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Emissary - A Deputy Recursive Crossover (Worm AU/Canon)

Responder 2.06
Responder 2.06

[Rose]​

The alarm clock that woke me might as well have been the hounds of hell braying for my soul. Cursing the creator of the damnable thing, I rolled out of bed, collapsing on the floor, and only then found it in myself to find and shut off the alarm. Yesterday me was a Grade-A bitch, because she tossed the thing inside my spidermesh undersuit.

The reflection in the mirror and the feeling of ugh all over my back told me I shouldn't've been so cavalier about refusing Amy's aid at the hospital. It was Monday morning, but I still felt like I crawled out of that car's hood barely an hour ago. In fact, riding my enhanced adrenaline high as I did yesterday, I probably didn't feel as bad then as I did now.

Less than 24 hours ago I blew out two eyes of an Endbringer. I'm allowed to feel like hammered shit, I think.

We arrived in portions yesterday, with me among the first, as we were dismissed by the higher-ups once Amy was done dealing with our accumulated damages. While she was sorting that out, I managed to score both Taylor's and Sarah's burner phone numbers into my PRT brick. Networking! Sarah left with her team, while Taylor said she'll try to check on Dad, get the Journal if she could (I had the distinct feeling that implied a 'without alerting him to her presence'), and probably get to a shelter (the feeling intensified at that addendum), because she expected the PRT would lock her up the moment she walked through the remains of the glass lobby of the PRT HQ, and she still had stuff to do 'on the outside'. The general impression, however, seemed to be 'I still hate you, but I'm also considering your offer', which was more than I bargained for. I would still need to tell her about Sophia before she talked to Piggot, however. Suffice to say, I kinda dreaded that discussion.

Part of that was because Sophia was sleeping (or at least went to sleep) in the next room over. I idly wondered whether Emma felt anything like this at any point of her highly frustratingly psychologically damaged in a way I couldn't blame her 100% of the way life: 'this is a person who thinks I'm their friend, but I'm really, absurdly, exorbitantly am not'. It left an odd feeling in my chest, vaguely reminiscent of the smell of cat pee in a way I couldn't explain.

Self-flagellation achieved, I checked that my shorts and tee covered my underwear and stepped out into the Commons. It was a bit of a mess, with pieces of gear scattered about as yesterday's Zombie Wards rushed to their sleep and likely only resurfaced in the night to grab snacks and visit the restrooms. It appeared only James and I were not slovenly, as neither of our costume pieces were anywhere in sight, I noticed, picking up one of Missy's uniform boots. The traces of dried blood on the inside told me that I was being fucking rude to the heroes that helped save (at least some of) the city and which lost a friend and teammate yester--

Shit.

Gallant.

Gallant was dead.

I saved Aegis and possibly others from certain death but Dean was still dead.


A movement on the couches snapped me out of it. James was sitting on the one facing the TV directly, a small flower in his hand. Where'd he get a dandelion? Did he go outside?

"Greetings, Emissary. Was your night restful?" he asked. When I replied with a noncommittal meh, he nodded appreciatively, apparently having been in the vicinity of the same boat. Maybe. Once.

"I have read that when mourning the loss of someone, flowers are to be presented," he began, as if restarting a video from pause. "But I could not find a place to purchase them that was open or undestroyed, so I went and found a flower."

He held it up for me to see. "Does it not strike you as strange, Rose, that to say how sorry we are that a death has happened, we go and we kill another living thing?"

I was at a loss for words. I never considered that angle, only having received flowers once in my life and being too overwhelmed with the surprise at the time to complain about the damage to nature. And Mom's funeral… was not conducive to such thoughts. Neither, come to think of it, was Carlos's.

"It hurts," he finally stated, looking back at me, "In here..." a tap on his chest, turning back to the flower, "While I... I talked to Dean shortly after I joined the Wards, and proposed an experiment to see if his emotional manipulation ability could affect me," he glanced at me. "For a long time I had felt myself cut off from my emotions, as if there had been a fortified wall in my mind that I could not pass. I could feel them, but they were muted... weak. I tried attending gatherings at the Dallon Household. I had attempted consumption of Alcohol. I had even tried to put myself in harm's way..." he toyed with the flower some more, looking contemplative, "I got my powers by seeing if I could feel things in a life-or-death situation," when our eyes met next, my brain nearly seized up, so he Triggered while… trying to feel the thrill of life? Did Mandy fill that void for him back home? "I felt nothing out of the ordinary." He looked away again, staring at the mess of costume parts on the floor now, while I finally found it in myself to at least stand next to him, "I explained to Dean that I was interested in seeing what his powers would do to me, so he shot me with them." he paused again, turning the flower over in his hands, "I began to cry, for he had shot me with a blast of pure sadness. It was the most amazing thing I had felt in a long, long time."

I was startled when he took my hand into his, looking into my eyes again, but there was no malice there. Not much of anything, much like mine, I was certain.

"Dean was very interesting. I will remember him for a long time to come."

"As will I," I agreed, watching the strangest of my teammates go back to fiddling with the small flower in his hands.

I collapsed onto the cleanest of the couches (item tally: Sophia's cloak, Dennis's glove, someone's smelly socks, an empty water bottle), feeling the shakes coming on. Great, I told myself, thank heavens that didn't happen in the middle of yesterday's argument with Vicky and Amy. Oh, right, I'm going to be whitelisted to message them as soon as they get around to it. Networ-- shit, both of the Pelham adults are dead. Carol is essentially all the management the team has left. New Wave is fucked. And I awkwarded them out through that.

My mounting panic attack only got worse as I pulled my legs up onto the couch, hugging my knees closer to me, my loose hair spreading like a blanket across my back. I needed a hug. Maybe a hot drink. Definitely an aspirin. I threw a glance at James, lost in his world again. Does he need a hug? Would he offer me one if I asked? I shook my head, discarding the thought. I was certain he would, but would it make things better for him? I had no way of knowing.

My Wards probably fought their own Endbringer yesterday. The timetable for the attacks was pretty solid, but the locations were hard to predict. Was it in Brockton as well? Boston? Not even in the States?

I was vaguely aware of a door opening, someone else wakening from their recuperative slumber, something Amy's power couldn't truly replace. It's not just about the muscle fatigue, but also downtime for the brain, a chance to process the day's events, ups and downs alike. And what happened yesterday… was mostly downs.

"Hey," Sophia said, leaning over the back of the couch I was sitting on, addressing me and obviously ignoring James, "How's tricks?"

"Hey yourself," I replied, trying to keep my knees from shaking, whatever reason they may have chosen for it. "I feel like I fucked up," I admitted, I needed to vent, and it might as well be to the person I'll soon be putting in a crate (air holes optional) and shipping down the river. "Like there was more I could do, save more people, stop--" I choked, "--Dean's dead."

"What would you have done against that wave?" she asked bluntly, her face a mask of calmness, "From what they told me, you did as much as most of our fucking Protectorate put together, on both offense and defense," she paused to hop over the couch, landing next to me on her own cloak. I noted she was wearing a generic PRT tank top and tennis shorts not dissimilar to mine, although hers sat more snugly on her lithe frame. Likely didn't come from the random-size discount section, I thought before dismissing the issue.

She looked okay, unhurt, undamaged, a far cry from the road rash that took off half her face from when Leviathan collapsed the building she was on as Taylor and I scrambled to evacuate Hannah. Her shoulder was in its rightful place, and the only visible change to her was a slight haggardness, to be expected from loss of body fat expended when Amy healed people. Grievous bodily harm was a surprisingly effective proxy for weight loss, it turned out.

"How the fuck did you end up shooting its eye out?" she asked, her face lit up with… I wouldn't call it excitement, not really. Exultation? Hero worship? But by that logic, she should have spent the night cuddling with Flechette, and I didn't see any of her distinctly purple stuff anywhere… at least in the open.

"Borrowed Miss Militia's power," I said, shrugging a little "It lets you use her guns if you're close enough to her, and she kept supplying me. Too bad the bastard started bringing buildings down before I could hurt it more."

"Still, you did awesome, you badass!" she said, clapping me on the shoulder. I felt an odd mix of pride and revulsion. If this was literally anyone else, even Tattletale, this would not have been half as bad. "You showed that fucker he shouldn't mess with you!"

Her voice must have carried, because we got another visitor, likely one roused by her yell.

"Keep it down, will yo--" was all Carlos could get out before I lunged at him using the couch as a springboard, ignoring Sophia's warm hand brushing against my thigh as I got up, leaving a burn as if acid was poured onto my panic-cooled skin, my bear hug squeezing the air from the tall boy's lungs. Mine. Alive and mine.

"You pendejo loco, you realize that if I hadn't foamed you, you'd be a Carlos sandwich now?" I ground out as I let go, mussing his hair and gathering mine into a singular frontal waterfall over my right shoulder, "You do not go where an Endbringer can tread on you!" I punched him lightly in the chest, before hugging him again, traitorous sobs shaking my body.

"What's with all the yelling?" came a certain red-head's voice, likely poking his head out as well, "What did I miss?"

"Apparently, we're having a glad-to-be-alive cuddlepile?" Carlos ventured, as I felt Sophia marshmallowing against my back, her hands thankfully only wrapped around my torso, her head pressed against the base of my neck. The gesture felt so… human, so un-Sophia-like, especially with her staying oddly quiet, that I didn't even feel like protesting. I felt other people joining the odd two-on-one hug we had going as Carlos pulled me closer, hands on my waist so as not to dislodge Sophia, as I felt what must have been Dennis resting his forehead against Carlos's shoulder, his hair brushing my forehead, his hand coming to rest atop the deathgrip I had on the man that wasn't my dead boyfriend, his other arm presumably encircling Sophia as I felt her shudder in protest, then settle down as he must have moved his hand northwards. To my other side came the thick feeling of warmth that was James, his arms went on Carlos's and Sophia's shoulders as far as I could tell.

I didn't know when I stopped shaking, but I hoped nobody could see what felt to me like a light kiss Carlos pressed into my hair, nor the one that left another spot of burning acid on my skin at the edge of my hair on my neck. I wiggled under the press of bodies until I was let go, noting that I mostly guessed the positioning right, except for Chris who latched onto Carlos and Dennis, which made sense: Dean was with the three of them the longest. Them and...

"Where's Missy?" I asked, carefully peeling Sophia's now-sweaty hands away from my abs - an unfortunate side-effect of Browbeat's bulk, so most of the sweat was likely mine - and absorbing all of Dennis's dejected nod at the missing girl's shut door.

I was glad to see Kid Win intact again, his nose back in place, as the rest of his damages were internal, and while I was unaware of the limits James's self-biokinesis imposed on his healing processes, he was theorized to be able to emulate a minor regeneration effect akin to Carlos's with it. I was not as glad to feel how Sophia's kiss lingered on my skin or that we were not including Missy in this. Or that I had a stray thought that had Dean seen me right now, the jig would have been up at once, which made me feel like shit again because that sounded as if I was glad he was dead, which I utterly wasn't. I hope to all fuck that my Dean is alive. And my sister. And Rachel. And Amy. And Madison. And all of them, friends and family. Even Sarah, so I can tell her to go fuck a duck again.

As Carlos and James guided the sleepwalker - apparently Dennis more or less dragged Chris into the hug - onto the couch Sophia and I warmed up, she excused herself for the showers ("Was going there anyway, then I saw you sulking," she said) while I went to knock on the door marked with the letter 'V'.

"Missy? Are you alive in there?" I asked, feeling like an asshole at potentially waking her to a morning that confirmed the grisly death of her crush was not just a fucked-up nightmare she had. Vague grunts and angry sniffling were my proof of life, although they also made somewhat clear that I could lay to rest any hopes of rousing her at this hour.

"Damn, I'm hungry," Dennis announced, busy gathering pieces of his outfit from where they fell in his yesterday's funk, all in the name of not thinking about the friend that was not coming back, "Anyone up for glad-to-be-alive breakfast?"

"I need to shower first, but I agree," James protested. "We also should not leave Sophia behind. We cannot rely on Rose to be around to hug her every time she is irate." He gently placed the dandelion on an end table as I mentally dry-heaved.

And so it was decided, as the boys ferried a still-groggy Chris into the shower room while I tried my level best not to gape too badly at being declared Sophia's nuclear coolant rod. When my brain finally rebooted, I found myself alone with Carlos, a contemplative look on his face.

"You saved my life," he said listlessly, "Was it because you couldn't do anything about--"

"Don't you dare fucking say it," I objected, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes, beating them back, gritting my teeth, feeling my voice waver, "I know you're not him, that I made you promise a date you don't want to go on because deep down I'm still that same bullied girl that can't believe someone may be genuinely interested in her. Don't make me feel more like shit than I already am."

"From where I'm standing it would appear Sophia's interested?" he ventured, at the same time as I said "I release you from your obliga-- bwuuuh?~"

I shook my head, sputtering. "You realize how creepy that is? How-- how dirty I feel with all these lies and her attraction--"

"Yeah," he nodded, scratching the back of his head, "Low blow, I'm sorry, but it was kinda worth that look on your face."

I punched him again, seriously this time. He's a big boy, he could take it.

As we, too, turned to the showers, to prepare to have that breakfast, I couldn't help but wonder if Taylor was even getting one today.

------
[This is where Q.02 occurs]
------​

[Taylor]​

The porridge was lukewarm but filling, the dime-a-thousand teabag gave the scalding hot water in my paper cup a brownish tinge I more readily associated with rusty tap water than anything drinkable, but I was alive.

I cut up a motherfucking Endbringer and I lived to tell the tale, only had my lower body turned to mashed potatoes for it. I am alive.

The Amazon Lesbian Goddess is me from another world, where Panacea is my best friend and probably girlfriend, where Aegis was my boyfriend before he died - it figured that dating Taylor Hebert was a plausible way to kill The Boy That Could Adapt To Anything - and Lisa knew I was a traitor all along and wanted to use that, and at least Dad was okay, even if I couldn't get the Journal out of the house without him noticing. The other me has a sister! She got her Rachel acquitted! My Rachel died in her arms…

The whirlwind of WHAT THE FUCK that was yesterday seemed to have no real end to it, but I needed to set it aside for now. To move. To do things. Get my stuff from the loft, as the sirens caught Lisa and me right as I was packing. Figure out where the remaining two Undersiders stood vis-a-vis my visit to pick up my stuff, whether they would ask me back now that the team was down two members instead of one. Decide whether I wanted to take up the other me -- Rose, she said, after m-- after our mother -- up on the offer of joining the Wards.

Probationary, she said, with restrictions mostly on paper because some of the things I did were too public and unequivocally villainous to just sweep under the rug, but the Protectorate would be informed - undercover asset burned by Armsmaster, which would also neatly explain away our vendetta-esque confrontation at the gallery. I said I'd think about it while thinking "fuck you" at her and her high horse, but now, with a godly four hours of sleep in me I realized that with my face and name known to the Protectorate and Coil likely wanting me extremely dead, this was probably my only option short of running away to Timbuktu, and I wasn't sure I had enough money for that. Then again, there's a place no Endbringer would likely touch with a ten-foot pole, perfect for running--

FUCK NO. Running away was good when facing an Endbringer at melee range. I was done running away from my other problems.

With that decided, after handing in the cutlery to the shelter relief workers I stepped out into the gloomy morning of the First Day After. The overcast sky welcomed me with a steely greyness one would normally expect from October or worse, but at least it wasn't raining. I felt like I've had enough being wet for a lifetime. Thank God Panacea's healing also meant not catching a cold from all the near-drowning yesterday.

I was wearing a spare set of clothes, one of three I had stashed around the city -- like many other capes, I expected, having found several similar stashes when trying to find a place for my own in the past months. I really did not need to know that Shadow Stalker apparently had the same taste in clothing as Sophia fucking Hess, or that someone's stash was either a couple's set or Circus was really indecisive about what they wanted to wear in an emergency. It was a half-decent distraction from the first one because extra reasons to think of the bitch fueled my anger-driven theory from yesterday regarding Emma-ssary's friend Shadow Stalker covering for her.

Except that Emissary being other me didn't change the fact that Stalker came to Emma's rescue a little too readily. Shit.

I traversed the waterlogged city at a measured pace - even with a slowly-building swarm, I did not feel completely safe. My costume was under my hoodie and jeans, so I would likely survive an unpowered assault, but a bullet to the head from some twitchy Merchant looking to loot my bag would still be an unwelcome outcome. The irony of the city's state did not escape me: due to the way the fight migrated across the city, the less well-off areas were actually better off in terms of tidal wave damage due to the efforts of the shield capes, even though individual buildings here and there were torn up, one way or another, by the fights that raged past them. The better-off areas beyond The Towers, however, got more sea-on-building action, even as they largely escaped having craters, laser burns and dead capes scattered among them.

I shuddered again. I hadn't seen Rachel die, but it happened right next to me. She saved me. She threw her life away for a traitor unknowingly, unflinchingly, because even after my declaration of leaving, she thought me a friend, an ally.

A packmate? Maybe.

A little voice wormed up from my hindbrain, would she have done the same if she knew what you were planning? Do you deserve that loyalty?

I shook my head roughly, but that slimy voice continued. She died for nothing. You betrayed her.

'No I didn't,' I thought back as I gasped and ducked into an alleyway, 'I didn't do anything!'

But you planned on it, didn't you? You were going to turn them all in once you were sure of who their boss is.

'N-no! I mean, yes but-'

So in addition to lying, robbery, and assault, you have treachery on your list. Do you even have the capacity to understand what is good anymore?

I snarled and shoved my emotions into my swarm.

'I want to be a hero. I want to be a hero.'

I repeated my mantra as I walked down the street, very conscious of the fact that even I barely believed myself.

I made a few detours - some streets were still flooded, the water held in by dams made of collapsed buildings or power effects - surprisingly, there were still ice walls and Kaiser's distinctive blade fountains left over from the various failed attempts at holding Leviathan back. The time bubble on Dirk Street was likely still there too, with the chunk of Leviathan and the out-of-town capes buried in it.

With the way the friendly fire from the Leviathan-flung Halberd counted against Armsmaster, I wondered whether the effective deaths of Morningstar and Jotun would count as strikes on Miss Militia's record as well. It would be pretty shitty if the Brockton Bay Protectorate would lose its acting leader the same week (and the same way) as the man she replaced.

The first sign my day was about to get worse was, of course the rather sizeable gash in the building where the Undersiders' loft used to be - probably still was, just not all of it. Not anymore. It looked as if one of the Blasters, maybe Legend or Purity -- no, wait, Purity skipped town once she got her children back, didn't she? -- missed a shot and it sheared off a chunk of the building, except there was no debris in the flotsam-filled street below. So whatever it was in that part of the loft was gone forever.

I used the opening to spread a portion of my less noticeable bugs into the building, to check whether trouble was waiting, potentially in the form of looters willing to utilize the newly-opened means of entry into what clearly was a space better-decorated than the building it was attached to. Instead of looters, I found the Undersiders - all three of them. It felt and sounded as if Brian and Lisa were having a shouting match which Alec spectated with a certain degree of apathy.

Dreading what I would hear once I came inside, I made my way through the entrance, taking note of an unexpected fourth presence - Angelica, one of Rachel's three main dogs, the one she didn't have with her when we ran into her yesterday, probably because of her earlier injuries. Which were still there today. The poor dog seemed more concerned with the prolonged absence of its mistress than the two bickering parahumans (my bugs made out less than I did as I ascended --but the words 'leader', 'traitor' and 'shitshow' seemed prominent), but perked its head up when it saw (heard? smelled?) me entering the loft proper.

The shouting stopped as I surveyed the scene, all eyes on me. Brian, aggressive stance slightly leaning forward, pointer finger within Lisa's personal space already as if he was a few Tattletale-isms away from punching her. Alec, his default expression of detached amusement at human nature sprawled across his face as its owner half-sat, half-rested on a crate of some kind, no trace of yesterday's scar thanks to that conceited bitch Panacea who was as appalled as I was that Rose was apparently other her's BFF.

Were the guys moving base? Duh, of course they were, there's a hole the size of half of Lisa's room-- fuck, half of Lisa's room is gone! --in the loft! Of course they have to move!

Lisa herself, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that a chunk of her stuff was gone -- presumably, because her laptop survived -- stood hands akimbo in a very Glory Girl pose, defiant in the face of whatever Brian had just been shouting at her. Angelica, wondering if I'll tell her where Rachel is and why is nobody feeding her.

"You gotta be kidding me," Alec breathed out and his unsmile became a little more smilelike. It was an unnerving sight, confirmation that he viewed this whole thing as entertainment.

"Why are you here?" Brian snapped, turning his finger on me. "It's bad enough that I have to learn about the shit you talked about behind closed doors third-hand, but having Coil ring me up and tell me you were in on the fact that Taylor was a mole--"

"I was not!" I protested, "I was--"

"--infiltrating us to find out who the boss was," Alec finished for me smoothly while I fumbled for the exact words, "So congratulations, mission complete, Rachel died to save the traitor in our midst. Drama!"

He suddenly gave a few short claps, which startled the shit out of both me and the one-eyed dog.

"Did she actually betray anyone?" Lisa countered, certain as always, "All the information that was exchanged in there was about the thing Emissary was harassing Taylor online for, and I didn't want you two to get involved in whatever scheme she was playing," she shrugged, "She wanted to entrap us knowing her identity with the Truce."

"Yes," Brian threw up his hands, sarcasm and disgust dripping from every word, "She just planned to betray us. She just planned to stick knives in our backs." I winced as he walked right into Lisa's personal space, his every action thrumming with violence. "And you knew. You knew the entire time that SHE--" he gestured towards me in a sudden and violent spasm of his arm, "--wanted to take us down." His voice got low and silky. "Would you care to explain to me, Lisa, what in the name of Scion you were thinking?"

Lisa squared her jaw before opening her mouth. "I-"

Alec interrupted. "No, wait, let me guess, boss:" his voice went up to an absurdly high pitch in what might possibly have been the worst impression of Lisa I had ever heard in my entire life. "I know everything that's going on because I'm a THINKER and I have to know everything and be smarter than anyone else in the room."

"NO!" she snapped, "And I don't sound like that."

"Then please, Lisa," growled Brian. I had never heard him sound like that before. "Please tell me why I had to hear this from Coil. Please tell me why you even bother calling me the leader when it's clear that you don't consider 'My teammate might be a traitor' might POSSIBLY be something that I'd like to hear about. Please tell me why you didn't think telling your friends" and he stressed this word, making me feel all of three inches tall, "that someone could have been trying to hurt them."

"Rachel was my friend!" I spat back, fighting the tears down, my voice cracking on the final word, "And so are you! What the hell did Coil tell you?"

"That you were doing this gig to snag some juicy info to bring to the Protectorate in exchange for a cushy position as a Ward, right next to our ever-favorite Shadow Stalker!" Alec outlined, miming firing a gun, or maybe a crossbow, two-handed.

"That this Emissary was your contact, and the meeting we were kicked out of by Lisa was about you reporting to them because Armsmaster threatened your cover," Brian continued, "How else would you explain freaking Alexandria swooping in and taking him away just as he was about to assault you?"

Coil is playing them. Does he know about Rose? Or is he only aware of this 'cousin' ruse she constructed? It's fucked up all on its own that there's a version of me out there who's any good at this false identity bullshit! But… we can use this!

"She's my cousin, you idiots. A Thinker, kind of like Lisa-lite, but a grabbag, with regeneration on top, and Alexandria was her recruiter or something," I began, recalling the details I heard in the press conference and read on PHO, "She supposedly looked at the PRT files on us, identified me and went kicking down doors to fast-track me into the Wards, because her background checks accidentally unmasked me to the fucking Protectorate," I stopped, wondering at what point did I begin yelling, then continued in a normal voice, "I'm not a snitch, I'm outed. I'm tainted goods for this team one way or another, but please don't try to make it out as if Rachel's sacrifice was for naught."

"The creeper messages online were Emissary's dumb idea of spy-speak to convince Taylor she was a friend without putting traceable information online," Lisa caught on, "Except she screwed that up, overdid the cloak and dagger stuff, leaving us convinced she was one of the girls from Taylor's school!"

"Like that asshole that harassed you in the bookstore last week?" Brian asked, the temperature a little less hot. Shouldn't've opened with the Wards offer, shit.

"Her friend, but yeah. Made me think Sophia -- the asshole -- was actually Shadow Stalker," I admitted, "And then lo and fucking behold, it's my cousin Rose instead, who decided that becoming Thinker 2 Brute 1 meant she could fight an Endbringer from up close."

"Very me-lite," Lisa stage-whispered, stressing the last word, "I'm now considered a Thinker 7, apparently."

"Anyway, she Thinkered that I split from you guys because of how we stood at the briefing, and decided to give me the pitch," I went on, mixing some truth in with the lies. "The paper she gave me then, remember that? Here," I produced the note in question, handing it to Brian, "She offered me and Lisa spots on the Wards, citing their knowing who I am as a reason."

"I told her to stick it up her butt," Lisa said proudly, "But Taylor can't risk her father."

"And Coil deciding you're a turncoat reverting to your true colors is going to make him so much safer?" Brian asked, looking up from Rose's slightly smudged note - it was amazing it survived as well as it did, considering how much swimming I had to do yesterday with it in my storage compartment. His words, however, made me shiver. Coil was not above enslaving a twelve-year old girl and addicting her to drugs to control her. Killing an adult man would be child's play to him and certainly even less of a burden on his shriveled inhuman conscience.

"That would be breaking the Rules," Lisa said suddenly. "An attack on a Ward's family member would merit an escalating response Coil can ill afford with the way Leviathan flooded part of his old base yesterday," she elaborated, "Remember where he tried sinking into the street, but then was stopped by Eidolon and Myrrdin?"

"Right next to where we went on Saturday, right?" Alec ventured, looking a little bit less worried. Or maybe more, I was still having trouble making some of his expressions out.

"Ayup," Lisa nodded, looking glad that she finally had the reins of this conversation firmly in hand, "I didn't share tidbit with Alexandria when we were brainstorming yesterday, but it made me wonder if Leviathan was after Coil or maybe Dinah? Endbringers always have a specific target in mind, don't they?"

"Back to the start of this conversation, however," Brian cut her off, "If you really will join the Wards--"

"I'm not a snitch, Brian," I repeated.

"And there's rules, actual written rules, that allow her to go white hat without giving stuff up. Bigger ball and chain than Shadow Stalker though--" Lisa began before catching herself.

"I was wondering how long it would take until you realized," Brian said, rubbing his eyes with his palms, "You'd have to work with the girl that almost killed me, tried to kill all of us."

"Under investigation, they said," Lisa ricocheted at once, "Taylor had a mini-meltdown when Armsmaster tried to shake her down for info in front of Legend, yelled about that," she grinned in a manner that reminded me more of Sophia, "You saw how that ended for him. Imagine what Alexandria will do to her if she decides to follow up."

"Will she?" Alec asked, smirking in a way that semaphored 'fat chance' to anyone who bothered looking.

"Fucked if I know," I said, spreading my arms now, "I'm dead on my feet despite Panacea's healing, I need to get my stuff, find a place to stay that's better than the shelter I slept in, talk to my Dad about the fact that PRT or paid assassins may be kicking his door down in the coming days… getting to be in a position where Shadow Stalker can't do shit to me is small peas on top of all that."

"Get your stuff?" Alec asked with a quirked eyebrow.

I snapped back. "I was already leaving you guys before Leviathan hit... and I think I'm even less welcome now." I shot a glare at all of them. "None of you are the people I thought you were... and I guess I'm not either. Wanna make bets about Shadow Stalker?"

"Did she even survive?" Alec asked, making us all exchange questioning glances as if I was still part of the team. Shrugging, I trudged towards Rachel's room.

"Angelica, come."

------

[Rose]

The cafeteria was full of morose people trying to make it through the morose morning of what was certainly shaping up to be a very morose week. Troopers on duty and between shifts sat in batches of two or three, rarely more, unlike the usual bunching up of squads or friend groups, which felt odd to me until comprehension dawned. They were still sitting as squads. At least those that were there to sit.

As we made our way towards the serving line, most of them just ignored us, albeit I saw a couple waving to me weakly - likely witnesses of my dressing-down of Battery. I was, however, looking for two very specific troopers, and I saw them sharing a table not far from the one James chose for us to sit down at as was the right of the first one to make it through the line. Dropping my tray on the table (optioned: semolina, orange juice, vending machine tea, because it was still leaps and bounds better than this particular vending machine coffee), I made my way over to Martinez and Carlsson, who were halfway through some sort of tactical argument when they noticed me coming over.

"I'm telling you, we can't just drop an Endbringer onto Ellisburg, there's no transport large or reinforced enough for any of them! Tinkertech or otherwise!"

"But ma'am, what about teleporters? Especially range-based ones rather than targeted," Carlsson spoke animatedly - the eye I last saw as bandaged and bloodied mess was back now, surrounded by an impressive scar that he probably had to beg Amy to leave in place so he could show it off. "Someone like Strider or Fallback?"

"Strider's dead, Sergeant," I interrupted, "And from what I know of Fallback, it will be a while until he volunteers doing anything other than ferry duty on Endbringer battles again."

"Hey Red," Martinez grinned, her #2, which I loved using when I was screwing around with people. It just sang 'you just got played and don't even know how' at people. "I need a second opinion in something."

"Ma'aaaam," Carlsson stretched out, sounding like a petulant kid, which was certainly the last thing I ever expected someone who I shared a foxhole with in an Endbringer battle to sound like. Truly, Martinez was a master that still had a lot to teach me about bringing people to the edge of their emotions.

"With the heroics displayed by Trooper Carlsson here, do you think he should maybe go into the cape business like you did," Martinez explained, punctuating the you with a conspiratorial wink, "And if so, would he be served well by a costume involving denim overalls with a propeller on his back?"

What.

"Lieutenant Martinez," I said, once my brain was once again capable of cognition, "I don't know what should surprise me more: the fact that you can make an Astrid Lindgren reference so casually, or that you were expecting me to get it."

"Come ooon, nobody reads that oldie Euro stuff!" Carlsson protested, then hastily added, "Except weir-- er-- widely educated ladies like you two?"

"Alright, alright, Phil, take it easy, what's a light spot of teasing and book jokes between friends?" Martinez grinned wider at his botched attempt at recovery from what was a very mild insult at best, then laughed outright once he departed, still looking crushed that she made light of his participation in a fight that killed so many of their comrades.

"Martinez, would it be rude of me to ask you whether I should ask your counterpart from back home to marry my father, offering you the same option should she turn it down?" I outlined with a serious tone, "Because he married my mother for a list of reasons, and so far you seem hell-bent on ticking all these boxes for me. Except you'll have to apologize to Carlsson later on, because he actually performed admirably for an unpowered person."

"I know," she nodded, "There's a commendation waiting for him once normal paperwork resumes moving, because with your help he actually made the top three surviving PRT Troopers by contribution importance, saving three capes and all."

"Three?" I asked, confusion on my face, didn't I only rescue two with him?

"Yeah, the third happened after he lost the eye to a windshield he got swept into. Guy's tougher than coffin nails, I have to give him that," she smiled in a kinder way now, "Kinda like you."

"Well, he still owes me coffee for that, I believe," I smiled back, glad I opted for the generic mask instead of my helmet - admittedly, the most intact piece of my ceramic armor components, "And with that I must take my leave and rejoin my team before they eat my stuff."

"See ya 'round, Red. Keep'em on their toes, will ya?" she waved at my back.

I arrived back at the table in the middle of an argument. It seemed to be something of a running theme for the day, apparently.

"What's the fuss, guys?" were the first words out of my mouth after I got the first spoon of the gunky white stuff into my mouth. More carbs for the carb furnace that fuels my regeneration, I don't want to end up covered in scars like Cricket!

"Clockblocker says we should bring some food back for Vista," James outlined, "Shadow Stalker does not agree. Aegis is attempting to mediate. I am attempting to eat. Kid Win is attempting to sleep." He cocked an eyebrow. "I am of the opinion that he should eat as well and then sleep later. It would not do well to let this tasteless porridge go to waste."

I glanced at him. "If you want the porridge so much, then why not take his?"

Chris shifted his head slightly, and I caught sight of a few grains stuck to his forehead.

"That was my initial desire, yes. But then he fell asleep in his." He spooned another mouthful, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "I do not want his porridge anymore."

I blinked at that, then reached over and patted him on the shoulder. "You do you, Browbeat."

"That I shall, Emissary. That I shall."

James now focused on his food, I turned back to the non-James and non-asleep portion of the table. "So looks like I'll be the tiebreaker, then?" I exclaimed, relishing the mix of emotions on Sophia's face - she went for the fuller mask option, the one that covered the hair up as well, for some reason. Not that I knew her habits regarding the subject back home, I only ever saw her in her costume's mask during my internship, and then she was gone, and then she was in the Cage where she belonged. Here, my case still didn't have a legal leg to stand on.

"I guess so, Emissary. So, emissate, would you?" Aegis acknowledged with a small hopeful smile.

"I'll carry the food and make sure Vista eats. Case closed," I announced, polishing up my plate, "Don't be a dick, Stalker, I bet you'd be in the same funk if one of your friends died."

"That's exactly my point, Ems," she replied without losing a beat and making my heart skip one, because she apparently shared one more odd trait with Skitter: she also apparently thought Emissary would work as Emma-ssary, "If one of my friends died, I'd be picking myself up, no problem."

She pointedly ignored the barbed looks Carlos and Dennis gave her (by virtue of Chris literally being asleep at the table and James apparently beyond caring), eating her omelette with nary a care. This made me wonder if the Wards that were mine now were as blind as these to the sociopath in their midst, or as powerless to stop her.

"Even the one whose nickname you just gave me?" I asked, my voice as quiet and soft as I could manage. I knew where my version of Sophia stood in regard to Emma. What I needed to know was whether this one was as unrepentant. The look I got back told me that no, she had never really considered what would happen to her if her (from what I knew) one single true friend would just up and die. She hadn't - the shelter where Dad and the Barnses would have most likely taken shelter was unharmed because Scion intervened before Leviathan could reach it - but if she had… I felt an ugly pull on my heart, a stray thought, wondering. Wondering how that self-assured haughty young woman would look, breaking down, crying in the ugliest of ways, knowing that the one she loved (liked? groomed as an accomplice? maybe just plain groomed?) had died, feeling like Missy was, right now.

Nobody spoke for the rest of the now-dispirited breakfast, and we left as clumps where we had arrived as a group trying to hold on to the scraps of cheer from the cuddle. Is it my imagination or I actually managed to bring Sophia down a bit?

Before leaving the cafeteria, I picked up two takeout containers of pancakes, letting everyone else get ahead of me. One went into my room for future use, the other I brought with me to the door marked 'V' on my second attempt at establishing communication.

"Missy," I told the door, "I come bearing food and hugs, could you please let me in?"

The door replied with grumbles and a muffled thud and then melted away to reveal a crumpled-up bed converted into a dragon's cave of blankets and hoarded pillows (did she… raid Dean's room sometime in the night? Those didn't look like they came with this room…), with a pair of bloodshot eyes looking at me from within. The door snapped back into shape - apparently, Missy just Vista'd it out of my way - and I proceeded to crouch in front of her cave-entrance. The dragon's breath smelled more like morning breath than brimstone, with a light zest of salt and possibly a hint of men's deodorant? Definitely raided Dean's room. This is not healthy.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Pancakes? I didn't know what you'd want on top, so you have the option of strawberry sauce or maple syrup."

I shimmied the surprisingly bare desk closer to the bed, laying out my spoils on it, unpacking the takeaway container. The plastic fork went into the dragon's cave, handle-forward.

"Strawberry?"

The strawberry sauce container was emptied into the takeaway one, covering the pancakes in the red goo contained within. Not like blood. Not at all like blood. Blood doesn't have those yellow… whatever they are, seeds? In it. Normally. Great, what a time to think about Bonesaw!

"D'you want tea or coffee or maybe juice? I'll be right back."

"Apple, please."

The dragon's voice was slightly muddled by the half-eaten pancake, but still easy to understand. The beast was receding, letting the girl take control.

I merited a please. Progress!

I was whoomphed out the door in the same manner as I was let in, coming out face to face with Carlos.

"I… thank you for doing this," he said, nodding at her door, "Who knows how we would have handled this otherwise."

"Dennis," I replied without hesitation, "Maybe with a little bit of James for the grounding. Walk with me to the kitchenette?"

"Yeah, that may be harder to pull off in the future," he said, rubbing his forehead, "James just got off the phone. His parents are leaving town, likely indefinitely. We're going to be down one more man in a few days."

"Hmm," I hmm'ed, surveying the monstrous state of the fridge -- apparently, someone tried to make sandwiches in the night and failed miserably at cleaning up after themselves. Probably Dennis, I'd trained mine to clean up after himself, but given the state that all of us were in, I'd let it slide. I grabbed the juice bottle and a (hopefully) clean glass from the cupboard, turning on my heels to return my quest items to the dragon before it was too late.

"Any progress on Skitter?" he asked next, "Or your… other targets?"

"Skitter is teetering, but with her team in the state it is now, I think it's down to days if not hours. No dice on the other fronts yet," I admitted, knocking on the V-door again. "If I don't come out in an hour… wait longer."

The dragon cave collapsed, the monster having released the princess. The princess had puffy eyes and generally looked like she would rather have been eaten by the dragon whole, but settled for eating the pancakes I provided. The entire pint of juice disappeared into the pint-sized Shaker in zero time flat as well.

Once she was done, I suddenly found her brushing her fingers against my tattoo.

"Does… does it stop hurting?" she asked quietly, her eyes boring into mine as if I, jaded old woman that I was, held the secrets of the universe in my head. "How did you--"

"I didn't," I admitted, "It took me days to leave the house. Unfortunately, I was just an intern then, not a Ward."

"You're gonna make me leave the room at any cost?" she mock-glared me.

"Oh, that would be easy," I grinned, a Greg Veder #1 ('It's totally funny in context, I swear') this time to show her I'm not that much of an asshole, "I just nip down to the third floor and sign out a tear gas grenade from the quartermaster."

"You wouldn't!"

"No, I wouldn't," I agreed, "Not to you, at least."

"Is this because I'm a kid?" she leaned back away from me, dejected.

"No, silly girl," I replied, sweeping her into a bear hug, "It's because you're my friend." A few beats later, I realized, "Also because you'd probably use your powers to create a pressure differential and just blow the tear gas right back at me, or trap me in a bubble of space with the grenade. Seriously, don't think 'they're treating me like a kid' as a bad thing. You're being underestimated. It's tactical advantage."

The buzz of my PRT brick phone broke the mood we had going. The caller ID gave me another opening though.

"I could, however, replace you with Skitter?"

------​

[Taylor]​

Lisa helped me pack, even loaned me a fresh button-up shirt because most of the stuff I had stowed here was a bad fit for the weather or didn't cover my costume well enough.

Angelica, fed from Rachel's stash of supplies, was sitting guard by the door, clearly accepting her new role as my guardian until her mistress arrived to relieve her. I already packed up some of their things as well - the boys didn't want any of Rachel's things and I would need at least some of the meat and jerky or whatever that stuff was called to take care of Angelica. Somehow, all five of us reached an unspoken agreement that I was taking the dog and Rachel's fur-collared jacket, and along the way that ballooned to encompass all vaguely dog-related things left at the loft.

I sat on the bed I barely slept in, and surveyed the stuff I'd be carrying out today: the bag with my costume, stuffed my other clothes now. A smaller messenger bag with meat and a few chew toys and spare leashes and collars. The jacket that was part of Rachel's distinctive 'Hellhound' look. Angelica.

I had little expectations I'd find the other dogs still waiting for Rachel at her shelter, but it was my best bet to secure a place to sleep without having to tell Dad I may have played a part in getting Armsmaster Birdcaged. Provided that was what was going to happen to him - how valuable were his Tinkertech contributions to the Protectorate anyway? At least I got to see Alexandria up close and personal, she even offered me condolences on Rachel's death, which was so wildly outside the scope of things I ever expected my favorite heroine to say to anyone, it wasn't even funny.

We said no goodbyes when I left, instead exchanging hugs with Lisa, blank stares with Brian, and an awkward handshake with Alec. And then I was out on the street again, Angelica hobbling by my side through the debris, her leash in my free hand, as I threw my last glance at the building that held my only friends in the past two years.

It wasn't a clean break, and if the team collapsed as Lisa expected I was merely the first to leave, but it still felt like I was tearing out a part of my heart to awkwardly tape the hole over with PRT-branded tape. Thanks a fucking lot, other me, and your weird moral stance on what counts as villainy. I hope your solution to Winslow -- academic now that Winslow itself was a crater -- doesn't end with me shot. If Sophia does turn out to be Shadow Stalker, I'm kicking you in the balls.

I paused, rebalancing my bags, looking back at Angelica's questioning eye.

"I hope they know how to feed dogs properly," I told her, fishing my phone out, scrolling down to the number my dopplegänger gave me.

"Come into my parlor," my smug voice told me through the phone. She really doesn't realize she's so much like Lisa, does she?

"By any other name, would you still be such a bitch?" I retorted. "Captain's Hill, tomorrow noon."
 
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Responder 2.07

[Taylor]
{Tuesday}​

Captain's Hill was an anthill of activity. There were people moving construction materials to and fro, some working on filling in the gash left in one of the lawns by what looked like a meteor impact but probably was the result of someone punted by Leviathan during the fight, others setting up the monument. Oh yes, there would be a monument to the battle that took place in the city, placed in a relatively remote location, simply because it was one of the few locations that got off with more or less minimal damage.

It was Brockton Bay's answer to the deaths suffered against the Endbringer, one that would preclude pithy speeches and feuds breaking out in the middle of a funeral service - not as problematic considering the city had more than one cemetery, but still a plausible issue when only one of them was Jewish. In the de facto super-powered Nazi capital of the United States, it was expectable for it to be a regular fixture of the crime reports. As a result, the solution was an impersonal acknowledgement, the perfect bureaucratic blend of not doing anything and empty gestures: an obelisk that would bear the names of the dead. Real names and cape names both. I had no idea how they would be getting those, except for capes with no secret identity like Rachel or the Pelhams.

But Captain's Hill was, first and foremost, a park. There were people already here, two days since the attack, walking their kids, dogs, ferrets (wait, isn't that Louise from my class? How many people in Brockton Bay own ferrets?). The people reacted almost as if it was merely a storm and not the worst disaster known to modern man that struck here. Then again, it would probably make coping easier in a way? Most of them spent Sunday inside a shelter and didn't see or experience what I did. Although I could just as easily imagine people thinking more of themselves in the aftermath instead -- 'I survived an Endbringer, maybe that was for a reason?'

My reason buzzed in the trees and the bushes, crawled on the ground and beneath it. My reason trudged next to me along the path, limping slightly. My reason was home, fussing and worrying whether his only daughter would be coming home. My reason was being drugged out of her mind in a madman's secret lair. My reason was trying to survive being that madman's lapdog long enough to kill him My reason was sitting on a park bench I passed twice before recognizing her, a beanie covering her short hair, a look of odd contentment on her face as she stared at what looked suspiciously like a genuine dumpster fire.

"Hey," I said, plopping down next to her, Angelica sitting down into a guarding position at my feet, seemingly giving Rose no mind at all. Do we smell the same or what? Was it the lack of hostility between us?

"Hey myself," she replied, the contentment on her face moving effortlessly from the fire to me.

"What the hell did you do to your hair?" I asked, indicating the off-blue beanie which didn't clash too badly with her dark blue PRT gift shop hoodie (I used to want one myself, a long time ago) or the Miss Militia t-shirt underneath, but was clearly much more worn-in than the rest of the things she was wearing. Short bangs of black were the only hint she still had any hair underneath, and gave me no idea about what it looked like now.

"I have no need for it now that you know I'm you," she said, her voice much more serious than the relaxed expression on her face, as if they belonged to two different people, "And too many people saw us fighting side by side during the battle and could draw conclusions. I'm heading that off at the pass."

"You do realize there were simpler ways to convince me, without involving the Protectorate, Panacea or writing creepy stalkerish messages online?" I asked, very unsure if expecting a response in the positive from the crazy idiot version of me made any sense at all.

"Very few of those excluded Dad, and Panacea is much better than any DNA or Master/Stranger test, believe me," she bent forward to look at Angelica. The terrier's eye slid across my 'cousin''s exterior, but the dog gave no appreciable reaction otherwise. Apparently satisfied with the result, Rose sat back to rest against the bench.

"This is still pretty damn weird, talking to myself," I reiterated, making sure the swarm was meticulously sweeping the surroundings, because I still felt like they wouldn't let me leave in peace if I turned her down. Somehow I seemed to have gone from 'social pariah of Winslow High' to 'one of the most sought-after capes of Brockton Bay' practically overnight.

"It is, isn't it?" she nodded, relaxing her face into an expression that somehow reminded me of Greg. It looked weirdly out of place on this idealized version of my face -- and in the proper light of day I could see that it was exactly that - idealized. No blemishes, spots, uneven skin, even the lighter patch of skin from where Sophia hit me against a doorjamb too hard was gone. But the uncanny valley was only partly driven by the facelift - up close it looked like she didn't actually have proper facial expressions, she reproduced them robotically, as if she had to remember she was supposed to have any to begin with. Or maybe she thought having a wider range of emotional cues than 'Taylor Hebert' was worth the price of looking like a videogame character. Wait, she already looks like a videogame character. Please don't tell me there's a videogame about her on her Earth.

"Yeah," I nodded, finally noticing the lull in the conversation. "So…"

"You must be bursting with questions," she stated the obvious, "As long as it doesn't out anybody else, ask away."

"What's happening with Rachel?" was the first thing out of my mouth, "With her body, I mean. No real funeral?"

She shook her head. "The same as with all other villainous capes with no next of kin or known will - she gets a grave at St Peter's, on the eastern end, I checked. At least her grave will have a real name on top of the cape one. Not everyone who died gets that."

"You… checked?" I repeated, trying not to sound too shocked and failing.

"Hard as it may be to believe, I consider my version of her a friend," she huffed, crossing her arms, her face trying its hardest to convey a non-severe affront, though had it not been mine, it would have looked passably human, "I helped her get acquitted, she left the Undersiders, found gainful employment. Last I checked, she was happy, inasmuch as the word can apply to her."

"So, Amy and Vicky Dallon, Rachel... is there anyone you aren't friends with?"

"Okay, let's be brutally honest with each other here. You and I are basically the same, so you know I use 'friend' as broadly as possible."

"So you're not her friend?" I asked, grinning wryly.

"I'm saying that we're friendly with each other, and she seems to appreciate me, but a) it's Bitch, that's about as nice as she gets and b) we're both so desperate for actual human companionship that we'd probably take it if E88 goons offered it."

"So, is she going to be on the memorial?" I asked next, although I already suspected what the answer would be.

"Yeah," she nodded, "Like everyone else who died in the battle," she paused, then spoke in a much more subdued tone, "Except for the PRT troopers of course, because they aren't capes," she sighed, apparently remembering where she was before the tangent, "I didn't even need to fight them too hard to have both of her cape names listed."

"What about her dogs?"

She looked as surprised by my question as I was. So she does have facial expressions she doesn't have direct control over? What the hell is wrong with her?

"I… I actually hadn't considered that," she spoke slowly, her voice... apologetic, maybe? "You'd have to help me out with the names, however, because I could only recognize Brutus and Judas. She had a much larger pack when she defected, and none of the dogs I knew were with her then," she looked down to my feet again. "At least Angelica survived."

While she reached an open palm out for the dog to sniff, I worked my jaw back into place. She knows the names of Rachel's dogs? Was she speaking the truth then?

"Of course," I replied boldly. "I'll need to… identify the bodies, I guess? I didn't get a good look at her pack when we… ran into her, before she buffed them up."

"They're at the PRT building right now," she explained, petting Angelica gingerly, "The power-studying guys asked to take a look at how the power-granted muscle differed from the dogs' own. I was vetoed on the issue of doing anything to their bodies, but if you help me raise a stink, I think we can get them interred together with Rachel as a condition of your joining the Wards."

"So I'm getting a choice in the matter after all?" I asked, a little more indignantly than I wanted to, "Because it sure felt like you enjoyed cutting off all my other options."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she shot back, "I thought with Grue and Regent out of the room when I unmasked, you could still go back if you really wanted to. Sure, I didn't expect they would be the first friends you'd be making after… you know… but I wasn't going to just rip you away from them."

"Well, unlike you, I didn't have the Dallon sisters as an option, you know," I retorted, "Or the Wards, or whoever else you hooked up with at Arcadia. And now I don't even have that, since Coil told them all about my undercover mission."

She choked for a moment, my words having struck a chord somewhere in that musclebound parody of my body that sat next to me on the bench in the middle of the aftermath of the worst thing to have happened to this city since the Boat Graveyard happened.

"Okay. Look. We went into this the wrong way altogether--" she said, gesturing between us, "So here's some disillusionment for you. Yes, I dated Aegis. Then Hookwolf killed him. I hadn't dated anyone since, and I'm still getting therapy over it. Seeing him alive again here did no good to my mental wellbeing whatsoever. Imagine if one day Emma came up to you and hugged you and how exactly would you react then?"

"Alright, I'll grant you that one. Panacea?"

"Best friends, I'd say, like you and-- say, what name did Tata give you as her own? I'd feel like a tool if I shared her real one without her permission, however much I may hate her."

"Lisa," I supplied. "Certainly suits her better than Sally."

She gave a short bark of a laugh that really didn't sound like something I'd ever do. "Sure does. Anyway. Amy's a Ward. Torn up ties to her family halfway because of that, and only made worse after I put Glory Girl in jail for involuntary manslaughter. 'Assault with a parahuman power' makes everything worse, you know?"

I gaped at her. "You-- she-- what?"

"And yes, she may have had feelings for me at some point, but that went on hold when she realized I wasn't about to reciprocate. This--" she gestured at her face, "--happened when she got carried away with saving my life after Shadow Stalker killed me."

"Like, kill killed you?" I asked dumbly.

"My heart stopped, so technically I did die. Then it was started up again. The correct term is 'clinical death', I believe. Then Amy healed me, except she did it a little too well, sort of a power surge or something, like you said you get a wider range in times of crisis? Speaking of which, we'll need to get her, or the local her, to take a good look at your heart some time soon."

I gawked at the last statement before realizing it had something to do with what her Amy discovered when healing her. My version of Panacea certainly wasn't interested in any kind of decent bedside manner or patient aftercare. Or maybe it was the knife to her throat?

"Alright. So how does Shadow Stalker fit into this? You mentioned uncovering her probation violation?"

"Yeah, that was a technical lie for the audience, to avoid outing her and airing PRT dirty laundry where Tattletale could reach it..." she trailed off, looking to her sides warily.

"Explain." I hissed, and so did the small swarm I kept building under the bench since I sat down. Rose flinched at that, but, to her credit, Angelica didn't. "Nobody is within earshot, unless there are Strangers my power can't detect."

"The attempted murder was of Madison Clements. The Locker. Shadow Stalker is Sophia Hess," she replied tersely, visibly collecting herself, as if expecting me to sic the swarm on her. So I punched her in the face instead, as hard as I humanly could. I considered adding a kick to the ribs for good measure once she landed on the ground, but thought better of it looking at the stares we were drawing.

"Start. Talking." I ground out, offering her a hand.

------​

[Barry Rennick]
{Monday}​

"...I see. Very well, please keep me apprised of any developments," I said, placing the phone receiver back into its cradle. This setback was unfortunate, but not insurmountable.

The pounding at the door caught me unawares, as nobody was scheduled with me until the afternoon. Yesterday's attack uprooted a lot of common procedures, but that didn't mean just anyone could burst into my office willy-nilly.

"Yes? Enter!" I called out, lamenting the fact that we had no men to spare to stand guard over my door-- ah, Emissary, what an unexpected development.

"I need whatever information is available on the Shadow Stalker inquest," she panted out. Did she run here?

"Yes, Emissary? How are you today?" I asked, trying to inject at least some politeness into the process. "Is there anything I can help you with, perchance?"

That seemed to do the trick as she visibly calmed down, sat herself down in one of the visitor's chairs I gestured at, and began anew.

"Deputy Director, as you are aware, I've been working on getting Skitter to agree to join the Wards," to which I nodded, I didn't expect her to start that far back, "And that Shadow Stalker was the one that caused her Trigger. I was trying to reach Director Piggot, but she is unavailable on short notice due to coordinating the relief work," she explained, which at least told me why she was in the state she was in, "I would greatly appreciate it if I could be attached to the team working on getting her locked up so I could expedite the process. Having these two meet in any way out of costume would likely lead to this building being condemned."

"And we wouldn't want that," I offered her a wan smile, trying to ease her obviously troubled mind. "Don't worry, Emissary, it's done," I said, mentally omitting the except for the phonecall I just received, because it wasn't a crucial detail.

"Okay, good, so who do I talk to?" she breathed out, anticipation in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Miss Ellison, I seem to not have made myself sufficiently clear. We finished our investigation on Saturday. As of 11:25 AM today, we have all the evidence needed to convict Miss Hess."

"...What."

I shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, but we--"

She waved her hands in front of her, clenching her eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to dispel a mist or illusion of some sort. The thought made the corners of my mouth curl upward.

"Wait. Stop, no, wait," she sputtered, clearly trying to get her words to co-operate, "You're telling me that you've been sitting on the evidence that Shadow Stalker--"

"No…" I trailed off, giving her a stern look, about 70% strictness rating, "We have not been 'sitting on this', as you said. The only reason she wasn't taken care of on Saturday is... well... the forms to get her removed from the program and remanded to police custody require the Director's signature, and she'd already gone home for the day when we got the paperwork ready. Then on Sunday…"

I spread my arms wide, indicating the view outside my office window. She nodded, remembering what she herself was doing yesterday.

------​

[Ty Michaelson]
{Saturday}​

Director Piggot threw her worst possible look across the desk at the two ladies from the Youth Guard which probably weighed less put together than she did. Or he did, he mused. Michaelson was vaguely aware he was mostly here to play up the intimidation angle -- the YG hovered in the vicinity of the top of the Director's shitlist a lot, so there was no way to know the specific reason for her ire of the day. The fact that they were willing to come in on a Saturday to expose themselves to it already spoke volumes of the extent of the problem at hand.

"Shadow Stalker," she paused for emphasis, letting Ty realize the time for the asshole Ward to get shitcanned had finally come, "Has been discovered to have caused a Trigger in a girl she was bullying in her civilian identity. While investigating the matter, we have unearthed a series of other probation violations, at least two of which were the direct consequence of insufficient oversight, the blame for which I am fully willing to lay at your feet."

"Emily--" the taller one of the two tried to object, but was cut off by the Director's gesture.

"Amanda, I've known you for years, and I know what you will say," Piggot said evenly, before raising her voice a fraction, changing gears, "The teachers of Winslow High implicated in the cover-up, which at this point is almost a full third of them, will be facing inquests and possibly will lose their jobs with various entertaining additional restrictions for future employment. All because you argued the girl should be left there instead of being moved to Arcadia per existing procedure."

"The transition would have upended her willingness to co-operate with the program, Emily!" the shorter grey-haired woman protested.

"Tell me then, have you looked at what the rehabilitation program report looks like for her?"

There was silence, and Ty knew: Piggot has won. Nobody was going to acknowledge it this soon, but she has won already.

"And this Trigger, may we ask--"

"Skitter. Our fuckup, yours and mine, created Skitter. I'm sure you've heard of her," another pause for emphasis, the crapfest at the Forsberg gallery having been plastered all over the news by now, "We have a Ward attempting to establish contact with her, maybe get the same deal Shadow Stalker was supposed to get," her eyes narrowed further, "Except that we wouldn't have needed to make a deal if we'd kept her under control," she snarled. "Instead, not only are we down two members of the Protectorate and a Ward-"

"Who shouldn't have been out there in the first place!" Amanda jumped in. "What were you thinking?"

Piggot's anger somehow grew even hotter.

"I suspect, Amanda, that he was thinking about stopping the Endbringer in his city. You know, the one that was attempting to kill everyone he's ever known and loved? And don't change the subject, her crimes mean that the city is down another parahuman." She grimaced slightly. "And what's worse, her actions may have soured a known villain towards us to the point where, unlike most of the criminals in this town, she will have a very legitimate reason to rebel against any form of law and authority." She was standing up now. Ty knew it was effective, as he could see the two Youth Guard idiots slumping in their seats, but he could see her legs shaking behind the desk. Piggot sat down and fixed the two with her cold stare.

"So if my Ward manages to cut a deal with Skitter, you can be damned sure that she will be watched properly, unlike the killer you only let me monitor with one agent."

"Your mysterious new Ward? The one who moved into the PRT building because she has no place of residence, was fast-tracked onto the team and is completely unreachable to us?" Amanda protested, visibly glad she had something to latch on to.

"Alexandria put her in my lap, if you must know, with all the pertinent paperwork in tow," the Director huffed, "I've been told she was involved in an incident where she had to tase a Youth Guard rep who tried to manipulate another potential recruit. I'm sure you'll agree that paints a clear picture regarding her opinion of your organisation."

Nobody seemed to want to object after that.

------​

[Phil Carlsson]
{Friday}​

"Wait, what are we doing here again? You're seriously considering someone got Jimmy Hoffa'd in this building?"

Phil scowled at the trainee. Jimmy was a bright guy, but his combat scores were way higher than his aptitude tests. He'd never make it above a common Trooper. Now Phil, he had aspirations. He looked at Ingrid, all dressed up to the nines in her black pantsuit, and all he could think was 'I want to be her one day.' No, that came out wrong. 'I want to have the same position one day.' Well, not the exact position of crouching over a section of a parking garage floor, waving a Tinkertech magic wand to see if there was a dead body inside the floor of this level.

Nominally, Phil and Jimmy were her escorts, guards in the case of any trouble. Unofficially, with the Empire 88 mess still boiling in the news and the new Ward being publicly announced today, the higher-ups expected shit to happen, and so nobody PRT was leaving the base alone. Phil liked Ingrid, he had valid reasons to believe Ingrid liked him back, and Jimmy kinda tagged along, citing the two-man rule to follow Carlsson to the garage, where Ingrid utterly failed to try to dissuade him from going with them.

At this rate, I'm never going to ask her out. I wonder if she'll turn me down on the principle that if she eventually agrees to marry me, her new name will look like an E88 propaganda piece. Or maybe not that, she's not white, after all.

"Here's a tip for you, Sanders: when parahumans are involved, nothing's impossible," Phil said sagely, glaring menacingly at a pigeon that was looking at Ingrid oddly.

"But this degree of ridiculous precision, off a tip?"

"Newsflash, Sanders: there's at least one confirmed high-grade Thinker living in this town, and who knows how many more live in secret, not to mention whatever power plays out-of-town groups may be running," the female Agent explained from her position, "Throwing dirty laundry at one another expecting the PRT to take their opponent away is a pastime many parahumans enjoy. Just look at Blasto and Accord."

"So, kinda like Mouse Protector and Ravager, I guess?" Jimmy offered, "It feels like they're showboating more often than actually fighting."

"Bad example, James," Phil said reproachfully, "The Slaughterhouse Nine got the both of them recently. Rumor mill says Bonesaw sewed them together," he added, making Jimmy recoil in disgust.

"Guys! Get the tools over here, we've got a hit!" Ingrid called out, "And it looks like the dead guy still has some sort of arrow stuck in his gut."

"How did we get this tip anyway?" Jimmy asked as he helped Phil pull out the cutting tools out of the company car.

"An envelope was delivered by hand to an auxiliary office in Providence," Phil replied, shutting the door and joined the younger man in carrying the box towards the waiting agent, "We know zilch about the courier except that it was a woman whose face was obscured from all camera feeds by a hat."

------​

[Lakshmi Ramayan]
{Thursday}​

"Doctor Morrison, please. We are simply trying to make sure we've accounted for all the victims," she repeated for the fifth time today. It was the last hospital on her list, and all the interviews with the head doctors went along the same scenario. It's almost as if the Hippocratic Oath included a clause about being allowed to be obtuse in the face of law enforcement agencies. She wasn't even asking for any identities, just confirmation on specific wounds.

"You keep saying that as if it magically makes peeking through people's privacy rights okay," the rotund bearded man replied. His temples, flecked with gray, were slick with sweat already, and this was in an air-conditioned building on a not that warm a day. "I'm telling you, you can't just--"

"I'm not asking for private details yet, Doctor. Just a tally: how many people, if at all, came in with wounds matching the one in this file?" Lakshmi repeated, cursing both her callsign ("Lucky", because her CO was an ignorant asshole that couldn't be arsed to learn how to pronounce her name) and her parents (who named after the goddess of fortune and prosperity, no pressure!) for never helping her with things like this. "Do you want to let a serial killer get away from justice?"

Morrison let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not doing this to spite you, Agent. But these wounds--"

"Are fairly unique and would allow us to hammer out a timeline of activity, letting us refine the working theory," Lakshmi continued, "The number of victims may make the difference between one year in jail for the suspect and five, possibly more. We may want to talk to specific victims after that, we may not, if we do, our first question would naturally be 'why didn't you report being shot by a crossbow to the police', which will carry a lot of consequences both for them and for your staff. Do you really want me to keep throwing legalese at you until we're both blue in the face?"

"Shit. Okay, let me look up a few things. Can you return in an hour or two?"

"Do you have a lounge or cafeteria I can wait in?"

------​

[Barry Rennick]
{Monday}​

"...And then this morning we received notice from the Chief Director's office that they're releasing information pertinent to our investigation from a sealed file," I finished, handing her one of the printouts.

"That… bi--" she caught herself, amending the sound as soon as she let it out, "--iieeelligerent idiot outed me to Emma?!"

I nodded, because that was the polite thing to do, then resumed speaking.

"Unfortunately, the Barnes family has already left the city due to the damage their house sustained in the flooding," I laid out, tapping another report lying on my table, "Moved to Portland for the time being, neighbors said."

"Great. Just great," Emissary breathed out, "One door closed, another opens. Then again, Rose Ellison doesn't actually exist, and Emma has no reason to out me there. All she has is my connection to Taylor Hebert, who she knows fuck-all about, in terms of things that matter."

"Are you satisfied with this outcome then?" I asked next, hoping for a positive response, "The only person out of reach for you is the agent in charge of monitoring Shadow Stalker in her civilian life, as she died during the Endbringer attack. Her building collapsed after the first wave struck."

"My condolences," she said, her voice somewhat wooden, "Too sad, though, there was a lot I would have liked to ask her." I couldn't help but notice that one of her hands twitched towards the holster she normally kept her taser in. I frowned minutely, but said nothing. "As for your question…" she set down the papers and ran her fingers through her hair, "I can't... I can't honestly say that I am satisfied with the outcome." she slumped down into the chair. "I'm... Why?" She looked up at me. "Why did it take so long? Why did she hurt so many people?" her gaze dropped into her lap. "It took five months for my PRT to figure out she was a bad egg, and that's only because she tried to get me and screwed up. Here... they didn't even do that." Her hands were shaking and angry tears began rolling down her cheeks. "You people waited almost a year before you figured out that she was a Fuuh...reaking sociopath, and again, only because of me raising the alarm." She looked up, eyes glistening, "What would have happened if I hadn't come along? How long would she have been…" She trailed off as I pushed a box of tissues towards her.

"I can't answer that," I finally admitted. "I like to think that we do the best we can... but in the end, we're all just human." I looked down, my hand balling into a fist. "And we make mistakes. Large ones, sometimes." I turned my gaze back to her, folding my hands across my desk. "All we can do is move forward and try not to repeat our mistakes." I made sure to look her square in the eyes. "I promise you, what happened with Miss Hess will NOT happen again."

We stared at each other for a moment, before she broke it and coughed once.

"So, uh... am I correct in assuming that since Winslow is gone, Skitter would be routed to Arcadia anyway?" When I nodded, she added, "Emma too, if she returns?"

"Of course. Therefore, it would be welcome if you could induce Skitter to provide us with further evidence in order to prosecute her as well as Shadow Stalker's other unpowered... accomplices."

"Huh. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants for her, coming back to the happy news that she has to go to Arcadia now, then learning she's facing a school blacklist because of her actions," she said, more to herself than to me, an oddly genuine smile spreading on her face, "My only remaining issue is how am I supposed to explain all this to Skitter?"

"At this point, Emissary, I think full disclosure is your best friend."

A ping told me I had new mail. From Director Piggot?

------​

[Rose]
{Tuesday}​

I expected a reaction of this kind. I didn't expect her to be strong enough to physically punch me off the bench, considering our not-insignificant weight difference.

And so I told her. Told her about my talk with Renick, about the fact that the combined idiocy of the Youth Guard (a fact I never learned at home but would have to look up once I got back) and the PRT fucked our life up, and how much it would be worth it to see Clockblocker's face when he learns the dreaded Bug Girl of Brockton Bay is my cousin. I am totally not setting them up together, that would be weird. Of course, I told her how easy her Sophia got off compared to mine.

As I spoke, answering the occasional clarifying question, we ate the pancakes I've hoarded over two days' worth of cafeteria visits, drank my thermos of tea and went on a tangent discussing possible negotiation options to get Panacea's help with Angelica.

"Ow," I winced as I bit into soft, delicious pancake, "Let me... yep, that tooth is loose. Nice hook, by the way."

"I'd say sorry, but... well, I'm not," she mumbled around her own mouthful of goodness. I nodded after a moment.

"Yeah... I kinda had that one coming," I said just after swallowing strawberry-flavored breakfast food. She nodded and for a few minutes, there was little else but the sound of chewing and occasionally slipping bits of pancake to Angelica.

"You know what the most aggravating thing about this whole situation is?" she asked after I was finally done talking, "That I may yet have to thank you for so thoroughly fucking my life up."

"Matter of perspective, T," I replied glibly, "I tore down the shantytown of despair you tried to build from what you had at hand, and am giving you shiny new building blocks." She scowled at the analogy, but I pressed onwards. "Sure, the pay is worse, the PR stuff is a chore, and the team has no eye candy like Lisa--" she choked, so I hastily added, "--sorry, I never met Grue out of costume and Regent's kinda meh."

"Grue's… hmmm." She paused, hesitating, then seemed to have a lightbulb moment. "Remember the crush we've probably shared over Corey Wilkins a few years back? He's like that, except eighteen and not an asshole," another hesitant pause, "Not as much of an asshole, okay. Taking care of his little sister sometimes takes precedence even over common decency for him."

"Okay, then you are going to love Aegis then. However, now that Sophia's gone, no girl eye candy though."

"Huh, so I didn't imagine it?" she wondered aloud.

"Imagine what?"

"You're into girls. I'm not. Also, Sophia, really?" she mimed retching, worrying Angelica with the sounds that produced.

"I'm not into girls per se, if anything, I'm more into physiques. And as for Sophia? She is good-looking, neither of us can deny it, right? But... What's the words I'm looking for..." I pretended to think as I tapped my chin. "Oh yes, not just no, but HELL no. Sophia is... just... look, even if I didn't have a history with her, just knowing what she's like and what she's done..." I shivered. "So imagine my reaction when she came onto me yesterday," I admitted hesitantly. This time, she did almost retch for real.

"Whyyy?" she squeezed out, "If you say she admitted she confused you for me at first? Then learning about the cousin thing? Why would she possibly do it?"

"Dominance, I guess. Maybe making me a trophy girlfriend to rub that in your face? Who knows with that psycho."

------​

[Sophia Hess]
{Monday}​

So the morning plan kinda fizzled out when the group hug interrupted my come-on, but the general idea seemed workable: she wasn't exactly averse to my chosen approach.

After Emma's texts detailing her parents' decision to move to Portland until Brockton Bay ceased being a disaster area, I realized I would be left here alone, with no school, no track, even no Hebert (even though she finally quit coming back a couple of weeks ago) to distract me. All I had were the Wards patrols… and Hebert's surprisingly worthwhile cousin.

Seeing her come back from her talk with Renick, all flustered and out of breath, gave me two contrasting trains of thought: 'did she beat him up or something?' and 'I bet it would be interesting to spar with her'.

"What's cooking, Rose?" Alderman asked, looking up from whatever book he was reading. "Someone chased you down the hall or something?"

"Skitter agreed to meet me," she replied, her panting starting to wind down, "Talked to Renick just now, we may be getting her as a new Ward soon, depending on how it goes with her tomorrow."

"I do not know how I feel about that," Browbeat wasted air, "She has shown a capacity for damage that may not fit in well with our group. On the other hand," he scratched his big hand in his stubble, "It would be preferable to have those same dangerous powers on our side instead of having to go against them."

"She'll adapt," Rose defended her stance, "She's a survivor," she added knowingly, and that explained everything, at least to me.

I couldn't help but grin at her. I knew Skitter was only a recent addition to the Undersiders, probably joined the first team she could. Perhaps, with the proper motivation, she could be turned around to my worldview, she certainly was another predator. The Wards would finally stop being a fucking kiddie pool.

"That said, there was another issue I was talking to Renick about," she went on, turning to me. "Sophia… I talked to my cousin. There can be two ways out of this for you. "

My heart skipped a beat. I think I paled more than I ever did in that moment. This development was not one I seriously considered, I expected to have already worked her over with Emma's help, but the fucking Endbringer…

"I-- I have no idea what you're talking about," I replied, "Whatever she told you is probably more of her attention-seeking--"

"Is that what you told the school staff?" she asked, taking a step forward. The mask-up alarm sounded. Did she get troopers here to subdue me? How dumb do they think I am, I can walk through walls! "Unfortunately, the PRT does not work that way. Your probation does not work that way," she paused to crack her knuckles, and I was seriously torn between going shadow right then and there, "And since your probation officer is too dead to aid in the investigation, you'll have to do it yourself."

"Rose, what are you--" Alderman began before being cut off.

The doors swung open, admitting a pair of PRT troopers with some sort of Tinkertech rifles in hand. Time to--

PAIN

--I collapsed in a heap on the floor, looking up helplessly at her, that thing of hers in her hand, wires trailing to my chest. She just zorched me with her thing, like Leviathan! No hesitation, no--

"You really could have made things easier for yourself by talking," she shook her head, then turned to the troopers, ignoring my jellied unresponsive body on the floor. I could vaguely see Alderman peering over the sofa's edge, but not his expression, not when I couldn't move my head. "M/S containment room two, electric field up, but let me put her mask on first. This is enough of a shitshow as it is."

"Whatever you say, Red," the male trooper said, eliciting a groan from Rose.

"For fuck's sake, it's catching on now?"

"What the hell did just happen?" was the last thing I heard Alderman say before blackness overcame me.

------​

[Taylor]
{Tuesday}​

"Ha! I wish I could have seen her face then!"

"You still can, she'll likely stick around in that cell for a while now as the case is hammered out," Rose replied, putting away the container she brought the pancakes in, "Bring the Journal in for more things to investigate, I'd love it if we could build a bigger case against Emma."

"Why her?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow, "Didn't you already--?"

"I felt… cheated… of a proper denouement, I guess?" she said quietly, "With Sophia Birdcaged, Madison as my subordinate and Emma in the psych ward, none of them felt truly… fulfilling."

"One last question," I said, trying not to sound nervous in case it was merely a test or a precaution on the PRT's part.

"Shoot," she grinned at me, finally looking like me when she did so.

"Funny you should say that. The snipers… are they yours?"

The swarm I had patrolling the area for traps and ambushes had finally brought me results: two men with complicated-feeling rifles, aiming at us but content with just watching for now.

"The one on the building on the corner of Wendt - you count him too?" she asked, pointing out the glint of a reflection in a sniper scope.

"No. Three snipers then," I amended, still feeling unsure.

"They're not with me," she replied, lowering her voice. Angelica perked up at the change in the tone of our conversation.

"Coil trying to take me out before I snitch on his operations?" I ventured, piling more bugs onto the backs of the snipers, where they wouldn't be able to spot them. It was stupid of them to come after me without any kind of bug spray or what-have-you, if they were really sent by Coil. I suspected he had a very good handle on how my powers worked.

"Protective detail on Dad's house says nothing out of the ordinary," she reported, putting her phone away. "I asked them to politely move him to the PRT building."

"Are we going there then?"

"As soon as you decide how to deal with these three."

"I'm thinking nothing lethal, just some hornet stings."

"Define 'some'?"

"Enough."
 
Interlude 02.T
Interlude 02.T

"She's lying," Tattletale's voice made Taylor look up from the screen with the press conference video, "She's lived in Brockton most of her life if not all of it. The 'relatives' she's speaking of are her birth family. I'm not sure what else she may be hiding."

Is not surprised to learn Emissary is Brockton native.
Had suspicions after watching the video.
Has drawn conclusions, armor design is in reference to something only a short list of people know, including Taylor.

"Taylor? Is she--" Lisa tried to ask, seeing her friend's face working its way through several degrees of surprise, then turning to shock, to furious anger.

At least one of them is dead, her mother? Useless, Emissary is Wards age.
Has reached the same conclusion, only one person meets that criteria.
Emissary is one of her bullies, likely the former friend.

"Taylor, even you know how my power works with too little data, you can't be sure you've considered all the suspects--"

"It's her!" Taylor replied vehemently, eyes glistening with tears of rage, "Too much fits! Why Shadow Stalker is her friend! Why the school turned a blind eye!"

Is convinced the evidence is unshakeable.
The coincidences appear to fit well enough.
The location of the alleged Journal? Thinker inference? Thinker interference?

No other option.
What is up with her body? It's like a puppet.

------​

No words were exchanged as they walked into the building together, still hand-in-hand as Lisa dragged Taylor after her. When they saw Emissary spot them, or when Lisa excused herself to stand at the Undersiders' side. If nothing else, this was what made it final: Taylor was not part of the team, she would be entering the battle solo. And facing whoever her alleged helper/stalked actually was, as well.

Receives attention from Parian, is surprised, but not by the revelation of Parian's preference.
Had not considered herself within Parian's sphere of interest?
No, thinks less of Parian for showing interest in someone underage?
No, simply doesn't want entanglements right now.

Body language generates false results in my power's conclusions.

Approaches Taylor with trepidation, is confused over reasons for hostility.
Confusion is genuine, stems from misinterpretation, expected armor design to breed familiarity, not contempt.

"Damn it, Taylor!" she swore quietly, but not quietly enough.

"Huh?" Regent turned his white mask towards her. "The dork got in trouble already? Relaaax, they won't break the Truce so openly."

"It's not that. The new Ward has been writing her creepy love letters all week, since before her debut," Lisa deflected, "And now she's got her pinned."

"Ooh. A lady caller! Scandalous," Alec's response was a drab monotone, clearly indicating his opinion in the subject. Ignoring him, Lisa tried to focus on Taylor's reactions instead.

Taylor is going on the offensive, still convinced Emissary is actually Emma.
Emissary realizes that NOW… outright states she is not Emma.
Knows Emma personally, possibly the other bullies as well.
Taylor skeptical, sees no reason for anyone on the side of the law to help her.
Has heard some sort of trumping argument, a private secret?

Emissary turning to me, expects to use me as winning argument? What?!

Taylor's face, no, not exactly Taylor's face. The goggles cover too much to say for sure.
Distant relative? Long-lost sibling?
Familiarity with intimate details of Taylor's life means either direct access to her memories… but there are no known memory-affecting powers?
Secretly a postcog?
Thinker 5, possibly 6 depending on nature of gleaned knowledge, 2 rating the same kind of sandbagging that markets Gallant as a Tinker?

"Not in public," Lisa whispered along with the unspoken message from the Ward who was now busy shocking Taylor with the same facial revelation.

"Tattletale, you okay?" Grue asked.

Talkative today, isn't he? Lisa fumed to herself, before answering.

"Yeah. Thinker tangent, too much powers in the room."

"Funny, could'a sworn you got too engrossed in the little lover's spat over yonder."

"Fuck you, Regent," she said emphatically.

"Ha! You wish!" he snorted back.

When Lisa turned back to the two girls, she saw that Emissary was doing something to her helmet, her back turned to Taylor.

Opened her helmet. Show of trust?
Yes, allowed spiders to be deposited inside.
Trusts Skitter implicitly, wants to secure reciprocation.
Is aware how Skitter's powers work in detail.

She screwed her eyes shut, well aware the Thinker headache she felt fast approaching would not win her any favors during the battle. Swearing inwardly, she beat her power back down before opening her eyes again, to see Emissary returning to the other Wards, Taylor left where she was, holding something.

Taylor confused over contents of note.
Still skeptical.
It looks like… Emissary revealed her identity, or part of it, but Taylor is confused over the exact nature of the revelation.

She sighed and shut her eyes again as she sat down for Legend's briefing speech. None of this is going to end well.

------​

"Emissary?" Legend asked warily, "What do you have to do with this?"

She saw an opening, and she took it. Her power was still reeling from the after-action review with Alexandria which she hoped to convert into favors for her team, and if she had to spent a couple on bailing Taylor out, maybe, just maybe that would be enough to get her back on the team. After losing Rachel, Taylor's departure definitely meant a death knell for the Undersiders, unless Coil would pull out a new member right out of his thin bony ass.

"Just the thing I was going to ask, Mister Legend, sir!" she announced as cheerfully as she could, hobbling over to the source of the commotion that slowly had the entire hospital converging around the scene of the two Brockton Protectorate capes needing a Triumvirate member to confront a fifteen-year old girl, that, admittedly, has already schooled two said capes along with the rest of their team on several occasions.

She easily weathered a baleful glare from Panacea, who seemed to be held in a death grip by Emissary - dragged here bodily, Emissary suspected what was happening, needed her for some reason, to heal Skitter? - but then slammed into a wall against the Ward.

Is aware how my powers work.
Bears a grudge.
Could wrestle a bear.
HAS wrestled a bear?
Has, or thinks she has, some sort of trump card over me.
Likely aware of issues my power has with her.
Is here for Skitter, won't let me get in the way.

Taylor is happy to see me.
Is glad to know I'm alive.
Wants to ask about Rachel but is wary of the crowd.
Doesn't know yet.

Lisa gave Taylor the best reassuring grin she could muster under the circumstances, before returning to the byplay before her.

"Before we move anywhere, I have to warn you all my helmet cam is recording everything, and Armsmaster already has less political capital than Mount Rushmore," Emissary said, her voice a carefully measured commanding tone vaguely similar to the one Lisa just listened to for almost an hour, "And has been caught falsely accusing Skitter on record previously."

I guess we know who she wanted to be when she grows up, she chuckled internally, Except bending Armsmaster over a barrel seems counter-intuitive for a career with the Protectorate unless Taylor is just that valuable to her. One more point for the familial relation tally.

"I'm sorry, but aren't you a little young to be pushing Protectorate members around, young lady?" Battery asked, sounding properly peeved and obviously on the same train of thought. Except the reaction she received…

Is certain her exploits give her leeway.
Has some sort of backdoor deal with the Protectorate? Possibly Alexandria herself, Legend seems taken aback.
Takes the time to elevate Taylor by association-- the power's train of thought halted to make way for Lisa's own, yet again, wait, Taylor melee'd Leviathan? How is she upright-- oh, Panacea.

She chuckled at the teardown, and then again at the applause.

The PHO puppet post, the familiarity with the red-head, the speech she made at her debut, she ticked off internally, All carefully constructed, with no earmarks of the PRT PR division, to secure a firm reputation with the PRT rank and file, the actual field troopers.

Building a power base.

That realization came unbidden, but it was the best explanation she could see, power or no, and just in time to hear--

"I was going to do this anyway, but in order to secure the aid of the Undersiders in an ongoing investigation I agreed to unmask to them today," Emissary explained, gesturing at Lisa and the boys.

Is dismissive of unmasking.
Knows she can do it under Truce and hold it over us.
Has Taylor's face, of course she's unafraid, she risks noth--
Knows our identities, the unmasking is for our benefit.

Lisa paled at the realization, swallowing nervously. That was not something she was prepared for, the PHO exchanges implied that Emissary wanted to build a rapport to steal Taylor away from them, then Coil's grandstanding and their teamwork during the Endbringer fight made that unnecessary. This gesture was pure politicking.

"All she told me about you besides your name was 'keep an eye on this one'. I now see what she meant," Legend said in response to something Lisa was too floored to hear. The headache gnawed at the edge of her mind now, but the desperate urge to know overwhelmed her.

Legend is pissed Alexandria didn't warn him, she is obviously in on this.

"People are watching," Taylor said, drawing their attention to the crowd of capes and non-powered personnel held back by the PRT guards. She thought she saw Trickster recording video, probably to put it online for shits and giggles later. The man was an unrepentant asshole. The recording would have to be dealt with regardless of the outcome of this negotiation.

"All because Armsmaster accosted Skitter when I was escorting her to the bathroom," the red-headed trooper said, "No reason given."

Is friends with Emissary.
Trusts her.
Knows her identity?
Is aware Skitter is valuable to Emissary, moved to assist, attempt was to move her out of Protectorate reach.
Skitter was being unlawfully detained, the trooper freed her, but was stopped by Armsmaster.

And then the whole group moved to the operating room, obtaining Glory Girl in place of Battery along the way. Lisa hated having to move at a fast pace on these stupid crutches, but risking her dignity by asking Panacea for a handout was beneath her.

"I lost enough of my family today to leave her unattended with Miss Sneaky Boobs there," Victoria Dallon, smug even in grief over her dead boyfriend, snarked at her.

Sneaky boobs, really? Lisa protested internally, They're as overt as I can get without freezing them off! Or were you comparing them to your own?!

"Glory Hole, I didn't know you cared!" she said out loud instead, settling for a minor recurring insult rather than risking an open confrontation. The need to know overwhelmed everything. And, of course, Emissary tried to shut her up again, clearly of the same opinion.

"If any of this leaves this room without Protectorate approval, I am more than certain Alexandria will personally twist your head off, then will go bowling with it," Emissary said, in the same Alexandria Junior voice. "I am not fucking around, it's that bad."

Is underselling the threat deliberately?
Wants more people in on this to hold Taylor's identity secret by threat of Alexandria.
Revealing her face inevitably reveals Taylor's, Armsmaster seemed already aware of that fact, but neither of his companions did.
Was that why he tried to do her in?

I have to get Grue and Regent out of here.

She gulped nervously, her throat suddenly dry. Sure, Brian and Alec knew Taylor's face already, but they didn't know Emissary's, or that the two were one and the same.

"Guys, this concerns Skitter's... Personal problems. Could you please wait outside with Battery?" she said, almost pleadingly. Regent shrugged in response, but Grue seemed to only grow foggier.

"No head-twisting off for me, thank you very much," Regent rattled off, making a beeline back to the door.

Suspected the threat was undersold.
Is glad to be spared of the responsibility.

"This isn't over," Grue said to no-one in particular before stomping off after his teammate.

This was a breach of established team public face.
Brian will remember this.

"Thank you," Taylor whispered to her, obviously misreading the intent. Lisa could not find it in herself to correct her friend.

And the Emissary was taking her helmet off, and then the goggles, and then…

Is not simply wearing Taylor's face.
Is Taylor.
Different body type, body language, facial expressions partially different.
Is not Taylor.
Views Taylor fondly, is concerned for Taylor.

Is an alternate reality version of Taylor.

"Fuck me sideways!" Tattletale exclaimed, eye twitching so badly her mask couldn't hide it.

"My name is Taylor Anne Hebert," Emissary said, a perfectly retouched replica of her friend, "And I am from another Earth. Another Earth Bet."

Coil is going to be very unhappy with me for failing to catch this in time.

We are not getting Skitter back on the team.
------​

As Glory Girl's little tantrum left her sobbing on her sister's shoulder and the feeling of her aura subsided, one thing became eminently clear.

Nobody believes the alternate Earth statement, except for Panacea.

Likely reason for her presence, sort of impassive observer who openly hates Skitter? Makes her input more valuable.

Has already used her power on both of them.

Tattletale carefully moved as the others spoke, admiring the ballsiness of the PRT Trooper, Emissary's friend, in trying to tear Legend down a notch or two like Emissary did earlier to Battery. But then…

"Your claims are rather… dubious. While you might believe that you're from a parallel Earth, this isn't the first time I've heard such a claim, and most of them were--"

Knows more than he lets on about parallel Earths.
Is certain his knowledge is complete.

The only person in the room who brushed his teeth today.

Shaking her head to snap out of the weird tangent her tired powers were taking her down, Lisa prepared to flip over the playing board. "Please note," she said, gesturing at her favorite outfit, "There is absolutely nothing up my sleeve," she chimed as her hand swiped upwards, taking Skitter's mask away with it, "And voila! Abracadabra!"

"Tattletale!" her friend yelped, trying to cover her face with her hands, "You can't--"

"They were trying to get you to do that anyway, Skitter," the purple-clad villainess stated calmly, "Remember? The whole 'violating the rules' thing? And she--" she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the red-headed Trooper, "Already knows what you look like and she's buried up to the gills in NDA's because of the other you."

"Still could have asked her permission, Tata," Emissary grimaced at her.

Is intent on mocking me with this childish nickname.
Is aware she will succeed.

Amusement/indignation/hatred/fondness/anger.
Power fraying, raw input from whatever Emissary's body is doing leaking through.

As the two Taylors studied each other, or rather, Skitter stared blearily at Emissary, half-blind without her glasses while the taller girl studied her villainous version, Tattletale's brain worked overtime, the pain crackling through every thought now.

How is she taller? Her face is subtly different as well.
Modified by some sort of Shaper power?
Alternate Panacea's work or..?


"That alone doesn't prove anything," Glory Hole stubbornly continued, "Maybe you were in collusion the whole time, or you're a clone," she paused, pointed at Emissary, then reconsidered, pointing at Taylor. It would have been funny if it hadn't been spiraling out of control.

"Ask your sister," Lisa offered. "It looks like she wasn't surprised by this revelation at all."

Armsmaster is the only one ignoring Panacea.
Knew already, was still willing to throw Taylor under the bus.

Is this mere jealousy over his ruined career or did something larger happen?

"They're identical," Panacea replied readily, "Not perfectly, mind you, muscle mass, accumulated wounds and all, but the power-granted differences are the only ones. Speaking of which, how the hell are you even alive, going into an Endbringer battle without--"

Even as she was interrupted, Tattletale felt her brain sputtering with the load.

Emissary has no powers.
Thinker rating a combination of natural intelligence and cheating with out-of-context knowledge from her universe.
Brute rating a result of the same powered tampering that enhanced her looks.

Yet Alexandria vouched for her. Is she that good or is the Triumvirate playing the long game?

"No, no, Amy's right, I don't have powers," the other Taylor explained, her voice oddly chipper. "And please don't ask me to go through testing to prove that, I've been through at least three tests to make sure of that."

Is actually that good.

Pride/resentment/indifference/boredom/nostalgia.
Does not preclude ulterior motives from Alexandria.
Establishing goodwill for when contact is set up with Emissary's Earth?

"How about I just tell my side of the story before we get into the other issues?" Tattletale barely heard over the growing din in her ears, the migraine picking up steam.

"That… would probably be for the best, Miss… Hebert?" Legend agreed, looking somewhat nervously between the two Taylors.

"If it feels better, I'm calling myself 'Rose Ellison' here, not my world, so I don't get to be Taylor Hebert, she does," Emissary, or, well, Rose, said, as she launched into the story of how she became a PRT intern, then a deputy, then The Deputy, and then a Ward.

Is willing to let Taylor play first fiddle, feels she has nothing to prove.

Shared history seems identical until the Career Fair? All differences accumulated over a span of six months?

Physical difference exacerbated by powered tampering on top of difference in lifestyle.

Lisa's head snapped up at the same time as the trooper woman's.

"Gang war in November?" the blonde asked, repeating after the not-Taylor. Rose, her name is Rose.

Rose nodded, "Yeah, the ABB were using mortar strikes in the city, don't you remember?"

The trooper shook her head. "That never happened here, Red."

Deviations between worlds are not restricted to Taylor's personal life?

No examples of events prior to her personal one.

Is she the reason for the divergence?
Nickname unrelated to her chosen cover name, actually related to the color.
"Not only has she not Triggered, she can't Trigger," Amy Dallon stated. She rolled her eyes at Tattletale's stare, "I'm a healer. Trust me on this one, she lacks the equipment to Trigger."

Incapable of Triggering?
Is that the key divergence?

That would imply Taylor Hebert as the most important-- nah, that can't possibly be true.
"How's Mandy doing? Does she still have all those motorcycle pictures on the inside of her locker?" Rose grinned as Victoria's mouth dropped open comically.

"How did you--"

"I accidentally set her up with her boyfriend. She convinced him to get a motorcycle of his own."

Tattletale couldn't help but snort at the list of factoids that provided.

Boyfriend was unexpected to everyone involved.
Has met his counterpart already, likely among the Wards.
Was not happy to learn he Triggered.
Was sad to learn he's not the girl's boyfriend here.
Is seriously considering whether she should replicate the feat.

Either doesn't care or doesn't notice not everything in this world maps to hers, herself included.
------​

As she held her friend's hand through what may have been the weirdest second-person-view retelling of a Trigger event, ever, Tattletale held her power back, trying to at least keep the headache from growing worse.

"I have a sister?" Taylor asked incredulously.

"This is pertinent how?" Panacea interjected.

"Right, sorry. I've been trying to do about fifty different things since I got here, most of which are related to you," Rose nodded, her tone almost apologetic, "So I haven't been able to find out anything about her counterpart here, so if you feel like helping me get a tween Thinker out of the clutches of a megalomaniacal asshole, let me know!"

Lisa nearly had a heart attack then and there.

Knows about Dinah Alcott?

Taylor just made the same assumption.

Context suggests reference is to Synod, whoever she is, the name does not match Dinah Alcott's known powerset, unless her power is different on Emissary's world.

"...I took her down, but not before sustaining life-threatening injuries. Panacea saved me, but refused treating her -- they had to harangue Othala into doing it."

Confirming body modification likely caused by Panacea.
Wait, Othala?

"Wait, isn't Shadow Stalker black?" Lisa couldn't resist asking, a playful smile on her face. "That must have been a hilarious proposition."

Resentment/schadenfreude/glee/contentment/arousal/bloodlust/satiation

What the fuck was that?

"Yep. She's also in the Birdcage now, because the violations included several counts of attempted murder, including Grue of the Undersiders and several civilians," Rose continued, the feedback from her power making Tattletale wince and almost black out from the pain as the omitted information slotted itself in the gaps, "I'm currently gathering evidence against this version of her, preferably without letting her escape this time."

"Huh. But Dean told me--" Glory Girl began before Emissary shushed her.

Had information from Gallant regarding Emissary, enough to connect the dots.

Shadow Stalker is one of Taylor's bullies.

Emissary wanted to deal with that before finalizing Taylor's recruitment, but Leviathan got in the way.
Will interfere if I attempt to reveal this.

"Whatever he told you, will likely out Shadow Stalker, who may be lying out cold in the hospital above us, but is still deserving to keep her identity safe, don't you think?" Rose shot back, silencing Glory Hole for good.

"And this helps you two how exactly?" Legend asked next. "Us knowing the identities, or identity, of a Ward and a villain don't seem to work towards the good of either of you, unless I'm missing something."

"I'm lawyered up," Emissary replied with an inhuman smirk on her lips, "The PRT is bound by Directive 507. I'm a PRT asset back home, so my identity is their responsibility, and so is the identity of my counterpart," she waved vaguely at Taylor. "The Protectorate is bound by Alexandria's word, and also the same Directive, as I lead my version of the Wards as punishment for what I let happen with Shadow Stalker. The Undersiders won't betray their friend, to the point that one of them sacrificed herself to save us from Leviathan--"

Was there when Rachel died.
Takes her death personally.
Has connection with the Rachel of her world?

Grief/hunger/yearning/sadness/sympathy
Rachel is/was her type?

"Alright, but what's to stop me from revealing who you are?" Victoria Dallon asked stubbornly, "I'm with neither of those teams."

"Aside from the whole head-twisting-off?" Rose shrugged, "Panacea's reputation - she did heal us both - and the Endbringer Truce. These wonderful heroes--" she gestured at the two Protectorate capes, "--were so cavalier about setting Skitter up about breaking it, they forgot the knife cuts both ways."

"I hate to break it to you, Rose," Taylor intervened, "But they're kinda still masked up? And we aren't?"

"In the interest of full disclosure, I know at least the first names and faces of everyone here or outside that door except for Legend and Grue."

Is telling the truth.
Is not willing to part with identities easily.
Detective work or unmasking of captured capes?
Not all discoveries made via standard PRT procedure.

Lisa was about to speak up with a clarifying question when Rose silenced her. "Sally," she said reproachfully, "Freckles."

Knows about Sarah Livsey.
Does not have full information on Lisa Wilbourne.

Knows about Rex.

Sympathy/grief/loss/pain/kinship

Is at odds for sympathizing with other me for Triggering at the loss of a family member?

"Did you just out her?!" someone called out, but Lisa could barely hear through the noise in her ears. She strained to breathe.

"Not her actual name, from what I know of her," Taylor supplied, a small trace of laughter in her voice, "But the guppy fish impression she's doing right now tells me her power just told her the other me knows the real one, and it's not the one she gave us."

Taylor understands, but has lost some trust in me regardless.
However, this knowledge means she has met the Tattletale of her world often enough to research into her.

"But you knowing this, and how her power works--"

"Of course I tussled with the Undersiders, Taylor," Rose chided her 'cousin', "They're thieves and Tata is kind of a bitch that gets her rocks off on fucking around with people. I almost tore their team apart when I got Rachel Lindt acquitted -- was going to do the same here, but then she went and saved you and me from a freaking Endbringer at the cost of her own life before I could do so. I held her in my arms as she died."

The power wrested itself from Lisa's grasp in full, threatening to tear her brain apart.

Helped Rachel leave the Undersiders.
Coil mishandling a new member was the likely cause.

Similar to our Spitfire incident?

Rachel given government employment away from the cape game, park ranger or gamekeeper or broadly similar.

Emissary intended to repeat the effort here.

"It's still so damn creepy to see my face say all these thoughts that aren't mine, but could have been," Taylor admitted thoughtfully.

"For what it's worth, I never expected me to become a villain either, though I know that wasn't your fault," Rose replied, nodding at Armsmaster. The hero pretended to ignore her.

"Alright, this has been bothering me a bunch too: as far as my power's concerned, you're different people, kind of like estranged cousins more than anything else," Tattletale interjected, trying not to sound too irritated from the pain, "It took me a while to figure who you were to begin with, and even then you're like two or three people jumbled in one body together, constantly being swapped out for other people. Who designed your body language, Hieronymus Bosch?"

Amusement/concern/worry/placidity/wilful ignorance.

Body language broken as a side-effect of her modifications, probably unknowingly to both participants.

Does not cause discomfort, most humans don't read body language so deeply.

Was only aware it throws off my power.

"What is even your power, Sneaky Boobs?" Glory Hole opened up again, despite her sister's attempts to stop her.

"Being awesome of course, Glory Hole," Lisa replied without hesitation, thankful the two Taylors decided to have a Taylor-off.

She tuned most of it out, having already reached her own conclusions, trying to get some respite for her aching brain and her powers. She almost missed the end of the exchange as a result.

"After that, I made a deal with Alexandria to maybe get the both of you into the Wards," Rose said, nodding at the two Undersiders.

"Can't," Lisa protested. "Already spoken for."

"I'm aware of your prior engagement with Coil, and I'm sitting on more intel for that case as well. Just… try not to tip him off, alright?"

Knows I'm working for Coil directly.
Suspects the arrangement involved persuasion with firearms.
Still willing to offer help.

"Should I remind you all that Skitter is a wanted felon with a rap sheet quite impressive for the month she had been active?" Armsmaster spoke, his tone acerbic.

Is desperate, needs to cover up something.

"Were you not looking to talk her into giving herself up for a probationary Wardship, however?"

Approached Legend already knowing his endgame, that is, getting Skitter jailed.

How would he stop Emissary from interfering?

"And then we found her wandering the halls, probably looking to use her powers to uncover someone's secret identity. Shadow Stalker, perhaps, given their shared history--"

Intends to reveal Shadow Stalker's identity, expects it to drive a wedge between the Taylors.

Bastard.

"--of almost being killed by her? Great story, sir," Emissary interjected, making Lisa's power react again.

Has reached the same conclusions.
Part of mutual animosity due to Armsmaster burying Skitter's involvement in Lung's apprehension, then blaming her for his near-death in custody.

Additional sources of frustration?

"Then fail to inform the PRT of that fact, or the offer she made to infiltrate the Undersiders for you."

Is aware of Taylor's infiltration?

Is trying to play it off in a beneficial way for Taylor, with Armsmaster as the culprit that nearly pushed her away.

"Don't look at me like that, Taylor, she already knew," Rose told her counterpart, her voice soft, "And the heroes would accept you faster knowing that you never wanted to be a villain, and only got stuck in the role when Armsmaster made sure nobody would find out and believe you if you came to them for help."

Wants the best outcome for Taylor.
Assumes said outcome is inevitably tied to a heroic career.
Is willing to do almost anything to secure it.

Taylor expects me to disprove Rose.

Wording has to be careful.

"All true, T. Sorry I didn't tell you, but I couldn't be sure you'd be able to keep up appearances where Coil could see," Lisa said, holding out a hand to Taylor, who grasped it warily, "And your sudden yet inevitable betrayal of the team would have worked wonderfully towards my own goals of seeing that bastard chained up. I was recruited at gunpoint, after all. You're still, and always will be, my friend though."

Armsmaster's rant had a note of… urgency to it, almost like an addict's. Almost…

Similar to Tinker withdrawal symptoms.
But Armsmaster is not known for being that Tinkering-addicted.

Something changed that.
A report was made of mass cape blackout similar to Trigger fainting during the battle.
Armsmaster has Second Triggered, is lacking post-Trigger Tinkering outlet, likely doesn't realize it himself.

Tattletale raised a hand to draw attention to herself, but only then noticed the new arrivals, plural. Her teammates sidled into the room after Alexandria, who was holding a very irate Armsmaster's fist where he presumably tried to punch Skitter's lights out.

"Is a long-range EMP emitter part of your standard kit then, in a city where only one Tinker not aligned with the Protectorate resides permanently?"

"No, ma'am. I had no time to swap it out when preparing for battle this morning."

Lie. Intended to use EMP to isolate a group of capes so he could fight Leviathan one-on-one.

"And yet you had the time to take the anti-Endbringer Halberd, which, apparently, has not passed the Tinkertech review board. I find it intriguing that it lacked a simple shutoff mechanism for when it was dropped."

Shutoff mechanism on a device built by a Tinker of his caliber doesn't just up and fail… unless it didn't fail.

"If I may, Miss Alexandria, ma'am?"

"Yes, Tattletale?" the Triumvirate heroine turned to her, making Lisa revert to her slightly less needling self she already spent an hour as earlier today.

"The mechanism expected to shut off when the Halberd was let go," she proposed, "With the detached arm still holding it, it considered the weapon as still being held."

As the heroine's attention shifted away from her, Lisa couldn't help but notice the… familiarity? demonstrated by her and Emissary, confirming her earlier theory.

"...I was not expecting him to physically assault anyone in front of Legend, ma'am. I'm sorry, Skitter," Emissary said, and Lisa only now noticed she masked up at some point after the four extra capes entered the already-crowded operating room.

"Eh, I could take him. Wouldn't be the first time," Taylor said dismissively, although even her reduced body language (such a pleasure to Lisa's tired mind after the nightmare of reading Emissary's) showed relief.

"My condolences on the death of your teammate, Undersiders. Emissary, I believe you were the one who witnessed her death?" Alexandria said suddenly, causing everyone she addressed to freeze up.

"I held her as she died, ma'am," Emissary admitted, ignoring the looks Regent and Grue were giving them, palpable even through their masks.

Regent is wondering whether any of the people present will attack him.
Grue is pissed a gathering of this magnitude did not involve the team leader.

Will give me an earful later about who the team's actual leader is.

"Good," the heroine said kindly, "None of us should die alone, and for naught. You and Skitter yet live thanks to her. Do not waste her sacrifice."

A sob to her side made Lisa turn towards Taylor, just in time to see the taller girl embrace her around the neck in a not-hug made awkward by Lisa's crutches, her quiet sobbing a pleasant distraction from the sounds of Alexandria escorting Armsmaster out.

------​

"Alright," Lisa said as the gathering in the OR finally broke up and the three of them stood down the hallway from it, watching as the Undersider boys glared daggers at the two Taylors, "Here's my burner's number. Try not to sext me too much, mkay?"

She grinned at the end as she handed a piece of paper to the armored girl, then wilted again as Emissary's messy body language Eldritch'd at her.

Interest/disgust/dismission/appreciation/thoughtful.
Is not homophobic, just against sexting?

"My PRT number, although PHO works as well," the Ward replied, handing Lisa one of her own. "I assume Coil will not learn of this meeting?"

"Trickster," Taylor said, reminding Lisa the asshole and his mobile phone video were yet to be dealt with.

"Shit," she agreed, "I'll see what can be done. In the meantime, stay safe, will you?"

"You too," her friend said before turning to her double, "And as for you…"

"I know, I'm an asshole for forcing this on you," Rose replied cheerfully.

"No, not that. Although… not only that," Taylor corrected herself before reaching out to hug her dopplegänger. "Thank you. Even if you did a ton of stupid shit, you did it to help me."

"Technically," Rose began, and Lisa could hear her shit-eating grin through the reflective faceplate, "I did it to help me."

------​

"What part of team leader says 'has to stand outside the door'?"

Brian was furious and she couldn't exactly fault him. He didn't get to vent yesterday as she all but shut down as soon as their base was in sight and she saw the gash in the building that speared through her room. The boys had to drag her upstairs and rather callously dropped her onto the bed there.

Sure, she thought, I curry favor with Alexandria for them and that's what I get, carried like a sack of potatoes.

Come morning, after some dreadful instant coffee, a forced necessity due to the lack of any power, she was packing her stuff to Brian's ruminations. Apparently, while she was sleeping off her Thinker headache, the boys procured a van and boxes to move stuff. Coil called Brian and told him a new location was being prepared, so they had to get ready to move at a moment's notice.

"It had no impact on the team now that Skitter already declared she was leaving," she replied, as calmly as she could. The dog's long yawn made her spare a glance for Angelica, who returned it with an amount of indignance one would not expect from the only creature in the room looking worse off than Lisa felt.

Is displeased Rachel isn't in yet but we are.
Is wondering if it can make any of us fetch her.

Something similar happened before and it dreads that outcome.

She shook her head away from the canine tangent and returned to the packing. She didn't lose anything vital, that was the important bit.

"That shitshow back there? It showed them who the leader of the team is, and it sure as fuck doesn't seem to be me!"

"And yet it was you that Coil called," Lisa parried, "Look. I had to try to save Taylor's bacon, maybe get her to come back. Instead we ended up in a SNAFU which Alexandria had to untangle and now Skitter's indebted to the freaking Triumvirate. Did I fuck up? Maybe. But then again, you walked right out when I asked you to!"

The move wasn't the only thing Coil told him about.
Discussed something with Alexandria before she came in.
Did not tell Coil that.

"So what now? She becomes a Ward or something?" Alec asked from his position atop a moving box, clearly intent on sitting back to watch the argument.

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Lisa replied, gesturing towards the stairs, footsteps clearly audible now.

------​

"Tattletale? Talk to me."

The dry voice on the phone grated on her nerves like never before. She knew what he did and how he did it, but she didn't have the necessary pieces in place. She would have to play along. She would have to betray Taylor. She would likely have to do more things that made her question herself. But she would survive to see the fucker jailed, cuffed and police-brutalitied, if possible, But to do that…

"Sir, we've had a meeting at the hospital after the battle involving myself, Skitter, Legend, Armsmaster, the Dallon sisters and Emissary."

"Grue told me as much, including that you forced him out of it. Explain."

"Emissary wanted to steal Skitter away from us for her team for some time now. Her plan involved unmasking to us. I realized she was attempting to entrap us into the Endbringer Truce condition regarding identities. I had to be there, the boys did not."

"Did they force you to unmask?"

"No, sir. They forced Skitter. She is related to Emissary. Second cousins. My power tells me it was discovered accidentally when Emissary was looking into her family's safety here, when she chanced upon Skitter's Trigger event."

"So they knew Skitter's identity before unmasking her?"

"Not all of them. Armsmaster tried to bury her, hoist the blame for some hero deaths during the battle on her. His own fault. Alexandria took him away, it's likely he will be Birdcaged."

"What else aren't you telling me?"

Is using his power?

No, is using Dinah to confirm my responses.

"Minor details. Emissary's power has crosstalk with mine, I have trouble reading her. She may be deliberately underselling her Thinker rating. I can't be sure whether the PRT is in on it. She's also gay, or at least attracted to females."

"Tattletale."

Will a held back revelation convince him?
Depending on the wording…


"Alexandria has some sort of personal interest in Emissary. I don't know enough to guess the nature, especially with the crosstalk. It looks like now it will extend to Skitter, if it didn't the moment Emissary set foot in Brockton Bay. I strongly advise against going after either of them for the time being."

"Noted. I am relocating both the Undersiders and my own operations. The former you no doubt already knew, the latter due to it being compromised both by Leviathan's attack and Skitter's betrayal. Do not attempt to find me, if I need you, I will send for you. Grue will operate independently of you now. I will contact you and Regent with information on your new teammates within the next 36 hours."

Still convinced I didn't tell him everything.
Does not consider omissions significant.

Is using leverage against Grue. His sister?

Cannot use his powers to verify my report for some reason.
 
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I like the chapter, but that is a lot of YouTube links for BG music that change very fast. Some of them blocked. I tried to read this as intended, but it's pretty immersion breaking. In the future I'd cut it down to a max of two music links.
 
Some of them blocked
Which are blocked? Lemme fix.

And I tried doing with less, at human reading speeds most things I pick end up too short :(
I still wonder when you're going to write the NSFW omakes Noelemahc.....or well what smut fics you're going to throw the Deputy in to.
They're... In progress. My quest for perfectionism won't let me release till you have an 8k word monstrosity with the same odd mental tangents, weird smiles and character building as in the fic.

Not throwing Deputy into other smut fics, just writing optional smut scenes.
 
Not throwing Deputy into other smut fics, just writing optional smut scenes.
Aww but think of the hilarious shenanigans of like say Ack's Naked Sex World where the only way a parahuman can use their powers is by being naked, The Deputy would be the second scariest badass in Brockton Bay.....the first being Parian.
 
Which are blocked? Lemme fix.

And I tried doing with less, at human reading speeds most things I pick end up too short :(
The Ghost in the Shell OST one is blocked.

Too short isn't even the biggest issue here. You have 17 music links in 6.8k words. On average, that is a new song every 400 words. How long do you honestly think it takes to read 400 words? The constant clicking and new music also means that it never really has a chance to fade into the background, it's always something you are doing. And really, all that clicking and song shuffling is unnecessary. This is very close to a single contiguous scene. If BG is used at all it would have a single track.

If you're having trouble with length, pick out an old videogame track. Not an OST one but something from the gameplay itself as they are designed to loop and you can often find 30min-9hour versions on YouTube. And all of that effort is completely superfluous if your reader is on mobile, because they can't listen and read at the same time.

This is the best BG music treatment I've seen in a written work. There's a link to YouTube, but only as a reference for those who don't know what Doomtrain is. The BG itself is embedded so even mobile readers can read and hear it. It's a single track that loops and is a 30min version so it's assured you get the chapter done before it flips off. Can you imagine trying to read your chapter with 17 separate embeds taking up visual real estate?
 
If you're having trouble with length, pick out an old videogame track. Not an OST one but something from the gameplay itself as they are designed to loop and you can often find 30min-9hour versions on YouTube. And all of that effort is completely superfluous if your reader is on mobile, because they can't listen and read at the same time.
Yeah, I'm reworking the whole thing for embeds anyway after a similar discussion on SB. The trick is in the SB hard cap on five, I believe, embeds per post. Which ultimately should be as much as I need since I don't do Mixed Feelings-scale chapters.
 
Interlude 02.E
Interlude 02.E

[Vista]
{Wednesday}


Vista couldn't help but growl in frustration as yet another report seemed to fade in and out of view, the words becoming indistinct and fuzzy the harder she tried to focus on them.

The only reason that the last two weeks hadn't been absolute hell was the absence of her triggering a second time, but she felt like it was a close thing. Her parents' fighting, which had been lulling until recently, had suddenly reached a crescendo. Leviathan had decided to pay Boston a visit, so they were down a few capes. And worst of all... Taylor had fallen off the face of the Earth.

Literally, as it turned out. When I get my hands on those two...

Her musings were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come in," she called through her hands.

With a slight creaking-- need to oil the hinges again, she thought, just throw another thing onto the endless to-do list --Gallant slowly pushed the door open with his hip.

Vista peeked through her fingers, and nearly gasped at the religious experience made manifest that entered her room.

Hot, she whispered mentally, a gloriously hot balm to my battered soul, This vision of perfection doth grace mine eyes.

It moved towards her, too slowly for her liking, before Dean set it down on her desk.

"Thought you might want some coffee," Dean may or may not have said, but Vista was already bending space so that the cup was right in her hands. And like that, the world fell away.

Tendrils of warmth penetrated her fingers, the aromatic smell banished the clouds in her mind, and with the reverence of one receiving the sacraments, she sipped. The bittersweet taste invigorated her, gave her the strength she needed to hold on for just a little bit longer. Her eyes, now much more alert, looked at Dean Stansfeld with awe and reverence. The young man was dressed in civilian attire, smart, casual, handsome, the usual. The inaccessible.

"If your girlfriend breaks up with you, you're mine," she hissed. He chuckled a little, a dusting of pink appearing on his cheeks.

"I'll let her know that," he replied as he pulled up a seat.

She stared at him over the rim of her mug. "You think I'm kidding." His eyes widened slightly as she took a long sip, "That's funny."

"Okay, I'm gonna just.... power through that," he said hesitantly, before recomposing himself. "I guess you really needed a pick me up, huh?"

She shot a glare at him over her mug.

"Do not blaspheme against the dark nectar of the gods," she intoned gravely before taking another long sip. "Thou knowest not what vengeance they shall wreck on you."

"I suppose it'd be pointless to try to tell you that stuff will stunt your growth?"

Her fingers tightened on the mug. "Take it and I take your arm."

He laughed and held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it. Don't touch Missy's coffee."

"Damn straight."

The two lapsed into a companionable silence, before he spoke again.

"You know that's not the real reason I came here, right?"

Vista sighed as she regretfully put down the mug of tar. "Of course not, that'd be too easy, wouldn't it."

He shrugged, then tapped his temple. "Empath."

"Yeah, yeah."

He leaned forward. "Look," he started, "No one will think less of you if you take a break. It's..." he looked at the clock, "Ten thirty at night, and if you've been anything like what you have been the last few days, you've been up since four in the morning. You need to rest."

Vista scowled at him.

"We're down Velocity, Armsmaster's still on forced medical leave for a missing leg, however much he protests that he is functional, Dennis broke all of his limbs, Chris is still working on the Portal device with Dragon at last check, Anne-Marie isn't an ideal patroller at the best of times, Amy's in a coma, Rory's in the Bahamas with his family, his plane back is in two days, and Madison…" she trailed off at the look on Dean's face, "How is she, anyway?"

He fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable. "Well, she's… she's definitely doing better now that she's heard about what really happened to Taylor. She's getting back into her old routines, and I don't have to remind her to eat anymore, so that's a plus."

Missy waved him off. "So she's still not up for patrolling yet, I'm guessing."

Dean sank into his seat slightly. "Not yet."

She slumped further. "So all we have right now are Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Assault and Battery, while for the Wards… it's just us. I can't lie down and rest, we're all the city has right now."

"I can't help but think that Taylor would be telling you to take a break right about now," Dean intoned, raising an eyebrow, but he was clearly surprised when Missy burst out laughing.

"What Taylor are you talking about?" she asked, forcing out words between peals of laughter, "The one who worked herself into unconsciousness last month and only agreed to take a break when Amy threatened to turn off her limbs, or is there some other Taylor that I don't know about?"

"Fair point," he shrugged, "But working yourself into the hospital won't help anyone."

Her laughter stopped and her gaze turned icy. "Please tell that to the black girl who was walking on the wrong side of the street that I saved yesterday. Or the bald man whose only crime was to be bald while shopping in ABB territory that you saved the day before. Or the mugger I stopped the day before that--"

Dean leaned over and placed both hands on her shoulders. She flushed slightly. I hope he didn't detect that, she thought to herself. Wait, he's an empath. He can't have not sensed that. Crap.

"Missy," he stated in a clear voice, looking right into her eyes, "I am not denying the good that we have done so far. And you've done an excellent job as acting leader." He hesitated, "But right now, we need you. I need you. And if you go another night without sleep--" Missy stiffened as his gaze shifted to a glare. "Don't pretend you haven't been doing it, Missy. Your room is next to mine. I know the difference between emotions of people awake and asleep, and you haven't slept in days."

"I--" she looked down. "I don't know what to do, okay? I thought I could do it--"

"You can do it," he affirmed, shaking her shoulders slightly, "I'm not saying you can't. Just don't kill yourself doing it."

She stared at her feet for nearly a minute before she looked up at him once again. And for the first time in a while, he could clearly see the bags under her eyes. With a slight lurching motion, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself into his chest.

He ignored the various emotions he picked up from her and gently rubbed her back as she clung tightly to him.

"I'm sorry," she muttered into his sweater.

"I know," he whispered back.

"I think it's just getting to me."

"The last month kinda sucked."

"Yeah."

They held each other tightly until a loud noise interrupted them. The two sprang apart and Vista grabbed the landline off the receiver, then put the phone on speaker.

"Speakerphone," she announced, "Hello there, Sergeant Martinez!"

"Sergeant, Gallant here," Dean spoke up to keep Taylor's trooper friend up to speed.

"Vista, I need you to-- oh, good," the voice on the phone cut herself off, "Gallant's here too. I need the two of you to get down to the medical wing."

The two Wards shot a look at each other.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nuh-uh," Martinez replied, "Something good. Amy's waking up."

They both shared a look. Amy up meant Dennis and Armsmaster back in action, not to mention Amy herself, as soon as her… damage… was dealt with.

Things were looking up.



It was like being switched on, like I was some sort of robot. One moment, not there, the next, I'm tearing my eyes open from whatever gunk was on my lashes. I felt my power coursing out through my body as I struggled to focus my eyes on something, anything, the self-check sending alarm signals at me as it told me all about the empty stomach, the itchy catheter, the barely-healed cracks in two of the metatarsals in my left foot and of course--

"'Owy hukk!" I rasped through the tubes snaking down my throat as panic gripped my heart. I was missing a tiny bit of an earlobe, the rest of the ear hurt like fuck, all on the left, my entire left side was a fuckhuge bruise and there was also the tiny detail of my fucking missing left arm which terminated in an awkwardly-stitched stump right below the shoulder. The pressure damages and the shatter pattern on what bone was left of it filled the gap in my memory. It was crushed beneath the collapsing ceiling, along with the girl with the broken hip I was trying to stop from squirming at the time.

My right hand groped for the nurse call button, where I always saw it on the beds of the people I'd healed. Physician, heal thy fucking self, I tried to chuckle, instead getting the same icky constricting feeling in my throat from the tubes. Lying in a hospital bed is something other people do. Getting sick is something other people do! I'm Panacea, damn it!

As tears of frustration and pain and inadequacy streamed out of my eyes, I saw the door open, admitting a fidgety-looking nurse, or at least a humanoid white blob I supposed was a nurse.

A few minutes of inelegant things done to the stuff they put into me or stuck to me and I was free to drink, and force the fucking atrocious bacteria that colonized my mouth due to inaction to become minty fresh and allow me to breathe deeper. Then more pattering of feet followed, admitting Missy and Dean into my room, both in generic masks combined with civilian attire, accompanied by that trooper Taylor usually trained with. Martens? Martinez? Marques? One of these, I am certain.

"Oh thank God you're awake!" Missy cried as she reached out to hug me around the neck, ignoring my awful bed-head and the fact that I was now aware that she hasn't brushed her teeth at least for the past 28 hours and very nearly instinctively reached away from her yesterday-morning breath. I fixed that for my benefit, not for hers, along with what I could of her exhaustion. "We were seriously worried that with the mess they pulled you out of--"

"The, uh, the girl I was working on, Miss-something--" I began to ask, but received a shake of Dean's head before I could finish. "Shit. How'd we do?"

"Scion showed up, beat the bastard up, as usual," Martinez said, my stupid eyes finally managing to read the huge name tag on her uniform. "A hundred or so capes died, at least as many Troopers, and the current civilian casualties are in dozens of thousands at last count," she finished somberly.

"At least… wait, last count? What day is it?" I asked warily. Usually with Leviathan, unless a shelter was breached, the final tally was ready in a day or two. Maybe it was still Sunday? No, the state of my wounds indicated a longer time, unless… "Wait, fuck, the hospital got hit! Healers--"

"Amy, breathe," my formerly least favorite empath said, laying a hand on mine, fuck, I don't even have to specify which one now, huh? "It's Wednesday afternoon. You've been out for something like eighty hours, give or take. The hospital was totaled, Leviathan just plowed through it like it was made of paper," he paused to swear under his breath, "Not out of malice- well, no more than usual, he's still a fucking Endbringer, duh--" I rotated my remaining hand in mid-air, gesturing for him to hurry up, "It was just trying to get to the Capitol building, and it was forced off-track by the Blaster Squad. You're... you're one of three healer capes to survive, you know?"

"Hey, it's not like they could have known any of this would happen," Missy objected half-heartedly, "You can't really stop an Endbringer once it gets going, you know?" Though we all knew that it was likely less of that and more that the Blasters had just not stopped to think about what their ambush could have caused.

"And then Leviathan flooded part of the city, including the sites of several shelters," Martinez supplied, "One was confirmed as flooded, the others haven't been reached yet, so the counter is still ticking."

"But they have supplies in these shelters, right?" I ventured asking, trying to shift in place. I spent three days in this bed. I have no sores. Someone moved me, probably someone sponged me. Oh God.

"They should, yeah," she nodded, "I don't rightly recall it ever being put to a serious test for the type of shelter Boston had, however."

"So where's the rest of the team?" I asked next, my gaze shifting between the three suddenly downcast faces.

"Kid Win slept through most of the thing at Deputy's house, Tinker crash," Dean replied, a mirthless smile on his face, "He's trying to wrap up the portal thing study with Dragon now."

"Why Dragon?" I frowned, my mind immediately jumping to conclusions, "Don't tell me Armsmaster is--"

"Missing a leg and on forced leave," Missy shook her head, "Clockblocker's in the next ward over, in a full body cast. That's one guy who'll be extra happy to see you up and about."

"Wheel me. Might as well get started while you bring me up to speed," I commanded, pointing at a folded-up wheelchair in the corner of the room, "Synod?"

"At home with her Dad," Dean reported, "Almost back in the headspace to get back on duty, he says."

"Either of you two need a fix-up while we're at it? I'll also need pen and paper to list my IVs and supplements," I asked as they fetched more nurses to unhook me after a short argument about second-guessing Panacea on a self-diagnosis. "Oh, leave off it, I'm not dying!" I yelled at them, trying to stand up straighter before realizing one of the arms I was trying to brace myself with wasn't actually there. That'll take a lot of getting used to. Who can fix this for me? Scapegoat is right out, and I have no idea who else survived. Prosthetics? That'd be hilarious.

"We're cool," Dean waved me off as he helped the nurses ease me onto the wheelchair. Fuck having to learn to walk again!

"We're also healthy," Missy smiled weakly. I shot her a glare, and she raised her hands in surrender. "Sorry, it's... it's been really rough lately."

I shot a glance at my not-arm. "I think I understand that, at least." I paused to sigh before continuing, "Alright. How's Weaver taking it?" was my next question. More awkward looks ensued. I took the opportunity to wrap my hospital robe around me in a way that fully concealed my stump and the utter absence of anything attached to it.

"Pissed she couldn't go. Happy she didn't go. Afraid for us. Afraid for Taylor," Dean counted off on his fingers, then took the handles of my wheelchair when the nurses stopped fussing around.

"And too distraught to patrol," Missy added bitterly. I was suddenly aware of the dark bags that used to be under her eyes by sheer contrast, and the other signs of exhaustion which I still saw on my own face every now and again. "I'm guessing we really need Taylor back."

"She trained us, hasn't she?" I retorted, "We'll manage. We have to."

"Half to what? I swear, they're trying to smother me with information suppression!" I heard Dennis call out through the door Missy held open for us.

"Hello, Mister Dynamite," I greeted him, "It is time to fire you out of my space laser cannon!"

"Oh no, it is my arch-nemesis, Doctor Nefario!" he declared in mock horror, playing along, "Caught me in your trap, have you?"

He was a sight to behold, splayed out on the bed like he was. 'Full-body cast' was a misnomer, of course, but it was easier to say than 'all of him is in a cast' or less stupid than 'he's fully cast!'. He did have casts on his arms and legs, dangling in the air, held by suspension wires, a setup I've seen a hundred times. He was masked up on top of that, apparently his head was more or less intact. That said, just as with me, Weaver's spidermesh suits didn't seem to do jack against blunt force trauma on a macro scale… not that we could realistically expect them to.

"So how did you end up like this? You sound awfully calm for someone in your position?" I asked as Dean parked me next to the bed and I reached out to touch Dennis's exposed fingers.

"Saved the USS Constitution and its crew, I think," he chirped, oblivious to my scanning him, "Proud idiots wouldn't abandon ship after failing to leave port in time. Then I got punted into a building."

"Weaver will be glad to hear her costumes kept all of you in one piece, from what I'm--" Missy began, before a horrified look crawled across her face. I stomped down on my anger and was left with the pain instead, feeling the tears well in my eyes. "--shit, Amy, I'm so sorry, I didn't--"

"Technically true, actually," I sniffled, forcing a useless grin, abandoning healing Dennis for a moment to rub my eyes with my one good hand, "They only cut it off after the costume was removed and they saw there was nothing to save." My shoulders shook, but I refused to give in. What would Taylor say if she saw me like this? What would Caryn? "They aren't me. Now I'm not me either," I wiggled the stump under the robe, illustrating my point, "With half the reach, what good am I for patrols?"

"Wait, what happened? Nobody tells me anything and I can't see you from this angle," came Dennis's panicked voice, "Is that why you're in a wheelchair?" I felt his stress levels rise as I went on reconstructing his legs, so I eased him off a bit, generating serotonin to counter that.

"I just woke up after a three-day coma, Clock," I explained, "And my left arm is gone."

"What?!" he gasped, making me wonder how he would have reacted had I not already begun to dull his senses.

"Kid Win was in here a few hours back, said he wanted to do something Tinkery, but the nurses wouldn't let him near you while you slept…" Martinez began to say as my mind raced ahead of her, drawing conclusions.

"Well, things seem to be looking up, finally," Dennis concluded, flexing the fingers I was touching to heal him. "Can you ask someone to get me out of this stuff now?"



You woke up, as you usually did after overexerting yourself with Tinkering. Even with Armsmaster taking the lead, the odd framelike devices of L33t's - ones your mentor firmly believed were some sort of teleportal, considering the source material - were still a nonsensical mess of parts beneath a coat of faux rust. But then you made a breakthrough when you risked powering the most intact segment of the thing up, closing the loop as best you could with heavy-duty cabling and pieces of the internal frame.

It snapped and it popped and it produced an odd field of water-like rippling energy like in that TV show you used to watch as a kid about a PRT squad tasked with exploring alien worlds opened up by a portal gate made by Doctor Livewire (no celebrities were harmed, etc, etc). Except instead of being like liquid mercury from the show, it was black and white TV static, a decidedly odd coloration for a liquid to have.

You watched in fascination as Armsmaster lowered a sensor stick (he, of course, had a fancy name for it, but to you and your friends it was always just that, sensor stick) into it. Then lifted it back out, pitted with holes and gouges and trailing scattered wiring through the gaps as the portal field flickered and collapsed, leaving bits of the sensors beyond in the wherever the portal led.

That was how you found yourself delivering the message of hope to Commander Hebert's, Taylor's, father. How the shame burned at you for not telling her sister or her gi-- no, that wasn't what they were, was it? You've always had a spot of trouble figuring out girls and their odd opinions regarding relationships, but it was clear that whatever The Deputy and The Healer had going on wasn't mere friendship, clear even to someone like you. Especially with whatever that girl with the ultra-long hair was to either of them.

And thus you found yourself waking up in your Commander's house, leaving the comfortable bed of the guest room to the sight of her father and her sister holding each other in front of the television set. The news broadcast told you it was Sunday already, which meant that this time Armsmaster decided it was better if you slept your Tinker overload off base. He was right, you were feeling great, aside from the mounting feeling of dread.

Your greeting made them jump up, but then they filled you in: the Endbringer, Leviathan, was attacking Boston, and the heroes were kinda getting their butts kicked. Synod stayed behind, being too young to stare certain death in the face, and the PRT phone you checked next told you only three of your team went: Dennis, Dean and Amy. Likely because Weaver, Madison, was still in no state to fight, all things considered, and you, useless chunk of flesh that you are, were busy getting a good day's sleep. You had no idea then why Missy didn't go, or what it would do to her in the aftermath. Not then. Not yet.

And so you went back to base to join her, recalled on standby once you've confirmed your awakening. And so you were still there, following the sporadic updates with worry, until they returned, seemingly too early despite the unspoken agreement that Panacea would stay as long as needed to provide healing, few Protectorate capes being able to even remotely match her ability for that. Or, rather, Dean returned, wearing a PRT jumpsuit and a generic mask and a surly expression and a split lip and blood-red left eye. Dennis and Amy were shipped to the hospital, because without Panacea, it was back to the old ways of dealing with Endbringer casualties, and a comatose Panacea missing an arm wasn't able to heal anybody, like she normally couldn't heal herself.

Dean told you all of it, how despite being a backline participant Panacea ended up on the forefront of danger. How half the city was flooded, the Downtown areas half-demolished, how Clockblocker ended up inside of a collapsing building and only survived due to an Alabaster-shaped cushion shielding him from the worst of perforating a building butt-first. How his own armor, one of your first collaborations with Armsmaster, was a useless hunk of scrap now.

How cross Commander Hebert will be with you all when she gets back. You failed to even surpress a twinge of crossness yourself at Dean, however unwaranted it would have been to expect him to keep his armor intact, but in fairness, you had worked really hard on that!

Somehow, it all kept coming back to Taylor and her absence. Amy was right, you thought: she was the one keeping the team moving, driven, motivated. Her zealous energy, unending capacity for self-sacrifice and ridiculous hair were the things that made the Brockton Bay Wards into an effective fighting force, whether she was right there on patrol next to you or guiding you over the comms.

Dennis even made it into a recurring quip based on one of the more common DeputyH memes. The Deputy Protects.

And without her protection, the team was on the verge of collapse even before having half the team disabled.

And then it was Wednesday already as you worked on studying the portal device Weaver managed to capture along with the one that vanished Commander Hebert, and Amy awoke, all scorn and anger and self-loathing, and utterly confused about why you were measuring her intact hand. You explained, of course, that the doctors didn't let you do it while she was out, and you couldn't resist saying 'Do I have your permission to use my power on you?' and she smacked you with hers and you will forever deny you kinda enjoyed seeing sounds and tasting sight for the five minutes before she uncrossed your nervous system.

And so there you sat, locked into your workshop, staring at Sirin and Alkonost in their charging stations, chuckling at the hissy fit the Deputy threw when you proposed naming them Huginn and Muninn, after Odin's all-seeing ravens, to keep up the theme that began with Mjölnir, and she explained what a terrible idea it was to go rampant with Nordic myth references in THE powered Nazi capital of the country. And so the two of you dug through history and mythology books and chose names from the folklore of one of the countries that beat the Nazis, and thus the drones became mythological Russian birds of paradise that bring sorrow and happiness with their songs that can drive a mortal man mad. Which fit pretty well with the arsenal of grenades and sensors and rescue functions you built into them as you refined the designs.

Now they stood unused, waiting for their mistress to return, like all of you.

You looked down at the design you've drawn up before snapping out of the Tinker fugue to muse on the mechanical birds. Yes, that would do nicely. It would be interesting to see how it would interact with the Manton limit, you noted before reaching for the phone. Armsmaster may be down a leg, but he could still Tinker, and the neural interface you'd need to call in an external consult on would benefit him too, anyway.

The blinking notification told you you missed a few calls and e-mails and that it was already Thursday. The top one was from Dragon, and the header said 'I figured it out'.

Things were finally looking up.
 
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So~.....is Amy on her way to being the 6 million dollar woman? :D
EDIT: I mean the Bionic Woman sorry :p

 
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Coda 02
Coda 02


He had just hung up the phone when the knock on the door came. Danny rolled his eyes and set down the screwdriver, at this point fully resigned to not being able to finish the minor repairs that Leviathan's attack had necessitated. It hadn't been bad-- his house was too far inland to have been hit by the brunt of the Endbringer's attack --but Endbringer attacks weren't really known for leaving things unbroken.

He snorted as he marched to the door- at least it wasn't as bad as what Kurt was talking about at the docks. It seemed that at some point one of the Nazi Twins lost an arm in the fight, couldn't happen to nicer people, Kurt had said, and said arm was now partially buried in the front of the Dockworkers Association headquarters. While funny, and accompanied by more than a little schadenfreude after all the Dockworkers had suffered at the hands of the Nazis, it was still a giant arm, and had been sitting there for the better part of a week.

Lacey had broken into the call at this point to tell him that the stench was becoming unbearable, before Kurt had wrestled the phone away from her. He had then delivered the bad news: It turned out that the PRT had ignored multiple requests to remove the arm, as 'They were too busy.' And City Sanitation had just redirected them to the PRT, as the arm was the result of Parahuman Combat, and so on and so forth. It ended with Kurt begging Danny to come back to work soon.

Danny grimaced. He'd taken the rest of the week off of work so he could canvas the various shelters in the city for any sign of Taylor. It had been several days, and he hadn't heard anything from her. He'd give--

He was interrupted by an increasingly insistent knock on the door. He shook his head and pulled the front door open.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" he yelled in response to the second, more urgent, rapping on the already belabored door. Beyond it stood a pair of people wearing PRT signage - a mixed-race woman with vaguely Asian features and short black hair, her black pantsuit really selling the "men in black" look, and a kindly-faced trooper with an intricate scar crossing one of his eyes, his helmet tucked beneath an arm. The eye itself was oddly intact, perhaps a sign of parahuman healing, Danny concluded.

"Mister Hebert?" the woman asked, holding her PRT Agent badge up. "There has been a development regarding your daughter's school situation. Could you please come with us?"

"Right now? Isn't her school destroyed anyway?" Danny asked, somewhat taken aback by the bluntness of the statement of the Agent - he didn't actually manage to read her last name, S-something, and she didn't introduce herself - and entirely confused why his daughter's 'situation' would be of any concern to the PRT.

"The incident in January, sir?" the woman said carefully, "New evidence has surfaced confirming a parahuman's involvement."

"And I should come with you because..?"

"Your daughter is en route to PRT HQ with one of the Wards as we speak, sir," the man spoke, his voice surprisingly soft for the quietly dangerous look he was sporting. "We're told there's a chance she may still be in danger."

The bottom dropped out of his stomach, before his rage, kept in check for so long, ignited.

"I'm sorry, what was that about her being in danger?" He asked in as level a voice as he could.

To her credit, she locked eyes with him and responded coolly, "There is evidence that she may have gotten caught up in actions involving a known supervillain, and said supervillain is now trying to get rid of loose ends. We are doing the best we can, but it would be preferable if you were to come with us."

He fumed for a second before responding.

"I see. Would you mind if I changed first?"

She nodded once. "I can't see a problem with that, sir, though we should hurry."

And dress he did, but not before leaving a note saying "WENT TO THE PRT, SAID YOU WERE THERE" on the fridge. Who could tell with these people, right?

------

"...and there I was, human torpedo-style, lunging at him through the air, and his power had nothing to grab onto--"

The conference room he was brought to contained more people than he expected.

"Taylor," he breathed, a knot in his chest undoing itself. She spun in her seat, eyes widening as she heard her name.

The two stared at one another for a second, and then they were in each other's arms.

"I was so worried," he whispered to her.

"I know," she sniffed, "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything..."

"You're gonna have to tell me about that now, you know that, right?" he gave his own watery chuckle.

Then he was ready to survey the rest of them - there was the girl who was speaking when he came in -- a mirrored visor helmet, some sort of tactical armor in forest camo pattern over a gray bodysuit, an outfit he did not recognize as any of the city's Wards. He almost missed the small dog, an ugly one-eyed thing sitting next to Taylor's chair that followed up a look at him with a questioning glance to her, as if wondering whether he had permission to approach her. Finally, there was Miss Militia sitting at the far end of the table, hair carefully arranged to cover traces of a surgical scar above her forehead surrounded by a shaved-out area.

"Mister Hebert, I'm glad you could join us," she said, standing up to offer him a hand to shake. "Carlsson, the door. Keep guard."

"Yes, Ma'am!" the trooper that accompanied Danny (he had since donned his helmet) replied, shutting the door from the outside and presumably carrying out the rest of the order there.

"So," he said, as sat down next to Taylor, on the other side of her from the dog, ending up across from the girl in the mirrored helmet. She seemed to be staring at him. He tried to pretend he wasn't unnerved by that. "Can someone-- Taylor --" he shot her a look, "Please tell me what's going on here? I understand," he raised a hand as Miss Militia was about to speak, "That you said supervillains were involved, but please... I was just told that my daughter was in danger, and I haven't seen her since before Leviathan attacked. I just want you to understand that my patience right now is basically nonexistent, as is my tolerance for any bullshit." He waved a hand. "Please. Enlighten me."

"It was brought to our attention that one of the girls involved in your daughter's bullying was the Ward Shadow Stalker," Miss Militia said, reaching out a hand, palm outward, when Danny began to stand up, his fists clenching seemingly on his own. "She is behind bars now, make no mistake about that. It is because of this development we're having this conversation here and not… elsewhere."

There was something odd about the way she said that, but he dismissed that in favor of the obvious question.

"That's great," he replied, "Who's going to compensate my daughter for almost two years of ruined school attendance, destroyed property, stolen homework, and whatever the hell you call what was done to her in January?"

He was almost satisfied in the way she seemed to shrink back at the very brief recounting of how the Protectorate was apparently indirectly responsible for Taylor's high school experience being fucked up beyond repair by one of their Wards.

"You can take that up with Director Piggot when you meet her in--" the helmeted girl paused to look at the clock on her phone, an ugly military brick that seemed right at home in one of the pouches on her vest, "--an hour and forty minutes. Be verbose, but don't expect too many concessions, strictly speaking the PRT was only responsible for her since last November. Everything before that is entirely on the head of Alan Barnes."

Taylor glared at her.

"Emissary! Did you have to be so blunt about it?" she spat, and for a moment Danny feared he'd have an angry parahuman to deal with whose powers he had no idea about, but Miss Militia did not intervene and the girl (Emissary, Taylor said?) only scoffed.

"I'm just preventing false expectations here, T," she said lightly, her manner demonstrating ease and familiarity with Taylor, making Danny wonder how they've met, "You can speak up at any moment."

"The key offer, however," Miss Militia resumed, as if she was not just interrupted by the sideshow attraction, "Is a place at Arcadia High School, waiving any fees and conditions that will be applied to other Winslow students transferred there, same as any other Ward."

"Well, that's a good start, but--" he began before cutting himself off. "Did you say other Ward? Does that--"

"Sorry for not telling you before," Taylor said meekly, "I didn't know how you'd react, and then it was always something happening."

A dreadful feeling rose in the back of Danny's mind, but he beat it back as best he could.

"S-since when?"

"Do you know what a Trigger event is, Mister Hebert?" Emissary asked, resting her gloved hands against the table. He could see the muscles bulging through her skintight undersuit, its odd sheen only further enhancing the effect. He was reminded of Lacey for some reason, Kurt's wife, who could drink and swear and lift with the best of the men of the dockworkers. When he shook his head, she continued, "It is the catalyst to a cape's powers, some argue it also shapes them. It is the single worst day of your life, when you feel it is over, and there is nothing except utter despair and dread of death left."

"The locker…" Danny exhaled, feeling the fire in his chest burning again.

"Yeah," Taylor nodded, before hugging him again. "Dad… I've been… I'm… I'm a supervillain, Dad. I'm-- I'm Skitter," she admitted with a certain grim finality like Hollywood always told him girls tell their fathers they're pregnant. Not that the situation was less dire than that.

The world fell away from him at her words. How could-- but that would mean her new friends were--

"But--" he searched for words, before settling on the easiest, the most fitting one here. "Why?"

"In short? Because Armsmaster was a dick to her when she tried to be a hero and the Undersiders were not," Emissary supplied, seeing Taylor struggle to respond, "Because the school was a nightmare to escape from and her powers aren't exactly PR friendly. So she decided to infiltrate the villain gang and present the intelligence about them to the PRT as her in to become a hero."

"Except Armsmaster chose not to inform anybody about his contact with your daughter, so while she thought she was doing undercover hero work, everyone saw it as outright villainy," Miss Militia took over, "And when she realized it… well, the shoe fit, I guess?"

Taylor glared at her for that momentarily, but quickly recovered her previous expression of trepidation and defiance. It looked oddly fitting on her bespectacled face, making her look older than her fifteen (a month till she's sixteen, even) years of age.

"So the mess at the gallery, it was some sort of revenge for that?" Danny asked incredulously, trying not to dwell on the realization that that was when they fought -- when she walked out on him.

"Actually, more for the fact that I was robbed of credit for taking down Lung twice more than anything else," Taylor said, a bit of fire entering her voice, like the one that burned in his own heart right now.

"Lung? This is too absurd to belie-- oh."

He paused as two things happened. Miss Militia handed him a smartphone with an image of a dark-clothed girl standing in front of a collapsed Lung, smoking slightly around the hair he recognized at once -- his heart dropped when he recalled chastising her for burning her hair against the stove a month ago -- and Taylor held out an open hand which quickly filled up with creepy crawlies that came out of her clothes.

"How do you do that so calmly?" he nodded at her hand, wincing. She shrugged.

"I can constantly feel them anyway. They're like an extension of me. By this point, I'm well inured to anything that crawls, skitters or buzzes," she admitted, a weak grin crawling onto her face as the insects scattered.

"So the PRT created their own enemy?" he asked, words coming out slowly.

"See, I told you he'd agree with me!" Emissary exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, but what are you doing here?" he asked, somewhat irritated by her constant interruptions.

"Your turn to sweat, Ems," Taylor said, sounding… triumphant? He clearly had no idea what his daughter was like anymore, but that would not stop him from supporting her, especially as it became apparent they just blindsided him with her joining the Wards.

"I'm the one who brought her in, sir," Emissary replied in the same cheery voice, "Dragged her on my back out of the Leviathan fight, just as she dragged me back into it. Bound in blood and all that."

"You fought Leviathan?!" Danny yelped, "Don't you control insects?"

"From the beginning, I wanted to be a hero," Taylor said defiantly, "I had to do something. My power lets me scan wide areas easily, and so I went on the search and rescue team."

"And so she saved my life," Miss Militia supplied.

"And yes, Dad," Taylor said in a low voice, "I did fight Leviathan. I couldn't just..." she trailed off, slumping a bit in her seat.

"Okay, I can understand that, but... How?" As his daughter opened her mouth, he held up his hand, "No, wait, never mind, I think I can go without hearing that bit. My heart isn't what it used to be," he smirked.

The only way this day could get more awkward would be if this other girl would reveal to be someone else he knew. Although it was obvious it wouldn't be Emma and he admitted that he didn't know any more of his daughter's friends… if she even had any that weren't villains now.

The girl fiddled with the straps of her helmet, visibly reluctant to unmask to him, but apparently still intending to. She hesitated halfway through, hyperventilating.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "I think I remember reading capes valued their privacy... something about unwritten rules?"

"Believe me, this is one secret you're better off knowing," Taylor said, an odd glint in her eyes.

"Though generally, yes, that is true, Mr. Hebert," Miss Militia chimed in, looking concerned for Emissary as she did so. "Revealing one's identity can be very dangerous - just look at New Wave, what happened to Fleur," she said.

"Even so, I think you should know," Emissary announced, the helmet clicking off to reveal her face, leaving Danny at a loss for words. "You can call me Rose," Emissary continued as she put the helmet down on the table in front of her. "But I was born Taylor Anne Hebert."

Her face was at once familiar and not, as if someone tried to draw Taylor as an Alexandria type and took a few artistic liberties along the way.

He gaped at her. She looked almost exactly like his Annette did, all those years ago when he first met her. Except for the broken nose and the fading bruise on her jaw and the short haircut. And the muscles. And the facial expression that looked like it was painted on.

"Wha--?"

"On a different Earth, one identical in many ways to this one, I'm the daughter of Daniel Hebert and Annette Rose Hebert." Her eyes were closed and the look of concentration on her face was intense. "You, well, your counterpart, raised me alone after Mom died in a car crash." Her eyes were now watery when she opened them. "And I miss him very much."

Danny slumped into his seat again. "How--" he stopped himself. "Just how. Why?"

Taylor - his Taylor, he thought, before dismissing it, they were BOTH his Taylor, no matter where they came from - snorted. "What was it you said? 'Uber and L33t are vast, gaping anuses?'"

Other-Taylor, - Rose, he thought - nodded. "In my world, I'm a Ward. I was on patrol when my partner and I bumped into them doing something in a warehouse. They knocked me into this..." she waved her hand airily, "Thing, and then I found myself here."

Danny focused on her. "How long have you been here? Do you have a way back home?"

She sighed. "No, I don't have a way back. Dragon's started to look into it, but..." she trailed off at the stunned look on his face. She had just casually mentioned that Dragon was working to help her. "And I've been here since the Empire was outed."

His eyes sharpened at this. "On your own?"

"No, I've been staying at the PRT HQ... so um... sort of?" she shrugged, then recomposed herself, "I've been working overtime, pulling strings within the PRT first to get myself acknowledged as a hero, then to arrange for things to get better for Taylor," she explained, waving a hand dismissively, "Not a lot of time to brood, although I did cry a lot the first few days." She paused, before adding. "I miss my Dad. And my sister."

He found himself standing next to her, hugging her by the shoulders, feeling her tense bulk relax into his chest, so the last word was almost inaudible.

He shot a confused glance at Taylor.

"Yeah, she said she has a foster sister. A parahuman, too," the longer-haired girl explained, "Another Ward."

He looked down at Rose, her tear-streaked face turning up to him. "I'd very much like to meet her, if you'd let me. And-- the other me, however odd that sounds."

"I'm sure you'll love them," Rose sniffled, "Anne-Marie will be hyper-excited to get a second Dad after having none." She wiped at her eyes, then looked up at him again. "Is there anything else you wanted to know?"

"So... you have powers too?" Danny asked warily after a short awkward pause. Not every day a man learns he's got a double daughter, after all, and one more on top of that.

"Not in the traditional sense, no," she shook her head, and only now he noticed that unlike Taylor, Rose wasn't wearing glasses at all. "I've got some enhancements from my version of Panacea, but nothing major."

"Enhancements like those arms, I hope?" he pondered, making both girls laugh.

"No, I worked for those," she said with conviction, "I've got a slow regeneration factor and super-strong bones. Enough to merit a Brute 1 rating, at least."

"Then what about your face? The nose and the, um. The jaw? Leviathan did that?"

"Nah, everything he did, I walked off. The nose is a reminder of my hubris, nobody is good enough to go hand-to-hand with Glory Girl," she explained, rubbing the site of the break, making Danny wince at the idea of anyone fighting Alexandria Jr at close range, "And the jaw was Taylor finding out about Shadow Stalker. Not bad for an insect controller, wouldn't you say?"

"You deserved it," Taylor muttered darkly.

Rose nodded at her, then turned to Danny again. "Thanks for the hug, but we still have things to do before your meeting with Director Piggot."

He let go of her, returning to his seat. As Rose dried her eyes and Taylor started absent-mindedly stroking the dog's head, he finally turned to face the Protectorate heroine again.

"So let me get this straight. My daughter," he reached an arm around Taylor's shoulders, "Gained powers because of Shadow Stalker. She wanted to be a hero, but Armsmaster made her doubt that, so she decided to spy on villains instead, and what, liked it there?"

"They were my first friends since… since Emma became this utter bitch. Two years, Dad. So when Armsmaster screwed me over, I already had a place to turn to."

"That… doesn't sound very reassuring, you know that, right?" he looked at her over his glasses.

"Yeah, well, we needed the money badly, and my reputation was firmly established by then, it didn't exactly feel sensible to turn back," she shrugged, "Then I learned who signed the checks, and what else he does and decided to quit after all. Leviathan attacked a few hours after that."

"And that's where you come in," Rose continued after her double, "The Undersiders belong to Coil, and he's a very nasty piece of work. If we sign Taylor on as a Ward, there are certain protections - written and unwritten - that will apply to her, and to you by extension."

"But what about you?" Danny asked, his expression worried. Rose made a complicated smile that looked utterly alien on his daughter's face, even though she acted more like his daughter from five years ago than what she was like now.

"I'm already a Ward, we can't legally tie you two to me without letting too many people know about Taylor's alter ego and more importantly, it begins to make up for the crap she had to endure."

"You mean we had to endure, don't you?" Taylor corrected her. It felt odd, listening to the same voice argue back and forth with itself, although Rose sounded a bit more mature, perhaps as a side-effect of whatever bodily differences she had from Taylor.

"Hey, you had four extra months of that shit," Rose replied before turning to Danny, "I was transferred to Arcadia before the locker happened when I joined the PRT as an intern. Other you was pretty conflicted about it."

"How does he feel about it now that you're in the Wards?"

"I think he worries too much, especially whenever my cape career is concerned. But we can talk about it later, we're here for Taylor after all."

"So… am I getting introduced to the dog next, then? Is it somehow involved with your powers too?"

"Angelica belonged to a teammate of mine," Taylor said, "She died saving us both from Leviathan. I'm probably the only person in the city she would obey, so it felt right for me to take her." She paused, mulling something over, "That's okay with you, right? If, if you let me come home again?"

Danny shook his head while smiling. "Sweetie, that is the LEAST confusing thing you have asked me today. Of course you can come home, and yes, you can take the dog in, but you need to be the one to take responsibility for her." He looked a little closer at the dog. "She has had her shots, right? And is housetrained?"

Taylor swatted him in the arm. "Rachel would have made sure of it."

"Then I don't have a problem." He scoffed. "It'll be nice to have something somewhat normal. R-Rose? What about you? Did you intend to live here indefinitely?"

"I, uh, I didn't want to impose before we sorted everything out," the shorter-haired girl replied, "May I?"

"I'm not sharing the room," Taylor protested, "Or my clothes."

"I'm pretty sure most of your clothes won't fit me anyway," Rose laughed. "Right, I forgot to say: for the purpose of people not in the know, I'm Taylor's second cousin from Montana, Aunt Margaret's daughter."

"But Aunt Margaret is--" Danny began.

"Untraceable, exactly," Rose finished for him. They shared a grin he realized was identical, wondering if she had more powers-- no, she said they weren't real powers, abilities, then, abilities than she let on. She turned to Miss Militia, "Aunt Margaret is... A little bit kooky, to put it mildly," she chuckled in unison with Taylor, a rare similarity that would have one thinking they were actually sisters, "She makes Sarah Connor look like a paragon of optimism, if you need a frame of reference."

The Protectorate heroine gave her a stiff nod, looking slightly worried. Danny suspected that she was likely thinking something along the lines of pots, kettles and other housewares at the moment, based on what his two -- he still couldn't believe he now had two! -- daughters apparently did on Sunday.

"So that's settled then. Is there anything else I should know or do before meeting your Director?" Danny asked, turning to Miss Militia, who stayed oddly silent throughout the exchange.

"There's a stack of papers to sign regarding Taylor's status change as we're using a loophole in the law to get her Warded without involving a judge and a court order, relying on martial law while the state of emergency persists," the flagged woman replied, "Some of them will pertain to her probationary status, although in light of her situation and the dire straits the city is in, some of these may be waived or reduced to expedite the onboarding process. And there's also the matter of deciding on her rebranding, if you don't want to leave it up to Image and PR, particularly on the name. Skitter the villain is going away, so you have to consider who Taylor wants to be as a hero."

"T and I already talked about that, actually," Rose said, nodding at her counterpart.

"My mythology-obsessed cousin has suggested Arachne, and I intend to agree. There's something fitting about a mortal ticking off a goddess so badly she gets turned into a spider, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, I'm not sure," Danny said, leaning back in his seat, "I think it sounds good, but there's one other thing..."

"Oh?" his new daughter asked, eyebrow quirked, "And what that would be?"

He looked at both of his daughters with the most unimpressed glare that he could muster.

"As soon as we get home, both of you are grounded."

This had been a weird meeting, but seeing a Protectorate heroine valiantly try to cover her laughter as the two Wards' jaws dropped more than made up for it.

 
Reset 3.01
Reset 3.01

[Rose]



I couldn't accompany them to the Director's office, much as I may have wanted to, by sheer virtue of having to go on patrol. The state of emergency enforced a much more rigid schedule on all the heroes, but it was the Wards that were affected the most, with school being out and the situation being more or less 'all hands on deck', especially after I just stuck one of these hands into indefinite M/S containment yesterday.

It was also the reason why the Wards on duty glared at me when I entered the Commons.

"So I can't help but notice that I don't know what the hell is going on with you," Dennis began, keeping his tone light, before holding up his hands. "I know, I know, that's not really a big change from normal, 'Ha-ha, Dennis the Clown knows nothing', buuuuut," he glanced around, "Missy doesn't really know either, and I think that Chris'd probably like it if someone could explain to him about why he had to shoot Sophia."

I raised an eyebrow. "Leaving out Carlos and James, are you?"

Missy snorted. "Carlos says he knows what's going on and that we should ask you about it, and James is…" she cast a glance at the boy currently packing his suitcase, "James." She shrugged as if to punctuate the statement.

"Missy speaks the truth," intoned Browbeat from his hunched-over position at his suitcase, "I am in fact... James."

Tomorrow was going to be his last day here. The team would be down three people now, and only gaining one back, and even then in an unknown span of time. While I had no doubts in Dad's skill as a negotiator, on this world or any other, today would be the first time this Dad would be coming in contact with Director Piggot, and it did not sit well with me.

Missy rolled her eyes and gave me a knowing look, and I nodded in acceptance. "Fair enough."

"So, um…" Chris called over, "Can you actually tell us?"

I nodded at the back of his head, admiring that he didn't turn away from the Console. "Yes."

There was a snapping sound, and he shifted slightly. Dennis looked apologetic.

"We were betting on what the answer was. He bet 'Secret Government Conspiracy', and I bet 'Alien Infiltrators Preparing Invasion'."

Aaaaaaaand admiration gone.

"I bet that they were idiots," piped in Missy.

"Sucker bet," I smiled a Brandish #2 ('Lucky this was off record, eh?') at her, before I decided to spill some of the truth.

"From the top: I wasn't avoiding anyone, I was dealing with a time-sensitive issue," I explained, going over my things in preparation for the patrol. "I took Skitter in. She and her father are negotiating with Director Piggot right now."

Mjölnir was ready, and my helmet functioned perfectly despite being bare of paint. My ruined chest armor was replaced by a PRT-approved armor plating used for riot gear hastily repainted into a forest camouflage pattern, the various odds I kept in my storage compartment relocated to a generic utility belt. The end result was that I looked like a vigilante cosplaying as my official outfit, but it would give me about as much protection (sans ablative paint, which very likely saved me from cracking a rib or all of them) as my actual armor was still being remade, the ceramics being repaired by the tech team that normally cared for the maintenance of the Trooper armor like the one I got as a loaner. After that it would be back in Armsmaster's shop for repainting, the morose Tinker himself having been airlifted out yesterday for processing wherever it was they took Trucebreakers. I hoped Dragon knew how to work his paint machine.

"Wait, so you weren't pulling my leg before?" Dennis asked incredulously, "Skitter's actually going to become a Ward?" He followed his question up with a shudder, making me raise an eyebrow at him.

"There's a lot I can't really tell you- Unwritten Rules, written rules, some parts are classified by the PRT to protect some identities... but initially, she wanted to be a hero," I had to pause for a moment, close my eyes, and breathe out through my nose, and there was a definite clipped tone to my voice when I started again, "But Armsmaster managed to literally burn her on the idea," I replied, distilling the truth as much as I could, "The official PR statement is in the works, but basically, he tried to frame Skitter for breaking the Truce to Legend on Sunday. He's being tested for Master influences as far as I know, and it isn't looking good for him."

"Wait, what?! They're… they're gonna 'Cage Armsmaster?" Chris gasped, poking his head out from his position at the console. "Why would he do such a thing?"

I shrugged. "I don't know for the first question, but for the second... Best guess is, and that's Alexandria's best guess, mind you, is that he felt his career sufficiently threatened by Skitter to decide he needed to, uh, remove her as an obstacle," The confused expressions didn't let up. "This heroing wish she had? He stole credit for her taking down Lung in early April, then blamed her for when he got reamed out after Lung nearly died in custody because of how his tranqs interacted with her spider venoms."

"Wait, that was her that rotted Lung's junk off?!" Dennis exclaimed far too loudly for my comfort, "No wonder he was so pissed at the Undersiders when he got out!"

"Right, and then she did it again, during the ABB assaults," I went on, completely certain I was late for my patrol check-in, but then so was Missy, who was right there in front of me. "Armsmaster was already going to be shipped out to Chicago, Miss Militia set to take his place, when this was uncovered. So it's… plausible… to see where he's coming from."

"Suddenly, I'm even more reluctant to have her on the same team as me," Dennis added, taking a step back. "How did you even bring her in to begin with?"

"I asked politely," I shrugged, "It also helped that she learned what kind of sick twisted fuck the guy running the Undersiders from the shadows was, and she was in the process of leaving the team already when the Endbringer siren went off."

"So when you approached her at the briefing…" Missy began, gesturing at me with her hand.

"...she was already a free agent, which is why I kept by her side during the fight to give her a better impression of the Wards," I finished for her, smiling wide in a Glory Girl #1 ('Love me!'), "Which brings us to point number two. Sophia."

"You mentioned your cousin, I think?" Chris piped up, all pretense at preparing for his stint on console abandoned as he dropped himself into one of the armchairs.

"Yeah, remember her going nuts at the idea that I was my cousin?" I waved a hand across my face, "I talked to her on Sunday, after I got out of the hospital and checked up on my family," a small white lie never hurt anyone, "And learned that Sophia has been bullying her pretty badly since before Shadow Stalker had been Warded, and the PRT's probation officer watching her did precisely fuck-all to stop it. Or report it in."

James tore himself away from his packing as Dennis swore profusely, Missy falling behind by a short margin, while Chris simply spun his electrolaser that was Sophia's undoing on Monday like a cowboy would his pistol, staring at it proudly. I vowed to do something nice for him for that.

"That was on top of an inquiry I started on Thursday based on a few coincidences between hospital visits in troubled areas with wounds matching Sophia's pre-Wards arrows and her off-track patrols," I went on, bitterness creeping into my voice as the carefully controlled persona I was trying to project started to crumble in the face of how badly the PRT failed Taylor. "How these were glossed over before confuses me, but at least the records were there. My cousin's school just brushed off all of her complaints because they didn't want to lose a track star and a Ward they were getting extra funding over."

"Is… is your cousin going to be okay?" Missy asked in a small voice.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "No," I stated with an edge of anger, "She'll be fine physically, but... the school let Sophia get away with this for over a year and a half, and then the PRT found this girl who was shooting lethal crossbow bolts into criminals and decided to do no background check on her, or put her through therapy of any kind. They then followed up this winning combination of inaction--" I tossed my hands in the air, "--by assigning her a 'social worker' whose job seems to have been 'Cover for her psycho behavior so I can collect a paycheck'. So for the last eight or so months, the most powerful authority figures in the entire city basically turned their back on a teenage girl's suffering because it was convenient. She's not alright, she stopped going to school, and quite frankly, if I was in her shoes I'd be hard pressed to trust any sort of authority again!"

It wasn't until I'd finished that I realized that everyone had stopped and was staring at me. I realized that I'd steadily gotten louder as my answ-- no, no, I have to be honest to myself, my rant went on.

I slumped into myself slightly, seeing Vista look especially like a kicked puppy-- damn, the kid really didn't need that --at what had been an attempt to show empathy.

"I'm sorry," I stated quietly, "It's been a... rough last week or two."

"Tell me about it," muttered Missy, before brightening up a bit, "In fact, to change the subject, do tell me about it. What the hell did you do to your beautiful hair?!"

"Ah. That." I ran a hand against the short length of hair on the back of my head, barely enough for a ponytail,"When my helmet got busted open, my hair came spilling out, and so when I shouldered the anti-Endbringer Halberd at the Docks, I vaporized a good third of it before figuring out how to shut it off."

"You looked fine at the hospital?" Chris ventured, before slapping his forehead in realization, "Right, the helmet bunched it up!"

"Yeah," I nodded, glad my ruse worked. While there was enough damage for Taylor to notice (who else? It was her hair too!), my braiding habit adopted for the sake of the Wards concealed most of the damage, "When I took it off at home base, the hair was such a mess which is why I wore it over my shoulder all of yesterday. Then this morning I took the scissors to it to make it even."

"Huh, it looks as if someone else gave you the cut, to be honest," Dennis remarked, running his palm against the back of my head, watching the even ends, making me shiver a bit from the odd sensation, "How did you pull this off? Are you hiding powers we don't know of?"

"Uh-huh," I replied, "The mystical art of using three mirrors together, taught to all women by their mothers to check for wardrobe malfunctions and hair care."

They did not need to know I actually had it this short because my first two attempts failed and I had to go deeper, or that using Finist's camera in place of mirrors was a dumb idea because Wadjet's straps kept getting in the way. And yet, my first Tinkertech-assisted haircut was accepted by the jury! Challenge completed! My memo about requesting at least one damn full-length mirror in the Wards spaces was still in processing, but I bested the bureaucracy with science!

"So, Missy, let me ask you an important question," I spoke to the Mistress of Space, a devious smile on my face (Old Madison #3, 'Let's see you get out of this one'), before pulling my helmet on.

"Yeeeees?" she intoned in a very Dennis-like manner.

"Have you ever tried your power out in a city mostly devoid of people?"

------​

[Emily Piggot]


"So, they agreed?"

Miss Militia stood at attention in front of my desk, overly formal as always. It was slightly irritating at times, how she held herself to a higher standard than most other capes ever dreamed of. Not that it was irritating in and of itself, but it just served to remind me of how few capes there were that would even try to show such professional behavior. The only other capes at my disposal capable of anything remotely similar were Dauntless, who would find himself to be in much higher demand than before with Armsmaster gone, and Emissary, whose other self we were discussing. With time, effort and a whole lot of luck, perhaps we could mould Skitter-- no, Arachne-- into something like her.

"They agreed to most of it pretty quickly," I nodded, "The largest issue being the oversight, of course. They feel wronged that Taylor would be subject to stricter measures than Sophia was, considering Sophia was responsible for her Trigger. It's quite a Catch-22."

"But the loophole we discussed?" she reminded me, quirking an eyebrow up.

"Should work to keep the wolves at bay, I believe," I pushed a file towards her, "The paranoid machinations of Rose Ellison give us the legal right of increasing the number of PRT agents watching Taylor Hebert by one whenever the two girls are together." I twisted my mouth into a smile. "Damn smart of her." My smile fell. "And what Legend said about her tormentors... What was it that stopped her that day?"

Militia nodded. "Tapioca dumped into her backpack."

I scowled. "We're throwing the book at Hess for sure now, if for no other reason than costing us an intern that sharp." I leaned back slightly in my chair, it creaking in an unpleasant fashion in response. "And what did the BBPD say about Clements and Barnes?"

In response, Militia dropped a folder of her own on my desk. "Deputy Director Renick asked me to give this to you regarding that very topic, actually."

My hands grabbed the folder, barely suppressing their trembling at the old aches, and my scowl deepened. "They're doing nothing?"

"Not... nothing, ma'am," she hesitated, before continuing, "With both their families leaving town and the school in question being destroyed, as well as the general upheaval caused by the Endbringer and the shakeup of the public school system in the wake of our... reorganization of Winslow's staff..."

"So nothing, then." I repeated, folding my arms across my chest.

"Not nothing," she stated with a hint of an edge in her voice, "They're doing the best they can, but the PRT remains one of the most intact government agencies in this city. Everywhere else was gutted by Leviathan." She looked down and to the side, "What's left is..." she let out a short laugh, "I'd say swamped, but I'm not Assault or Clockblocker."

I rubbed my eyes. "Militia, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that." I looked at her from between my fingers. "So what you're saying is..."

"We've got Blackwell and the teachers because they, at least, abused the terms of their agreements with the PRT. We could apply pressure through those channels. We've got Shadow Stalker because she violated the terms of her probation. But the crimes that Barnes and Clements committed..." she trailed off before slamming her hand into the desk. "I don't like them, but they're civilian crimes, and the PRT can't go after them for those since we didn't see them being committed."

"And the phone recordings we have of Hess revealing another parahuman's identity to Barnes?"

Militia sighed. "Just proves that Shadow Stalker was in contact with her. Not enough reason to put her away on its own, but we can put her on a watch list." She looked out over the wrecked city. "We just need to hold the city together long enough for the others to do their jobs."

I huffed, turning to look out the window as well. "Tell Renick to keep me informed." I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. "I know," I whispered, before speaking louder, "I know. It burns... but…" I smirked at her, "I have a few favors Chief McGregor still owes me. I'll see what I can shake loose."

She nodded. "Thank you, ma'am."

"So onto criminals we can touch, what is the deal with the gunmen Skitter and Emissary took down earlier today?"

I noted her eyes light up with a hint of bloodlust. Not enough to be really worrying... wait, no, scratch that, I made a note to myself to see that she visits Doctor Karpenko while she was still here. Bad enough to have capes like Hess, the last thing we need is someone who can literally make nuclear warheads develop mental issues.

"There we have plenty to go on," she said, her eyes dancing. "Each of them had a Tinkertech laser pistol on their person, which we're having our contacts with Toybox tracking as we speak, but I doubt that avenue will get us much information beyond the maker." She produced another folder for me to scowl at. "The two we have in custody here in the basement have rap sheets as long as my forearm. Arkady Naumov, formerly of the Russian Mafia before fleeing Moscow in the wake of Behemoth, and Barnabe Theotime of the French DGSE, arrested in 2005 for selling French Intel to foreign powers, but escaped from prison in the wake of an attack by the Blasphemies. The one that got away was identified from a lucky bit of traffic cam footage as Josse Fulbert, ex-SWAT out of Chicago."

"I assume," I mused, "That we have some clue as to why they were tailing two teenage girls?"

Militia shook her head. "I believe Agent Kanos is working on interrogating them as we speak, but so far one isn't talking and the other is still unconscious. The other agents assigned to the case have assured us that they'll have something actionable within the next day or so."

I nodded gratefully, "That's good to hear. It worries me that Coil, if they were indeed his men, would make a move on Skitter with a Ward in the line of fire."

"Oh no, ma'am. As far as I understand, the girls took offense to being aimed at and took preventative action. The Tinkertech and questionable tattoos on the Frenchman will have to do as 'reasonable doubt' if 'state of emergency' isn't sufficient grounds for arrest." She paused for a brief moment, contemplative. "It felt less like an attack and more of a recon in force, like they were sent there in case something happened. The question remains, what were they watching for?"

The two of us were quiet for a few more moments, the enormity of our jobs over the next few months washing over us.

"So," I finally broke the silence, "Your impression of Mr. Hebert?"

"He's… devoted. Driven. Idealistic, perhaps, but not naïve, as you no doubt have noticed." She paused, clearly indecisive about something. "Ma'am, in my report, I make note of--" she began, but I silenced her with a raise of my hand and a curt nod.

"Your identity is safe with Taylor, I'm sure," I stated calmly, tapping the girl's rapidly-thickening file with my index finger, "She triple-checked that she wouldn't be forced to reveal those of the Undersiders, which I'm told Rose already knew, and seemed amenable to extending the same fervor to you, the Wards or any other law-abiding capes she would learn the identities of."

"After meeting their father, a lot of their behavior becomes much easier to understand," Militia agreed, "Although Rose, ill-fitting as her chosen codename is, still strikes me as oddly devoted to the idea of making the PRT the best that it could be, dragging it along by personal example if need be. If half the things she told me about how she runs her Wards are true…"

I nodded, continuing after she trailed off. "...it would seem that a lot of opinions on militarizing the Wards were affected by the death of Aegis, or the fact that her Brockton Bay has escalated to open warfare in the streets more than once during the short time of her service. She's workaholic to the point of self-destruction, although the results it gives are readily apparent-- what's so funny?"

"I'm sorry, Madam Director," the recently-appointed Protectorate leader replied, stifling noticeable chuckling from behind her bandanna, "It's just that aside from her age, she reminds me of a particular PRT officer, one she has on numerous occasions openly named as her mentor and example."

"I'd like to think that I was a lot less destructive at sixteen," I huffed, not without stifling another smile, however. "And I doubt that had the PRT existed when I was her age, becoming a cape without having powers would have even occurred to me."

"Fifteen, ma'am. Her birthday, and therefore Arachne's as well, is next month," Militia corrected, her chuckling intensifying. "I also doubt your life was as much of a mess as hers at that age, including but not limited to losing a boyfriend to cape violence. She's damaged, like all of us are, Emily, yourself included. Both of them are, except only one of them Triggered."

"Back when we were still trying to do the global outreach, I served a tour with the relief taskforce in Moscow, after Behemoth stomped it flat," I recalled, reaching for my cold yet half-full coffee mug, "One of their guys, the ones the Elitnaya subsumed afterwards, taught me a saying of theirs that came from a war song. We could make nails of these people, and you would never find a hardier nail in the whole world."

"After seeing them working together, I'm inclined to agree," she nodded, her power's green glow shifting the gun in her holster back and forth, as it always did when she was worried about something. "One's pretty good with small-unit tactics, knows her way around firearms and hand-to-hand combat -- I'm guessing her versions of Sergeant Michaelson and Lieutenant Martinez are to blame -- and is willing to lay down her life on the line for anyone she considers an ally, though mainly she's relying on being harder to kill than most."

"And you would have thought her boyfriend's fate taught her something," I shook my head. "She's also always rushing into things, fails to see the bigger picture and makes her grudges into battle standards. And worst of all… she's made herself indispensable."

"To be fair, ma'am, she's fifteen and is still learning." She looked slightly hopefully at me. "And most of it she learned from you. Perhaps she just needs to continue her lessons?"

That earned her a respectful nod. I put the mug down, empty, the bitterness staving off the creeping pain in my left knee. "Alright, I admit that may have been a bit too harsh. What's your opinion on Skitter? And Arachne, now that you've seen her acting as an ally?" I expanded at her obvious attempt to correct me.

"Skitter's MO was a combination of terror and guerilla tactics, based on what we now know about her engagements against the ABB and the events at the gallery," she outlined, gesturing with two flat palms in front of her, "She presumably learned quite a few tricks from Grue, whose blanketing darkness trick she can apparently replicate using a cloud of bugs -- except she swaps out the sound and light absorption of his clouds for being able to sense and see anything in and around her cloud, not to mention the interference it creates for Manton-limited powers such as Vista's or Striker abilities like Clockblocker's. It would appear Panacea's ability to hard counter her bug control is the only outlier there. She's also incredibly effective as a one-person AWACS, as she claims she has no cap on the number of insects she can control or monitor on an individual level."

"And setting her power aside for a moment?" I asked, trying to recall whether the girl mentioned any hobbies other than breeding black widows in her basement, something which seemed to be as unnerving to her father as it was to me.

"She has a very basic idea about hand-to-hand combat, but I'm sure her 'cousin' will shortly rectify that," Miss Militia replied thoughtfully, "Barring that, she's moderately fit from a regular running regimen and whatever experience her month of being an active cape brought her, she's completed first aid courses, and I'd say she's deserving of a Tinker rating, given the things she managed to devise from merely reading up on spiders and lots of trial and error. I'm told Doctor Thorne is very keen to get his hands on her costume."

"Didn't Emissary note that her counterpart to Arachne, Weaver, made similar costumes for her team?" I furrowed my brow, "I distinctly recall reading a report that she herself is wearing one."

"You remember correctly, ma'am, but she refused to part with it at the time, citing the lack of a replacement if they damaged it. Now that Arachne is on board, I'm thinking she'd be willing to produce them for us if we set her up with an appropriate space."

"Which brings me to my final, and greatest, concern: the girl has 'malicious compliance' written all over her, though I can't exactly fault her for the issues with authority she has developed at Winslow." I sighed, "The fact remains that knowingly or not, Emissary's cutting off all of her alternatives may have been the only reason for her cooperation."

"I've been where she is right now, ma'am," the flag-wearing heroine replied with a sudden fire to her words, "What she needs right now is friendships and support. She already has an unshakeable pillar in Rose, and given time, I hope that can be extended to the other Wards. I, um, I do not share Rose's optimism regarding Panacea or Glory Girl ever making that list, however, particularly given her own issues with Victoria Dallon."

I snorted. "Given what Emissary has told us about her versions of them, I can agree, but I don't think she'll see it that way." I took another sip from my mug, then frowned at the lack of liquid inside it. When had that happened? "Aside from you she's probably one of the more capable officers we have... as well as one of the most stubborn ones and prone to getting tunnel vision," I grumbled. "Something we'll have to work on." I straightened in my seat and looked her in the eye. "So, now that we're more or less on the same page, how well do you think the Wards will react to the revelation tomorrow?"

------​

[Taylor]


"If I wasn't grounding you already, I'd definitely be doing it now," Dad chuckled as he watched Rose extricate her foot from the porch, the remains of the rotten step crumbling to the ground off her shoe. Angelica sniffed at the wood carefully before snorting and walking away to study the lawn.

"In my defense," my double said with a Lisa-like grin, "We've replaced the whole thing about a month ago… granted, after I tore it up like that one, carrying Anne-Marie in on my back." We stared at her in unison, making her protest, "What? I was playing horsey for my kid sister, that's got to count for something!"

"Phew, it's just--" Dad began, but stopped, resorting to a dismissive wave instead, so I finished for him.

"--the way you phrased it, it sounded as if something happened to her," I said, pursing my lips. "You are going to look for her here, right? Now that you've no more need for the stupid cloak and dagger dance you did for me?"

She grinned even more broadly as she carried her bags inside, hopping over the freshly-broken step this time. "C'mon, level with me: if I'd come 'round to the house, or the Undersiders base -- yes, I think I know where it was -- and told you I was your cross-dimensional counterpart, how would you have reacted?"

I was honest in my response. "Ummm… You'd be down a few more teeth than just that molar," I deadpanned back to her, "And get a first-hand demonstration of why I carry multiple epipens."

Of course I made sure that Dad was outside for that when I said it, which Rose must have realized, judging by her Glory-Girl-like grin. "Yeah, exactly," she replied, dropping her baggage at the foot of the stairs and surveying the house from within. I dropped my bag of Rachel's stuff and the smaller one of my Undersiders things next to hers. "The tooth you knocked out is starting to grow back, by the way, the oddest side-effect of my 'powers' so far. Sooo…" she trailed off as she peered through the door to the kitchen. It felt oddly like the last time (a.k.a. the only time) Gram visited us, almost a decade ago, making me feel as if I'd be judged less harshly on Judgement Day. To make matters worse, Angelica seemed to share her opinion. "Okay, this place really did need another woman's touch."

"Come again?" Dad asked as he closed the door after himself and the grocery bags, looking startled and... a little hopeful? Huh? "Who's the other woman?"

My alternate looked contrite as she shrugged her PRT hoodie off. "Sorry, just my little sister. Other-you isn't dating... or at least, he hasn't mentioned it to me," she mused, looking thoughtful for a second, "Mind you, I did have this thought about--"

"OKAY!" I interrupted, grabbing her around her shoulder, "You already caused one big shift in my immediate family this week, let's not try for two. Shall we set up in my room?" I asked her, blatantly trying to shift the conversation, "I'm calling the bed."

She shook her head, "I'll take the spare bedroom, if that's okay."

Dad looked confused. "Sure, it's okay, but why?"

She shot me a look. "She snores! I don't want every night to be a contest of 'who falls asleep first'."

"I do not snore!" I spat, scandalized at myself. Well, my other self. This was somehow still managing to be confusing. Dad busied himself with setting down the dog bowls we'd just bought with some food and water for Angelica. Later we'd go about setting a sleeping place for her. I had enough of Rachel's stuff with me now to demarcate a safe zone for her to settle down with a comforting scent in it.

"I got a little sister with three weeks' worth of recordings that say that yes, we do." She shot back.

"Maybe it's your muscles getting in the way of the air?"

"Maybe it's the hair sapping your mental strength? I feel so much smarter after a haircut!"

"Maybe you should bleach it as well?"

"You know what? I just might!"

Dad's head was bouncing between the two of us like he was watching a tennis match, before he settled his gaze on me. He looked simultaneously amused and ashamed, a very odd combination for him normally. "Sorry, sweetie... but yes, you do." At my betrayed look, he shrugged. "You have ever since you were a baby, but by the time you were old enough to be made aware of it, you already had your own room and it didn't really bother us after that so we never had to break it to you. Sorry?" His stare turned to Rose. "And really, three weeks?"

"Synod is very thorough."

He and I just looked at her for a moment, her beginning to fidget under our gazes, before Dad cleared his throat. "Okay, powering on past that... your punishment detail for the night is making dinner. Together. A much better test of character than some Endbringer. Pshaw! Hundreds of people fight Endbringers. Who gets to feed the Heberts?"

"Mr and Mrs Pak, of Pak-Moon Packed Munchies?" Rose ventured, tentatively licking her fingertip before dragging it across a floorboard. Yeah, she definitely remembers that visit from Gram. "Or do you have a different preferred takeout place?"

That made Dad skip a beat as he took a moment to recompose himself. "Does that mean, er, the other me never--"

"Well, not as much as we'd love to, but hey, two daughters! And now you have two as well!" Rose announced cheerfully, demonstrating her black fingertip to the world. Angelica looked at her appreciatively and sneezed. Rose shuddered, and it clearly had nothing to do with the dust in the air. Then it dawned on me.

"Rose…" I began slowly, "You're freaking out, aren't you?"

Her smile seemed to crack.

"What? Me? No, I'm just stuck in a world where I'm a guest in my own house and my father clearly doesn't know who I am and I'm trying to be nice and all but it's REALLY HARD and okay I think I might be freaking out a little." She grabbed her arms and appeared to withdraw within herself. "I don't… I'm telling you these things about my Dad and my sister while they might be thinking I'm dead and--"

Dad and I had been getting more and more distant lately, but in this, we acted as one as we swept her into a hug as she started to sob.

-------


In the morning, we went on my-- on our morning run together. She slicked her unusually short hair back, holding it down with one of my old hairbands, which kinda made her look like Rachel would have, had she been my sister. She wore her PRT stuff - dull grey sweatpants, dull grey running shoes, a full size larger than my own, a dull grey sports bra that made me rejoice that we were equally-sized at least somewhere that wasn't our eyes and mouths, and another Protectorate Gift Shop T-shirt, this one depicting Vista.

For my part, I had my own dull grey running shoes (thrift store), black sweatpants (worn out enough to look dark grey) and dull grey sports bra that hid beneath a plain blue T-shirt (worn out enough to look dull grey in the wrong light). She sized me up and handed me another of her Protectorate T-shirts without a word. It turned out to be one of Armsmaster, which made me scowl at her.

"What?" she asked with worrying earnestness, "Just think of the irony. Your very own private vengeance that nobody can judge you for."

"Is… is yours as terrible?" I asked, pausing to swap out the shirts, "I'm just wondering if it's a universal thing, like Lisa being a know-it-all?"

"Which one's Lisa, again?" Dad piped in from the bathroom. He would probably be gone by the time we came back - he decided it was time for him to chip in on the problem of Fenja's arm, especially in light of the talk he's had with Director Piggot yesterday.

"Okay, in order," she called back, "One, mine isn't as terrible... though he did go through therapy after…" she balled her hands into fists tightly for a moment, "After Aegis... so that might have had an effect. And two, Lisa is Tattletale-- the one in the purple catsuit, Dad!"

I swatted her arm as Dad called his thanks. "What? Did you want me to say that she's the smug one? He's never met her!"

"Actually, I think I have? Blonde, freckles, grins a lot?" came Dad's voice, ruining the point I was going to make. Rose uh-huh'd at him through the door.

"You shouldn't spread out secret identities like that!" I protested, "Do you tell your Dad all of this cape stuff?"

"Some of it, since I'm technically an open cape," she shrugged as we stepped outside, making sure that Angelica stayed indoors. We'd be taking her to the vet after breakfast, to try and figure out the state of her damaged leg, because while Rose was certain she could sweet-talk Panacea into helping her, I was still skeptical from the mixed reaction the New Wave cape gave to the news of her other self being my other self's BFF. "So the face of my self-appointed nemesis is pretty high on the list. I think it's good to keep him in the loop," she explained as we began our stretches, "It helps make sure that neither of us are surprised at what's going on in each other's life. Doctor Karpenko suggested it..." she trailed off, before resuming, "I mean, it doesn't get rid of all the weird things Cape Stuff brings into our lives, like when Kid Win crashed on my couch, or when Dad punched out Mush..."

"He WHAT?!" I exclaimed, shocked enough to almost let go of the swarm I started to build up the moment I woke up. There was no chances I was taking with Coil's attempt on us yesterday, however easy it was to deal with the obvious recon force sent to gauge our combined capabilities. To be completely honest, I was quite impressed by my 'cousin's ability to sprint, run down, tackle and hogtie a grown man with obvious special forces training. Two of the three snipers we spotted were now in PRT custody, one of them recovering from a previously-undiscovered bee sting allergy. And that is why I carry epi-pens.

Naturally, we didn't tell Dad about any of that.

Rose grinned - and this was one of her, our natural smiles - and set off on the run, leaving me to catch up. We flipped a coin for who would be setting the pace, and I was already prepared to come home with my legs falling apart from exertion, but she set a pretty mild one, even by my own standards. "He was settling some sort of territorial dispute with the Merchants. Told Mush where exactly he could shove his demands for protection money. Mush objected that having two unmasked capes for his daughters didn't mean jack. Dad agreed and reached for the crowbar. He was very proud to have landed a newspaper page number lower than mine for a change."

Her grin persisted as she picked up the pace which I realized she had been doing the entire time she was speaking -- and not missing a step or a breath.

"Okay, now that I'm about to sell out to The Man and you're living under one roof with me--" I paused to gasp for air, "--will you finally tell me what the heck is wrong with your face?"
 
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[Taylor]


I stared at her, dumbstruck, my mouth slightly ajar from more than my meek attempts to catch my breath. My one consolation was that she was breathing heavily as well, and the sheen of sweat on her arms and neck told me she wasn't a robot double of me sent from the future to kill me and take my place. We were winding down from the run, doing light stretches as we walked home together.

"So, what, you're telling me you've been lying to people all this time?" I asked, incredulous and more than a little offended, mentally reviewing every time I saw her smile at me. The tally wasn't actually that terrible if what she told me was true. Her current smile, a goofy thing I vaguely recalled as being my own before… everything… only grew wider at that.

"Lying is too strong a word, T," she wagged her finger at me, "Besides, do you honestly think every time people smile at you, they mean it? A cashier at the store, a nurse at the hospital, Glory Girl whenever she's not talking to her sister or boyfriend…" She gestured vaguely at another morning runner, a boy a year or two older than us who looked pretty fit, then waved at him. He grinned in response to her, then shot a quizzical look at me. I tried to copy her grin, feeling fake throughout. He wasn't at fault my other self was a manipulative asshole. He waved at me too and disappeared from view around a corner.

"What about Lisa?" I asked, fearful a little bit for the mental image of the one friend I hoped to keep from the mess that was last week. "You said that she does something similar?" I gulped, coldness rising in my chest, "So is she--"

My stupid thoughtful asshole of a counterpart gently took my hand and squeezed once. "I'm not going to say she hasn't manipulated you," she looked up, seemingly thoughtful, then winced slightly. "I have to say, after... well, I screwed up a lot last week trying to get to you--"

"Really?" I injected fake shock into my voice, putting a hand to my chest, "I didn't get that from Grue all but telling me to fuck off at all, nor from the PRT knowing who I was." I flipped my hair in a way that I'd seen Emma do back at Winslow, and barely managed to suppress the feeling of my blood turning to acid, "I mean, I thought you had the situation completely in hand!"

"Ha-ha, funny," she muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets. "And I'll have you know that the identity reveal thing was an accident, it was just supposed to tell them that I was from another world, not reveal you as Skitter." She glanced at me. "Seriously, though, I am sorry about that. I didn't think things would get so…"

"Complicated?"

She shrugged.

"Good a word as any."

The two of us walked in silence before I cleared my throat.

"So... Lisa?"

"Oh!" she yelped, "Sorry, got off track. I was saying that I... I don't really have the best track record with her, and I'm a bit biased since... remember the Bank thing she did to Panacea and Glory Girl?"

I flashed back to that day. "Six words to destroy a family, I think she said."

"Picture that being turned on you." She and I shuddered at the same time. "I don't like her. I know enough of her backstory that I can sympathize with her... but I don't like her, so fair warning--" she held up her hands, "My info is probably biased..."

I circled my hand in the air in front of her, gesturing for her to get on with it. Geez, I was an actual supervillain and I didn't monologue this much. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around... guess not.

Thankfully, she got the point. "Okay, fine. Before I get off on a tangent again, one last note - I at least know she hasn't been fully truthful with you since I know her real name and it isn't Lisa."

"You're absolutely correct, Rose," I shot back, a sinking hole in my stomach opening up.

She nodded and closed her eyes, "Fair point. That being said, though, I do believe that she actually considers you a friend. Tata's pretty genuine about stuff like that most of the time, and I enjoy doing her expressions because of that. Weaponized honesty. Did you know she has about a dozen smiles depending on how much she hates the person she's talking to? I can only do five of those," she soothed my worries, before setting them off again by making a disturbingly accurate impression of a Lisa threatening to tear the Dallon household apart with six short words. Speaking of which…

"Hey, Ems, if you're so tight with Amy, there's this thing that has been bothering me for a while," I began awkwardly, feeling like an asshole for even considering it, "Those six words, do you know... No, don't tell me, just nod."

She stopped to look at me, halfway across a wooden palette someone set up as an impromptu bridge across a crack that crossed the street, making it creak ominously. Opened her mouth to say something before I stopped her, then closed it with an audible click of teeth. Tapped her chin a few times, obviously counting words. Nodded.

"I can think of three phrases that fit into six words that would do terrible things to the Dallon household as it is now," she said thoughtfully, then grinned, "At least, in terms of truth. I could just say 'your house is full of termites', but..." her grin slid off her face as she noticed my unamused look. It took on a somber cast, any trace of levity wiped off her face completely. "I also doubt your Tattletale knows the one that mine actually used, although Carol and Amy were already on the outs by that point because of me."

"Because of you?! What did you do, seduce her?" I snorted, before looking at her accusingly. "You didn't, did you?"

At this point she was fighting back a case of the giggles. "Sorry, but no, no I didn't. It's just funny because... well, when I first heard that her mom didn't like me hanging around with Amy, that's exactly what I thought she thought."

I drew back slightly. "Wait, seriously?" At her nod, I repeated myself. "No, really?"

She waved her hand. "String of misunderstandings on several fronts, but yeah." She tapped her fingers together and followed me as I resumed moving. "Turned out she thought I was seducing Amy... to villainy."

I cocked my head, confused. "Weren't you a PRT agent? How the hell does that even--?"

"Carol Dallon-- Victoria's and Amy's mom--," she interjected, "--was messed up even before her sister and brother-in-law died. I don't know the whole story-- my Amy doesn't like to talk about it --but she's got some sort of 'black and white' thing going on." She paused as we had to double back a bit to get around a car stuck in a section of collapsed road, "So fair warning, she's really not going to like you."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, great, more people I don't know that hate me. I'm blessed."

"I really don't know why she didn't like me... at least, until I was able to get Amy out of that house by inviting her into the Wards," she confessed, "That kinda... split her family…" she rubbed her eyes, "That was a bad month... and the one after that..." Rose sighed. "and the one after that... and then I fought an Endbringer."

"'May you live in interesting times', eh Ems?" I offered.

She glared at me, to my amusement. "Interesting I could handle if I had five fucking minutes where things were boring. There's always something weird or new or some villain trying to set something or other on fire, and speaking of weird, why the hell do you keep calling me Ems?"

It was my turn to laugh. In the distance, I had a fly study the object in an oddly-dressed man's hand, tagging his shoulders with several more. The fly's senses insisted whatever he was holding was edible, which likely meant it wasn't a gun, unless he used it to stir his soup or something like that. I still kept the flies watching him, naturally wary of anyone dressed wrong for the weather. Better safe than sorry and all that.

"One, because Tata hasn't realized it's a perfectly symmetrical response to het being called Tata," I grinned, finding myself bothered by the idea that I was suddenly unsure of the image my smiles projected, "And I learned on Sunday that I do enjoy showing her up. Two, because you keep calling me 'T' and you don't see me objecting, do you?"

"But I think it's neat if we give each other sibling nicknames," she protested, thankfully without pouting which I honestly expected based on her tone alone, "I never had one, and think it's a cool one!"

"Aaand apparently we're more different than you thought! Fancy that!" I threw my hands up in the air, "Because I haven't been ten in a while now. So if I get a childish nickname that irritates me, so do you."

"And there's the real reason why Clockblocker is afraid of you," she said, hopping over the broken step as we entered the house. "You're absolutely merciless!"

As expected, Dad had already departed for work, so I leveraged my status as the actual resident of the house to get first dibs on the shower, leaving my eerie twin to prepare breakfast and check on Angelica, who seemed a tad worried to have been left alone in the house. This will be an issue we're gonna need to find a workaround for when we'll be going to school, or Ward business or whatever, while Dad is working. Unless one of us takes her with them every time?

------

[Rose]


Of course, the villain of the family barely left me any hot water to shower with, but suffering builds character and mine must probably be a freaking skyscraper by now. And Taylor's is likely twice as tall.

After breakfast and a change of clothes, which resulted in Taylor wearing a surprisingly well-fitting fitted shirt - likely one Lisa picked out for her - above a pair of thankfully unskinny jeans (not so different after all!), we left the house with Angelica in tow.

The state of emergency imposed on the city and its general trashed-up state meant looters and other bandits would be operating even in broad daylight, uncowed by the actions of the police or the gangs, because the heroes never really bothered with my-- with our neighborhood. Taylor had her swarms, sure, but I still felt naked without Mjölnir on my hip-- note to self, get Dad to get a new gun locker for our tasers, because I will be DAMNED if Taylor doesn't get some more protection, and I need a safe place to store mine --and so it was in its rightful place, hopefully not too visible as it bounced with every step. In addition, Taylor had a pair of collapsible batons strapped to her belt, although I was unsure whether she was actually good with them. Then again, in the unlikely event she wasn't (because at least one of us had to have full faith in ourself), I was right here.

"So what other terrifying things can you tell me about smiles and how we misuse them?" she asked after some quiet time, clearly unsatisfied with my earlier explanation. "And, more importantly, why only smiles? Why not frowns or scowls or--"

Sophia's #3 ('Hebert') cut her off sharply. I dropped it as soon as I saw the hurt in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for dredging that up!" I half-whimpered, reaching out to hug her, but she swatted my arms away, startling Angelica and making the face I should have used instead. Fuck me, why is talking to myself so difficult?!

We walked on in silence again for a bit, with the occasional pause for the dog to sniff things out. I half-remembered Rachel's explanation about 'sniff walks' and their importance, but the gist I caught was 'take your dog to more places it hasn't sniffed yet' and nothing beyond that.

"I'm… I'm sorry too," she half-whispered, barely audible, "You're trying to help me, I realize that, but…"

"Yeah. But. We're a pair of pretty messed-up girls, aren't we?" I asked, carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders. This time she didn't resist, giving me a nod instead.

"So, something something 'I've frowned enough for three lives already', huh?"

I gave her terrible impression of Clint Eastwood a puzzled look, then nodded myself, accepting the shoving of the elephant in the room out the window.

"Something like that, yeah."

Taylor bent down to stop Angelica from picking up a questionable piece of refuse, then straightened out with a smirk on her face.

"Although you have to admit, you kinda made a mess of taking your therapist's advice about not smiling enough and faking till you make it so far that you crossed dimensions."

It was my turn to stare at her dumbstruck. Then we both burst out laughing like the idiots that we were. Together.

------

[Taylor]


"The good news is, there's no threat to her health, and she will probably recover enough to be able to trot in a month or two," the doctor, a middle-aged man who embodied the word "tired" in every fiber of his being (and every fiber of his clothing too), told us as he helped Rose get Angelica down from the examination table. "What happened to her? Besides the face, I mean, that looks like an old wound."

"She's a rescue," I supplied, "Remember that mess with Purity a couple weeks back? We got trapped under the rubble, her and I," I paused to pet the dog on the head, "All I got out of it were a few scrapes and bruises."

"Well, she seems mostly healthy otherwise, though I could suggest a few supplemental vitamin options?" His hand reached for a prescription pad, but Rose waved him off.

"Thanks, but I fear we'll have to decline," my double sounded apologetic, "Money was pretty tight even before all that," she explained, gesturing at the window.

He nodded, an understanding look in his eyes. "Well, the key thing is that she's not in pain, so it's just a matter of not overburdening her, I'd say."

"Thank you, doctor," I said gratefully as we stepped back out into the waiting room. The city may be in ruins, but people still get sick, and so do their pets. The sights we saw ranged from the mundane, like cat carriers filled with twinkling anger, to the bizarre, like a dog that looked like its fur was falling out in patches right before our eyes. With the bill settled, we hurried to get out of there, remembering our own dreadful experience at age nine, catching some sort of virus in a hospital waiting room after a dentist visit.

The sun was out and the air was warming up and if not for the scheduled appointments at the PRT building for me to officially stop being a villain, I would have rather stayed in this liminal state of perpetually walking the dog and my sister in all but name down an endless road lined by puddles and broken-down cars and okay, that twisted body clearly wasn't a part of the landscape I wanted to see. A recovery crew was extracting someone's remains from a pile of rubble that used to be an electronics store or something like that, and their faces, half-hidden by their hard hats, were about as enthused about the discovery of yet another ruined life as I was. I can't forget what I'm doing this for. We have to stop this city from turning into the shithole too many believe it already is. We. Us. Together.

As we rounded a corner, an obvious issue with today's schedule popped into Rose's head as it did mine earlier. "Crap. We can't leave Angelica alone, not this soon."

"So what do you propose?" I asked, looking down at the one-eyed beast. The beast chuffed, clearly envisioning an option where it would get its own spidermesh suit and maybe a jetpack to zoom around to better bite the baddies for its new twin mistresses.

"Bring your dog to work day, apparently," Rose replied, drawing a questioning head tilt from Angelica. "The problem is, mine or Dad's?"

"Yours, I think. The PRT has to have dog handlers? How did you deal with them when you had your Rachel…" I trailed off, the grief over my teammate and the confusion over the bizarre nature of the question likely plain as day on my face, "...taken in the first time?"

"Fair point. Let me make a few calls, find out if Martinez is onsite. She did it last time, but she's not a Sergeant here, so I can't ask her to dogsit for us. I can, however, ask her to assign someone sensible to it."

"And someone who won't throw a bitch fit when they recognize Hellhound's iconic dog, you mean?" I mused, scratching the dog, the icon, behind the ear once more.

------

[Rose]


After swinging by home to pick up the bag with Taylor's costume, we hiked to the PRT building, owing to the lack of running buses. Or any other transportation, for that matter. We left Angelica in the care of a Sergeant Hastings, who came highly recommended by Martinez (who had a smile and a wink for Taylor as we committed the grave idiocy of walking around the base wearing the generic masks, leaving Taylor's distinctive hair loose).

This chain of events saw us arriving at the door to Mike Chambers's office nine minutes early, but a cursory knock on the door got us in instead of having to wait around in the uncomfortable hallway chairs. Where we discovered the other Chambers, Glenn, instead. Mike sauntered in a few minutes later, bearing coffee for himself and his not-relative. The irony of the room was palpable as the two Owls looked at the two Chamberses, both of which were aware of our true nature.

Glenn clapped his hands together, grinned predatorily - something that looked positively disturbing in combination with his garish outfit and vast volume, making me want that expression in my collection at the earliest convenience - and spoke. "Let's see your costume then, Miss Hebert…"

I ducked out of there half an hour later, citing the need to go on patrol and utterly convinced the battle over the costume redesign would be bloody and prolonged with or without my involvement. I felt a little bad about leaving Taylor alone in there with them, but then I remembered how they'd gotten me to pick my Deputy Commander costume and wished she'd give them hell. Then I snorted.

Hell, I thought, compared to fighting with PR, meeting the Wards should be a snap. And if I tried really hard, I could almost believe that.

She could afford to make a bad impression on the PR veterans. They were used to abrasive Wards being argumentative about branding decisions and would likely not harbor much ill will towards her no matter how much of Skitter's appearance she will be allowed to retain as Arachne (they also are yet to agree to that name, I realized) even if she fought tooth and nail and praying mantis. Note to self: evaluate appropriateness of praying mantises as birthday gifts. Or is it mantii? Damn it, this is the anuses thing all over again.

My patrol partner for the day turned out to be Chris, who was already in costume by the time I entered the Wards Commons. Dennis waved his greeting at me from the console and I saw that Missy's door was ajar, revealing the light was on inside.

"Has James left yet?" I asked as I walked to my room. Chris leaned against the wall outside to wait while I changed. "I hope I haven't missed that!"

"No, he said he'd be back later to, and I quote, 'bid us all farewell'," I heard the Tinker's response over my grumbling efforts to squeeze into the spidermesh. It needed better detergents than the ones the PRT provided, and the stuff I swam in on Sunday certainly hadn't made it any softer. Then again, I now had access to the girl who could make me a new one if the push came to shove. "If I understood him right, he's timing that right for when we'll be back from this patrol."

"Good," I said, stepping back out, clad in my loaner armor (just thinking that I would be getting my own back later today or tomorrow morning made me squirm) and securing the helmet in place. "Route four, right?"

"Amended, though," he nodded, handing me a printout. Route four would normally take us through the Lord Street Market and neighboring streets, but one of them was Dirk - the one I shot Leviathan on, the one whose corner now housed the time bubble. Owing to the security perimeter established around the bubble containing the out-of-town capes, Leviathan's severed foot and four of Armsmaster's fingers, the route was amended.

"Aegis?" I asked, stepping into the elevator after Chris.

"He had the morning shift today, but he said he'd be here to see Browbeat off and deal with a bureaucratic thing? I dunno, he was kinda vague."

That said, the perimeter did precious little to stop people who wanted to throw in empty beer bottles and other refuse just for the novelty of seeing them sink in a few inches and then stop. The fact that one side of the bubble was filled with dirty seawater - which was what probably shielded Armsmaster from being washed away when Taylor was - only added to the object's mystique as a sightseeing spot for the battle that raged here three days ago. PHO mods had a fun time of deleting and blocking the neverending stream of pictures people took of Jotun's resigned expression or Morningstar's terrified one. The fact that some asshole figured out her identity from those pictures and slapped it across the Internet didn't make things easier, but at least that got her off the unidentified cape list, her name would be on the memorial after all, I've learned. Lucy Fern would get some recognition at least in the limbo of frozen un-death than she did in her job as a legal aide somewhere out in the Rockies. Her not having any next of kin made things a lot easier overall.

As Kid Win and I emerged into the glaring sunlight of Brockton Bay's fourth day as a disaster area, a sudden realization struck me. "You're… walking? You can walk!" I exclaimed half-seriously.

"Yeah, yeah, get it out of your system, prove once and for all you're merely a projection created by Clockblocker's secret power he gained because no real girl would show interest in him," was the scathing reply I got. If not for his full-face helm, I'd say Chris was pouting under there, "I'll have you know, all of this is entirely on the head of a certain somebody who, oh I don't know, blew up my hoverboard?"

We set off in the direction of our patrol zone, talking in hushed voices more over the comms than out loud. Ah, the boons of sealed helmets.

"First off... is that just your thought on my secret origin, or is that a PHO thing? Because if it's a PHO thing I gotta go run damage control..." I tried to keep the worry out of my voice. True DeputyH Facts had nothing on Clockblocker's Fantasy Come To Life, "And then get ready for another round of M/S…" After he shook his head vigorously, I continued, looking a little more chipper as I did so, "And second… Yeah, sorry about that," I winced inside my helmet, then shrugged as apologetically as I could, chastising myself for not taking the quarterly refresher course on emoting for heroes with closed masks and helmets. Such were the perils of sealed helmets. "If it makes you feel any better, it hurt really really bad when the Alternator Cannon exploded in my face and I got thrown butt-first into a car?"

"And also Skitter apparently saved you from that? After giving me first aid?" he clarified, and I nodded. "Hell. Still hard to believe she wanted to be a hero. She's just so--"

"Efficient?" I suggested pointedly, before easing my tone into levity, "Implacable? Mysterious?"

"Hey, Emissary, I thought we were discussing Skitter and not yourself?" Dennis piped in over the comms, laughter clear in his voice.

"Thank you, Console, that goes a long way towards explaining why I like her!" I quipped, grinning to myself as we stepped onto Lords Street, or what was left of it in the wake of the grenade-and-forcefield chase sequence that led to the time bubble's creation. "Glory Girl sighted, Console. Win, wanna go say 'hi'?"

"I don't see why not," the red-clad Tinker agreed as we approached New Wave's golden child who was busy moving a collapsed section of a building wall to let the employees of the half-wrecked store get in and check if any of their wares or equipment were salvageable.

We waited politely while she moved the giant piece of ferrocrete, putting it down slightly to the side with a care I didn't actually expect from the so-called Collateral Dama-- you know what, that's grossly unfair. She didn't choose her looks or her powers. She does normally choose to be blasé about breaking stuff though. So, Miss Danger Close?

"Good afternoon, Victoria!" I called out, waving at the floating heroine. She scowled at the sight of me, then eased off when she saw I wasn't alone.

"For a moment there I was worried you've dragged your asshole cousin along to stare at me again," she said in lieu of a greeting, "Hey there, Win!" she added for my companion, "What brings you two to this sight of heroic aid?"

"Your cousin is an asshole?" Chris whipped his head towards me, seemingly ignoring her, "Is that why you tried to set Clockblocker up with her?"

"Yeap," I played along, "Just think of the kind of offspring they can create! The worst of all worlds! Bad puns everywhere! No thesaurus is safe!"

"I'm sorry, did I miss a part of the conversation somewhere?" Dennis sounded worried, but was summarily ignored for the sake of the gag.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry for snapping at you, okay?" Vicky relented, "Maybe she gets a bit of an excuse with the bullying--"

"You knew about that?" Chris angled his head in her direction awkwardly. Emoting-for-capes class told me that was the equivalent of gawping. My Chris may have been second best after Dennis, but that was only because in a class that was literally scientific goofing off, nobody could best Dennis. I had no reason to believe the situation was any different here.

Vicky gave him an odd look. "Dean filled me in, I connected the dots-- wait, how do you know her cousin, anyway?" I gestured for Vicky to fly along with us and she nodded, floating lazily a few feet off the ground as we moved along our route.

"I don't, actually, we've only heard stories," Chris replied guilelessly, making me cringe at the comedy of errors unfolding before me. "And no, she wasn't actually trying to set her cousin up with Clockblocker, although if she's anything like Emissary, I fear the result would be exactly as advertised."

Vicky looked at me with a positively explosive mix of admiration and disgust. "I'd say. By the way, is the rumor true? Skitter's becoming a Ward?" she asked, the perfect picture of innocence, the elusive Glory Girl #7 ('That does sound like a great suggestion!') on her lips, which I failed to learn before locking my Vicky away. Suddenly, I felt compelled to complete the set.

"Yep, she's at the PRT building now, debating her costume redesign with the PR people," I replied earnestly, because that was the actual truth and nothing but.

"SHE WHAT?!" Dennis and Chris yelled in my ears at the same time, making me jump up in surprise, no doubt giving a fun sight to take pictures of for the people watching this Capes Of Our Lives scene unfolding in front of them.

"So, uh, hey, Emissary, dearest of all my friends, would you by any chance... happen to know her range?" Clock gulped over the radio.

I rolled my eyes. "Several blocks. So yes, you are within her range."

"Ah." He swallowed heavily, "If you need me, I'll be ordering a couple dozen cans of Raid."

"I take it you kept that bit from your team, huh?" Vicky grinned wider, "Who's on the line? Clock?"

I nodded, opening my visor to grin at her, an Emma #4 ('I'm going to enjoy this more than you'), "You can talk at him if you have something to say." There were few people out on this street, and both she and Chris already knew my face. That, and Wadjet covering half of it, of course.

"Take Emissary's cousin out on a date just to spite her, Time-Man!" she yelled into my face, sharing a shockingly close vision of her picture-perfect lips (I wondered if Amy did the same thing to mine as she no doubt did to Vicky's) and the invaluable knowledge that her chewing gum was banana-flavored. "I can be the maid of honor at your wedding!"

Oh it is on, Barbie-girl. You're going to regret these words when you're wearing that periwinkle dress my childhood dreams intended for Emma to shine in at my dream wedding to Matthew Broderick. So sure, Dennis is more Zack Ward than Matthew Broderick, but Taylor and I aren't quite Anne Hathaway either.

"I wonder, how many times per day do you have to remind people you have a camera in your helmet?" Kid Win wondered aloud, making Vicky flinch and sending me into peals of laughter as I closed my visor to Dennis's loud protestations.

"What I wonder is why you still don't have one, Win," I pointed a chiding finger at him before turning back to Vicky. "Jokes apart, how are you holding up? After, you know..."

As I trailed off, I realized that she was off her game. The smile fake, faker than mine usually are. The tension boiling, reason enough for her earlier outburst. She was trying to act like her old self, but she couldn't recenter, couldn't quite remember how the steps went, as it were. The feeling was painfully familiar to me, stirring something dark in my chest. However, this Hookwolf was as dead as the one back home, but this Aegis yet lived. I did not get my vengeance, but I felt vindicated anyway. Vicky… had no such luxury available to her.

I spread out my arms with obvious intent and she acceded, floating down to step into my hug, my ribs creaking in protest to the ferocity of it. Kid Win realized how he could be useful as he shooed away the onlookers before anyone could snap a picture. It was easy to think of Glory Girl as unshakeable and impervious to everything. She was, sure enough, but not to mental anguish.

"What's happening, Win? I'm not getting a visual anymore!" Dennis complained over the comms, so Chris shooed him too.

"Bit better?" I asked as we resumed moving, glad to see her jerky nod.

"How are Eric and Crystal doing?" Chris, paragon of tact that he is, asked to make himself relevant to the conversation again.

"They're… trying to get distracted, playing along with Mom's idea about increased patrolling to show that we still matter as a team," she replied wearily, the earlier bluster gone completely. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I must have badgered her hundreds of times to come along on patrols with me, but… not like this. She's running us ragged. It's only been three days and they didn't even get to mourn properly and it feels like it's been a month already..." she trailed off into an uneasy silence.

"Amy?" I asked carefully, hoping I wouldn't set off Vicky's Big Sis Alarm (I wonder if I should ever tell her she isn't the older sister?), considering her opinion of me.

"On standby at the hospital, and she told me last night there's already people coming down with stuff from the dirty water," Vicky provided, then lit up a little, clearly having remembered something, "So, you know, stick to bottled for as long as you can or get a filter for your home?"

"Already have one, the water was never good in my uncle's neighborhood to begin with," I replied, remembering in time to correct from 'my neighborhood'. "You are checking in on her regularly, right? She didn't really have time to recover from Sunday from what you're telling me, and she was barely vertical then."

That did earn me an affronted look, but at least it shattered the gloom surround her.

"If there's anything we can help you guys with--" Chris began before Vicky waved him off, then stopped suddenly. "--anything?" he finished awkwardly.

"Actually, there is something," she said slowly, as if still thinking it over, "Something you told Amy and me on Sunday…" she was staring into my eyes now, straight through the visor. A cheap trick, but very effective - she must have remembered where they actually were when I opened the front. "It was her idea, but we have to sell our cousins on it first, obviously and--"

"Vicky," I said softly, putting an arm on her shoulder, "Take a breath. You're babbling. It's okay, you can tell us whatever it is."

She looked questioningly at Chris, who nodded resolutely, right on cue. Definitely have to do something nice for him.

"We, uh… we wanted to know what we need to do to join the Wards," she finally squeezed out, "I'd rather shatter the team but keep my family intact and sane, and the way things are going right now, it's the only option we have of not losing both."

"Vicky…" Chris whispered, shocked.

"Did I hear that right? Glory Girl and Panacea in the Wards?!" Dennis exclaimed.

"I'll get you a folder of paperwork at the drop of a hat, you'll have less of it to deal with than Skitter did, most likely. Laserdream's of age, right? I have no idea as to Protectorate procedures, but I'd wager they're not much different," I replied easily, but didn't stop there. "I have to warn you though, Tattletale will be devastated," I deadpanned, trying my damnedest to keep the laughter out of my voice.

"The hell does she have anything to do with us?" Vicky's returning fury demanded.

"Depending on how Brandish takes this, you may lose the rights to your cape names, since the merchandising rights are likely registered to New Wave the team, which is currently administrated by one person, "Which means Tattletale will have to invent a new nickname for you."

"Ha!" Dennis snorted, "Does this mean they'll be like those mockbuster movies? All-Healing Girl, Triumphant Female Child, Light Emission Wish and Defender Boy?"

Despite Vicky's demands, Chris and I adamantly refused to explain the reasons for our hysterical laughter.

------

[Taylor]


"I hate you," I told my brat of a cousin as I found my freedom from bureaucratic oppression in the form of a hot drinks vending machine. Much as I loathed vending machine tea, it was my best option without braving the cafeteria which was probably chock full of troopers willing me no good health after I ridiculed their comrades (or possibly themselves) at the gallery. I was mostly in costume, opting for the visitor mask in place of my own, glasses balanced awkwardly over it, since my mask would have gotten between me and this atrocity of a tea. "I hate you so very much."

"What did they veto?" the brat asked nonchalantly, sipping her own crime against tea and wincing. Somehow, vending machine tea always had that distinct tang of drain cleaner eating through your tongue during the first few sips while it was lava-hot, and the PRT's vending machine lived up to that ghastly standard with pride. I felt very much like Dentarthurdent at the moment.

"Nothing," I replied darkly as we stepped into the elevator. By some unspoken agreement, we decided that Angelica was going to be with me as I unmasked to the Wards. She spent enough time changing hands lately, and if we were to get the villain out of her, we'd definitely need to get her used to being around the Wards and their powers.

"Nothing?" she gaped at me, which actually looked pretty funny with the way her helmet was opened and her Tinkertech goggles covered her face. What you could see of her face was all surprise. "Wait, let me rephrase that. What did they impose?"

"Color scheme change, but we expected that," I started counting off fingers on my free hand, there went the thumb. "Then it was 'no using bees' and--" down went the pointer, "--this I don't even get, I mean, I've never even really used bees in my swarms, why do people even think I do that?" My double shrugged unhelpfully. "But they also want me to use no venomous insects, which is bullshit, because I can command them to not use venom. Otherwise the Gallery would have turned out way worse for all involved…" I curled the rest of my fingers into a fist. "And I'm just distracting myself, this is not the time."

"Elephant in the room?" she nodded, tapping her faceplate.

"Elephant in the room. To be frank, I'm terrified out of my mind," I admitted, as we walked the deserted hallway to the indoor conservatory, originally designed as a stress release room. Corporal Jonlan, an awkward bespectacled man who Martinez assured us was a veteran field trooper, was playing tug of war with Angelica using a bit of rope. And losing badly.

On setting her eye on us, she gave a cheerful bark and hobbled over, wagging her tail.

"Angelica, heel," I ordered, and she did. A couple of beetles tag-teamed a piece of kibble for me from the bag we'd left Jonlan for her, which I rewarded her with. "Good dog. Good."

"I have to say, that's a finely trained animal you have there," the Corporal remarked, getting up from his crouched position, "Your doing?"

"Hellhound," Rose said bluntly, "Angelica is the only one of her core pack of dogs to survive Leviathan. Skitter is the last person alive she would obey without question, I think."

"Huh. Fancy that. The PRT's file on her must have been wrong. Master rating my ass," he snorted, shrugging back into his uniform jacket, "Makes me want to smack the boffins who wrote that file upside the head. Want to bet they're cat people?"

We laughed at the obvious joke and bid the Corporal farewell. Rose plotted a slightly different course to the elevator on our way back, which felt as if she was trying to make me memorize the layout of this floor. Or maybe she wanted to go past the armory to requisition me a taser of my own. It wouldn't be Tinkertech like hers, but there was clearly a moral coming to this.

"Alright," she said as she handed me the requisition slip, "Once you're fully inducted, it should already be waiting for you. I want you to have as much options available besides your swarm, and batons alone aren't enough," she explained as we moved on down the hallway. "As a Ward you're not allowed to have a knife or gun or any other lethal weapon on you," she added, curtailing my next question.

By that point we were already entering the elevator. "I see," I nodded as the doors slid shut. "But you--"

"Yeah, yeah, pep talk!" she interrupted me again, "Here's the thing: You're afraid of them about as much as they're afraid of you. Quick advice: try not to remind Clockblocker why he's afraid of flying insects now, they will probably be on eggshells around you, so be as friendly as possible, and Browbeat... well, he's leaving the Wards so you probably won't see much of him but he's... odd, fair warning."

"Oh, good," I muttered, "That actually helps... mind you, I'm still debating the merits of trying to make a run for it."

"I wouldn't," she said cheerfully as she squeezed my shoulder, "Their vision is based on movement."

"Well, that--" I stopped and gave an unimpressed look at her. "That's T-Rexes and you know it."

"We can't really lie to each other -- we both know we would rather face down a T-Rex than do this."

I shrugged. "Fair enough."

The elevator continued its trek in silence before I broke it.

"You'll have…" I started, pausing when the elevator stopped at its destination, then finished, "You'll be with me, right?"

We both will," she gestured to Angelica, "You aren't going to be alone."

With those words, she stepped out, and I followed with her.
 
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Aww this chapter was sweet in many ways....though Rose and Lisa really need to sit down and talk without Rose's bias getting in the way......seriously Taylor she told you that the only reason why she's so 'bitchy' to you is because it's the only way you can trust what she tells you.
 
Interlude 03.G
Interlude 03.G



Glenn Chambers exhaled slowly and rested the glass of ice water against his forehead. For a moment, he just sat there breathing in, and breathing out. Getting his mind into a state of calm serenity, where things made sense instead of the chaotic whirling that the world he lived in tended to do. As a young man, he'd tried Buddhism– admittedly, mostly as a form of rebellion against his so-white-you'd-go-blind community in the suburbs –and while he hadn't stuck with it, he'd learned enough to get a little practice in meditation… and thirty years later he still used those techniques when the stresses of the job got to be too much for him.

He felt the tension leaving his body, his thoughts growing more orderly, the coolness of the glass growing more soothing…

And then he thought back to why he was in Brockton Fucking Bay in the first place, and the glass shattered against the far wall.

"FUCK!" he bellowed, slamming his fists against the desk.

The job of PR director of the PRT and the Protectorate was one that was thankless. Ideally, it was a job where one had to market people with special powers who did good things. That was a job that practically did itself. Unfortunately, that was only on the surface. Parahumans were people who were, at their core, broken. Emotionally unstable people who had been given the keys to the armory and told to go crazy, because it was all free.

This meant that it was his job to make sure that people saw only the good sides of what members of the Protectorate did, and none of the worse ones… like that moron in New York who punched a Mexican boy for "Being a..." (Can't even repeat that in my head!) and then died to the Endbringer last weekend. Or Typhoon, a member of the Phoenix Protectorate whose power had perforated a line of condos while trying to intercept a couple members from the local chapter of E88. Or even fucking Clockblocker who thought it was funny to circumvent the system designed to keep things working smoothly and made life all that harder for all the newly minted Wards that came after him. Glenn could appreciate a good pun as any other man, but what was so terrible about having a safe name like Stopwatch?

But the local situation made dealing with idiots who thought that a sex joke would make a good cape name seem like small potatoes in comparison.

While yes, the Endbringer attack in and of itself was bad, its direct consequences could be wallpapered over with visible patrols of the PRT and Protectorate bolstering anti-looting efforts and rooting out the idiots who would try to say "I am the new Warlord of Wherever", as had happened in at least half a dozen cities that Glenn could think of after they'd been attacked by an Endbringer. No, the issue was how and why the Protectorate Population had been depleted.

Velocity. Strider. Myrrdin. They'd all died well in the line of duty– as callous as it sounded, he could use their deaths to push the "Heroic Sacrifice In The Face Of Evil" narrative –and good on them for doing what they did. The ones he had a problem with were Armsmaster, Shadow Stalker and Taylor Fucking Hebert.

He was interrupted from his mental grouching by a knock on the door, before it opened anyway to reveal the tightly-smiling Mike Chambers.

"So I'm hoping that the glass shattering was you throwing a tantrum and not a Stranger thing going on," he began without preamble as he stepped into the borrowed office Glenn was using during his currently indefinite stay here, "Because I have a feeling you'll be needing this, Glenn." He held up a bottle of vodka and two tumblers.

Glenn raised an eyebrow. "How kind of you. No ice?"

"I can take this back, you know," Mike said amiably, starting to reopen the door.

"I didn't say that, dealing with this thing while sober is a Health and Human Safety violation." He snorted as Mike sat across from him, beginning to set up the drinks, "Last thing we need right now is OSHA breathing down our necks."

"Heaven forbid," Mike dryly shot back as he pushed the shot towards his boss. "That's what we need right now, lawyers. And to curb your worry - I have a perfectly functional minifridge in my office. It's cold enough."

"About what you said though," Glenn paused, swaying the tumbler in his hand back and forth, watching the clear liquid within roll along its edges, "If I was a Stranger, what was your plan, seeing if drunkenness makes me drop my disguise?"

"Hell no, I'm getting a drink for the one who got rid of my asshole boss." Mike tossed his shot back and blinked hard. "Phew! Little bit strong!" he exhaled in one breath.

"You missed your calling as a comedian. Three cornball jokes in as many minutes," Glenn fired back before he took his own shot.

Mike grimaced as he set his tumbler down on Glenn's borrowed desk, not really caring that it was leaving a tiny trail of condensation on a section unprotected by the inefficiently small placemat designed to safeguard the wood from the elements of the office. Fire, from the workplace smokers. Water, from the coffee drinkers and the slowly pooling puddle of dew around Mike's vodka bottle. Air, from the sneezes of those who never took sick leaves. And Earth, from the pots of those raising monstrous mutant Tinker plants in their offices, because surely nothing else could survive in the recycled air and artificial lighting of these halls.

"My apartment was near the Boardwalk, so right now most of what I own is probably sitting on the seabed half a mile offshore," he gestured vaguely in the general direction of the wall behind the other man. Glenn had long since abandoned any pretense of surprise at the fact that most Brocktonites he knew could tell him which way the ocean was. Offhand, in a cellar, while blindfolded. Maybe it was something in the water. "When I say I'm living out of my desk, that isn't an exaggeration– I am literally living at my desk. If I don't try to fake being in at least a semi-good mood I'll start crying, and I'm not sure I'd ever stop."

Glenn raised an eyebrow. "The Trooper Dorms aren't occupied?"

"Full up, Glenn, with everyone ELSE who lost their home in the attack and the Protectorate guys until the Rig is usable again." He shrugged noncommittally. "No idea how long that would take. It got the giant monster version of a saltwater enema, after all."

"Ah," the wider Chambers acquiesced.

"So, time to fess up, Glenn," Mike leaned back in his chair, staring Glenn in the eyes, "You're such an ass that I've considered testing you for burro DNA, but usually you don't break things," he eyed the broken glass, "So what's up?"

"Taylor Hebert," Glenn replied, dropping a meaty hand on the folder that lay to the side of his desk, its front consisting more post-it notes than actual folder at this point.

Mike sighed, shaking his head. He was sitting in the chair the girl occupied not twenty minutes earlier, after all. "I know that, I was there. What about her, I mean."

Glenn placed his head in his hands. "That's just it. What about her? I don't understand. Yes, there's the connection to Emissary, and sure, she's a villain… but I don't get why I'm getting such pressure from above on this case."

"So Piggot's breathing down your neck to make sure that she doesn't attack another art gallery, big deal," Mike snorted. "I thought you were worried she'd walk back on the costume revisions," he added, tapping the sheet of pencil sketches of one of the girls which the other scribbled over with corrections, which, in turn, Glenn traced over in a multicolored flurry of felt pens. The end result was pretty far from Emissary's original proposal, which Ski-- Arachne did not take a liking to.

Glen glared at him. "It's not that. I got calls from Tagg, Armstrong, and Costa-Brown herself. All of them telling me over and over again that I need to accede to her demands, to try to not upset her if at all possible–" Glenn shook his head, "And I have an allergy to ladybirds, so I know not to deliberately antagonize someone who controls them. I just can't figure out why."

"Well, there's lots of theories as to why allergies exist, but some have speculated that it's a sign of the–"

"Not that!" he snapped, "Although… make a note, I am slightly curious about that. What I mean is…" He spread his arms wide, "Why?"

He stood up and began to pace. "Why would so many PRT higher-ups have an interest in such a small-time criminal? It doesn't make any sense."

"Well…" Mike followed Glenn's path as he strode around his office, "She did rob that bank, humiliating the Wards and New Wave and then walked all over the Protectorate heroes at that party at the Gallery…"

"Pshaw!" scoffed Glenn, "You live in a city where actual, real Nazis are often in open gang warfare with either wannabe-Yakuza whose boss deals in drugs or sex slaves, or a group of druggies that includes a cape whose power is literally to cover himself in garbage. Brockton Bay had more requests for resources and cape transfers than every other PRT department in New England combined, but now they show an interest in it? In one wannabe villain who genuinely embarrassed us once?" He shook his head. "One of the things I learned over the years is that 'Cui Bono' is usually the best, first question to ask when something doesn't add up."

"And you think that all the attention to the dimensional wonder twins is bad," Mike concluded, not bothering with making it a question. He knew Glenn too well for that.

Glenn whirled on one foot to face Mike. "There are two problems with it. The first, and most immediate problem, is that I know exactly what they're doing. They're trying to take a girl who– and let's not butter this up, Mike, we've known each other too long for that –was psychologically traumatized over and over again on our watch, by someone we, if not trusted, then at least gave a degree of free reign, so they want to take this girl and force her into a new group that she's supposed to trust and respect like she did her old friends, the supervillains. Another kid on the line in a shitheap city that we're manipulating into working for us." He swore, this time under his breath. "I need a smoke."

"You don't smoke," Mike snapped back with practiced ease.

"I need to start," Glenn countered, waving his subordonate off.

"You've been doing this for years, Glenn."

"I know, I know, it's just…" he rubbed his eyes, growling under his breath. "Some days you just…"

"Get hit with a dose of 'dear god, this is my place in the universe', right?"

Glenn stared. Mike shrugged before continuing.

"We've all had those days, Glenn."

Glenn slumped into his chair. "Right. What doesn't help is knowing that the Brockton Bay that Emissary comes from is bad enough that she knowingly trained herself into the epitome of a child supersoldier to compensate for having a dollar store equivalent of powers and apparently leads her Wards by example in that regard."

He slammed a fist on the table, nearly sending the tumblers flying right from under the bottle just as Mike was trying to refill them while his boss was having a crisis of faith.

"Vista is her second in command. She has Panacea deploy on patrols wearing Tinkertech power armor. The little girl she took in as her foster sister used her persona-creating power to channel Mr. T for fuck's sake!"

He accepted the freshly poured drink, downing it in a flash and setting the glass on the desk with a loud bang.

"Just tell me: are we fighting a losing battle terrible enough that we have to have teenage girls turn themselves into burly muscled men to protect this hellhole of a city?"

"Beats me, I just make up costumes and slogans for them," Mike said languidly as he downed his own shot, setting the glass down. This one seemed to go down a lot more smoothly than the last. "At some point you may have to accept the simple fact that I've already learned: not all Wards want to stay children. They take this whole 'protecting your city' thing as seriously as any Trooper."

"And that part scares me like you wouldn't believe," Glenn admitted, pouring another round for the both of them. "I wonder if that's what World War Two recruiters felt like," he said quietly, before slowly pouring the next shot into his mouth.

Mike sipped at his own shot, idly drawing a sealed envelope from his pocket. He didn't open it, opting instead just to lazily study the scribbles on the front of it.

"So that's one problem down, what's the second?" he asked, smirking at the other man over the object in his hands, clearly fighting back the urge to give it up too early. "I mean, I doubt it can beat 'I have a crisis of conscience about helping make child soldiers', but please, go on, it looks like you haven't had confession in a while."

Glenn looked sheepish as he spread his hands. "I hate to say it, but the second is the one I'm more worried about."

He sighed. "The Chief Director has ordered me to drop any and all efforts at dressing up what happened with Shadow Stalker and Armsmaster and focus solely on promoting Skitter as a new hero."

Mike choked on nothing before he goggled at Glenn.

"You're serious? She told you to just…" he waved his free hand in front of his face, as if waving away smoke.

Glenn nodded sharply.

"But that's– that's insane! We spent millions marketing Armsmaster around the country. He's known as the second-best Tinker in the world. His logo is on everything from toothbrushes to girls' underwear, for– wait, why do we have a male cape's logo on underwear for little girls?"

Glenn shook his head, throwing himself back in his chair, the tenseness finally bleeding away from his bulky form. "Not my fault, that decision was on my predecessor, and it's probably like that because if we stamp some hero's logo on anything, we can charge up to 25% more for it." He raised his shot glass, this time full of water poured from a pitcher on his desk, in salute. "God bless Capitalism, even if it makes me want to bathe in lava sometimes."

Mike shuddered. "Creepiness aside, that still doesn't stop the fact that Armsmaster was a rather large investment, and upstairs is acting like they can just… sweep it under the rug! And Stalker…" he shrugged. "Not as well publicized, but she does have a fanbase among those who like the edgier types of hero."

Glenn shook his head. "I know, I know. The good news is that with a little retooling, Arachne should fill the 'Edgy Hero' look nicely enough, but that's small potatoes compared to the question of how, exactly, we're supposed to act as if one of the faces of Heroic Tinkering isn't on his way to the Birdcage, which his best friend runs, might I add." Glenn splashed his hands out in exasperation, "I'm guessing my opposite number for the Guild is running herself ragged doing damage control for Dragon."

Mike shook his head. "I have the utmost faith in Dragon, if you ask me. As for the other issue…" he sighed heavily, "I never was all that happy about Stalker joining us– no, no, don't get me wrong," he added at Glenn's raised eyebrow, "I'm all for bad guys turning over a new leaf and all that. It's just that it feels like for every Madcap-turned-Assault, we have either someone not really changing at all or going the other way." He shuddered. "Like Sphere, or what happened to Mouse Protector…"

"God, don't ever mention them," Glenn grumbled, "I just hope they'll actually get him to the 'Cage. Man's intense when he wants to be, and I don't want to see what he'd be like on the other side of the law if he gets loose." He sighed again. "But that still doesn't really solve how we're going to deal with this problem."

Then Mike smiled, reminding Glenn of himself for a moment, his face alight with the energy of inspiration.

"Well…" he began slowly, "It would seem to me that one of the best ways to get people to forget something is to offer them something else to fixate on."

"And I suppose you have something strong enough to completely eradicate the memory of one of the most famous capes in the world?" Glenn asked wearily.

Mike shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't say that… but I came back here because one of the boys in analysis passed me this." He held the letter out to Mike, who took it from his hands. "Think we could do something with this?"

Glenn casually opened it, unfolding the glossy picture inside.

And he stared.

It was a shot, from sideways on, of Emissary, standing over Skitter's crumpled, partially submerged form. Her legs were slightly apart, her open helmet revealing a mouth twisted into a howl of rage. From her outstretched hands, a beam of lightning lanced out, connecting with Leviathan's eyeball at the moment it exploded, the monster reeling in what passed for agony on its excuse for a face.

Slowly, Glenn raised his eyes to look his distant relative in the eye, the unasked question obvious.

"There's more where that came from," Mike said in a conspiratory whisper, "Because her drone and helmet cam filmed the entire thing."

"Yes," Glenn whispered, his eyes back on the picture, "I think we can absolutely use this."
 
Nice.

Very nice.

However, a couple of word choices:
Mike, we've known each other too long for that –was psychologically traumatized over and over again on our watch, by someone we, if not trusted, then at least gave a degree of free reign,
Pretty sure that's supposed to be 'free rein'.

Also:
Glenn shook his head, throwing himself back in his chair, the tenseness finally bleeding away from his bulky form.
I think you mean 'tension".
 
Reset 3.03
Reset 3.03

[Taylor]



For a moment, it felt as if the world froze. As of we intruded upon some alternate universe and were watching it through the plated glass of a spaceship, detached and separate from its goings-on. Sure, the mask-up alarm gave them warning, but at the same time it was clear they only paid lip service to it: Aegis wore a generic mask that sat crookedly on his face, obscuring one eye, Clockblocker pulled his on halfway (I doubted it was comfortable enough that he pulled it off halfway) and Vista opted for a Groucho set of false spectacles complete with a bulbous red nose and zany mustache. Actually, it was pretty efficient at keeping her features hidden, I had to admit, but the whole situation still reeked of oddness when they turned to watch Miss Militia stride into the large domed room, followed shortly by Rose, her helmet closed once again, and myself, masked up and at the ready for any potential foul play, the heroine's assurances be damned.

I had a bunch of mites spread throughout the room as soon as the doors opened, and co-opted what wildlife was already present - fruitflies, mostly - so I had a pretty good idea of where everyone was - including someone who I assumed to be Browbeat in the toilet or bathroom or whatever it was down the hall past the supposed dorm doors. Angelica padded softly along next to me, leashed for the sake of appearances. I knew she wouldn't do anything unless ordered to or unless Rose or I were threatened openly, but if it came to either of these outcomes, I could just as easily let go of her.

We took position in a wedge a few feet away from the door as it slid closed behind my back, with me in between Miss Militia on my left (she took the side that had Clockblocker and Vista, the most likely to cause trouble, I assumed) and Rose and Angelica on my right (Kid Win and a re-emerging Browbeat, imposing even in civvies and generic mask) with Aegis front and center. He knew the whole story about us, including Rose's origins, she said, so we could count on him to defuse the situation if the adult and the mistress manipulator couldn't.

"Wards!" Miss Militia greeted them, "We would like to introduce your newest member, who I'm sure you are already familiar with. After a bout of, frankly, creative rules-lawyering, Emissary has obtained permission for Skitter to join," she paused to throw an aside glance at Rose, who seemed unperturbed by the dig at whatever she did to get the PRT's collective head out of their ass, "I know your previous encounters may have colored your opinion of her. Nevertheless, I would like you all to welcome her to your ranks and help her with settling in as the newest Ward of Protectorate ENE."

The Wards… stared. In silence. As it persisted, I felt ill at ease, worried that this will shortly degrade into more misery and name-calling for me. This was a terrible idea.

It was Rose who broke the awkward silence, making me wonder if she was trying too hard to sound like Tattletale. "You started celebrating without us!" she chided them, "Don't tell me the cake is gone too!"

"S-suh-skk-kitter!" Clockblocker finally squeezed out, as if just noticing me and visibly restraining himself from outright pointing. I felt like facepalming. I felt like turning to look behind me to ask 'Where?' and almost did, too. Instead, I did something I read about in a book once. I pointed as feebly back at him.

"Ck-ck-cloh-awkblocker!" I stammered out, squawking halfway through out of the nervous realization that I was making an idiot of myself in front of Miss Militia— who cares, you saved her life, you can act however you want! —and my potential future teammates. But it worked. Vista suppressed a snort of laughter, Aegis grinned widely and it was clear that the confusion overpowered the time-controller's fear of all things crawly as well.

I could hear laughter in Rose's voice as she shook her head, exhaling as the tension bled out of her, her stiff pose making it evident that she didn't expect that from me. I must admit, Alec was a terrible influence on me. Aisha would have probably loved this. Oh hell, these two should never mee— why do I still care what happens to any them? Right, because I'm not a callous asshole like Brian turned out to be.

I was saved from my confusion by my idiot of a cousin taking her helmet off. "In the interest of full disclosure, let the dancing around the tarantula in the room commence," she announced as she dropped it onto a chair that stood near the entryway no other apparent reason besides letting her make jazz hands in my general direction. "I present to you, the Artiste Formerly Known As Skitter, who will promptly be entrusting her life in your hands. Over the course of this Sunday, she and I had also seen Miss Militia unmasked—" a collective gasp was silenced by a jerky nod from the Protectorate heroine, who glared at Rose again - and who was also my new boss, shouldn't forget that, "—and also unmasked along with me to an impromptu jury consisting of Panacea, Glory Girl, Armsmaster, Legend and Tattletale after some spurious accusations. Oh, and Alexandria was also there!" she added with a snap of her fingers. "That's in case you don't think we're being serious with this. Because…" she gestured to me again, and I knew that was my cue.

I grabbed the edge of my mask and pulled, perturbed slightly by the fact that Lisa swiped it off far more elegantly that I just did. "My name is Taylor Hebert. I'm sure you've already heard of me, as Rose is my cousin."

The reactions were varied… and, frankly, a little bit confusing. Clockblocker swore under his breath, his head's turns indicating his eyes were darting to and fro between us, likely noticing the obvious similarities. Aegis folded his arms across his chest and grinned at me and what I saw of the smile certainly lived up to the way Rose talked him u- wait, why are the bugs on her legs moving? Are her legs shaking just from seeing him smile? Holy shit…

Kid Win stood stock still, apparently shocked. Didn't Rose say she thought he had a crush on her? Browbeat blinked blankly and took a bite out of the piece of cake he apparently cut and lifted out while I was being introduced. Finally, Vista was grinning madly. And yelling.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed triumphantly, snapping her fingers and pointing at us both with two hands, "That's why you cut your hair! You realized it would give the game away if any civilians saw you in and out of costume after the thing on Sunday! Was the excuse about the Halberd even real?"

Rose wilted slightly. "Well, you're no fun," she said in that fake pouty voice that irritated me to no end because of how Madison it sounded, "But yeah, that was part of the reason. I thought we'd shock everybody with—"

"Bull. Shit!" Clockblocker forced out, pointing accusingly, ignoring Miss Militia's exclamation of 'Language!' entirely, "You're just playing us to get me to date your cousin, who, while admittedly attractive, simply cannot be Skitter! She's too meek and nice-looking to be that, that witch! It's that thing with Glory Girl!" he stated blankly, making Kid Win smack his armored face into his bare hand, hurting himself if the noises he made afterwards were to be believed.

I was confused. Should I have felt offended at being called meek? Impressed with the bold accusation? Flattered at being called attractive? I was supposed to date this guy? Since when?! I bought time to respond by pulling out my glasses and putting them on with a slight flourish at the end as I pushed them up my nose with my index finger. Then I realized my next line.

"What thing with Glory Girl?" I pondered, turning to my other self. The other self grinned in a Glory Girl-like way and gestured at the white-clad Ward again.

"Win and I bore witness to, and my camera recorded, Glory Girl's promise to be your maid of honor should you ever marry this dork!" she announced triumphantly, so I cuffed her upside the head, naturally.

"You manipulative asshole, you played a grieving girl into offering something you know she won't take back!" I fumed, "What else did you wring out of her?"

My stupid cousin raised a hand while placing the other over her heart. "I swear to whoever is willing to listen, I did no manipulation. She volunteered for that herself, no coercion needed!"

At this point Kid Win butted in. "She also volunteered that Brandish has gone overboard with their patrols, pushing them too hard," he offered, "So the Dallon sisters are considering defecting to the Wards and taking their cousins with them, probably permanently."

That had quite an effect on the assembled capes, everyone's eyes that I could see widening in surprise.

"Have you… brought this up to anyone else yet?" Miss Militia asked, the concern clear in her voice, "I don't recall seeing a report on the subject."

"I, uh, I went straightaway to pick Taylor up after the patrol ended," Rose said sheepishly, "And Clockblocker was on the Console at the time? I was going to check whether he reported it, then do so myself if not once I got to a computer," she explained, her voice growing more steady as she spoke, "There it is, right over there," she added, waving her hand at the workstation idling on a screensaver to the side of the room.

"In the future, please report drastic news such as the imminent collapse of the city's only independent hero group as soon as possible, preferably in person," the heroine said with an exasperated sigh, her fingers rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I have to kick this upstairs. Can I trust you all to behave yourselves around Taylor while I'm gone?" She looked around the room, collecting the nodding faces as she did so. "Good. Is there any other pertinent information?"

"Brandish has gone hardcase," Rose spoke up, "Because if Glory Girl, who normally revels in punching thugs, thinks it's overboard, then it's so overboard we should maybe use the Youth Guard as human shields," she mimed holding something in front of her, before grumbling, "Though I'm hesitant on calling them human, personally…"

Clockblocker snickered, then was promptly silenced by Vista elbowing him in the side. Miss Militia looked reproachful.

"And the Pelham children?" she asked.

"They're all staying at their house because the Dallon residence is ruined, ma'am," Kid Win reported, "And Laserdream is Protectorate age, if things do come to that."

She nodded, then looked at me. For the first time since we entered the room, I realized. "Taylor. Please try not to learn from your cousin's example too much." With that, she gave me a supportive squeeze of the shoulder and departed, leaving me and Rose and Angelica, all unmasked, staring at the assembled Wards, who stared back.

"We still haven't settled the issue," Clockblocker drawled, "Of you actually being Skitter."



"Arachne, now." I replied coolly, feeling my upper lip twitch in the beginnings of a snarl. This is Bitch all over again, I thought, I have to mark territory, show force or it will be the Trio again instead. Except… unlike with the Trio, I have full right to use my powers to assert myself.

"And according to the phone book's worth of documents I had to sign, legally, I have settled the issue. I'm on probation until I'm eighteen, when they'll revisit the issue. But otherwise, no. There is no 'issue'."

"Fine, then, Arachne. How is that less scary than Skitter?"

I felt a hot, sick swoop of anger as I made my words deceptively light. "Oh, I took it from mythology. It's about this girl who refused to bow down to gods and was turned into a spider after being driven to suicide by Athena, goddess of war and wisdom." I'd started sweet, then turned sarcastic, and then dark. "In some versions of the myth, the gods then gave her dominion over all the spiders."

Rose stepped forwards and placed a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

"Your point being?" I asked as everything I could find in the room, or collect across the building in the last ten minutes joined the small contingent that rode in on my costume and inside my hair. Spiders crawled out onto the palms of my hands as I turned them up at my sides, striking a modeling pose I vaguely recalled Emma use, one foot in front of the other. The last time I attempted it, she laughed herself silly at how dumb I looked and I laughed along with her.

This time, I had a semblance of muscle mass to compensate for not having a proper figure.

This time, nobody was laughing as the hornets formed a miniature halo behind my head, Egyptian-style, the flies buzzing to enhance my voice, roaches adding an extra outline to the armor paneling on my costume. Beetles followed the guidance of dust mites and smashed against the lightswitch, managing to plunge the center of the room into relative darkness, leaving only the greenish hue of the computers and the various appliance power lights visible. And the two fireflies I positioned in front of my eyes, which I squeezed shut before lighting the bugs up to finalize the demonic appearance of a squirming living mass of insects.

"Are you convinced now?" my swarm voice asked as the beetles hit the light switch again before anyone had a heart attack. In the light, the swarm held its shape for a second before dispersing, returning from whence it came. Okay, so maybe I retained more of the spiders than I carried in, but I also had some of the roaches originating in the building march themselves into the most custodial-feeling room in the building, judging by the bleachy feeling the flies scouting around got from it, and shaped their procession into a neverending streak of the letters EXTERMINATION IN PROGRESS. When they started dying in droves at their destination, I felt satisfied and diverted the remainder of the useless insects there as well.

"Holy. Shit." Aegis muttered, voicing the opinion almost everyone in the room apparently shared. Rose looked alight with glee. Browbeat looked as unperturbed as before, although he was now covering his cake from above with the palm of his free hand, apparently worried something might land on it. What little I saw of Clockblocker's face rapidly hid from view as he rolled his mask down his face. A bit too late for that, don't you think?

"I've just had approximately thirteen hundred roaches I found on the premises hand themselves in to the building's custodial staff," I announced, making a few flies orbit my outstretched left hand as I dropped the other, "The PR people suggested a good first step for giving me a better rep would be to offer a service like that to all the hospitals and clinics still operating in the city."

"I told you it would be better to have her on the team than against it," Browbeat said after he finished stuffing the rest of the cake into his mouth. For some reason, that didn't make his speech muffled.

"Alright, if you would all please stop antagonizing the girl who cut off one of Leviathan's claws? Thank you!" Rose announced, drawing more horrified stares to her. She grinned wider at the sight. She's enjoying this a bit too much, isn't she?

"So wait, if you're Rose's cousin that we kept hearing about, and you're Skitter, this means you didn't want to join the Wards at the outset because you were being—" Kid Win began, but then saw my expression and dropped the subject along with most of his vocabulary, it seemed. That was answer enough for him, however. "Shit."

"No, I didn't know Sophia was a Ward when I turned Armsmaster down," I replied as evenly as I could manage, trying to keep the thrumming of the swarm in my hair down, "But the school's inaction in what was being done to me was a great first step at ensuring I had no respect for the authorities. The way he behaved after that first meeting only confirmed my fears," I paused to take a breath before continuing my rant, at least quieter than the last one, "This isn't going to be an issue of 'can we trust her', it's a question of 'can I trust all of you to not be like Shadow Stalker', you see."



"So Sophia caused your—" Vista tried to ask, but relented just like Kid Win did. I nodded. She swore under her breath as well, then tore the Groucho glasses off. "—whatever happens to her, I hope she suffers for it. For what it's worth, I apologize for what she did to you," she said, her small adorable face, ringed by that picture-perfect mass of blonde hair, marred by a momentary flash of very Rachel-like fury, "My name's Missy. Welcome to the team, Taylor."

She offered me a hand to shake, and I took it. She had a very impressive handshake for a girl her size. Hell, for a girl my size, and I've been tutored in shaking hands by people that could bend iron bars in their hands! Or, at least Kurt could, but he certainly wasn't the largest dockworker I've ever seen, so it stood to reason-- NOT NOW.

Aegis was next, revealing an attractive olive-skinned face that made me want to blush. Throwing caution to the wind, I did. The fact that Rose called dibs on him doesn't mean I can't soak in the sights. "And I'm Carlos. Don't mind Clockblocker please, he's the price of admission into government sponsorship, sent here to test all of our patiences," he explained, offering me his hand as well. Vista's handshake was firmer, but then again, he was likely holding back, being a Brute and all. "All bark, no bite," he added, before screwing his face in a wince, "Shit, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to offend—"

"Don't worry," I told him, forcing a semblance of a smile onto my face, finally, "Losing Rachel hit me pretty hard, but I know what you meant. No offense taken."

"Rachel, as in Rachel Lindt?" Kid Win clarified, his voice more confusion than interest, "Were… were you close?" he added carefully.

I gestured at Angelica, who looked up at me, expectantly. "I have her last surviving dog with me, so I guess closer than her old teammates were, that's for sure." I didn't sound bitter at all, nosiree. Lies and slander. "Don't worry, she doesn't bite. Unless ordered, of course."

That statement failed to instill any cheer in the Wards, it seemed, but earned a few appreciative nods. Vista— no, Missy, bent down to Angelica, holding out a palm for her to sniff. "I've got a lab at home," she said to no-one in particular, "So what's her name? Did she get hurt when Hel— when Rachel was killed?"

"Angelica," I supplied, making the dog perk up its one and a half ears at the mention of her name, "And no, she was like that when Rachel picked her up. All of her dogs were strays or rescues. Rose said we can get the ones Leviathan killed onto the Endbringer memorial next to her."

"B-but they're dogs!" Kid Win mumbled, making my opinion of him drop into the red. Not a good start, buddy.

"If I am to understand correctly, those dogs... and their mistress... sacrificed themselves to save not only Rose and Taylor from Leviathan, but myself as well," Browbeat said, putting down the empty paper plate that had previously held his piece of cake. "I do not speak exaggeration that without them, I would most likely not be here today." He licked his fingers clean, pulled his mask off with his other hand, and bowed to me. "Thank you for that. I will pay my respects to your friend – and her dogs – before I leave the city tomorrow." He then offered me a hand – not the one he had been licking – and I took it. "While it is a moo point now that I am leaving, I am James. Welcome to the team."

His large meaty hand was surprisingly soft in the handshake he gave me, making me scramble for recollections about what his power did. Forcefields and… something else?

"Moo point? Don't you mean moot point?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, unsure whether I simply heard wrong.

"A moot point is when the argument is meaningless because it won't change anything," James replied, making me look in wonder at how much he looked fit for the Aryan ideals, even as his deeds and apparent beliefs stood in opposition to them, "A moo point is when the argument is irrelevant from the outset, like the moo of a cow."

I blinked at him. He blinked back. It felt like talking to a more eloquent Rachel, except if what Rose was telling me was true, he was like this even before he got his powers.

I looked down again to see Angelica panting happily and wagging her tail as Missy scratched her behind the stub of the missing ear, and allowed myself to crack a smile. I guess they're not all terrible people?

"We're being terrible hosts, guys," she said, standing up, dragging me by the hand to the sofas and the coffee table that held the cake and drinks. I was surprised to see Rose already seated there, her armor a discarded pile off to the side. Her spidermesh was a simple bodysuit, clearly designed for mass-production as an undersuit for armor to be worn over. I still haven't grilled her about that. She said Madison Triggered with my power in her world, so it stands to reason she made that suit, but if she's a Ward, shouldn't she have access to better working conditions that I had in my basement?

"I couldn't help but notice that you girls are wearing suspiciously similar costumes," Kid Win said, still muffled by his helmet and clearly feeling awkward as he was caught between the rock and the hard place of unmasking to the scary bug cape and sweet, delicious cake. Dang it, but I was hungry. "How'd that happen?"

"Spidermesh," we replied simultaneously, Rose's response somewhat muffled by the cup she was drinking from, after which she nodded to me to go on first, "Layer upon layer of spider webs, comparable to Kevlar at this thickness. I used black widows, for the best web weavers available locally," I explained, pulling my gloves off to get access to cake and, incidentally, demonstrate the inside of one of them to the young Tinker, "Took me a while since whatever errors you make with this stuff, you have to correct with bolt cutters or start from scratch. Leviathan tossing me into a building turned my legs to mulch, but the suit only needed laundering."

I blinked in surprise at the blank stares I got. Didn't they get briefed on my circumstances from the hospital? Thankfully, my cousin pitched in.

"Mine uses the same principle, ironically enough, but it's synthetic, Tinkertech-fabricated," she waved vaguely at her midriff, making me realize she was faking it, because it felt the same as mine to my spiders, all-natural, "Guy who made it keeps trying to make the term 'Tinkerfab' catch on, for stuff made by stuff made by Tinkers. Maybe if he gets Toybox to hear it, it will. They'd be all over that like flies around honey."

"Wait, so you… Tinker with spiders?" Kid Win asked incredulously, "What about your mask and armor plates?"

I shrugged, offering him a bemused look. "I don't Tinker with the spiders themselves, I'm not Bonesaw," I took a tiny guilty pleasure in seeing him flinch, take that for saying Rachel's dogs shouldn't be on the memorial! "I just have them weave webs, adjusted in ways that are better for me. As for the armor plates, it's more web and insect shells, mostly from beetles. Individually, kinda fragile. Layered together, good enough to keep me alive when fighting against Bakuda." More horrified looks came my way. "Come on, it was even on an Über and Leet show! At least part of it is still available online! I got a messy concussion out of it." I shook my head, trying to dispel the memories of attacking Emma at that mall, or of Sophia, as Shadow Stalker, humiliating me afterwards.

"Huh," the Tinker replied, unimpressively, then lowered his head, bouncing his helmet off into his hands. "I think there's a lot of things we can learn from each other, Taylor. I'm Chris," he said, offering me a hand. It was a bit clammy, but I wasn't going to complain. I just won the second before last Ward over. "I made that drone your cousin likes to play with. I'm guessing your insect control is a bit like that? Ordering drones around, except without extra gear?"

I nodded resolutely, accepting a plate from said cousin, who was grinning widely. It only took me a moment that she was mimicking Chris's expression pretty decently, as far as her — our — face would allow to. "Except she has one, and I have however many are in my range."

"Speaking of which, how large is it?* Aegis, Carlos, asked, sitting down himself. It felt odd to be the center of attention, but between Somer's Rock and the Endbringer Truce, I realized I could handle it as long as I was Skitter, not Taylor. Except now, to these people, I was both. It was… actually liberating, in a way.

"Several city blocks, maybe? It gets bigger or smaller depending on my state of mind and agitation," I replied, hoping the honesty would be appreciated. "So anything in that sphere is fair game."

"Anything?" Clockblocker asked, his voice panicky.

"Any insect, most kinds of worms, spiders and other arthropods qualify as 'simple enough' for me to control, apparently," I explained, making a few black widows run out to circle around the cake on my plate as I worked it over with a fork.

"What else is there besides insects?" Carlos asked, furrowing his brow. I grinned.

"I think it should also work on some of the seafood, seeing as they're basically the same arthropods, except in seawater. Shrimp, lobsters, crabs," I listed off, noting the distinct lack of laughter, "Both kinds of crabs." At that, they did laugh, although Chris seemed to have missed the joke.

"Crap," Clockblocker said dejectedly, "You can even do puns? I guess I have no choice but to cede defeat," he added, reaching for his mask. "I'm Dennis. Promise not to set your swarm on me, pretty please?"

"Only if you promise to stop insulting me," I countered, not buying his apologetic tone for a second. He was good-looking in a way that wasn't Carlos, and reminded me of Greg in some way, like if Greg was handsome a tiny bit, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Still, it reeked of dishonesty. I had too much experience with Emma and the others to fall for this so easily. Maybe it was the red hair, I wasn't sure.

So when he offered me his hand to shake, of course I took it.

------

[Rose]


It was an odd mix of feelings, although chief among them was rage. That and indignation.

"You fucking idiot!" I bellowed, springing to my feet in front of Dennis, who was gingerly letting go of Taylor's unmoving hand. To my surprise, he nearly tripped over himself as he backed away from her.

"FUCK!" he yelled, pulling as far away as he could from the table. "MISSY, TRAP THEM, TRAP THEM NOW!"

"Trap what?" she yelled back, frantically looking from him to Taylor and back again, and her voice sent Angelica growling.

"SPIDERS!" he pointed at the table, where the Black Widows were still– oh fuck. The feeling of dread only intensified when Dennis screeched like a girl that just saw someone bite her leg off, moving his pointing finger to Taylor's face, completely covered in the spiders now streaming out of her hair. Towards him.

There was a slight shimmer of light as Vista warped space, closing the airspace around the table and Taylor when the first wasps departed from her shoulders. The resulting tube of distorted space refracted light in a decidedly odd way and Taylor seemed a speck in the distance whichever way you looked at it.

I rounded on him. "What the hell were you thinking? Don't you–"

"It was an accident!" he interrupted, "I didn't mean to, I just…"

"Just what, DENNIS?" Carlos hissed at him, trying to twist his head this way and that to see what the insects inside the bubble were doing, "Just thought it'd be funny?"

Dennis glared back at him. "You guys might think that I'm an idiot, but I wouldn't do that deliberately when she's the only one keeping extremely poisonous spiders under control!"

"Black Widow spiders are not poisonous," James piped in, "As they inject their chemicals, they are actually ven—"

"Poison, venom, whatever! Not immediately relevant!" Carlos returned fire, obviously mentally lost in the mountain of reports he'd be filling till the end of the week on the potential fallout of this fiasco.

James raised an eyebrow as I turned to Dennis, who was now shaking slightly.

"So what the hell happened, Dennis?" I asked him, placing an arm on his shoulder. It seemed to ease him off a bit.

He took a deep breath, and let it out shakily. "Her hand was covered in bugs and I freaked for a second."

"You... freaked?" Missy was incredulous, "You froze her!"

"Yes, like you've never had problems with your powers when YOU get emotional," he shuddered again. "I still remember the bank. My goal is to make sure I don't have that happen again. Step one of that plan is 'don't piss off someone who can control scorpions'."

"She doesn't have scorpions."

"Guys?" Kid Win chimed in.

"She could!"

I folded my arms. "So you're expecting me to believe that this was an accident."

"Guys?" Chris asked, sounding slightly more insistent. I tuned him out.

"Yes, I swear!"

"Well, congratulations," Carlos sneered, "You get to be the one to explain to the girl with trust issues that you just froze her in time because of a screwup."

"Guys!" Chris called out, and finally I turned to look at him– or rather, what he was trying to call our attention to.

Missy's compressed space was back to normal, presumably because she saw movement inside and thought Taylor unfroze, except… Angelica was curiously sniffing at the cockroachy foot of one of Taylor's swarm clones which was otherwise made up primarily of fruitflies, hornets and houseflies, all quietly buzzing now that we weren't separated from them by the warped space. It was looming ominously next to its creator, gazing at her frozen face, which was still patrolled by the spiders from her hair.

"Huh," buzzed the clone, "This is different."

"Hello, bug individual," stated James. "Are you a new person or part of Arachne's powers?"

It turned its 'head' towards him, then stared at him for a moment before slowly responding, "I am part of Arachne's powers."

He nodded once, satisfied, then headed back to get another piece of the cake. At this rate, I would never get around to tasting it!

Carlos stepped up, nodding to the mass of bugs. "I'm sorry for what happened. Please rest assured that Dennis will be punished for this, I promise."

"See that he is," the clone buzzed imperiously, turning tge rest of its 'body' towards the Wards, and I started to feel a twinge of suspicion in the back of my mind.

"If it matters," Dennis spoke up, sounding more apologetic than I'd ever heard him – well, either of him – sound in my life, "I am sorry. If there's–"

The swarm clone waved a hand, silencing him. "Across the street, Joe's Sandwiches. Number 2, extra lettuce, Medium Coke."

"On it!" he cried as he bolted for the elevator, barely stopping to pick his mask up.

As the door hissed closed behind him, Missy turned to me, leaving Carlos to shake his head in amazement at Dennis's eagerness, "Did you know she could do that?"

"No, she didn't, because I can't," Taylor said with a chuckle from behind them, making them nearly jump in surprise when she spoke. "I was afraid he couldn't resist doing something like that on purpose, but he obviously had no idea what two years of not trusting anybody can do to a person." She gestured back to where she was standing before, a faint outline of her hand left floating in the air. Then, when Dennis's power must have run out, it collapsed into a tiny puddle of insects on the floor, which promptly scuttled out of sight, some of them by air. "I just didn't expect my precaution to cause what it wqs defending me from. The spiders on my face were to conceal my breathing and blinking."

"You made an air gap using bugs?" Missy gasped, the idea lightbulb all but visible above her head, "You could probably fool a lot of Manton-limited powers like that!"

"Yeah, but I'm guessing I'd need more than a hundred fruitflies to trick yours," Taylor nodded, grinning at Missy in a way I haven't seen her yet. More importantly, it was a grin I didn't remember owning. Have I forgotten a part of myself?

"One question though," Carlos raised a finger, "How do you stand them crawling all over your face?"

Taylor shrugged awkwardly, the smile sliding off her face. "I can feel them as if they're a part of me. I know it's creepy to others, and I guess I'll have to work on that now that I'm officially a hero, but for me it's about as stressful as scratching my noae with my hand," she explained eagerly before looking worried again, "I'm sorry I set Dennis off, but it was too good a chance to pass up so I played along. Did I, er, overdo it a bit? Do you think he'll get over it? Should I apologize too?"

"Nah, sweating over it may do him some actual good," Carlos replied with a shake of his head, "Maybe he will learn something from this, drop the habit of pranking people with his power like that."

"I still feel guilty about scaring him like that. The bank, too," Taylor repeated, rubbing the back of her neck, "Not the food run, though. I am kinda hungry," she added hesitantly, earning herself a sympathetic smile from Carlos, which sent her into another cute blush. Wait, do I look like that whenever he smiles at me?

A cursory look to check for Chris, who had fallen oddly silent since Dennis's departure, revealed that he was seated on the sofa again, occupied with the formidable weight of Angelica's head in his lap. Considering she had demonstrated her gravity manipilation powers on me last night, it was easy to understand why he was busy giving her head scratches.

"You can always eat cake?" James suggested, offering Taylor a plate with the last piece on it. She accepted it with a nod and a small smile.

And while it looked like I wasn't getting any cake after all, I felt quite okay with that.
 
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Wonder when (if) they'll let him in on the joke? :p
 
Reset 3.04
Reset 3.04

The hell of a day finally ended with hugs all around as we bid James farewell, while Dennis unclenched ever-so-slowly once we managed to convince him Taylor wasn't going to give him fleas or something and did quite enjoy the sandwich he procured for her. And so, as the two of us trudged home afterwards, Angelica at our side, I felt elated as it seemed I've managed to put some spring in Taylor's step. She certainly looked much more upbeat walking away from the PRT building than she did walking towards it. I never doubted Vista's ability to endear people to herself for one bit.

While the others were celebrating, I dropped my report on the Dinah Alcott situation into Director Piggot's inbox, CC'ing Hannah and Nate. The only bad news of the day was that my petition to personally question Über and L33t has been denied again, this time with a note that they weren't in Brockton Bay anymore. When did that happen? I swapped that out for one to visit Sophia instead, leaving the date to the discretion of the responding officer, which would likely be Nate or Hannah at this point as well. It was time for the man to learn to step up if he ever wanted to stop being a non-entity of the ENE. I was still ruminating on potential ways to shake Dauntless out of his spiraling self-loathing which somehow only got worse with Armsmaster's decommissioning without magicking Doctor Yamada into Brockton by the time we reached home.

We spent the evening sharing the less garish tales from our cape lives with Dad - like Taylor learning she had to use bolt cutters to correct mistakes in her costume design before she realized she can just have the spiders eat the incorrect web away like they did in the wild. My contribution was the story of recruiting Synod and the tale of the Pink Unicorn Shirt, followed by the demonstration of its wayward brother. Much laughter was had as I described its merits and importance in repelling unwanted advances unto my person.

It still felt weird to sleep in the guest room of my childhood home, but I hoped it would not be a permanent arrangement. Oh, how I hoped.

------


Thursday wheeled past in a blur of paperwork, of carrying my armor from one lab to another, and then another, because it turned out the local PRT didn't know the particular composite it used - another tickbox for the 'divergences unrelated to The Deputy' list - and finally the evening found me gingerly loading it into the ablative paint machine with Chris's help. The young Tinker was clearly apprehensive about rummaging around in his mentor's workshop in his absence - likely permanent, judging by the lack of any information filtering back to the PRT ENE. It seemed that it would not actually be given over to Win, staying in its current liminal state as Dragon took over Armsmaster's extant projects using her access to his waldoes and commandeering Kid Win for things they couldn't do. Somehow, I couldn't imagine Chris objecting to that turn of events in the slightest, partly because Colin apparently wasn't much of a mentor and partly because duh, which Tinker would willingly turn down a chance to work with Dragon?

Having to play minder to Taylor between her repeat visits to the Chamberses to finalize the suit design and nail down which additional components she would need to get in order to construct it herself put me off the patrol schedules for the day, but I was glad for it. Not having access to my own armor made me wary of catching a stray round even more now that I knew it was actually superior to the stuff they used around here. Speaking of Taylor, she was being fast-tracked into active duty due to the state of emergency and her swarms being potentially useful for recovery efforts and mapping out collapsed buildings. This meant my advance requisition of a taser for her was a timely decision - she pressed the Chambers Boys into letting her have a gunslinger-esque loosely-hanging (actually securely fastened to her thigh) holster for it as part of her new costume.

As I brushed away the metal-and-circuitwork debris of some failed project off Armsmaster's largest workbench into an empty plastic tub, I contemplated the irony that Taylor would be getting a Tinker workshop of her own now. She was supposed to use it to house her spiders and dressmaker dummies and of the three spaces she was offered to pick from, she chose the one that was originally designed and outfitted to be a chem lab. Whatever the reasoning the building's architects used to justify the decision (likely influenced by the Tinker that originally resided there at its inception, but he died in 1999 so we couldn't ask), Taylor's preference for the only Tinker space with windows that could be opened was obvious: rapid and/or remote swarm deployment. The huge stash of glass containers for fiddling with venoms and insect eggs wouldn't hurt either.

Chris was using the largest workbench in Armsmaster's lab for the express reason of assembling his new hoverboard and I was helping as repayment for his help with the paint machine as Dragon turned out to have no access to it, but she did walk us through its operation. It took a bit of effort, but we got everything locked in. In 27 hours, I'd be prim and protected again. I've also put in an order for a second set of plates, even if they would be made from the inferior local stuff, because if I got into a fight tomorrow, it just wouldn't do to have to wear the loaner again. I had an image to establish for the city.

"So, uh–" Chris began, layering the pieces he produced earlier this morning, and yesterday's as well, apparently keen enough to get his board functional again that he was willing to work without 'falling through the hole in the circuits' as my Armsmaster once described the sensation to me. This meant he had to keep talking, but I didn't mind, and he seemed to be glad for it. "–you're sure Taylor doesn't have a grudge against the Wards for what Sophia did?"

"Nah," I shrugged dismissively, helping him align the segments of what would be the keel, or whatever passed for it in this contraption, "She's unhappy nobody noticed anything until I literally pushed the PRT into their mess nose-first, but she's aware that Sophia probably never did anything incriminating around you guys, so the only other Ward she could believably feel angry at would be Dean and, well—" I spread my arms out in another exaggerated shrug. I seemed to be doing a lot of these lately.

"Yeah," he agreed, then looked apprehensive for a moment, "And how do you feel about the issue?"

I blinked at him in confusion as I held the segments in place while he plugged in all the connectors and receptacles together. The whole thing came together like a multi-layered cake of snap-on pieces, presumably with the intention to swap them out whenever they became damaged or worn out or he built a new and improved one. Heck, maybe they'd teleport in, like his Alternator Cannon was designed to.

"Regarding Sophia?" I clarified as he gestured that I could let go of the board now. We flipped the construction over and set out to repeat the procedure.

"Well, yeah. Sorry if it's inappropriate, but, uh–" he trailed off, making some sort of circular gesture at my utterly confused face. "It looked like you maybe had a thing going?" his voice became progressively smaller as he neared the end of the phrase and my expression, rated on a scale from one to ten, neared 'full sour lemon'.

"Oh-kay," I exhaled, my first instinct being to deny everything. I cannot be attracted to Sophia fucking Hess! I just needed to avoid rocking the boat until I had Taylor legally covered! She flirted at me, not the other way around! "I maybe get where you're coming from, but in case you haven't noticed," I paused to roll up my hoodie's sleeve up, then waved the tattoo in front of him, "I have a much better-behaved athletic Ward on my mind."

"Yeah, but except for that one glad-to-be-alive hug on Monday, you mostly avoided him since arriving here, haven't you?" Chris asked, his voice a little subdued, his face a little too close to mine as I helped him get some sort of extendable servo arm back into the hatch it poked out of. "And I may have been half-asleep, but I checked with Dennis and he saw the same thing that I thought I saw. She kissed you, and you didn't resist. I'm just worried you might be, well, in denial, kinda?"

I was scandalized. Do my Wards discuss my personal life behind my back? But there isn't anybody to suggest me having a relationship with, is there? Except maybe… But I still haven't–

"On the neck, and I was too busy hugging the boy who you've just reminded me owes me a date!" I exclaimed, maybe a little bit too enthusiastically, judging by the hurt expression on Chris's face. I know what you were angling for, buddy, but surely there's a clause in the Bro Code about not inching in on the girl that has a crush on your friend?

"Wait, how does he owe you a date if you don't talk to him?" Chris asked, making an adorable face of confusion, like a cartoon cat. "And also, I think that's it. Time to take it out for a test flight," he went on, patting the board fondly. I gave him an apologetic smile as I helped him ease it off the workbench, then put the tubful of mess that I brushed away off the bench back onto it. Not going to spread it all over it again, but just in case it's important, I'm not throwing it away either.

"Glad I could help," I grinned back (Taylor Hebert #6, 'You are not alone', because I wanted to do something good for him, not shove him face-first into the friendzone), then whispered conspiratorially, "And we do talk, just not where it would seem unprofessional, you know? Not that I get a lot of opportunities for it, what with some new crisis springing up every time I'm about to relax," I lied through my teeth, resolving to get back to Aegis about that date ultra ASAP before I forgot again.

"Don't relax too quickly though," he countered, putting his helmet back on, "I reused an older antigrav for this one to save time, and if the setup turns out to be too heavy for it, I'm going to need your help with a spatula to scrape me off the pavement."

The gallows humor failed to amuse me, but I didn't let my face show it. He deserves to have his fun, I just shouldn't let him be stupid about it.

"Then why won't you do the test flight at the indoor basketball court?" I suggested, replacing my own mask on my face and pulling up my hoodie's hood. Hopefully, my visibly displayed ID badge will stop me from being harassed at checkpoints over the hood. "Wide enough so you won't hit the walls, at least at first, and high enough to check if it will fall?"

------


Taylor's power testing was still underway when I walked into a different lab, two floors up and across the building from the one I started at. Assault was watching the proceedings with rapt attention, gesturing slightly along to Ravel's Bolero, which Taylor was making her swarm bounce to. It was a pretty mesmerizing sight, and the fact that I entered a roomful of loud music didn't stop her from sensing my entry, turning to look at me a give me a small nod. I was certain she was grinning under her mask. She was literally sculpting the mass of insects to the music, and she still had enough multitasking capacity to do things with her physical body.

And she does it all on the fly, from afar. I am almost afraid to guess who would outdo who in a contest between her and Weaver, even assuming she would forgive Madison given her circumstance.

"Did she pick the music?" I asked Assault, dropping down into a seat next to his. "Not Night on the Bald Mountain or Mars, Bringer of War?"

"Nope, that was her all along. She began with Brave New World, if that helps?" Ethan grinned at me from under his visor. I wondered if he knew what happened between me and his wife on Sunday, or if he was already acting on it. Then I realized I didn't have to guess.

"Assault, listen… I keep running all over the city so I didn't have the time to seek her out, but I'd really like to apologize to your– to Battery –over what I said to her on Sunday," I rattled out, holding up a finger to show I wasn't done when I paused to take a breath and he tried to speak up, "Could you please, I don't know, tell her I'm sorry and that I'd like to talk if she has—"

This time, he silenced me. "Okay, first, chill. We talked it out, she realized that not only Armsy was out of line all by himself, he was also attacking your family, which accounts for a lot of your reaction then," he grinned again, seeing me winding down from his words, "And second, you can tell her yourself, she'll be here in, like, ten or so minutes? I gotta go on patrol and your cousin's test shows no indication of slowing down."

He gestured behind me, and, with a widening grin of my own, I watched how my other self made a dozen swarm clones which surrounded her, then one more which engulfed her. The scientists looked away while she reshuffled her crowd, then looked back at her, whipping out various kinds of testing equipment. They're trying to see how effective her bug concealment is?

"How the hell are all of them giving off the same thermal image?" one exclaimed. I heard Assault snort over my shoulder. A different scientist, this one female, but as bald as the bearded guy that spoke first, facepalmed with a loud slap.

"Right, bees versus hornets! Bees can vibrate to generate heat, and you can probably replicate that with other insects, though maybe not to the same extent?"

"Third from my left, farthest row from here," I called out. Heads turned to me, and the clone I indicated fell apart, revealing Taylor crossing her arms in a huff. I gave her a Tattletale #2, 'I think I figured this out', then explained, "Sorry, I've worked with an insect controller before, I know how some of the tricks work." They stopped the music and crowded me as Taylor dispersed the insects into the designated storage tanks. Huh, they shipped specific insects in for her to play with. I hope these came out of a lab somewhere in town and not by hogging space on an emergency relief transport.

"Oh, you two are just perfect as a team, you know that?" Ethan laughed this time instead of merely chuckling, "Guess Dauntless owes me money over saying the stuff you pulled fighting Leviathan was a fluke because one of you, probably you, Emissary, was good at adapting."

"Well, he was only partly wrong," I rebuked, "We both are, I simply have more combat experience. And you guys," I turned to the huddle of lab coats, "Rely too much on your gadgets. She has to hide her whole body in the insects, the clones are empty. The human body is not cylindrical and she isn't good at faking the shape of her head in the clones yet - most had the "neck" too thin to hide an actual costumed human inside." When I saw Taylor's shoulders droop a bit, I raised my hand again, "The operative word being 'yet', of course, because now she knows what to fix. Better luck next ti– oh, right! When you figure out how to get backscatter to see through a cloud of insects, please give me a call, I need the upgrade for my goggles."

As I spoke, I was moving through them and towards Taylor, ending in a hug that left her stiff as a board until she melted into my embrace, relaxing noticeably. This felt oddly like coaxing Amy out of her shell. Hopefully, with both Taylor and Vicky on my side, unfucking the local Amy would go easier and not involve any oddball if brief hookups with Youth Guard interns.

"You're no fair," she muttered quietly enough so that only I could hear. "But still, thanks for the heads up. What really gave me away, though?"

"Flight patterns," I replied just as quietly, "You had the empty swarms cycle through the chest area, which the you-swarm avoided. Compensate for it or learn to fake it, 'kay?"

I let go of her in time to see her nod. The bald beardy guy called a break for coffee and the crowd around us dispersed, leaving only Ethan and Taylor standing next to me. He jumped at the opportunity.

"Hi, there, Sk– err– Arachne," he began, not even really stumbling over the name correction, "I'm Assault, nice to meet you without you trying to shove something small and crawly into my ear," he raised a hand to shake, his smile winsome. I recognized it as his #1, 'I'm a hero, you can trust me'. I was still miffed I couldn't pull it off, it would have been a great flirting ai– Aegis, fuck. I've been such a scatterbrain lately.

Taylor flinched, likely wincing under the mask, but I was almost certain that he didn't catch it. "I did what I thought was right at the time…" she muttered and looked at her feet before clenching a fist and staring him directly in the visor, "Though I am truly sorry about doing that. As you can see, I'm a bit limited in what I have to work with."

"No worries," he shook his head, his voice light, showing that when he put in the effort, he was easily the most PR-savvy Protectorate cape in the city. "So long as you never do that again, we're good. And I couldn't help but notice that you're in no way limited in how you work it."

"Um. You do know I'm fifteen, right?" Taylor asked uneasily, making me snerk in a way that sobered me up immediately due to how Alexandria-like it sounded.

"Don't worry, he's married, it's his way of earning your trust," I explained, privately enjoying the way Ethan's smile dimmed a bit. I can totally see how Sarah gets off on acting like this all the time.

"Well, for what it's worth, I was just going to ask Arachne a bit about how she's been settling in as a hero," he de-escalated gently, "You know how tough it can be when you switch sides, I'll bet?" he directed the next question at me. I smiled back, aiming for more of a polar fox than a fennec that persistent fan of mine – Aisha, was it? – sometimes reminded me of.

"Okay, I see where this is going, MC," I interjected, watching him deflate further, far enough, by my reckoning. "So don't worry. I'm watching out for her."

"Or at least she's making a good enough impression of it," Taylor quipped, her hand on my shoulder. "I'm not five, Ems, let the man speak his piece."

"I thought I asked you not to call me that?"

"I thought I asked you not to coddle me?"

"I thought sibling rivalries rarely happened to cousins," Assault noted idly to Battery, who shrugged in response. Wait, when did Battery get here?

"Depends on the personality and the upbringing conditions, really. I'm pretty sure Shielder thinks that he has three older sisters, not one," she quipped back, and only the sound of Sam's voice was enough to make me stop arguing with Taylor. It was true, however, we did have a bit of a… sibling thing going, it was chiefly my fault due to the way I treated her. She is not Anne-Marie, we're the same age, she's not supposed to follow my lead in everything!

"Battery!" I exclaimed, turning around to the sound of the rising agitation of the insects in their containers, "Just the person I wanted to apologize to! I'm sorry I got carried away on Sunday, I know you were acting on bogus orders and none of it was your fault—" I cringed at the way she flinched at the mention of bogus orders. Well, shit.

"—that they were, as you say, 'bogus'," Sam responded dryly, "But you're also new, and were acting above your station. How was I supposed to react?"

"But to be fair, it's not like either you or Legend tried to stop Armsmaster from manhandling me, Truce be damned," Taylor added her five cents, somewhat snippily, "Though I guess you were glad to see him do it after the gallery fundraiser, huh?"

"Alright folks, let's kick it all down a notch, shall we?" Assault suggested, interspersing himself between his wife and my 'cousin'. "MM said there's gonna be a big team meeting tomorrow, Protectorate heroes and you two, to cover all the conflicts of interests. Let's stow the attitudes until then, a'ight?"

"Sure thing," I said, "I'll take Battery's place at the testing in that case, if there are no objections?" There seemed to be none, although I couldn't help but wonder if we accidentally made an enemy today.

The two started to walk away, before Ethan leaned back and pointed at Taylor, who looked taken aback for a moment. "Just remember, my door's always open," he added, before he resumed his conversation with his wife as they left the room.

"Is she really his wife?" Taylor whispered to me.

"Yeah. She was a Ward, he was her nemesis, then she caught him, turned him, married him," I listed off, matching her volume. "Small surprise he sees a kindred spirit in you. My version of him did the same for Rachel, but I didn't understand him then like I do now."

"Is that why you scared him off of me?" she asked playfully, putting one hand on her waist and jabbing me with another in my solar plexus. It didn't hurt, of course, but it was unpleasant. "I swear, if I have the same helicopter parent instincts as you do, I'm not having kids ever, to save them the embarrassment."

"I'm sorry, I just–" I paused, unsure if the hollow excuse would even work. If it even worked on me. "For whatever reason, I can't stop projecting my Big Sister feelings onto you. So when I do the hovering thing, buzz me or spritz me or whatever. Deal?"

I held out a hand for her to shake. The web-gloved hand shook it, the feeling reminding me of a similar situation with Madison, months ago. And just like then, when I pulled her into a hug, I got no resistance. This, at least, I still knew how to do right.

------


Come Friday, I had a morning patrol before the meeting, which was scheduled into the lunch timeslot. Dennis and I were supposed to scope out one of the proposed routes for emergency relief aid delivery trucks, and investigate reports of capes taking territory for themselves devoid of police patrols and PRT oversight. The one we were headed for was near the partially flooded area where Leviathan failed to collapse the city center into the aquifer below. Instead of a lake or a sea, we had a pond, and now someone claimed the newly-formed beachfront property.

My heart fell at the thought of discovering the possibility that the Empire were setting out to set up their own Escape From New York thing right here in the Bay. However, it also rose again on the notion of Kaiser taking the story role of a large black gang boss, a concept that was infinitely hilarious on second thought.

Dennis kept mostly quiet as we walked down the road his PRT smartphone indicated for us (he had the lead as I stubbornly refused to part with my brick and the system that generated the routes refused to work with Wadjet), probably still unsure how much of what he would say to me would filter back to Taylor or vice versa. At least having Missy on console was a treat.

"Be advised, we've just received word from New Wave that the zone you're supposed to investigate for parahuman control expanded since last night," she called out over the radio, professional as ever, "There are now border markers along the perimeter. You'll be brushing against them once you make the turn onto Westlake. Guys, please be careful?"

"Don't worry, Console, I'm always ca–" Dennis began before having the wind knocked out of him by a bright yellow cloth ribbon crossing the street that he tried walking through without moving it out of the way. Judging by the way his chest seemed to treat it as if it was made of concrete, I spared a chuckle at him being given a taste of his own medicine.

"Console, the parahuman in question appears to be Parian," I reported, patting Dennis on the back as he fought to get his breath back. "Attempting to establish contact, please make a note that she seems to have some sort of early warning system set up with her power."

"Acknowledged, isn't she one of the truly neutral ones?" Missy asked over the sound of keyboard clacking. Despite having literal Tinkertech used in our comm suites, the penny-pinchers of the PRT still insisted on hooking up peripherals from the nineties up to them. On the one hand, cheap to replace after power-related incidents. On the other hand, most people got easily irritated with the sound.

"I'm thinking she's worried about being next door to the Empire. Remember, they're looking into recruiting to replace their losses, judging by the latest reports," I tried to mask my prior knowledge about Hookwolf's failed recruitment of Sabah. Of course, here she never unmasked, so they probably hadn't pressured her that much. At least not yet.

"Stop!" came a familiar muffled voice, as a cloth donkey trotted into view, its distinctly dressed mistress cutting what I suspected she hoped was an impressive figure. To those who hadn't seen what she could do, it came across as more comical than anything else. For those who had, they saw a cape riding on the back of a huge pile of her weapons. I surpressed a shudder with difficulty.

She looked down on us, looking down the nose of her mask. "I already told Cricket that this area is under my protection." She waved an arm, and a trail of strings followed. "I will not join the Empire. None of us want their 'help'," She leaned in closer to us, the donkey doll adjusting its footing as she did so. "So what would make Kaiser think that I would be any more amenable to the Hitler Youth than to the adult capes?"

I carefully held up my hands to show I wasn't trying to trick her. "No, no, I get what's happening here," Dennis shot me a look of confusion– well, I thought it was confusion –as I rushed to explain, "I'm Emissary, and this is Clockblocker - we're from the Wards, our costumes are just... well... Leviathan, you were there too," I shrugged. It was true. Clock was wearing a backup version of his signature outfit and I was still in my loaner costume, which in the dim light beneath the overcast sky made us look like a crazy survivalist and her KKK buddy.

She folded in on herself a little bit, holding a hand up to where the mask's mouth was. I could bet my monthly allowance that were she not wearing a mask, she would be blushing and biting her thumbnail at the memory of eyeing me up so openly during the briefing.

"Right, you lead our group from the Docks," she recalled instead, gesturing at Dennis, "Is your partner okay? I'm sorry if he got hurt, I can't monitor the neighborhood without using my power on the lines and ribbons I spread out."

"No problem," he finally spoke up, fake-coughing as he punched himself in the chest like a cartoon character would, "Just caught me by surprise, that's all."

"What brings the Wards here?" Sabah asked warily, finally deciding to make the donkey lower itself down so we wouldn't have to crane our necks up to look at her. "This is the first time any of you came this way," she said with suspicion, and I got the impression she'd be squinting under her mask, "And it wouldn't be hard to put someone in fully-concealing suits..."

Dennis shrugged, projecting his best Good Cape Image, bringing to mind my earlier encounter with Assault. "We heard reports of some new cape taking territory. Turned out it was a known cape becoming more active. Who knew?"

I could hear the grin in his voice, as much as it was hidden behind his mask. The irony of the situation - three people in full-face masks having a communication breakdown because of it - made me snicker out loud.

"What's so funny?" he turned to me, more confused than offended.

"Parian, do you know what my power is?" I asked instead. It would be better if I could air at least some of the stuff I was trying to hold in, especially if we were to win her trust. Nobody deserved to have the weight of the lives of people dear to them hung onto their parahuman ability against their will. Getting Sabah to accept our help would be crucial here.

"You're some sort of Brute?" she asked more than stated, then added, still a little guarded, "I don't remember what your Thinker aspect is."

"Profile building. Useful for negotiation, social integration, manipulation," I listed off, trying to keep my voice even. I was rushing things, but the more time she wasted on us, the less she had to patrol her territory. "I'm being upfront here so you don't attack me when I turn off my comms," I pulled my helmet off, watching her first gasp at my 'unmasking', then relax as she saw Wadjet, "And tell Clock here something he should not repeat."

"Alright, hit me," Dennis replied, making the necessary gesture for switching off his own comms. I hoped. He bungled that before more than once.

"I know that you're not Empire material because you're not white, and you're not straight. I promise you that I won't share this information, and he won't either, because we're Wards, and we take that stuff seriously." Deep breath, now for Sabah, "And sorry, khiat jamila, I'm fifteen so I'm not in the Half-Plus-Seven range. I know the Wards aren't the most ethnically diverse, but you have nothing to fear from us. If you want, we can arrange so that only female capes come this way?"

She looked taken aback, started sputtering. "Excuse me? I'm not- wait- wha- I wasn't going to ask you–! Wait, why—"

I grinned at her earnestly. "I do have eyes under these," I tapped Wadjet with a finger, "And I'm observant, Ms. Wandering-Eyes-Before-An-Endbringer." God help me Dennis is rubbing off on me so badly...

"Why only female capes though?" asked the teammate/pain in my backside/friend in question, oblivious as always.

"The only male capes we have right now are Assault and Dauntless... and... yeah." I awkwarded. I was not going to go in-depth with Sabah's mistrust of men here.

"Fair point," he shrugged.

She shook her head, clearly stuck processing the infodump while I re-helmeted myself. Dennis tapped his ear in the meantime. "Console, we're back online. For the record, Emissary used Thinker-derived personal details to secure co-operation."

I threw him a look of bewilderment at that, and he preened. Smug bastard knows how to pay me back for the formula remark! Wait till I– no, wait, I can't force Taylor on this, I promised. Maybe she won't like any of the Wards?

"I don't think we need anything like that right now, thank you, any patrols would do," Sabah said, her voice a bit stifled, as if she was holding herself back from emoting too much, "We are running low on potable water though, what plumbing works, only gives rusty salty water no filter cleans. If you could—"

"Sure thing," I nodded, thankful that Dennis let me take point again, "The current plan is for this road to be used for shipments of relief aid anyway, we may simply mark this place as another refugee camp? How many people do you have in there?"

------


When we approached the PRT HQ, we were still talking.

"How many languages do you speak anyway?" Dennis asked, milking his rediscovered feeling of safety for all he could.

"One and a half? English and a smattering of half-learned entry-level Spanish?" I knew that my gesture of respect to Sabah would backfire, but I could do damage control for almost anything, "Everything else is scattered words and basic things like 'hello' and 'help'. Not a lot of uses for foreign languages when you can't go overseas."

"Eh. I've been struggling with Chinese for a few years now," he admitted reluctantly, "You know, living in the city with the fifth-largest Chinese diaspora in the States makes it useful."

"I take it progress hasn't been good?" I showed my badge to the guard on duty, and so did Dennis. With a bit of surprise, we almost ran into Laserdream, Crystal Pelham, just as we entered the still-waterlogged lobby.

"Hey, Dream," Clock waved at her, dodging my question, "Something happened? Should we be concerned?*

"Hey, you," she replied listlessly. She looked rumpled, her hair brushed but not washed recently, her face pale and barely made up. If it were up to me, I'd have her off patrols and in a blanket fort with a huge cup of cocoa, playing therapist until she could look at a real one without flinching. It was not up to me, and Carol Dallon once again had proven how little she knew about running actual living people. "Reported some of the stuff I saw on patrol, they told me you were the ones that went to check out the campus?"

"Yeah. Parian hunkered down there with whoever stayed behind," I explained, producing a pencil-scribbled paper map of the city to show her the outline, "We're going to try and get them to send some food and water their way for a start."

"Good. She's a good person, glad she stepped up," Crystal sleepwalked through the trite remark, moving to walk around us. "If you see her again," she announced, "She's got a good defense going on, but she doesn't have anything to keep out fliers. I was able to get my stuff from my dorm without her noticing. Might want to mention that." I fought the urge to stop her, ask her if I could help. Dennis beat me to it.

"Hey, Crystal," he called out just as she was about to pass him. "That wasn't all you came here about, was it?"

"Vicky told us you were talking about maybe leaving the team?" I ventured, feeling like an asshole as I spoke.

"Yeah. I asked about that too. I... Yeah, we… to he honest, only Eric's reluctant, and even so, he'll likely fold if the rest of us go." She hugged herself, shivering. "Aunt Carol is on a crusade, and doesn't seem to want to care about the cost."

"Crystal…" I finally gathered myself up, "...how are you? Can I interest you in a hug?" I offered, spreading my arms out a bit. She looked at me as if I had a second head on my back. Then she nodded meekly, walking into my embrace. I was a bit taller than her, so she rested her head on my chestplate as I hugged her round the shoulders, her arms hanging by her sides.

"Just… so tired of it all," she whispered, while behind her back, I saw Dennis gesticulating like crazy at the receptionist. Whatever he was saying, I couldn't hear, but when he apparently won the argument, she let him have her desk phone. "Vicky… Vicky said you lost someone too. Does it…?"

She couldn't manage to finish the question, but she didn't need to. "I have. It… I can't say it gets better, but you can learn to live with it. Therapy helps, if you can find the time. Talking to people helps. Keeping busy helps." I paused, pulling her off me. Two thin streaks of water ran down her cheeks. I took the opportunity to open my faceplate so she could at least see my smile, a Yamada #4, 'I'm going to make it better'. "But don't overwork yourself, okay? We do have a therapist on-site, if you–"

Behind her, the elevator disgorged a concerned-looking Eliza Karpenko, the doctor whose monthly rotation was supposed to end this month and who was now stuck with us indefinitely. I was glad for it, she knew her stuff, even if she was a bit of an odd duck, and in my world, her rotation was two months earlier, so I already knew a bit about what she could and couldn't do.

But I stopped because I saw something else. Something hanging on the boarded-up wall of the ruined gift shop. Something vaguely familiar. Something I saw in Finist's logs.

Myself. Standing over a (thankfully edited to look less like a corpse) downed Taylor, the pell-mell of other capes in the background, as I screamed at Leviathan, frying his face with Mjölnir. My pitted armor, my stance, my weapon, my fury, turned into a motherfucking motivational poster. Dennis, his heroic task completed, was standing next to it, casting occasional glances as he tried to copy the pose, using a flashlight as a stand-in for Mjölnir.

"Not. Fucking. Again," I growled, startling Crystal into taking a step back into Eliza's arms and Dennis into dropping his flashlight. "Glenn Chambers, I will find you, and I will kill you."
 
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*cracks knuckles* Yeah, let's do this!

The hell of a day finally ended with hugs all around as we bid James farewell,
And Rose tried to figure out exactly WHO grabbed her butt in the final group hug....

while Dennis unclenched ever-so-slowly once we managed to convince him Taylor wasn't going to give him fleas or something
"I promise, Dennis. I will NEVER give you fleas. Not FLEAS. Have you ever heard of bot flies?"

I felt elated as it seemed I've managed to put some spring in Taylor's step.
(When Taylor is happy, Rose is happy. Not that I'm suggesting anything.)

She certainly looked much more upbeat walking away from the PRT building than she did walking towards it.
What's that I see? Not a twoshadow or even a threeshadow! No, this is DEFINITELY a foreshadow!

I never doubted Vista's ability to endear people to herself for one bit.
*does some quick math*
No, the math is wrong. Just friendshipping it is. *sigh*

I was still ruminating on potential ways to shake Dauntless out of his spiraling self-loathing
Have you tried LITERALLY shaking him? Pretend he's a baby and you're a British nanny!

It still felt weird to sleep in the guest room of my childhood home, but I hoped it would not be a permanent arrangement. Oh, how I hoped.
I mean, you have a PERFECTLY functional bed just over there that you KNOW fits you, right? Sure, there's someone in it, but... she'll scootch over, I'm sure. *eyebrow waggle*

The young Tinker was clearly apprehensive about rummaging around in his mentor's workshop in his absence
"Why did Armsmaster have so many back massagers?"
"...I'll answer that when you're older. Much older. Now put that down and go wash your hands."

Dragon took over Armsmaster's extant projects using her access to his waldoes and commandeering Kid Win for things they couldn't do.
*eyes that slowly*
*does some math*
...Chris! You CRADLE ROBBER!

Somehow, I couldn't imagine Chris objecting to that turn of events in the slightest, partly because Colin apparently wasn't much of a mentor and partly because duh, which Tinker would willingly turn down a chance to work with Dragon?
...but apparently Rose still ships you guys and so will I!

As I brushed away the metal-and-circuitwork debris of some failed project off Armsmaster's largest workbench into an empty plastic tub,
...and studiously ignoring the "Sexbot v1.5.3" labels.

The huge stash of glass containers for fiddling with venoms and insect eggs wouldn't hurt either.
Yuh-huh. Taylor's going to use all that glassware to achieve her TRUE ambition: BREWING THE ULTIMATE CUP OF TEA!

It took a bit of effort, but we got everything locked in.
*sighs*
*goes to fetch the scotch*

In 27 hours, I'd be prim and protected again.
*goes to get a SECOND, BACKUP bottle*

so the only other Ward she could believably feel angry at would be Dean and, well—" I spread my arms out in another exaggerated shrug.
So, what you're telling me is... the only other Ward she could have conceivably been angry with just... SOMEHOW ended up dead. What a coincidence! (Well done, Taylor.)

I blinked at him in confusion as I held the segments in place while he plugged in all the connectors and receptacles together.
...how the hell did this bottle of scotch get empty ALREADY? Well, good thing I've got my BACKUP BOTTLE!

"Well, yeah. Sorry if it's inappropriate, but, uh–" he trailed off, making some sort of circular gesture at my utterly confused face. "It looked like you maybe had a thing going?"
Well, Chris, I think the best summation of Rose's feelings for Sophia can best be expressed in SONG!

"Oh-kay," I exhaled, my first instinct being to deny everything. I cannot be attracted to Sophia fucking Hess! I just needed to avoid rocking the boat until I had Taylor legally covered! She flirted at me, not the other way around!
And, Miss Ellison, if you'll look out the LEFT side of the boat, you'll see a lovely set of pyramids!

"I have a much better-behaved athletic Ward on my mind."
"And JUST my mind, despite what all those shippers on PHO say! ...and my hopes."

"And I may have been half-asleep, but I checked with Dennis and he saw the same thing that I thought I saw. She kissed you, and you didn't resist. I'm just worried you might be, well, in denial, kinda?"
Meanwhile, on the OTHER side of the boat, a lovely Sphinx!

Do my Wards discuss my personal life behind my back?
Like old, gossipy ladies, Rose.

But there isn't anybody to suggest me having a relationship with, is there?
*looks at various Interludes*
*wild, hysterical laughter*
Rose, Amy would MURDER A SAINT for the chance. ...and Madison would let herself be murdered for that same chance. (Which doesn't really... make sense? But... well, Madison's a bit... wacky in the brainpan like that.)

We...we won't talk about your adopted sister and the Westermarck effect. Because I'm like... 99.999% sure you can't reach through the screen and choke me to death? But... .001% is still too high a chance for me.

"On the neck, and I was too busy hugging the boy who you've just reminded me owes me a date!"
Now... uh... let's just take this slow, okay, Rose? I mean... statistically, 100% of the people you've gone on dates with have died. Horribly. Those are... pretty damning odds. Maybe you SHOULD give Sophia a date. Just to see if they stay accurate?

I helped him ease it off the workbench, then put the tubful of mess that I brushed away off the bench back onto it. Not going to spread it all over it again, but just in case it's important, I'm not throwing it away either.
*incoherently waves a partially full scotch bottle at that WHOLE LINE*

I wanted to do something good for him, not shove him face-first into the friendzone
Is... is "the friendzone" your secret pet name for anything? *crosses fingers* ...or anyONE?

He deserves to have his fun, I just shouldn't let him be stupid about it.
Oh, lord. She's turning herself in The Team Mom. I... honestly can't wait for the super awkward informative talks.

"Now, Chris... you're a teenager, and know that's a... weird time, so I want to talk to you about safe se-"
"OH GOD NO!" And that's when Chris threw himself through what was SUPPOSED to be an unbreakable window.

Assault was watching the proceedings with rapt attention, gesturing slightly along to Ravel's Bolero, which Taylor was making her swarm bounce to.
Oh, c'mon. Try something with a little pizazz! Try Les Toreadors or Powerhouse or something nice and soothing!

the fact that I entered a roomful of loud music didn't stop her from sensing my entry,
*whines*
*returns to the scotch*

I am almost afraid to guess who would outdo who in a contest between her and Weaver, even assuming she would forget Madison given her circumstance.
I... am fairly certain she will NEVER forget Madison. ...the question here is: "Would she FORGIVE Madison?"

(Also, imagine the horror on Dennis' face if Weaver met Arachne... and decides that SHE COUNTS TOO for her whole "I can never repay." thing.)

I wondered if he knew what happened between me and his wife on Sunday,
OH GOD!
*dives for the scotch AGAIN*

The scientists looked away while she reshuffled her crowd, then looked back at her, whipping out various kinds of testing equipment.
*opens mouth*
*pauses*
No. No jokes about the scientists "whipping out" their "equipment." Not while I still have SCOTCH.

Huh, they shipped specific insects in for her to play with.
...I'm gonna need more scotch. A lot more scotch.

As I spoke, I was moving through them and towards Taylor, ending in a hug that left her stiff as a board until she melted into my embrace, relaxing noticeably.
Relaxing as she melted into your strong, muscled arms. Those strong, muscled arms that are attached to someone she can trust. Someone who's built like a brick shithouse and is hugging a girl with a marked preference for beefcake.

I'm... I'm just saying, is all.

This felt oddly like coaxing Amy out of her shell.
*glances at Amy's Interlude*
You know what? We're counting that as CANON. THAT'S CANON. I'M COUNTING THAT. Team "It's okay because it's you me!" is ON THE CHART.

Hopefully, with both Taylor and Vicky on my side, unfucking the local Amy would go easier and not involve any oddball if brief hookups with Youth Guard interns.
Not... Youth Guard interns, no. Former PRT interns, however....

"Flight patterns," I replied just as quietly, "You had the empty swarms cycle through the chest area, which the you-swarm avoided. Compensate for it or learn to fake it, 'kay?"
Okay, shipping aside for a second (HA!), let's take a second to analyze this little bit, because it's kind of important. Rose is telling Taylor the REAL tell... while she told everyone else a fake, though plausible, one. I mean, that's obvious. But... the importance here is the way that it signals to Taylor that Rose cares more about HER than she does the other people in the room and, by extension, the groups they're a part of. It tells Taylor "I'm on YOUR side, not theirs. If it comes down to it... I'll have YOUR back FIRST."

Basically, Rose is reinforcing Taylor's trust in HER, probably in the hopes that eventually Taylor will come to trust the Wards/PRT/Protectorate because ROSE does, since Taylor's ability to trust them on her own is... every so slightly fucked, thanks to all the shit their representatives have pulled on her. And, if that fails... she's helping her get good enough that it won't matter when Taylor inevitably walks away from them, because at that point, she'll be good enough they can't touch her.

The bald beardy guy called a break for coffee
I have absolutely no evidence, proof, or even a good reason, but I've decided that this is a nod to Fax.

I recognized it as his #1, 'I'm a hero, you can trust me'. I was still miffed I couldn't pull it off, it would have been a great flirting ai– Aegis, fuck. I've been such a scatterbrain lately.
Our heroine, seen here simultaneously upset that she can't flirt as well as she COULD... and having to make a note to herself to flirt with the boy she's totally got a crush on. Totally. Not Sophia. Aegis. Meanwhile, she has no problems AT ALL being... cuddly with Taylor.

Just... pointing that out, is all.

"I did what I thought was right at the time…"
Worm in a nutshell, folks!

And I couldn't help but notice that you're in no way limited in how you work it.
Assault, you cradle robber! What would your wife say?

"Um. You do know I'm fifteen, right?" Taylor asked uneasily,
"And I have Chris Hansen on speed dial."

I can totally see how Sarah gets off on acting like this all the time.
W-would you like a bit of alone time, Rose? Or maybe... some NOT alone time?

"I'm not five, Ems, let the man speak his piece."
My god, they have PET NAMES already! Whoo! *goes to make a note on The Chart*

"I thought I asked you not to call me that?"

"I thought I asked you not to coddle me?"
This dialogue is not in the least bit suggestive. Excuse me, I need to inject scotch directly into my brain. </deadpan>

Wait, when did Battery get here?
So focused on your flir*cough*BANTER that you didn't even notice her showing up, hmmmm?

It was true, however, we did have a bit of a… sibling thing going, it was chiefly my fault due to the way I treated her.
You seemed awfully hesitant to call it a "sibling thing," Rose. Was there... something else you wanted to describe it as?

She is not Anne-Marie, we're the same age, she's not supposed to follow my lead in everything!
Maybe she just feels more comfortable with you telling her what to do? I'm sure Sophia would have, too. She... seemed the type, if you know what I mean.

Assault suggested, interspersing himself between his wife and my 'cousin'.
*opens mouth*
*pauses*
*pours more scotch into mouth*

"Yeah. She was a Ward, he was her nemesis, then she caught him, turned him, married him," I listed off,
I mean, other than the "nemesis" and "married" part, that... describes you and Taylor pretty well, Rose. ...and I have hopes for the latter one.

"Is that why you scared him off of me?" she asked playfully, putting one hand on her waist and jabbing me with another in my solar plexus.
Yessssss. That's why. That's the only possible reason. Surely. I mean, i-it's not like she's j-jealous or possessive of you or a-anything!

So when I do the hovering thing, buzz me or spritz me or whatever. Deal?
Maybe a spa-*burbles into glass of scotch*

when I pulled her into a hug, I got no resistance. This, at least, I still knew how to do right.
Yeah, that's not... indicative of a bad mental state or anything. Not at ALL.

Instead of a lake or a sea, we had a pond, and now someone claimed the newly-formed beachfront property.
Beachfront property... in New England. *shudders*

My heart fell at the thought of discovering the possibility that the Empire were setting out to set up their own Escape From New York thing right here in the Bay.
"Kaiser, sir, I really-"
"Call me 'Snake'."
"...no."
"Oh, c'mon... PLEASE?"

"Don't worry, Console, I'm always ca–" Dennis began before having the wind knocked out of him by a bright yellow cloth ribbon


Missy asked over the sound of keyboard clacking. Despite having literal Tinkertech used in our comm suites, the penny-pinchers of the PRT still insisted on hooking up peripherals from the nineties up to them. On the one hand, cheap to replace after power-related incidents. On the other hand, most people got easily irritated with the sound.
The girl using a brick phone... is giving the PRT shit about using a mechanical keyboard? Mechanical keyboards are GREAT, you HERETIC. I could beat someone to death with a Model M, hose it off, and go right back to using it without a problem! Computer peripherals that can double as lethal weapons in a pinch are the BEST PERIPHERALS.

I tried to mask my prior knowledge about Hookwolf's failed recruitment of Sabah.
The one that ended with Aegis being murdered. Brutally. By Hookwolf.

...incidentally, have you managed to remember to flirt with him YET? Or is that still on your "to do" list?

"Stop!" came a familiar muffled voice, as a cloth donkey trotted into view, its distinctly dressed mistress cutting what I suspected she hoped was an impressive figure.
Okay, Rose. Listen to me. Despite how it sounds in your HEAD, please be aware that "Nice ass!" is going to be taken by Sabah as fli.... you know what? Never mind. You just... do whatever comes naturally to you.

For those who had, they saw a cape riding on the back of a huge pile of her weapons. I surpressed a shudder with difficulty.
*eyes that*
*coughs*
Well. A shudder... or a SHIVER? Because those are two very different reactions and....

Clock was wearing a backup version of his signature outfit and I was still in my loaner costume, which in the dim light beneath the overcast sky made us look like a crazy survivalist and her KKK buddy.
You lost points for not using "KKK Kompanion." Always attempt alliteration.

She folded in on herself a little bit, holding a hand up to where the mask's mouth was. I could bet my monthly allowance that were she not wearing a mask, she would be blushing and biting her thumbnail at the memory of eyeing me up so openly during the briefing.
And how does that adorable bit of embarrassment make you FEEL, Rose? Do you want to hug HER to make her feel better, too? Do you want to face the fact that, regardless of your actual answer, I'm going to be putting "Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes!" on The Chart?

"Parian, do you know what my power is?" I asked instead.
As near as I can tell, it's turning girls Rose-sexual.

I know that you're not Empire material because you're not white, and you're not straight.
*crosses fingers* "...and you're hopefully free Saturday night?"

And sorry, khiat jamila, I'm fifteen so I'm not in the Half-Plus-Seven range.
Hey! You don't know how old she is! She could be... uh... ...seventeen-ish? You don't know! She could be a prodigy and went to college REALLY early! I choose to have HOPE, damn your eyes!

I know the Wards aren't the most ethnically diverse,
"And we did kinda just send our... most diverse member, shall we say, to jail."

If you want, we can arrange so that only female capes come this way?
"You know... maybe a few single ones?" (Rose is going to build some ships, by god. She's gonna build them if it KILLS HER. ...and/or THEM.)

"Excuse me? I'm not- wait- wha- I wasn't going to ask you–! Wait, why—"
And, taking this year's award for "Worst Denial"....

"I do have eyes under these," I tapped Wadjet with a finger,
Indeed. Ask Amy about them. She'll tell you all about them. At LENGTH.

Also, here we observe Rose effortlessly flirting with Parian... while still having somehow "forgotten" to flirt with Aegis. Just making a note of that.

"And I'm observant, Ms. Wandering-Eyes-Before-An-Endbringer."
You know, once again, I'm reminded of that story that had a villain blatantly proposition Alexandria for a quickie before an Endbringer fight and, while I'm not suggesting that the interval before one is some sort of free love orgy... I'm betting there's a pretty decent amount of people trying to seize the moment, just in case. ...and also seize the butt of that cute Protectorate cape over there, while we're at it. (I mean, what ELSE would you use the Truce for, if not getting a little normally forbidden nookie?)

God help me Dennis is rubbing off on me so badly...
*choke* You're going to KILL ME.

"The only male capes we have right now are Assault and Dauntless... and... yeah."
"Dauntless would whine at her about how he's so useless and blah blah blah... and Assault would try to convince her to check out girls with him. ...and he'd start with his WIFE."

"Console, we're back online. For the record, Emissary used Thinker-derived personal details to secure co-operation."
Yes. That's a GREAT plan: get petty with the girl who can bench press you and who's living with the girl who can make sure you're an all-you-can-eat mosquito buffet. You're really showing the level of foresight and intelligence I've come to expect from you. </deadpan>

If it were up to me, I'd have her off patrols and in a blanket fort with a huge cup of cocoa, playing therapist until she could look at a real one without flinching.
Canon: Rose wants to bundle Crystal off to a blanket fort so she can... play doctor.

"Vicky told us you were talking about maybe leaving the team?" I ventured,
Rose, seen here asking Crystal if she is considering... playing for a different team. Perhaps... HER team?

"Aunt Carol is on a crusade, and doesn't seem to want to care about the cost."
"Seriously, she won't stop screaming about Jerusalem and something about 'days volts' or some shit and...."

"Crystal…" I finally gathered myself up, "...how are you? Can I interest you in a hug?" I offered, spreading my arms out a bit. She looked at me as if I had a second head on my back. Then she nodded meekly, walking into my embrace. I was a bit taller than her, so she rested her head on my chestplate as I hugged her round the shoulders, her arms hanging by her sides.
And Rose's biceps claim another victim! Behold the power of the hardbody!

Therapy helps, if you can find the time. Talking to people helps. Keeping busy helps.
"Lifting entire stands full of free weights helps."

[The therapist's] rotation was two months earlier, so I already knew a bit about what she could and couldn't do.
"She was very specific about all the things she couldn't do... while I was her underaged client. Like... REALLY specific."

Myself. Standing over a (thankfully edited to look less like a corpse) downed Taylor, the pell-mell of other capes in the background, as I screamed at Leviathan, frying his face with Mjölnir. My pitted armor, my stance, my weapon, my fury, turned into a motherfucking motivational poster.
I get a very... Frazetta feel from that poster from the description. Which means that Taylor is the downed girl being protected by her mighty-thewed warrior love interest and okay that works that works GREAT. I have no complaints about this whatsoever!

"Glenn Chambers, I will find you, and I will kill you."
"Glenn, where the fuck are you going?"
"Siberia."
"...there's nothing in Siberia but snow and the SLEEPER."
"It's still safer than here! SHE can get me HERE."
 
I... am fairly certain she will NEVER forget Madison. ...the question here is: "Would she FORGIVE Madison?"
Yeah, that was an error. Fixed now.

The only non-SB-printable response I can give you here without duplicating what I posted there is:
You... you DO know everyone there is just waiting for the Rose/Sophia/Taylor epic hatefuck, right?
Yes, I do, and it's gping to happen once Sophia's plot in the main fic advances enough. For now you'll have to make do with the Rose/Sophia glad-to-be-alive thing I'm doing next.
 

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