail, the choice was taken from my hands when the sun rose over the rooftops.

Or rather, Kayden. Shining bright, her face obscured by her glow, yet still somehow emanating an air of utter rage. "Get away from her!" Extending her hands, she let out her own blast, spiralling toward the girl in the black dress.

It was immediately obvious who had the advantage in this particular contest. The white-haired girl had only the vaguest control over her flight, and her maximum range was maybe twenty feet. Kayden was good at flying, and she could shoot much farther than that.

Spiralling blast met ravening destruction, and the white-haired girl was blown back into the warehouse. Swooping overhead, Kayden unleashed the full force of her anger on the building and its sole inhabitant, not letting up even after the roof came crashing down. By the time she was finished, the place was a literal crater, without even a fragment of a wall standing.

No blasts came back at her, which I counted as a good sign. Also, Abigail had tightened a strap around her leg as a makeshift tourniquet, and was hopping our way with better balance than I would've managed before I got powers. I finished up closing the worst of Jonas' wounds, including the patch of missing skull, and made sure that his new heart and lungs would keep him alive after I detached from him.

"What the hell was that?" asked Kayden, coming in for a landing. "Who the hell was that? Are you okay?"

"I've been better, but I'm alive." Dad looked down at his shoulder. "I appear to be missing an arm, but Jonas is in rather worse straits. Once Knight Errant gets back up—"

"Robert's dead, and all," Abigail reported as she got to us. "She tracked one of those damned blasts clear over his head. There's nothing left from the chest up." Her Irish accent was the strongest I'd heard it in years. "Did ye kill the poxy geebag, Palatina?"

"I'm hoping I did." Kayden looked down sorrowfully at Robert's scattered, armoured remnants. Raising her eyes, she glowered at the shattered remains of the building. "Is Legion okay?"

"Here!" Justin called out, staggering into view. "I'm here." He was cradling his right arm. "Broken arm, and I've only got two ghosts. The rest got scragged by whoever the fuck that was."

That, at least, I could fix. "Come here," I told him as I detached from Jonas. He was missing both legs and one arm, and a lot of his skin was the fresh pink that showed it had been newly grown, but I'd used the mass to replace all the organs he currently needed to stay alive until I could properly get to work on him. Also, I'd scavenged a little bit to replace my own leg, which had gone missing in action (along with a chunk of my evening gown) at some point.

"Sorry about the arm," Abigail said, still easily balancing on one leg. "I threw you a little hard, so I did." She looked over to me. "Nice trick, acushla. Way to get a leg up in life."

"Oh, ha ha." Sealing over her stump and setting Justin's arm was a lot easier than dealing with the emergency-room nightmare that Jonas had been just seconds ago. "I'll grow it all back for him. We just need a ton of biomass to make that happen."

Dad looked at me searchingly. "Are you okay? You don't seem to be unduly worried by any of this."

"I'm fine. Just turned my emotions off for the moment." I gave him a quick smile to reassure him. "What do we do next?"

"Next, we return home and regroup," he decreed. "We are in no condition for any sort of confrontation at the moment." He pulled out his phone, and made the call to Lee, who'd been sent to drop Emma and Sophia off at Emma's house.

"Think she's dead?" asked Justin quietly. His last two ghosts had re-merged with him, but he still looked gaunt and in pain.

"She'd better be," growled Kayden. Her fists clenched, a glow building around them. "I'm sure I got at least one direct hit in on her."

"I'm not going to believe that until I've seen a body," Dad announced, putting his phone away. "I've been presumed dead more than once, and I refuse to make that mistake myself. However, before we face her again, we need to find out who she is and what her weaknesses are."

I nodded. "Damn right."

<><>​

Damsel of Distress

The stink of the sewer tunnel was unpleasant, to say the least, but that was the least of Ashley's worries. She was pissed. "Where the fuck did Purity come from?" she growled under her breath. "I had them on the ropes. I beat fucking Marquis! Nobody's ever done that!"

She'd been blown back into the warehouse under the impetus of her own blasts, not from being hit by Purity's hammering energy attack. Her blasts had literally cancelled the attack before it could hit her, but it had also driven her backward, not forward on the offensive, where she'd wanted to be. If she could've gotten within strike range of the flying lightbulb, she could've put that glow out forever.

But the unfair fact of the matter was that Purity was longer-ranged than she was, so she was stuck playing defense until the ex-Empire cape made a mistake and got within her attack range.

Which she hadn't.

Ashley had been on the back foot, bleeding from half a dozen minor wounds caused by flying debris, barely able to hold her footing as the ground itself bucked under her feet and spiralling blasts shredded the warehouse around her. She'd fired back when she could, screaming insults and threats at the top of her lungs, but mainly she'd had to use her powers to stop anything big from hitting her. And then the floor had fallen away, and she'd tumbled cursing down a rough concrete slope, before landing in shallow water.

Well, mainly water.

The assault was still going on above her, Purity still apparently doing her best to vaporise everything within the warehouse, and doing a damn good job of it. As potent as Ashley's blasts were, Purity could fly more effectively and shoot farther. Ashley hated to give ground on anything, but sometimes it was a good idea to back off and attack from a different angle.

As more debris rained down, interspersed with more of Purity's blasts—one of which came altogether too close, spraying her with more shards of concrete—she made her decision and blew away the debris that had been blocking the sewer pipe. Ducking inside, grimacing at the smell and the cramped conditions, she made her way toward a dubious safety.

She wasn't fleeing or retreating, she told herself firmly. She was repositioning.

And she'd blast the guts out of anyone who though they could tell her otherwise.

<><>​

Marchioness

"Found her," announced Marcus as I finished fixing Abigail's leg. Dad's arm was already complete, and Jonas would be next. We had a bulk store of biomass in the freezer for just such an occasion; all it had required was to thaw it out.

Once we were safely in the car, leaving the scene, I'd allowed my emotions to come back into play. I hadn't wanted to at first, but Dad had insisted. Two seconds later, I fell apart. He held me as I sobbed, all the fear and anger and sorrow over Robert's brutal death coming out at once. Part of it was guilt; if I'd known that she was going to just kill him, maybe I could've given his regeneration a quick boost.

Abigail and Kayden had been no less affected by his murder, though Kayden seemed able to hide it better. Dad put on a stoic air, but our proximity allowed me to feel his simmering rage against the girl in the black dress. He seemed to take personal affront at the fact that people under his employ had been killed just because they were there.

Returning to the house with Robert's remains—there was no way in hell that we were just going to leave him on the battlefield, after all he'd gone through for us—had been a sombre affair. He'd stood between us and the danger more than once, not because he was being forced to, but because he wanted to. For all that he'd been created by an enemy to fight us, he'd become one of us.

We'd carefully wrapped his remains in a sheet and placed them in cold storage once we got back to the house. In time, when we were able, there was a shaded plot of land near the house where we could bury him. He'd enjoyed walking among the trees during his early days of his new life with us, and I thought it would be fitting for him as a final resting place.

While I worked on Dad and Abigail, and Justin lay back with a cold compress on his forehead, Marcus had gone online, searching through Dad's contacts for any clues to what had happened. It was virtually beyond belief that someone with that level of power could have flown under the radar long enough to get to Brockton Bay and start raising havoc. Where had she come from, and why hadn't she made her name elsewhere first?

"Well, don't keep us in suspense, lad." Once I'd fixed his arm, Dad had changed his shirt, and now looked as unruffled and imperturbable as ever. "Regale us with her story."

Marcus finished reading the information off the screen, then shook his head. "You're never going to believe this. Boston PRT knows all about her. Her name's Damsel of Distress, and she bases out of a little town called Stafford, New Hampshire. Her power can cut through anything but her control over it's pretty crap. A lot of the time, it'll go off at the wrong moment and wreck stuff she wanted to keep, like food and walls and furniture. Real name Ashley Stillons, age sixteen."

Kayden raised her head. "So, what's she doing here?"

"What else?" asked Justin without opening his eyes or taking the compress off his forehead. "Same as those other two assholes wanted. To carve out a slice of the pie."

"It gets better," reported Marcus. "Director Armstrong's actually got a couple of local capes on babysitting duty. Edict and Licit. Their whole job is to drop off food if it looks like she hasn't been eating recently, and to herd her back to Stafford if she wanders off. Oh, and the PRT pays for the internet and electricity of whatever place she chooses to move into. All in the name of keeping her in one place, where they can keep an eye on her."

"Why doesn't she just, you know, join the Wards?" I asked. "She's got the chops for it. Well, apart from the lack of control. And I'm sure they could figure a way around that."

"That's the saddest bit." Marcus gestured at the screen of the laptop. "According to this … well, you know how some people just jump into the role of being a superhero automatically? Like, say, Legend? You see that guy and you say, 'he's a hero'. Right?"

"Right." I frowned. "You're saying she's not?"

"Not just not a hero, but actually a natural villain. According to the reports, she occasionally does this whole supervillain monologue thing. And on the few times she has left Stafford, she's set out to build her own criminal empire. It's crumbled each time, though, because she's paranoid and short-tempered, plus she's got that lack of control thing going on. Minions don't tend to stick with someone who's likely to blow them to bits either on purpose or by accident, and she tends to do both." He sat back from the laptop. "That's got to suck for her."

"Indeed." I could tell why Dad sounded less than admiring. He had built his career on knowing exactly how to control his power to its best effect. To quote something he'd said more than once, people like that made supervillains look bad. "Claire, this is exactly the sort of situation I was referring to, when we had our little talk earlier. This Damsel of Distress represents a clear and present danger to anyone she encounters, whether it be heroes, villains or innocents. Even her own minions will be in peril from her power going off at the slightest provocation."

I was pretty sure I knew where he was going with this, and I didn't like it. "You're saying we're going to have to hunt her down and kill her, because the PRT won't?" I didn't mind mixing it up with assholes who were more or less mentally healthy, but she didn't sound that way at all. Of course, she was also breathtakingly dangerous at the same time, which didn't help in the slightest.

"Or remove her from the equation in some other way." Dad paused and took a deep breath. "I have predicated a significant portion of my image as one who does not harm women or children, and if anyone has a better idea, I'd like to hear it. However, if we do nothing at all, it will only embolden her. Even if we subtly alert the PRT to her presence here, and Edict and Licit arrive to force her back to Stafford, it will only weaken our image here in Brockton Bay and delay her inevitable return. We must act."

"Aye," agreed Abigail. "But how?"

"That," he said, "is the question."



End of Part Twenty-Nine

 

Another Way

Part Thirty: Discussing Options

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


Saturday Morning, December 15, 2007

Sophia Hess

"Uuuugh." The groan that was wrenched from Sophia's lips was deep and heartfelt as she rolled over and slapped at the impertinently buzzing alarm clock. "Whhhyyyyy?"

When she finally managed to smack it into silence, the buzzing was replaced by the underlying noise she hadn't heard until now; her phone was pinging with a text alert every ten seconds or so. Forehead creasing with confusion, she wrapped her hand around the phone and conveyed it haphazardly to her eyeline. Fortunately for her state of mind, she'd never actually used a PIN for this phone, so she was able to cut straight to the chase.

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she eventually managed to focus on the screen. A whole string of text messages greeted her.

Hey

You awake?

Wake up

Waaaake uuuup

WAKE UP!

Hey, you there?

Poke

Poke

Poke

Poke

Wake up already

C'mon, hero

That's it I'm coming over

On the way now

Can't believe youre still asleep

On your front doorstep

Youre in for it now

A moment later, another one popped up.

Your mom's coming to get you

There was a tap on her bedroom door. "Sophia?" her mother called out. "Are you awake?"

Just for a moment, she thought of saying nothing. The bed was nice and comfortable, perfect for rolling over and snuggling in for the next hour or two. But it was Mom, and if Sophia didn't answer, she'd just come on in. "Yeah. What's up?"

"Your friend Emma's here." Her mother sounded a little taken aback, which didn't surprise Sophia. Not many of her friends actually came to her house; most of the time, she went and visited them. "Did you want to see her?"

Oh, right. Memory was trickling back into her consciousness. She'd set the alarm for a reason, despite the fact that it was the weekend. "Yeah. Tell her I'll be right down." A moment later, she belatedly added, "And tell her I'm sorry for sleeping through my alarm."

The door cracked open and her mother leaned in, just so she could chuckle fondly. "Your teenage years are still ahead of you. I'm sure this won't be the only time it happens." She paused. "Are you feeling alright, after what happened last night?" Getting powers, she undoubtedly meant but did not say. Finding out about it had been a shock for her at the time, but she'd taken it on board eventually.

"I'll be fine." Sophia swung her legs over the side of the bed, hoping her mother wouldn't notice that she hadn't said she was fine. Although she was perfectly healthy physically, thanks to Marchioness' healing ability, she was still coming to terms with the shockwaves that had been echoing through her personal self-image since last night.

"That's good, dear." Her mother, apparently having heard what she wanted to, shut the door again.

Sophia groaned her way to her feet, then hunted through her closet and dresser for something that was worthy for a day out with her friends. They'd decided last night to spend the day together and talk over what had happened, and she knew Taylor was definitely in the loop. However, by the time the gathering broke up, it had been too late to call Claire without the chance of pissing her father off, so they'd figured they would wait until morning.

She eventually settled on jeans, a T-shirt that portrayed Santa (in his sleigh) hunting down the Easter Bunny and the Thanksgiving turkey with a shotgun, and a light jacket. A minute or so with the brush got her hair back into order, then she splashed water on her face and trotted downstairs in good spirits. If she had to have these powers, she decided, it was her sheer good luck to have such amazing friends to help her figure out what to do with them.

Emma was sitting at the kitchen table and chatting with Terry when Sophia arrived downstairs. She could hear her mom in the living room, discussing something with Mr Barnes and Stephen. Whatever they were talking about, she hoped Stephen didn't have much say in it; as far as she was concerned, he was a dick.

"Hey!" Emma got up from the table and came over to give Sophia a hug. "You look nice. Ready to go and pick up Taylor?"

Sophia returned the hug. "So do you." It was only true. Not only was Emma pretty in her own right, but she also had a natural talent for showing off most clothing and hairstyles to their full advantage. "What's Mom talking about with your dad in there?"

"Scholarships, actually." Emma smiled. "Dad and Mom discussed matters last night, and Dad decided to set up scholarships for you and Terry to study whatever you want to at Brockton Bay College. They're just going over the details right now."

Belatedly, Sophia noticed that Terry looked a little shell-shocked. This wasn't surprising, as her own mind was whirling with the news. "What, scholarships? For both of us?" Mr Barnes had told her that she could come to him anytime, but … wow.

"That's the idea, yeah." Emma's smile had become an irrepressible grin. "Isn't it cool?"

"Cool?" Sophia's questing hand pulled a chair out from the table so she could drop into it, because her knees weren't working too well at the moment. "It's insane. Can he even afford that sort of thing?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "We might not have the sort of money that Claire's dad does, but Dad does have the occasional bit of cash tucked away for a rainy day."

"Okay, yeah, point." Sophia nodded. "Still, you know he doesn't have to."

"I know that, you know that, and he knows that. But he wants to anyway." Emma gave her a shrug. "I wouldn't argue too hard, if I was you. This way you get that sports scholarship we talked about."

"Yeah, but what if they figure out how to reliably tell if athletes have powers, like they've been talking about trying to do?" Up until now, it hadn't been much of a concern for Sophia, because she hadn't been a cape. With powers, however, it was a different story. It wasn't like she could cheat on the track in any real way with the abilities she'd gained, but she suspected it wouldn't matter.

"Ugh, true." Emma's expression dimmed a little. "Well, maybe you could go into law or something, and be a kickass crimefighter on the side."

"Law, really?" Sophia gave her a what-the-fuck look. "Come on, this is me you're talking to. I've got way more self-respect than that." She shook her head and snorted at the idiocy of the idea.

"Fair point. Anyway, did you want to eat something now, or get breakfast on the run?"

Sophia shrugged. "I'm good to get breakfast on the way."

"Gotcha." Emma turned as her dad came into the kitchen, along with Sophia's mom. "I've just filled Sophia in. She's okay with it, so long as we don't make her study law."

Alan Barnes chuckled heartily. "Well, I can't fault your common sense, young lady. The study of law is a long and thankless task, and even the practice of it is rife with disappointments. Far better to find what you like and follow it where it goes."

Sophia glanced sideways at Emma. "See, this is why I like your dad. He's honest about his job." Then she fronted up to Mr Barnes again. "I was just telling Emma that I'm ready to go pick up Taylor. We can get breakfast on the drive there."

"So, uh …" began Terry. "Is it … are they really happening?"

"The scholarships?" Mr Barnes nodded, smiling. "Yes, son, they are. By the time you've finished school and you've got an idea what you want to do at college, the funds will be there to do it."

"Whoa …" breathed Terry. "Awesome."

"I can't thank you enough," Sophia's mom said, not for the first time if Sophia was any judge. "Just knowing they've got the option to go to college will make a huge difference." She paused to give both of her children a mock glare. "If they know what's good for them, it should make a difference in their grades."

"Totally," Terry said at once. "We really appreciate this opportunity, Mr Barnes."

"Thank your sister." Mr Barnes nodded toward Sophia. "She's the one who really opened my eyes to the understanding that not all good people have the opportunities in life that they deserve." He gestured toward her and then to Terry. "I can't help everyone who needs it, but I can help you two."

Emma nodded and gave Sophia a side-hug. "Damn right."

<><>​

Taylor

The sound of a car pulling up out at the front of the house came just as Taylor was finishing breakfast. Danny looked around from the morning paper. "I'm not a car person, but that did sound like Alan's car. Even the brakes sound expensive."

Taylor shoved her fork through the last of her egg and bacon, forming a large mouthful which she valiantly attempted to ingest all at once. The trouble was, she couldn't chew and swallow it and jump up and run to the front door, no matter how much she wanted to; not under her mother's eye, anyway. Giving her a don't-you-dare-young-lady look, Annette rose from the table and proceeded down the hallway to the front door.

Taylor heard her open the door. "Good morning," she said politely. "Taylor's doing her best to choke herself on breakfast, so if you come in she might see she doesn't have to hurry quite so much."

Yeah, this isn't embarrassing at all. As Taylor heard Emma and Sophia coming in, along with Mr Barnes, she worked at not proving her mother right. Bit by bit, aided by the last of her orange juice, she managed to swallow her food without either choking on it or looking like a chipmunk with overstuffed cheek pouches.

"Mo-om," she groused, once she was able to. "Did you have to?"

"That depends," her mother said sweetly. "Did you have to stuff all that food in your mouth at once?"

"Alan, how are you doing?" asked Danny from the living room. Taylor heard the mutual back-slapping as they greeted each other.

"I'm fine." Mr Barnes actually sounded like he meant it. "How about you?"

"Well, I've been a lot worse. The Lord's Port reclamation is going well …"

Taylor tuned him out as she wiped her mouth and got to her feet. She had no answer for the rhetorical question, as her mom well knew, so she wrinkled her nose in her mother's general direction as she took her plates to the sink.

By now, Emma was coming through into the kitchen with Sophia trailing behind. "Hey, Taylor," Emma said cheerfully. "Ready to go, or are you still trying to put on weight?"

"About the only way she's putting on weight is vertically," Sophia observed. "You know, like a skyscraper. Longest legs I've seen yet in someone our age."

"Well, it's not like I want to be taller than you guys," Taylor protested half-heartedly. Truth be told, she enjoyed being taller than the average. If she ended up anywhere near her mom's height, or even her dad's, that would be kinda cool. "But yeah, totally ready to go."

"Have fun, dear." Annette gave her a hug as she turned away from the sink. "Take care out there, and let us know if you need a lift home."

"I think I'll be okay," Taylor assured her, returning the hug. "Between you, Mr Barnes, and Claire's dad, we'll have enough options if we need a lift straight away." She shrugged. "And in a pinch, I guess we can ask one of the Mercia to help us out."

"I'd really rather you not call on them unless it's an emergency," Danny said firmly from the living room. "Yes, they've helped us in the past, but I do not want them to suddenly decide we owe them extra. Or for Marquis to decide that he now wants in on the Dockworkers."

Taylor nodded. "Okay, yeah, good point." She patted her pockets to make sure her purse was still in place, then headed through into the living room and nodded to Mr Barnes. "I'm ready to go, once you're finished catching up with Dad."

"Thank you, Taylor. We'll only be a few minutes." Mr Barnes turned back to Danny. "So, have you spoken to Earl recently? All going well on that front?"

Knowing they'd be busy with shop talk for a little while, Taylor stepped back into the kitchen. "You two are looking good, especially after what happened last night. How are you feeling?"

Emma shared a glance with Sophia. "A few bad dreams, but things could've turned out a lot worse," she admitted.

"Likewise," agreed Sophia. "I'm just glad the Mercia turned up before anything bad happened."

"I'm glad Mr Hebert had the idea to add us to his protection plan," Emma added.

Sophia nodded fervently. "Yeah, no crap." She stepped forward and spontaneously hugged Taylor. "Thanks for being here. Thanks for being a good friend."

Taylor rested her forehead against Sophia's. "Hey, anytime."

<><>​

Boardwalk

Marchioness

"Are you quite sure, Miss Marchant?" Despite keeping his language formal due to the number of people around, Jonas quite clearly didn't want to leave yet. He glanced from side to side, taking in the people wandering along the Boardwalk, evidently sizing them up as threats.

"Thank you, but I'll be fine." Claire didn't roll her eyes, because Jonas deserved more respect than that. He'd gone far above and beyond in the fight against Damsel of Distress, and nearly died saving Claire and her father. Using the biomass they kept in storage, she'd gotten him back on his feet and replaced most of the enhancements she'd originally given him. There were just a few more to go, but she was letting his system adjust to the ones already there. "There are people here, and Emma called to say they were on their way. Nobody's going to recognise me for who I am."

Her last sentence had a double meaning, but it was valid either way. To combat the chilly breeze that swept in off the ocean, she wore a jacket and jeans and sheepskin-lined boots, but none of it was high fashion. As Claire Marchant, she didn't have a huge media presence.

Her father had made sure of that, explaining to the editors of any papers that might have been tempted to publish pictures of her how his thirteen-year-old daughter was out of bounds for such shenanigans. Specifically, he possessed the legal resources to buy outright any publication that tried it, then fire every member of the staff. Nobody had tried to call his bluff, which was fortunate, because it was no bluff. It also helped, she suspected, that she wasn't known for going out and doing stupid things in public.

It was a given that nobody at all was going to recognise her as Marchioness, which was also useful. Either way, her chances of drawing hostile cape attention were minimal to zero. Hostile non-cape attention, she wouldn't even break a sweat dealing with.

Jonas sighed and lowered his voice. "Your father ordered me to stay with you until your friends arrived, chick. He knows you're good at taking care of yourself, but he worries."

"I get it, I get it." To Claire's dad, women were to be protected, not put on the front lines (Kayden and Abigail notwithstanding). He was kind of old-fashioned like that. In addition, the events of the last twenty-four hours had to be weighing on his mind; as illogical as it was to be concerned over her going out in public alone during the daytime, the fact remained that villains were infiltrating Brockton Bay. It just wasn't as safe as it had once been. "It has been a hectic time, hasn't it?"

"That it has, chick." Jonas shook his head. "I would never have believed someone could cut through your protections so easily, after Leviathan."

Claire grimaced. "That was our bad. We assumed that because we've already been winning, that we can't lose. Like Dad says, we can't make the mistake of falling into that trap again." She raised her head as she spotted a familiar-looking car. "There's Alan Barnes's car now." Lifting her hand, she waved to get their attention.

Jonas smiled; a rare expression for him in public. "I have faith in you and your father to figure out how to show these new villains the error of their ways." Neither he nor Claire were stupid enough to think that the Orchard and Damsel of Distress had been the only bad guys looking to carve out a piece of the Brockton Bay underworld.

Claire smiled, but didn't show her teeth because Alan Barnes had parked his car and the others were climbing out of it. "Damn right we will."

<><>​

Emma

Claire frowned, looking out to sea. "Is it just me, or isn't it all that cold right now?"

"Well, it's not exactly warm." Emma pulled her jacket a little closer around herself against the onshore breeze, then took a bite out of the hot churro; part of the batch they'd bought from a mobile kiosk. It was delicious, just the thing for a chilly winter's day.

"Trust me, it gets a lot colder in Boston." Claire looked around, then took a bite out of hers. "Where's the ice? The snow? Do the roads even get icy here?"

"Not often," Taylor said, reaching over to grab one for herself. Like Emma and Sophia, she didn't seem to be suffering overly from the cold. "Dad says I-95 gets a bit of ice where it comes over the hills to the south, and where it goes north, but there's some trick of local geography that ensures it rarely goes down to freezing here in the city proper." She held it up. "As a bonus, these things stay warmer longer."

"Huh." Claire shook her head. "That might actually explain why so many capes congregate here. Spandex isn't friendly at low temperatures."

Emma thought that was pretty amusing. "Yeah, it'd be hard to brood on a rooftop when you have to keep taking breaks to warm up again."

"That would suck." Taylor giggled. "Forget the villains, worry about the frostbite. Actually, I heard a funny story about a villain over in Chicago who was casing a bank in the middle of winter. He got up on a high building to watch the comings and goings of the staff, but he was only wearing a thin costume and it was really cold and it got to the point where he couldn't move his fingers, or even feel them, so he couldn't climb back down. In the end, he had to wave his arms and call for help, because otherwise he would've frozen to death up there. The number of 'put him on ice' jokes on PHO was phenomenal."

Emma had heard that one before (from Taylor, even) but she laughed anyway, along with Sophia and Claire. It was kind of hilarious.

"Um," said Sophia into the pause that followed. She looked around at the people strolling past. "Could we maybe find a place with a bit more privacy? Got something to tell you guys."

Emma glanced at her, fully aware of what she was talking about. She's braver than me. I don't know if I'd just come out and start talking about it like that. Except maybe to Taylor, who was like a sister to her.

From the way Taylor looked at them both, she'd seen the glance and was aware something was up. Emma wasn't as used to Claire's tells, but the other redhead seemed to suspect something as well. Since she trusted Sophia's instincts, she wasn't about to second-guess her.

"Sure," said Taylor, leading the way to a set of steps leading down to the beach. There wasn't anyone on the beach; even the sea birds were few and far between, standing on the sand ruffling their feathers and looking miserable. "Let's go down here."

They descended the stairs and moved a little way away down toward the waterline—it was low tide—while eating more of the churros. Despite knowing what Sophia wanted to talk about, Emma let Sophia take the lead; she was the one with the powers, after all. It was her issue to air, or not, as she saw fit.

"Well, this is all very serious," Claire said after a few moments, her expression more solemn than humorous. "Is this about last night? Because whatever you had to do to survive, I'm not gonna judge. I've been there."

Sophia blinked. "Yeah, I guess you have. Okay, Emma's already in the loop about this, but it would be really weird if we knew it and you guys didn't, so I'm gonna tell you. But first you have to promise not to tell your parents or anyone else. Swear on it."

Taylor glanced at Emma, who nodded briefly. She was in agreement with Sophia that it would be unfair to keep the secret from them; if Taylor ever got powers, Emma was pretty sure that she would be the first one to find out. "I haven't told my parents," she assured the group.

"Okay, if it's that important, sure." Taylor took Sophia's hand. "I swear, whatever you tell me, I'm not gonna tell Mom or Dad." She tilted her head slightly. "Unless the secret's that you're running off to join the circus, because I think I might have to tell someone then."

"Dork." Sophia grinned fondly and shook her head. "No, it's nothing like that." She took a deep breath, glanced up and down the beach, then lowered her voice. "Last night, when they had Emma tied down and they were gonna do horrible things to her, Marquis' capes hadn't gotten there yet. I was terrified and going all-out to break free and failing, and I … well, I kinda triggered with powers."

Emma watched Taylor and Claire closely. Taylor's eyes widened, while Claire blinked a couple of times.

"Wow," Taylor breathed. "I mean … wow. So … you saved her? It was you, not them?" Hero-worship was already burgeoning in her eyes.

"Well, a little bit yes, a little bit no," Sophia admitted. "I took down one of them, but the other one was holding Emma hostage with a knife to her neck, right up until a bunch of Legion's ghosts came in through the wall and hauled him off her."

"But you took one of them down?" Claire's eyebrows rose and she gave Sophia a look of deep respect. "How'd you do that?"

"It's kind of a long story, because my powers are weird, but I basically stabbed him with a blade that wasn't really a blade." Sophia wiggled her fingers. "He wasn't actually injured, but Marchioness said his body was reacting like he had been. So yeah, yay for powers?"

"That's exactly what happened," Emma confirmed, holding two fingers a fraction of an inch apart. "They were this close to doing something really fucking horrible to me, and Sophia just came in through the wall with her hand looking like a really big wide spear, and she stabbed the one guy and said, 'get away from her, you son of a bitch'. I mean, the only way she could've been more badass is if she'd kicked open the door wearing a mech suit."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't find a mech suit for you to geek out over."

"Hand like a spear?" Taylor stared at Sophia's fingers. "You can do that? Does it hurt?"

"Wait, you came in through the wall?" Claire surreptitiously poked Sophia's arm. "Like one of Legion's ghosts?"

"Quit it." Sophia poked Claire back, pretending to sound annoyed, though Emma got the impression that she was rather enjoying the attention. "Emma says I looked more like a moving shadow than one of his ghosts, but my hand was solid black, like midnight in a coal cellar during a power outage level of black. And I could still do the blade thing when I was solid again."

Emma nodded. "That's totally what it looked like. Trust me, I had a ringside seat. I'm not into girls, but I could've kissed her right then."

Taylor smirked and elbowed Sophia in the ribs. "Missed your chance there, hero."

This time, Sophia rolled her eyes, and swayed her hips to bump Taylor sideways a little. "Oh, ha ha. Very funny."

"Help. Assault." Taylor drawled the words deadpan, even as she raised her arm to lay her wrist over her forehead in an overly dramatic fashion. "I've been assaulted by a parahuman. Oh, the humanity. I need the police. I need the PRT. I need a responsible adult. I need—"

"You need to put a sock in it, is what you need." Emma grabbed Taylor in a mock headlock and proceeded to administer a noogie. "That was worse acting than the time that idiot Maddy tried to convince Mr Wilson that he'd forgotten to give her the homework."

"Wagh, pfft, get away!" Taylor flailed, but not too hard, until Emma let her go again. She eyed Emma balefully from behind a curtain of curly hair. "You wait. I'll get you for that. Someday you'll be totally minding your own business, with no idea that your hour of doom is at hand, when wham! My vengeance will catch you unawares, and you'll totally regret this moment." With an imperious motion, she tossed her hair back off her face and stood there with one hand on her hip in a pose even cornier than the one she'd assumed before.

Sophia smirked, and Claire giggled. "Ooh," Emma retorted. "I'm shaking in my shoes."

"Actually, is there a hero called Assault?" asked Sophia. "Just now, when Taylor said help, assault, it almost sounded like she was asking someone called Assault for help. Is there actually a hero called Assault?"

Emma paused, thinking about that. If the silence emanating from the others meant anything, they'd never heard of anyone like that either. In fact, the more she thought about it, the stupider the idea sounded.

"… I can't see it," Taylor admitted. "I mean, what kind of hero would name themselves after a crime? Now, a villain? I can totally see that happening."

Claire frowned. "Oh, I dunno. A really edgelordy type of vigilante might go that way. I can just picture it. Someone in the street yells out, 'help, assault!' like you did, and he swings down from the rooftops. 'You called?'."

"And then Challenger shows up on her motorbike and bitch-slaps him for being an idiot," Emma filled in. She'd seen a couple of Challenger's interviews on TV, and the woman did not take any shit.

That drew an amused snort from Claire. "I didn't say he'd be a good hero. Just a hero. Anyway, we're getting away from the point here. Holy shit, Sophia. You have powers. That's kind of awesome. Also, my deepest condolences."

"Um, condolences?" Taylor looked from Claire to Sophia. "Why condolences? Getting powers was a good thing … wasn't it?"

Claire grimaced. "That kidnap scare I told you about? One of my bodyguards died more or less in front of me. The other one got powers from the trauma of being shot four times through the chest. I still had her blood-splatter on my face when she got up and killed everyone who was trying to kidnap me. Afterward, she broke down and cried for about an hour. Getting powers is never easy, or fun, or nice, no matter what bullshit the PRT tries to feed us. They're caused by bad things happening to us, and somehow your problems just keep on being problems after the fact." She sighed. "Abigail was never really the same afterward."

"Oh, man. That sucks." Sophia put her arm around Claire's shoulders in a hug, and was shortly joined by Taylor and Emma. "I'm still getting used to it, but you're totally right about how getting powers doesn't actually fix shit. It just moves stuff around a bit."

"Thus utterly wrecking my childhood dreams of getting amazing powers and fixing the world," jibed Emma before she got serious again. "I know I was in a bad place, but you must've been in an even worse situation mentally if you're the one who got powers and not me." She added an extra supportive squeeze.

"Well, I'm not gonna pretend that I'm all wine and roses even now," Sophia admitted. "Dunno if I ever will be again, not really."

Taylor took a deep breath. "So, uh, you said you were telling us so it wouldn't be weird, but I can't help feeling there's more to it than that."

Emma chuckled dryly as they broke the clinch. "You always were the smart one."

"Yeah." Sophia nodded. "I've got these powers, but that doesn't answer the question of what I should do with them." She started off along the beach, kicking at shells and driftwood as she went.

Claire frowned slightly. "Maybe I'm missing something, but I would've thought the simple answer is 'be a hero'. At least that's what it would be, back in Boston." She took the lower side, on the firmer sand, while Taylor took the high road.

Emma grinned and ruffled her hair. "Things are always a bit more complicated in Brockton Bay. You'll figure it out. But yeah, Sophia wanted to ask you guys what you thought about her options before she committed herself."

"Okay, now I'm lost," admitted Taylor. "What options are you looking at, here?"

"There's at least four, depending on how you count them," Sophia said. "First one is to sign up for the Wards; you know, be a hero. Second one is to go independent as a vigilante. Third one is to become a rogue and do cape stuff for pay. Fourth one …" She hesitated. "Well, Marquis might've made me an offer to work for him. And he did kinda pull our asses out of the fire."

"Though I'm certain he'd never hold it over your head, either," Emma reminded her. "That's not how he operates. He's a villain, sure, but he's not an asshole villain."

"While we're spitballing, there's number five," Claire pointed out. "Independent villain. Not that I'm saying you should," she added hastily. "Just being completist."

"Haha, fuck no," Sophia said, not sounding the slightest bit humorous. "Not in Marquis' town. I've seen how hard he rides roughshod over the other villains if they don't fall into line. That option is dead and buried with a stake through its fuckin' heart." To underline her point, she grabbed Claire around the neck and gave her a noogie while she squawked and struggled to get free.

"Okay, let's look at the others." Side-stepping the incipient affray, Taylor ticked off points on her fingers. "I think Wards get paid. Not much, but some. I guess independent heroes can grab drug cash if they find any …"

Emma nodded. "There's actually rules about that. I looked it up last night. If the hero doesn't get too greedy, he can get away with taking some cash every time he busts a druggie, or any other bad guy who's holding money. I think it adds up to about ten percent of what they're holding. Anything over that, the PRT starts paying attention."

"I doubt you could get away with doing that with a mugger, though," Claire panted, pulling free of Sophia's grasp. "That's actually stolen money, which I guess is kind of different to illegally earned? Maybe?"

"Wait, why are we concentrating on how much money I can get from my powers?" asked Sophia. "That's not me. That's not what I'm about."

"Costume, duh," Taylor snarked. "Unless you want to get around with a ski mask and a baton for the rest of your career, you're going to need some sort of income to fix your costume when stuff breaks or gets torn." Leaning down, she picked up a flattish rock, and skimmed it out to sea; whether she'd timed it just right or she was just lucky, it skipped a few times before it sank.

"Okay, yeah, got it." Ever competitive, Sophia hunted around for a stone herself, and flicked it in the wake of Taylor's. This one only managed two skips before it vanished beneath the sullen chop. "Being a rogue basically means I wouldn't be getting into fights and I'd automatically get paid, but … what could I do with my powers that wouldn't involve fighting and people would want to pay me for?"

Emma looked thoughtful. "From what I saw, you can go into a shadow form and make your hand into a blade that hurts people without killing them. Maybe … I dunno … handling dangerous animals?"

"Great, a zookeeper." Sophia's voice was heavily sarcastic. "At the Brockton Bay Zoo That Never Was."

"Okay, yeah, let's put being a rogue on the back burner," Taylor decided. "What about the last one? Working for Marquis." She eyed Sophia closely. "What are your feelings about that?"

"Mixed," Sophia admitted frankly. "I'd like to think I'm not the criminal type. I've never taken anyone's lunch money, I'm nice to my mom, I don't tell Stephen what I think of him even when he's being a dick …" She trailed off.

"You fractured your wrist trying to get free and save me," Emma added, giving her a quick side-hug. "Trust me, I'm not likely to forget that bit."

"Damn." Now Taylor looked thoroughly impressed. "And this was before you got your powers?"

"Yup," Emma confirmed. "Anyway, you're not a Mover-Brute type like the Mercia, but you'd still rock one of those long-coats like nobody's business. And the pay would have to be pretty damn good. You just know Marquis isn't the type to stiff his people."

Claire looked thoughtful. "And correct me if I'm wrong, Sophia, but from what I've heard of the man, none of what you said before would actually disqualify you from working for him."

"Wait, wait." Sophia held up her hands. "Are we honestly talking about me going to work for Marquis? Because I thought we were just joking about it. You know, 'you could always go to work for the villains, ha ha ha'. That sort of joke."

"Well, for most villains it would've been a joke," Taylor admitted. "But Marquis isn't Kaiser, and he definitely isn't Lung. He's not even the same as what Dad says Galvanate used to be like. When he takes money to protect someone, they're protected."

Claire picked up a pretty seashell and rubbed the sand off it with her thumb. "I mean, we're not saying you should, not if you don't want to. If I'm reading the room right here, we're just saying that it's not a terrible idea." She handed the shell to Emma. "Look at the colours. Isn't that beautiful?"

"Yeah, it is nice." Emma examined the shell closely, appreciating the shading of one colour into another, then in a moment of whimsy held the shell to her ear. "Hello? Hello?" She looked around at the others, then shrugged. "Wrong number."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "Oh, god, that joke's gotta be older than dirt. Here, have a wreath of appreciation." Grabbing up a strand of seaweed, she advanced on Emma with intent.

"Nope, nope, get that shit away from me." Emma backed away, watching Sophia warily. She knew that if she needed to make a run for it, she'd be fine so long as she could keep ahead of Sophia for the first few dozen yards. But there was no way in hell she was going to be washing seaweed gunk out of her hair.

<><>​

Marchioness

Taylor grinned as she watched Sophia pursue Emma with the seaweed, both of them laughing. "I think Sophia's gonna be okay. Hope so, anyway. She's a nice person. And a really good runner."

"You're faster, though." Claire knew she didn't need to point this out, but did so anyway. "I've seen you run."

"Yeah, well." Taylor acknowledged the point and tossed it aside all in the same phrase. "She hasn't had things easy in life, not like you and me. I think she deserves the chance to get something out of this, if she can."

Not for the first time, Claire was struck by Taylor's casual optimism. She'd seen Taylor's house, and Taylor still blithely equated her lot in life to Claire's. "So, you think she should take Marquis' offer?"

Taylor shrugged. "Well, I sure as hell wouldn't blame her if she did. Or she could join the Wards. Either way, she could kick ass, take names, and help make Brockton Bay a better place. But with Marquis, she'd at least be paid better."

Emma was on the way back, still un-seaweeded, while Sophia was beginning to flag behind her. Still, Claire knew few kids of their age would've been able to keep up with either girl in the impromptu track meet. She decided to make a joke of her agreement. "Yeah, and she'd have a lot better chance of affording college. If they do pay the Wards a wage, I bet it isn't all that much."

Taylor glanced over at her. "Oh, uh, don't tell anyone this, but Emma's dad's actually going to be covering college for her and her brother Terry. They were hashing out the details this morning."

"Wait, he's doing that for her?" Claire was impressed. That was very much a 'money where his mouth is' gesture from Alan Barnes. This was something her dad needed to hear about, she decided. From such small gestures, he'd once said, came the measure of a man. And Earl Marchant, known to some as Marquis, was definitely interested in the measure of those he intended to do business with.

"Oh, yeah," Taylor confirmed. "Sophia totally deserves it. She hasn't even put on a costume yet, but she's already a hero in my book."

Claire tended to agree. As far as she was concerned, being a hero in no way invalidated Sophia's chances of getting employment with Marquis' organisation.

Privately, Claire hoped Sophia would accept the offer. In her expert opinion, the girl would be wasted with the Wards.

<><>​

Sophia

She had a lot to think about as they climbed the stairs back up onto the Boardwalk.

While she still hadn't made the final decision, a lot of good points had been made in all directions, so she figured she had a lot better chance of making an informed choice. Before she'd shared her revelation with the guys, it would've felt more like closing her eyes and throwing a dart at a list of choices, but now she actually knew what to expect each way.

It was great having friends who listened to what she had to say and accepted it, rather than trying to enforce their ideas over hers. They totally had opinions, but they didn't automatically assume they were right and she was wrong. It wasn't like she had to fight and struggle and push just to have her views heard and accepted, which was kinda cool.

The whole college thing with Mr Barnes was also a major brain explosion thing. Nobody, and she meant nobody, had ever done a thing like that for her family before. She was pretty sure that Stephen was kinda pissed that he hadn't been consulted, but she didn't give a good goddamn about what he wanted.

"It's getting close to lunchtime," Emma announced, drawing her back out of her own head. "Who wants what? My treat."

"Why don't we go to the Market and split a pizza?" suggested Taylor. "I'm fully aware you heathens don't believe in pineapple on pizza, but I can go without for once."

Emma shook her head, raising her eyes to the heavens. "Lord, forgive her, she knows not the heresy of which she speaks."

Right then, Sophia was feeling pretty good about herself. She'd shared her greatest secret and had it taken seriously, plus the run on the beach had helped clear her head. It wasn't like she'd actually caught Emma, but it had been a lost cause from about ten seconds in; Emma had just too great a start on her.

Plus, Taylor was a good friend, and a good runner, and she didn't lord it over everyone when she won.

"You know what?" she said. "I don't actually dislike pineapple on pizza. It tastes good wherever it is. Taylor, I'll go halves with you on a pizza, and we'll let these haters miss out."

Taylor grinned and nodded, then poked her tongue out at Emma. "That sounds like the best—" she began, then broke off. "Look out!"

At the same time, the clattering of an approaching skateboard got Sophia's attention. She turned to look, just as the guy on the board tried to swerve to avoid them. He managed it, but didn't quite pull off the recovery; the board went out from under him, and he sprawled on his ass.

"Wow, haha," Emma said. "You okay there, buddy?"

"I got the board," Taylor said, bolting off after the runaway conveyance, which seemed determined to capitalise in its break for freedom.

"Yeah, I'm—ow, no, I'm not." The guy, a kid just a few years older than Emma, went to get up then grimaced and clutched at his ankle. "Ow, sonova—uh, nutcracker, that hurts."

The deliberate pivot away from swearing evidently amused Claire, because she chuckled as she knelt down alongside him. "Don't try to get up. Let me have a look at that."

"Okay, I guess." He looked doubtful, but allowed her to unlace his shoe and slide it off. "I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything, I swear. I was just off in my own little world for a bit, and when I looked up, you guys were right there."

"Hey, it's okay," Claire assured him with a smile. She should be a doctor or something, Sophia decided, because she had a great bedside manner. Her fingers pressed here and there on his ankle. "How does this feel?"

"Little bit sore, but it's getting better. I'm not trying to be brave or anything. It's really getting better." He gave Claire a grateful look.

"Yeah, it looks like you strained it just a bit." She helped him put his shoe back on as Taylor came trotting back with the skateboard. "Try to keep off it for the next hour for any inflammation to go away."

"Totally." He climbed carefully to his feet and accepted the skateboard back. "Thanks. Hey, uh, where'd you learn that first aid stuff? That was pretty neat."

Claire flushed slightly and pushed her hair back from her eyes. "My bo—a friend of mine insisted that I learn, so I did. I'm Claire, by the way. What's your name?"

He chuckled self-consciously. "Haha, oh, wow, I nearly barrelled into you, and never told you my name. I'm Jay. Pleased to meet you."



End of Part Thirty