Part Twenty: Finale (Jan 25 2011-March 1 2012)
Ack
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It Gets Worse
Part Twenty: Finale
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Jamie
Stretching a little as she gradually came awake, Jamie became aware of an unfamiliar weight attached to her body. As her brain reasserted itself, she realised that it was her leg—her new leg! Abruptly, she sat up in bed, throwing another unexpected weight off of her waist—oh, wait. That was David's arm. And David himself was now blinking back to wakefulness, staring at her as if he'd never woken up next to anyone before. Which, if she'd read the signs right last night, he hadn't.
But that wasn't her concern right now. Ignoring their mutual nudity, she kicked the covers all the way down and lifted her knee, examining the replaced limb minutely. It all seemed to be there, the toes wiggling when she told them to. "It wasn't a dream," she said wonderingly. Straightening her leg, she threw herself on top of David and kissed him thoroughly, morning breath and all. "It wasn't a dream!"
"No, I guess it wasn't," he mumbled, once the kiss was over and she'd rolled off of him again. "Did we … last night … I mean … were you …?"
She could have laughed at his blushing shyness over what had happened between them, but she didn't. In direct contrast to his public persona, his male ego was very fragile. This wasn't surprising; most male egos were fragile. But as a forty-year-old very recently ex-virgin, his was more so than most. "It was wonderful," she said warmly.
She wasn't lying; there'd been a few hiccups, but they'd gotten past them and she'd made damn certain that he enjoyed himself as much as she did. Which had been a considerable amount. She hadn't gone totally without in the time since she'd lost her leg, but most guys she'd met couldn't get past the leg thing (and some found it kinky, which she thought was a little weird). But David applied himself to making love with her as thoroughly as he did anything else, which meant that the earth had indeed moved for her. Several times.
"Oh," he said awkwardly. "I'm glad. I mean … you were wonderful, too. I … wonder if …" To her secret delight, a flush spread upward from his cheekbones as he looked everywhere but her body.
"David," she said softly. Taking his hand, she placed it on her waist. "Last night was a truly special time for me. And I want to do it again with you, as often as you want." Lowering herself off of her elbow, she slid her arm under his neck to pull him closer. "I think you're an amazing man, and you're a pretty damn cool superhero too." Lifting her leg, she ran her big toe teasingly up and down his calf. Her eyelids lowered as she continued in a sultry tone, "That is, if you're interested …"
Finally he took the hint, and rolled over to meet her. She felt his arms go around her, and she met his kiss with one that was just as fierce and just as passionate. While they'd have to get up eventually, she figured, they could put it off for another hour or so.
Lily
As they walked out to the helipad, Lily slipped her hand into Amy's. The frizzy-haired girl squeezed her fingers tightly. Lily worked a finger free and tickled Panacea's palm. When she glanced sideways, a blush was spreading across the healer's cheeks. Lily grinned, recalling just how ticklish Amy was, and how much they'd both learned about each other the night before.
"You'll visit?" Amy asked, her voice barely audible over the sound of turning rotor blades.
"Visit?" Lily laughed out loud. "I might transfer. Unless you want to join the New York Wards? I hear it's gone really quiet in Brockton Bay recently."
Amy chuckled in her turn. "'Quiet' isn't exactly the right word. 'Weird as fuck' is closer." She squeezed Lily's hand a little tighter. "I could join the New York Wards. Or you could transfer to Brockton Bay, if you wanted. I'd be happy either way." She paused for thought. "Actually, screw that. I know what I want. And it's not Brockton Bay."
They had talked a little the night before. Lily was still weirded out by the idea of two grown men, who had somehow captured the Siberian, physically prostrating themselves before a teenage girl who'd just walked Jack Slash under a falling piano. She wondered what it would be like to live in the same city as someone whose power amounted to pure bullshit luck. But she was more interested in what it would be like to live in the same city as Amy Dallon.
"Whatever you want to do, I'm good with," Lily said. She stopped just short of the boarding ramp, and turned to face Amy. She raised her free hand to cup Amy's cheek with her palm. "I've been transferred to more departments around the country than any other three Wards I know, but I've never met anyone like you before." Leaning in, she pressed her lips to Amy's. The kiss was tender and sweet, and over far too soon.
Emily Piggot
Being the Director of a PRT Department gave Emily Piggot far too many problems to deal with on a daily basis that she could just casually put aside her responsibilities for no good reason. However, her job also meant that if there was a good reason, then some duties took precedence over others. Such as standing up on the roof of the building instead of sitting in her office, making awkward small-talk with Brandish and Lady Photon of New Wave while they waited for the former's errant daughter to come home. Brandish's other daughter, obviously bored, strolled along the edge of the roof, occasionally leaning out at ninety degrees to look down at the street below. Powers are such bullshit.
She had no idea why Eidolon had dropped off Panacea in New York, but it wasn't like she could tear strips off of the man for neglecting his responsibilities. As it was, she would still have been in her office, Panacea or no Panacea, if it hadn't been for a somewhat puzzling radio call that had come in from the chopper while it was en route. When a superhero of Panacea's capabilities, teenager or otherwise, requested an audience with someone like Emily, it was wise to either grant it or have a really good reason why not. And it wasn't as if she had the up-until-recently normal run of gang violence as an excuse.
Since the video of Butterfly and Jack Slash went viral, the criminal element of Brockton Bay seemed to be in a state of shock. Not to mention the fact that the parahuman criminal element was close to extinct in the city by now. She'd even read on PHO that Faultline and her Crew were considering upping stakes and moving to another city. Any city, anywhere else. Normally, this would be cause for celebration, but Emily knew damn well that it wasn't due to anything she'd done. Except maybe been polite to Butterfly.
The noise of rotors became audible in the distance. Emily turned and shaded her eyes until she spotted the incoming transport. Glory Girl perked up and flew into the air, obviously intending to go meet it.
"Victoria, come back here!" Brandish ordered. "That's an official PRT transport. They aren't permitted to allow you on board."
"Aw, mo-om," pouted Glory Girl, but she came back as directed. "Did Ames even say why she was in New York? She coulda told me, and we coulda gone and done stuff while we were there."
"She did not." Brandish's freezing tone was good at shutting down lines of enquiry like that. "No doubt it's got something to do with this new hobby or whatever it is she's doing. Well, no more. If she can't be responsible enough to either be home at a reasonable hour or ask permission first, she's grounded."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" asked Lady Photon. "I mean, it's the first time she's done something like this, and it is Eidolon, after all …" She glanced at Emily. "Did you ever find out what they were doing in New York?"
Emily shrugged. "I have no idea. Eidolon does what Eidolon does."
She watched as the transport came in for a landing. The helipad was FOD'd (picked over for anything that might cause Foreign Object Damage) before every transport arrival and departure, which meant she had little to worry about except the actual downgust of wind. A stray memory crossed her mind of a visiting Australian cape referring to the FOD procedure as an 'emu parade'. An emu, she'd heard, was a big flightless bird similar to an ostrich, but she had no idea what parades had to do with it.
With a roar of engine and a rush of wind, the transport touched down, settling on to its landing gear. The rear ramp opened and passengers filtered out, but Emily was only looking for one. Even then, Panacea nearly escaped her notice, partly because the girl wasn't in costume (why not?) and partly because of her attitude. Panacea normally walked with her eyes down, as if she were trying to hide from the world. Or maybe because she felt she bore the weight of it on her shoulders.
This Panacea was as far from that girl as someone could be, and still look the same. Her head was up, her eyes bright and she moved with a confident stride. She faltered a little as her eyes swept over Emily's little group (no doubt due to Brandish's censorious glare) but she kept coming anyway. Emily saw her fists clench at her sides, quite possibly without her conscious knowledge.
"Ames!" Emily felt a rush of happiness as Glory Girl rushed at her sister, pulling to a halt at the last moment and spinning the two of them around. "I've been worried sick about you! Stuck in New York all alone? Anything could've happened to you!"
As Emily was opening her mouth to say something, Panacea leaned in and whispered to her sister, and the unnatural emotion died away. Emily shut her mouth again and watched the reunion carefully. Glory Girl had a very … forceful personality, but Panacea seemed to be right up there with her at the moment. "Well, something did," the healer said, a crooked grin quirking her mouth. "Tell you later."
She didn't get the chance to say anything more, because Brandish was marching forward. "Panacea!" she snapped. "Why didn't you call before you went to New York? Your father and I have been worried!"
Panacea turned to look at her, and visibly wilted before Emily's eyes. "I'm sorry," she began. "I didn't know—"
"That's hardly an excuse," Brandish said flatly. "You're grounded until you can prove to be more responsible. You're coming home right now." Nodding to Glory Girl, she turned to Lady Photon. "Let's go."
"You didn't let me finish. No, wait, Vicky. I've got something to say."
Emily's eyes were drawn to Panacea like a magnet. The girl's tone had changed from deferential to forceful, and something had injected iron back into her backbone; the subtle hunch to her shoulders had straightened right out again. Okay, what the hell?
"Ames?" Glory Girl looked at her quizzically, but didn't try to pick her up. "What's going on?"
"That's what I'd like to know, too." Lady Photon rubbed her chin while looking her niece over with a furrowed brow. "Carol, do you seriously not see this?"
"See what?" Brandish pressed her lips together. "Amy left the city without letting me know she was going to be away overnight. That's a serious breach of trust, right there."
"I didn't know I was going to be away overnight," Panacea said flatly. "Eidolon wanted to introduce me to a friend of his. Plans changed, and he ended up being unavailable, so I went straight to the Protectorate base. They put me up for the night."
To Emily's trained ear, the recitation of events sounded almost … rehearsed. If she didn't already have that impression, the way Panacea's eyes jumped around as she was saying it would've aroused her suspicions. A practised liar, Panacea was not. While Emily was almost certain the statements were factual, Emily would have bet rather a lot of money that there was a great deal Panacea was leaving out of the story. Especially considering the faint blush that rose over her face as she said the last sentence.
"What are you talking about, Aunt Sarah?" asked Glory Girl. "See what?"
As fascinating as all this was, Emily Piggot was a busy woman. "Panacea, I understand that you've requested to speak to me. I'm listening."
Panacea's eyes jumped around even more. "Can we, uh, do this in your office? Alone?"
"Certainly not," Brandish said flatly. "You're a minor and you need a parent or legal guardian present when you speak to her. That's me."
Emily wondered if Brandish heard the irritation in the sigh that Panacea let out. "Fine. Director Piggot, I want to join the Wards, on one condition."
"What?" Glory Girl beat out her mother, but only barely.
"What?" Brandish hit the high notes almost immediately.
"What, really?" Lady Photon's eyebrows rose.
What? Emily blinked. She'd been through a lot, but having Panacea simply ask to join the Wards … it certainly made the top ten 'wtf' moments in her life. "I'm sure that can be arranged," she said, purely on reflex. "What is your condition?"
"I want to be transferred to the New York Wards," Panacea said boldly.
The chorus of startled exclamations only went as far as Glory Girl and Brandish, this time. Lady Photon merely looked thoughtful, while Emily felt a burst of enlightenment. Panacea's newfound confidence, coupled with her wish to be in the New York Wards, said one thing to her. It seemed that Panacea's aunt had also caught the ramifications, while Brandish and Glory Girl were still distracted with the peripheral matters.
The choice was a simple one; accept the offer, or no. On the face of it, it was the very definition of a no-brainer. The Director who recruited a high-powered healer such as Panacea into the Wards would earn a well-deserved pat on the back from Chief Director Costa-Brown when the time came. Of course, the condition meant that she wouldn't be able to keep Panacea in Brockton Bay, but the workload facing the Brockton Bay Protectorate and Wards had fallen away dramatically of late. She strongly suspected that the majority of the Protectorate and Wards personnel in the city would be transferring away in the not too distant future anyway.
"I believe that can be arranged," she said smoothly. All she'd need would be proof of consent from Panacea's legal guardians—in the event, Brandish—and the right forms could be filled out and signed just as soon as possible. "Brandish?" This, she suspected, might be more of a problem.
"Absolutely not!" snapped Brandish, confirming Piggot's worst fears. "It's out of the question. Amy, you're coming home right now, and then you're explaining to me and your father exactly where you've been and what you've been doing. This is very irresponsible of you, and—"
"Shut up, Carol!"
To Emily's surprise, the exclamation came from Lady Photon. To be honest, she'd half expected it from Panacea herself. The healer seemed to have been gearing herself up to do it, if Emily was any judge.
If Emily was surprised, Brandish was astonished. "Sarah?" she demanded. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Protecting you from making a costly mistake." Lady Photon looked at Panacea. "You've had your sixteenth birthday, which means you can join anyway without requiring parental approval." It wasn't quite a question.
"That's right." Panacea's response was short, but the tone clued Emily into the fact that she'd already been thinking about it. Probably for most of the flight. Wanted to see how Brandish reacted before popping that little fact in her face.
Oh. Oh. She doesn't like Brandish very much if she's willing to blindside her like that.
That was a new insight into the workings of New Wave, but it wasn't going to be valid for very long. Emily looked at Brandish, who seemed to be working up to a new tirade. "Brandish," she said quietly.
"What?" Brandish didn't sound happy, which didn't surprise Emily.
"I'm inclined to accept Panacea's offer. You can oppose it and lose all hope of keeping any sort of a connection, or you can accept what your daughter wants."
"I'm her mother," Brandish snapped. "You can't transfer her away without parental approval."
"Actually, given certain legal hoops to jump through, yes I can," Emily replied without heat. "We've had incidences of overly-controlling parents before now." Brandish's eyes flashed as the subtext in Emily's words hit her but it was too late to do anything but forge on. "If she joins, Panacea will by definition have a place of residence and a salaried job, which means we would be able to apply for emancipation on her behalf." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Do not try to fight this. You will lose."
"Wait, wait, time out!" Glory Girl protested, holding her hands up in the classic 'T' formation. "Ames, what the heck? Joining the Wards? Transferring to New York? What's going on here? What's got into you?"
Panacea's sudden blush and giggle were unexpected, but they served to cement the supposition that had been growing in Emily's mind. Her feelings about the suspected reasons for Panacea's defection from New Wave were mixed, to say the least. She didn't know who had caught the healer's eye, or how long the infatuation would last, or even if it was mutual. From Panacea's attitude, something significant had happened between herself and the other Ward (at least, Emily hoped it was a Ward), although 'significant' was a term that could only be defined by Panacea herself. And what would happen when (if) the relationship ran its course? Would Panacea want to stay in the Wards, or would she want to wash her hands of them?
Militating against that was the rock-solid assurance that the Chief Director would want her to at least try to get Panacea into the Wards. Not that Emily was against the idea in principle; PRT troopers and capes had a depressing ability to hurt each other and get hurt in a most expensive fashion. But it meant that she was going to have to set some conditions of her own before she accepted.
"Never mind all that," she said firmly. "Panacea, I'm going to provisionally accept your offer. However, I am going to have to give you a complete entrance interview, with a third party available to handle your interests in the matter. At any time, if you wish, you can walk away. Do you understand?" Because there was no way in hell she was going to finish signing Panacea before finding out exactly what had happened, and if it was legal, moral and ethical. If charges needed to be laid … well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.
Panacea nodded vigorously. "How soon can we have it?"
Eidolon
David rose above the New York skyline. He felt … energised. It couldn't all be due to the extra time spent in bed, or the breakfast that Jamie had insisted on cooking for him, though those had both been … amazing. It was like he'd woken up in an entire different reality, where the sunlight was brighter and the world was a better place. Indeed, for a moment he'd suspected a Master effect might be in play, but then he recalled what he'd read about endorphins and other such matters. This was natural; it had just never happened to him before.
He'd contacted the Protectorate building and verified that Panacea was in their care, which didn't surprise him. The girl was both smart and resourceful. She was a good hero, and she'd been utterly invaluable with his projects with Blasto. Which reminded him; it was time for field trials. Amy and Blasto had forced the food plant through a thousand generations in just a couple of days, and no significant problems had shown up in that time. He wasn't quite sure how they'd made the gene sequence so stable, but that was why one brought in outside assistance, after all.
North Africa, he decided. He'd collect a sample bag of seeds from Blasto, pick a location, speak with the local community leaders, and set about dispersing the food plants. It would take a month for them to show results, but he had plenty of work with his other projects to keep him busy. And once the plants were growing properly, he'd bring Jamie to show her what she'd wrought.
With a broad grin stretching his mouth, he brought up his teleport ability. Green light flashed, and he was gone.
Somewhere in America
"You're shitting me. Give." Quarrel, now known as Butcher, reached out for the newspaper.
"Uh, sure." Animos handed it over, then got up and headed for the fridge.
The skulls that Butcher had strung over her shoulder clattered against each other as she sat back with the paper. On the front page, the picture of the teenage girl straightening up with butterflies perched on her head and arms—and knife tip—was actually quite impressive. Below it, smaller pictures showed the girl with the same knife held to her throat by a man Quarrel tentatively identified as Jack Slash, and a blurred image of a piano in the air above him. The headline read: BUTTERFLY: 9. SLAUGHTERHOUSE: 0.
If she was to believe this story, the Slaugherhouse Nine had come to a city called Brockton Bay, and … died. A series of coincidences and unlikely occurrences—including the piano which had fallen on Jack Slash—had killed them all over just a few days, before they had the chance to begin terrorising the place. Before the authorities were even aware of them. The breathless tone of the article made it irritating to read, but she persisted. It seemed that the girl in the picture, one Taylor Hebert (aka 'Butterfly'), was the focal point of all this. Not from anything she'd done, but it seemed that whenever anything bad was about to happen to her, her power kicked in and the misfortune was reflected back tenfold.
There was an interview with Director Emily Piggot of the PRT on page two. Instead of the 'no comment' common in this sort of situation, Piggot had actually gone on the record with a series of statements.
Interviewer: So, this Butterfly … she's a real person? This isn't some sort of hoax?
Piggot: This is not a hoax. Butterfly is a real person. I strongly recommend you not harass her.
I: And her powers are … luck? Just that?
P: Her powers are absolutely genuine. I've seen the evidence, many times.
I: So how soon will she be joining the Wards?
P: She won't be, unless she decides that she wants to.
I: So you haven't tried to recruit her?
P: Not since her power decided that she'd be happier outside the Wards.
I: Her … power decided that?
P: Exactly.
I: And you haven't got a problem with this? Is she a danger to anyone?
P: [expletive deleted], don't ask that question unless you want her to be one. We at the PRT have an agreement with Butterfly. We don't harass her, and she lets us do our job in matters that she doesn't care about. [Pause] Can we wipe the tape on that?
I: Sorry, that's not my call. So she's really that powerful?
P: Yes.
I: Can you expand on that?
P: Okay, let me be absolutely clear on this. I am going on the record, and I want you to print everything I say. Got it?
I: Got it.
P: Good. Now, you have to understand that Butterfly only came to our attention two weeks ago. In that time, her power has exposed more than one case of corruption in the ranks of the PRT and the heroes, brought down both major gangs in the city, apparently converted a number of minor parahuman criminals to heroism, and caused a major solo player to spontaneously decide to become a benefit to society. All while she was attending school, sleeping, or doing other things. Any questions so far?
I: Uh, yeah. About the Nine?
P: They came to our city, all right. And they never stood a chance. You've seen the footage of Uber and Leet capturing the Siberian?
I: The Ghostbusters thing? That was real?
P: That was absolutely, unequivocally real. If I understand matters correctly, Butterfly's power began manipulating reality three weeks ago and thirteen hundred miles away, to counter threats that hadn't even happened yet. And I have no doubt that it's still preparing for threats she might meet in the future. So here's my word on Butterfly: leave her alone. Don't annoy her, and don't threaten anyone she cares about. You'll probably survive the backlash, but I can't guarantee that. [Pause] Actually, she's got quite a few friends now, so if you're considering any sort of criminal activity, don't come to Brockton Bay. You can quote me on that.
Butcher crumpled the paper and threw it aside. "Luck powers," she said derisively. "Bullshit." Raising her eyes to where Animos had opened a beer, she smiled coldly. "Time to see how lucky this bitch really is. Get everyone together. We're going to Brockton Bay."
Amy
"Panacea, this is Dolores Henderson," the Director said. "She's our in-house counsel for situations like this. Everything you say to her will be held in strict confidentiality, so long as it doesn't involve an actual breakage of the law. You can have a family member sit with you while you talk to her, if you want."
"Hi, Panacea," said Dolores Henderson, holding out her hand. She was a slender woman with shoulder-length mousy-brown hair and large round glasses. "I'm very pleased to meet you."
Automatically, Amy shook the woman's hand, but her mind was elsewhere. She hadn't thought that anything she'd done might be illegal. "Um, what if I've broken the law? What happens then?"
Piggot sighed. "In which case, it happened on Protectorate property and must be investigated, but coming clean with it from the beginning will give us considerable leeway for dealing with it." She paused. "Understand that I'm not asking for details—that's Ms Henderson's job—but do you think you might have broken the law?"
"I … don't think so?" Amy frowned. "You said earlier that I could just walk away if I wanted to. Can I just walk away now? If I want to?"
"Yes and no," Henderson said. "You could walk out that door right now. However, because the possibility of a legal issue has come up, we would be bound to investigate what happened from the New York Protectorate end, and anything that arose from that would be something we would have to follow up on. Do you understand?"
Which meant they'd question Lily as well as everyone who'd seen the two of them together. She began to regret the kiss just before she got on the transport. Better to sort this out now and hope for the best. "Yeah, I understand. Let's do this."
"A wise decision." Piggot's smile almost reached her eyes this time. "Did you want a family member to sit in?"
Hastily, Amy shook her head. "Uh no." There were details she didn't want anyone in her family to hear.
"Very well. I'll leave you to it." Opening the door, Piggot exited. It closed behind her.
"Well, then." Dolores Henderson sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher that sat there. Flipping open her notebook to a clean page, she clicked her pen then poised it over the paper.
Amy took a seat across from her. "I thought this was being recorded." She nodded to the pad.
"Oh, it is," Henderson said readily. "This is for my own personal thought process. Shall we begin?"
Amy took a deep breath. "When I got to the Protectorate building, they called down Flechette to take me up and get me settled …"
Danny Hebert
Roy Christner stood up and leaned over his desk to shake hands with Danny. "Good to see you," he said heartily.
Danny knew he was lying, but it was a politician's lie, so he decided to let it go. "Nice to see you too, Roy." He smiled more widely than Roy had, and saw the first jolt of uncertainty in the mayor's eyes. "I take it you've heard the news over the last few days?"
"I have." Roy's voice was somewhat more cautious than before. "How's your girl holding up? I hear fame can be a strain."
Danny rolled his eyes. "She's loving it. Nobody bothers her if she doesn't want them to. One guy who tried to get in her face with a microphone tripped and fell into an open manhole. Damnedest thing. And then there's that thing with Jack Slash." He saw the man twitch as he said the name, and derived a certain amount of guilty pleasure from it.
"Uh … yes. About that." Roy's voice was still firm and confident, but there was now a sheen of sweat on his forehead. "You didn't give my secretary any actual reason for this meeting."
"No. I didn't." Danny's smile widened slightly. "And yet, here I am."
"Because every person I tried to schedule for this timeslot cancelled their meetings almost immediately afterward, even though I hadn't told them." Roy's eyes searched Danny's. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want." Danny made his voice flat and hard.
"The ferry?"
Danny nodded. "The ferry. Plus, some other things I intend to finance myself. With our share of the Slaugherhouse Nine reward."
"Which are …?"
The chair creaked as Danny leaned back. "I've already started buying up the leases on the buildings immediately surrounding Lord's Port. I intend to renovate them, then get the Port up and running again, just as soon as I can get the Boat Graveyard cleared." Just listing the steps out loud gave him a heady feeling. We really can do this.
" … the Boat Graveyard cleared?" Roy shook his head. "How are you going to do that? And what do you want from me?"
"I'm not sure yet," Danny said lightly. "Something will come up. And as for what I want from you is simple: don't stand in my way." He sat forward abruptly, seeing the shock in Christner's eyes as he closed the distance. "I have tried, and tried, and tried to get the ferry reinstated. But there's always been someone with an agenda to block mine. Well, that ends now. The ferry will come back. And nobody blocks what I'm doing with Lord's Port, or buys up the leases just so they can make a buck selling them back to me. Understood?"
Christner nodded jerkily. "Understood."
"Excellent." Danny got up. "I'll see myself out."
As the door closed behind him, he smiled grimly. That felt good.
Emily Piggot
Emily looked up as Henderson entered her office. "So, how bad is it?" she asked. She had hopes that it would be all right, but the world had a way of shitting on her expectations.
"Actually, it's not bad at all," Dolores said cheerfully. "You were correct, of course. The other party in the matter was Flechette. She's seventeen, so that aspect isn't a problem. I put a call through to New York and had Legend ask the girl about her intentions toward Panacea. To quote him, she became 'positively lyrical'. I gather that both of them have been lonely for a long time, and the amount of emotional bonding has been rather intense."
Some of the weight lifted from Emily's shoulders. "So it's not just a casual flirtation on the part of either one of them."
Henderson snorted with dry amusement. "I should think not. They're both lacking dependable outside ties, which I suspect they've formed with each other. Given the opportunity, these will only grow stronger."
There was another potential problem that Emily could think of. "You don't think their relationship will be a problem within the team?"
"Hardly. This is Legend's team, after all." Henderson shrugged. "Even if there was someone in the Wards or Protectorate team with any sort of opinion about openly gay or lesbian relationships, do you honestly think they'd make trouble about it?"
The woman had a point. "So your opinion is that we should go through with the recruitment process and transfer Panacea to New York?"
Dolores Henderson smiled. "I think if you did that, Panacea would love you forever."
One Week Later
PRT Building
Brockton Bay
Director Piggot
"All the arrangements have been made." Emily nodded to the stack of forms that sat between her and Dolores Henderson. "Once you sign those, you will be a member of the Wards. Do you understand?"
Panacea nodded. "Yes, I understand." She looked longingly at the documents, but her eyes went back to Emily when the Director kept speaking.
Emily chose her words carefully, wanting to impress on the healer the gravity of what she was doing. "While we understand that your motivations for joining the Wards are strongly connected to your relationship with Flechette, we cannot officially acknowledge this, for obvious reasons. However, we do not disapprove of this relationship, nor will we discourage it, so long as it does not interfere with your duties as a Ward. Do you understand this?"
"Yes." Panacea's voice was subdued but firm. "I won't let you down."
"Good." Emily caught Panacea's eyes with her own. "Finally, if that relationship were to end, this will in no way release you from your contract with the Wards. Is that understood?"
Jerkily, Panacea nodded. "Yeah." She took a deep breath. "But I still want to do it."
Dolores Henderson spoke up for the first time. "That's the spirit." She slid the first form over and placed a pen on top. "Read it through, then sign here and here."
Panacea picked up the pen.
Over North Africa
Eidolon
David hovered in the baking air, two thousand feet up, his fists clenched in frustration. "No. No, no, no, NO!"
It wasn't the worst thing that could happen, but it was close. Not only had Ash Beast taken a random turn that had him bearing down on the villages that were even now husbanding the trial crops of food plants, but there were ominous seismic rumblings in the area. Rumblings which had just one meaning: Behemoth was digging his way to the surface.
There was only one problem with that. Behemoth had no reason to attack this region. There were fewer than five thousand people within range of his rampage, and David knew he could evacuate them all before they were in imminent danger. The trouble was, any sort of rampage would see the seedlings destroyed, forcing him to start all over again. And if he engaged Behemoth, then Ash Beast was likely to travel through that area anyway, rendering his efforts futile.
David gritted his teeth, trying to decide whether to save the villagers first, destroy Ash Beast where he stood, or salvage the seedlings. There would be no stopping Behemoth instantly, and engaging the beast when he could be doing something more useful would be counter-productive. I'll save the villagers, he decided. If I can divert Ash Beast after that, then I will. Behemoth won't destroy anything I can't rebuild, so he can wait.
Just as he was preparing to put this plan into action, a small hill burst asunder and Behemoth pulled himself to the surface. He was farther away from the villages than David had thought he would be, and closer to Ash Beast's line of travel. Which made the upcoming battle a little more convenient, for a given definition of the word. David had battled more than one opponent before at a time, but never at this power level. Would it be better to take out Ash Beast so that I can focus on Behemoth? The trouble with that strategy was if he poured all his effort into destroying the almost-indestructible Ash Beast, he would almost certainly leave himself open to any attack Behemoth wanted to throw his way.
And then Behemoth stepped into Ash Beast's path and started loping toward the oncoming unnatural disaster, each footfall shaking the terrain.
What?
Had Behemoth somehow mistaken Ash Beast for a hero? David shook his head in puzzlement, trying to reason out the Endbringer's motivations. The villages, such as they were, stood in the opposite direction. Every other time he'd attacked, he'd aimed for terror and loss of life. This time … he was doing neither.
And then David thought of another explanation, one that sent chills down his back. Perhaps his emergence so far from any city was a ruse. If there was something else nearby that Behemoth could destroy, thus harming a huge number of people, that would make sense of his actions. Perhaps an underground aquifer that he could contaminate with radiation.
Whatever it was, David knew that he'd have to deal with Ash Beast once Behemoth passed the other parahuman by, so that the villagers would be in no danger. And the seedlings, too. After that, he could chase down the running Endbringer and engage him long enough for help to arrive, while the Thinkers figured out what he wanted in this desolate part of the world.
Behemoth stopped in Ash Beast's path, barely a hundred yards ahead of the leading edge of the cloud of fire and destruction. Then he began to walk directly into it. David watched, fully aware of what he was seeing, but in no way comprehending what it meant. The cloud reached Behemoth then engulfed his lower legs, reaching almost up to his waist. He kept walking, the fire breaking around him like an oncoming wave.
David watched carefully but he didn't see any change in Behemoth's stride, even when the fire cut out and the cloud began to dissipate. By the time it was all gone, Behemoth had stopped once more. The trail of destruction left by Ash Beast stretched to the horizon, ending at Behemoth's feet. Of the parahuman himself, there was no sign. Whatever Behemoth had done, it had destroyed him utterly. Perhaps Behemoth had absorbed so much of Ash Beast's energy that he'd killed him outright? It was a working theory, anyway.
Okay … David fought to get his head around the implications. His potential battle had just gone from two opponents down to one, when Behemoth had just annihilated Ash Beast. He had no idea what was going on, except maybe that Behemoth had decided that only one walking proponent of utter destruction was allowed in his vicinity.
That was when Behemoth turned toward where David hovered, two thousand feet up and half a mile away. The Endbringer would still be able to hit him with any of several ranged attacks from that distance, David was aware. But if a fight started here and now, the spillover from the energies unleashed would almost certainly kill people. Maybe he could lead the monster away …
And then Behemoth raised one arm. David tensed, expecting an attack. But instead of flinging fire or lightning at him, Behemoth waved. The motion was jerky, utilising the whole arm, but it was undeniably a wave. While David was still gaping, the Endbringer began to dig himself back underground again. In seconds, all that was left was an area of disturbed (and somewhat scorched) earth, and diminishing seismic traces.
Jamie is never going to believe this.
Panacea
" … and sign here." Dolores Henderson slid the last form over toward Amy.
Checking over the wording, Amy saw nothing wrong with it and signed her name at the bottom. "Is that it?" she asked.
"Yes." Director Piggot's smile reached all the way to her eyes, this time. "Congratulations. You're now a Ward. We'll have you on the next flight to New York, if that's what you want."
Oh, I want, I want. Amy tried to keep her smile demure, but inside she was dancing up and down. "I think that would be nice." She paused. "Could I … could I stop back at home? To get some of my stuff?" She hadn't been 'home' since the initial meeting with Piggot. This had been partly because of what Carol was almost certain to say, and partly because she had the obscure feeling that she was somehow cheating on Vicky with Lily, even though there was nothing between her and Vicky, and never would be.
"Certainly," the Director said firmly. "I'll have someone organise a vehicle for you. How long do you need?"
"Um." Amy tried to recall the driving time between the PRT building and Carol's house. "An hour?" That should give her plenty of leeway, even with Carol shouting at her. Well, screw her and the horse she rode in on.
Director Piggot nodded. "One hour it is. Welcome to the Wards." She pushed herself to her feet and left the room, but Amy was already pulling out her phone.
Lily is gonna be so thrilled!
Downtown Brockton Bay
Taylor
"Guh."
I smirked at Alec as I stole one of Lisa's chocolates. Lisa didn't seem to mind, as she had three crammed into her own mouth, with a blissful expression on her face. "You okay there?"
Alec stared at the garishly-coloured case in his hands. "You just happened to be the one-millionth customer to walk into the store, so they gifted you with the store copy of the only-on-pre-order new release of BattleMaster: In Extremis. And you gave it to me!" He wasn't big on emotions, but there were a few showing through now. I thought I might have even seen a tear in his eye.
"Well, I wasn't going to be playing it," I said reasonably. "And I was going to get you something nice anyway. We were just lucky enough to show up at the right time, I guess."
Brian snorted with laughter, even as he carefully stroked Chick Norris' downy head. "Yeah, like that's uncommon with you." He gazed back at me as I gave him a dry look. "What? It's true."
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "But it's not like I'm doing it on purpose." I grinned at Alec. "Not like the way you made Emma hit herself in the face with that dessert." That was a memory I would treasure forever.
"Uh huh," he agreed. "Got any other enemies? Line 'em up and I'll hit 'em in the face with dessert as much as you want."
"I'll let you know when I get any more enemies," I noted, my grin widening. It didn't seem likely; that picture of me after Jack Slash had gone viral. Even on PHO, my detractors only seemed to last so long before they thought better of their rash words.
I heard the screech of tyres and turned my head as a PRT van pulled to an abrupt halt at the curb, not five yards away. Brian tensed and stepped up, but Lisa shook her head. "There's no trouble," she assured him.
"Good," he said, relaxing his hands from their protective cage around Chick Norris. "What's going on?"
His question was answered a second or so later when the passenger door burst open and Amy Dallon emerged. She made a beeline toward me and hugged me fiercely. "Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou!" she babbled. "You're amazing! Thank you!"
"Um, wow, okay," I said, returning the hug. "You're welcome. What did I do now?"
She gave me one last squeeze, then stepped back, her face glowing with happiness. "I met someone!"
"And you're joining the Wards so you can be with … uh, her," Lisa guessed. She tilted her head. "Congratulations. And for what it's worth, I think you'll be very happy together."
Amy beamed. "Thank you," she said again, aiming it at all of us indiscriminately. "I'm just going to get my stuff from home, then I'm flying to New York. Come see me sometime?"
I nodded. "Definitely. Wow, you look like you're over the moon. She really must be something."
It was the right thing to say. Amy hugged me again. She looked like she wanted to stay and give us every last detail, but her driver coughed significantly and looked at his watch. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Gotta go. See you guys later?"
"Well, duh." Lisa smirked. "If only so we can tease the two of you for being such a cute couple."
Amy wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Lisa, then got back in the van. As it pulled back into traffic, she wound the window down and waved goodbye.
"Well, that happened," Brian observed, petting Chick Norris again. The little chicken cheeped at him, obviously enjoying the attention.
"What happened?" asked Alec, tearing himself away from his avid study of the game case. "Did something just happen?"
Lisa sighed. "Seriously, put that away before you walk into traffic—whoa, shit!"
I looked around at the honking of horns and screeching of tyres that had prompted Lisa's exclamation. Cars were swerving to the left and right as two fearsome figures stalked down the middle of the road. One was a tall woman wearing a piecemeal costume which included a bunch of skulls and other brutal imagery. Slung over her shoulder was a minigun that looked as long as I was tall. Her companion looked kind of like a wolf from someone's nightmares. Five feet tall at the shoulder, it had powerful forequarters and a large mouth filled with sharp fangs.
"Shit," Brian muttered. "It's the Teeth."
"Not all of them, though," Lisa replied, sounding more intrigued than scared. "Just Butcher and Animos. Why only the two?"
"And why here and now?" asked Brian.
"Taylor, duh," Lisa said flatly. "They heard about her and Jack Slash, and decided that they could take her."
"If we back up now," Alec murmured, "I think me and Brian can keep her from shooting us."
"Wouldn't help." Lisa didn't sound happy. "She never misses. I think she bends space or something. And she can sense vital organs, even from a distance."
I took a deep breath. "Keep Chick Norris safe," I told Brian. Stepping forward, I raised my voice. "Butcher!" I yelled. "That's far enough! What do you want?"
Butcher took a few more steps, then brought the minigun to bear. "You're Taylor Hebert? You're the lucky girl?"
I spread my hands. It wasn't like I could deny it, after all. "That's me. What do you want?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Butcher let her head fall back and she laughed. "We'll fight. If I kill you, I win. If you kill me, the Teeth win. Either way, I get revenge for all the bullshit you just put me through."
"I'm sorry?" I asked cautiously. "What bullshit?"
"Don't tell me you don't know!" Her voice was savage. "I started out with my whole team, plus fifty followers. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Flat tyres, wheels falling off, flash floods, crashed cars, exploding engines, stupid fights, people accidentally shooting each other, people deliberately shooting each other, bees in the cars, venomous snakes in the cars, an African honey badger in one car, the PRT, the Protectorate and the fucking cops. Vex and Spree got as far as the edge of town, then got dumped in the fucking Florida Everglades by some kind of blue-rimmed portal! Vex got eaten by an alligator, and Spree was kidnapped by the Fallen!" She waved her hand at Animos. "We're all that's left. We're the ones you couldn't stop. And now I'm gonna blow your guts out through your ass, then crush your skull under my boot. Got it?"
"You know," I said, trying for the voice of reason, "if you'd just given up and gone home, none of this would've happened."
"Fuck you!" she shouted. "Animos!" She took a long step to the side, to get out of the wolf-like cape's way.
Animos opened its mouth and let out a bellow of … well, it wasn't quite sound. I thought I saw a wavefront washing forward then engulfing us. Butcher snarled in triumph and pointed the minigun at us. The barrels began to spin, faster and faster.
"You don't want to do this," I called out. "It's a really bad idea!"
"Fuck," muttered Brian. "No powers." Lisa had her eyes clenched shut as she mouthed the same word over and over again. I thought it might be 'please', but I couldn't be sure.
"And what are you gonna do to stop me, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—" Butcher's voice dopplered into the distance as she was shot skyward by a water column under the oversized manhole cover she'd stepped on to.
I blinked. "Well, I didn't expect that, but I'll take it." Shading my eyes, I stared skyward, just in time to see a distant figure swoop down and intercept Butcher's flailing form. White wings spread wide in a number of directions, the pale feminine figure hovered for just a moment. I couldn't see much at this distance, but I got the distinct impression of an amused smile. And then she began to recede once more, taking Butcher with her.
"Um …" Lisa's voice was a little ragged. "Was that … was that the …"
"Simurgh?" Brian didn't sound much better. "Uh, maybe?" By the time he finished speaking, the white form was out of sight, as was Butcher.
I pulled my attention down toward ground level, where Animos was stalking toward us, fur bristled out and teeth bared. It occurred to me that if he could nullify everyone's powers, then he could simply tear us to pieces. And there were no convenient manholes around for him to fall into.
That was when the manhole cover landed on him. It was larger than most, and obviously very heavy, and he collapsed without a sound. While I was still trying to take that in, the water column also began to come down. Weirdly enough, it wasn't spraying everywhere, but instead seemed to be sucking back into the manhole it came from with barely a drop spilled. I stared, wondering what was going to happen next.
I found out when a head popped up from the manhole, bearing a very distinctive appearance. Four eyes, glowing green, asymmetrically placed.
Leviathan.
As we watched, frozen, I heard a whimper from someone. I couldn't guarantee it wasn't me. My luck was good, but there was no way it could shield me if an Endbringer decided to attack me.
One of the glowing green orbs dimmed briefly, as if to convey a wink, and then the head ducked down out of sight. It was replaced by a long clawed arm that reached out and hooked on to the manhole cover. I watched in stunned disbelief as the cover scraped over the asphalt and then clunked into place over the manhole. All that was left was Animos' unmoving body.
The silence that followed was broken by Lisa beginning to giggle. She leaned on me for support, and laughed louder and louder until the rest of us joined in. When the PRT finally arrived, they found us sitting at the side of the road, laughing until our sides hurt.
One Month Later
Taylor
Ours was the first reported Endbringer intervention, but it wasn't the last. News reports, skeptical at first, described how Behemoth destroyed the Fallen (including Spree, presumably) in half an hour, leaving their captives alive but bewildered, and disappearing before authorities were able to show up. The Simurgh located Heartbreaker and sang over him and his slaves, releasing them from his power and rendering him incapable of re-enslaving them. By all reports, he led them a merry chase before they caught him. I wasn't quite sure what happened then, but I got the impression he didn't survive the experience.
She was also seen attacking Toronto briefly, confining her effect to one small area before flying off again. Nobody quite knew what that was about, though Dragon spent a lot of time combing the area with her suits afterward.
Leviathan wasn't idle either; Dad showed up at the Lord's Port worksite one morning to find the various ships of the Boat Graveyard compressed into cubes of steel and stacked neatly off to one side, out of the way. The only clue as to who had done it was a large number of footprints that matched the Endbringer perfectly.
Dad's plans for revitalising Brockton Bay were going full steam ahead. With just a little encouragement, Mayor Christner put out the word that Lord's Port was going to be reopening in the next year, increasing interest in the operation. Closer to home, the ferry was also due to be brought back into service, sooner rather than later.
I got to meet Eidolon and Lily, Amy's girlfriend, when the Triumvirate hero brought them up from New York to visit. Apparently they were working on a project to end world hunger, and it was going well. They brought along one of their food-plant fruits for me to try. It was bland, but definitely edible. Lisa teased Amy and Lily endlessly, which surprised nobody.
Rachel's dog shelter was off to a booming start, with Coil's stolen funds giving it the needed boost to begin with. I went and saw her occasionally, bringing Chick Norris along. Norris was getting bigger by the day, almost, but he was still just as devoted to me. Rachel seemed as happy to see him as she was to see me.
One Year Later
Cauldron
Legend
"Well, it's official." Doctor Mother leaned back in her chair. "Scion's dead, and the Endbringers are heroes."
"That makes things a little difficult for us," admitted Alexandria. "Especially if this Butterfly decides to out us for whatever reason."
Legend shook his head. "Can anyone even think of a reason why the Endbringers might have shifted their focus so totally? They're literally doing more good than Scion ever did, and he was trying to pretend to be a hero." The conundrum irritated him.
"Don't look at me." Contessa unscrewed the cap from a hip flask and took a drink. "I can't Path any of this shit." She pretended not to notice Legend's annoyed glance.
Alexandria sighed. "Well, they've had a year to change their behaviour, and they haven't. What do we do now?"
"We shut it all down. Start rehabilitating the Case 53s when and where we can," Legend stated flatly. "If and when we're uncovered, we need to show that we're trying to do the right thing." He looked around, frowning. "And where's David, anyway?"
Alexandria shrugged. "On a date, apparently."
"Right." Legend didn't say any more, but the thought crossed his mind. David's been seeing his girlfriend for about as long as the Endbringers have been acting weird. Could there be some sort of connection?
A moment later, he shook his head. Nah. That's ridiculous. I've been married to Arthur for years, and nothing like this happened with us. There's got to be another reason.
New York City
Jamie Nightingale's Apartment
Eidolon
David lounged back on the sofa, with Jamie snuggled up under his arm. It felt comfortable. It felt right. "So, our first shipment went through last week," he said idly. "People seem to like it. In another six months, we'll be feeding everyone who needs it."
"You've done a wonderful thing," she murmured. "And the other projects?"
"Crime's down, pollution is down, and we're making headway on global warming." He kissed her on the forehead. "And it's all due to you asking me awkward questions."
"At a play that neither one of us wanted to be at." She giggled. "But I'm glad we were."
"Me too."
New York City
Protectorate Base
Panacea
"You ready?"
Amy looked up as Lily leaned in through the door to her room. "Oh, hi, hon. Sure, nearly there." She leaned over to zip up her boots, then blushed as her girlfriend let out a wolf-whistle. "Oh, behave." But she smiled all the same.
"Never." Lily giggled. "I can not believe we're actually going on a first-anniversary date."
"Why? Because you forgot our anniversary was tonight?" Amy smiled to take the sting out of her words, then picked up her purse from the dresser. Going to the door, she took Lily's hand.
"No. Because I've never managed to date anyone for a year before now." Lily shook her head, then leaned in and kissed Amy. "They'd always make excuses and move on, like it was such a chore dating me. But you don't seem to have any trouble at all."
Amy slipped her arm around the waist of the girl she loved and leaned her head on Lily's shoulder. "I'm gonna go with 'every other girl you've dated is an idiot'."
"I like the way you think." Lily smiled down at her. "So are we gonna go on this date, or just make out here in the hallway?"
"Hmm, decisions, decisions …"
Brockton Bay
Taylor
"So where are we going?" I asked Lisa as we got out of the car. She was smirking over something she'd been planning for the last couple of weeks. I hadn't been too worried; Lisa loved her secrets. Brian had been invited along as well, which I didn't object to at all. While Rachel was constantly busy running her dog shelter/training facility (and loving every second of it) and Alec had drifted away after hearing about his father's death (and boy, was that a surprise to me) I had kept in close contact with Lisa and Brian. Though I did hear that Alec was dating Brian's sister Aisha, so there was that. I wondered if Brian had given Alec the shovel speech yet.
"Concert," Lisa said, which was more information than she'd given me before.
I frowned. "I'm not big on music venues. Too many people, too much noise." To be honest, I'd much rather stay home and spend time with Dad and Chook Norris. (Dad told me the word was Australian slang.)
"You get to dance with Brian," she hinted.
I tried to conceal my flush. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, puh-leeze," she snorted. "I've seen the way you two look at each other now. How long have you been dating behind my back?"
" … couple of months," I admitted. The first date had been kind of a fluke, to celebrate the reopening of Lord's Port, but we'd gone on a second, and then a third. "It's just that the way you kept shoving us at each other, we really didn't want to give you a reason to gloat about being right all this time."
"Gloating shall commence forthwith," she announced grandly, then spoiled it with a giggle. "No, seriously, I'm glad you two finally saw the light. You're my two best friends, and you deserve the happiness."
"Aw, thanks." I hugged her. "So who's doing the concert?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Hadn't you heard? The Canary trial fell through. She had to pay damages and refrain from performing for something like six months, but there was no jail time, even though everyone was talking Birdcage at the beginning."
"Wow, no, I hadn't heard." Then again, I didn't pay much attention to the news. "What changed their minds?"
Lisa smirked. "Well, nobody's actually admitting to it, but for my money, the prosecution was angling for her resemblance to the Simurgh. Once the Simurgh started doing good stuff, that pulled the rug out from under them. The jury declared her innocent on just about all charges. So she's crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's, and she's allowed to perform again. And I got us front row tickets." Her smirk widened. "And someone might've had a word in her ear. Her opening song's called 'Butterfly'."
"Okay, wow," I admitted. "That is kinda cool. Did you have to pay much for the tickets?"
She snorted with amusement. "Would you believe it, no? They basically fell into my lap. Sheer luck."
"Luck, huh?" I caught her eye and snorted. We both burst out laughing.
My powers are awesome.
End of Part Twenty
Part Twenty: Finale
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Jamie
Stretching a little as she gradually came awake, Jamie became aware of an unfamiliar weight attached to her body. As her brain reasserted itself, she realised that it was her leg—her new leg! Abruptly, she sat up in bed, throwing another unexpected weight off of her waist—oh, wait. That was David's arm. And David himself was now blinking back to wakefulness, staring at her as if he'd never woken up next to anyone before. Which, if she'd read the signs right last night, he hadn't.
But that wasn't her concern right now. Ignoring their mutual nudity, she kicked the covers all the way down and lifted her knee, examining the replaced limb minutely. It all seemed to be there, the toes wiggling when she told them to. "It wasn't a dream," she said wonderingly. Straightening her leg, she threw herself on top of David and kissed him thoroughly, morning breath and all. "It wasn't a dream!"
"No, I guess it wasn't," he mumbled, once the kiss was over and she'd rolled off of him again. "Did we … last night … I mean … were you …?"
She could have laughed at his blushing shyness over what had happened between them, but she didn't. In direct contrast to his public persona, his male ego was very fragile. This wasn't surprising; most male egos were fragile. But as a forty-year-old very recently ex-virgin, his was more so than most. "It was wonderful," she said warmly.
She wasn't lying; there'd been a few hiccups, but they'd gotten past them and she'd made damn certain that he enjoyed himself as much as she did. Which had been a considerable amount. She hadn't gone totally without in the time since she'd lost her leg, but most guys she'd met couldn't get past the leg thing (and some found it kinky, which she thought was a little weird). But David applied himself to making love with her as thoroughly as he did anything else, which meant that the earth had indeed moved for her. Several times.
"Oh," he said awkwardly. "I'm glad. I mean … you were wonderful, too. I … wonder if …" To her secret delight, a flush spread upward from his cheekbones as he looked everywhere but her body.
"David," she said softly. Taking his hand, she placed it on her waist. "Last night was a truly special time for me. And I want to do it again with you, as often as you want." Lowering herself off of her elbow, she slid her arm under his neck to pull him closer. "I think you're an amazing man, and you're a pretty damn cool superhero too." Lifting her leg, she ran her big toe teasingly up and down his calf. Her eyelids lowered as she continued in a sultry tone, "That is, if you're interested …"
Finally he took the hint, and rolled over to meet her. She felt his arms go around her, and she met his kiss with one that was just as fierce and just as passionate. While they'd have to get up eventually, she figured, they could put it off for another hour or so.
<><>
Lily
As they walked out to the helipad, Lily slipped her hand into Amy's. The frizzy-haired girl squeezed her fingers tightly. Lily worked a finger free and tickled Panacea's palm. When she glanced sideways, a blush was spreading across the healer's cheeks. Lily grinned, recalling just how ticklish Amy was, and how much they'd both learned about each other the night before.
"You'll visit?" Amy asked, her voice barely audible over the sound of turning rotor blades.
"Visit?" Lily laughed out loud. "I might transfer. Unless you want to join the New York Wards? I hear it's gone really quiet in Brockton Bay recently."
Amy chuckled in her turn. "'Quiet' isn't exactly the right word. 'Weird as fuck' is closer." She squeezed Lily's hand a little tighter. "I could join the New York Wards. Or you could transfer to Brockton Bay, if you wanted. I'd be happy either way." She paused for thought. "Actually, screw that. I know what I want. And it's not Brockton Bay."
They had talked a little the night before. Lily was still weirded out by the idea of two grown men, who had somehow captured the Siberian, physically prostrating themselves before a teenage girl who'd just walked Jack Slash under a falling piano. She wondered what it would be like to live in the same city as someone whose power amounted to pure bullshit luck. But she was more interested in what it would be like to live in the same city as Amy Dallon.
"Whatever you want to do, I'm good with," Lily said. She stopped just short of the boarding ramp, and turned to face Amy. She raised her free hand to cup Amy's cheek with her palm. "I've been transferred to more departments around the country than any other three Wards I know, but I've never met anyone like you before." Leaning in, she pressed her lips to Amy's. The kiss was tender and sweet, and over far too soon.
<><>
Emily Piggot
Being the Director of a PRT Department gave Emily Piggot far too many problems to deal with on a daily basis that she could just casually put aside her responsibilities for no good reason. However, her job also meant that if there was a good reason, then some duties took precedence over others. Such as standing up on the roof of the building instead of sitting in her office, making awkward small-talk with Brandish and Lady Photon of New Wave while they waited for the former's errant daughter to come home. Brandish's other daughter, obviously bored, strolled along the edge of the roof, occasionally leaning out at ninety degrees to look down at the street below. Powers are such bullshit.
She had no idea why Eidolon had dropped off Panacea in New York, but it wasn't like she could tear strips off of the man for neglecting his responsibilities. As it was, she would still have been in her office, Panacea or no Panacea, if it hadn't been for a somewhat puzzling radio call that had come in from the chopper while it was en route. When a superhero of Panacea's capabilities, teenager or otherwise, requested an audience with someone like Emily, it was wise to either grant it or have a really good reason why not. And it wasn't as if she had the up-until-recently normal run of gang violence as an excuse.
Since the video of Butterfly and Jack Slash went viral, the criminal element of Brockton Bay seemed to be in a state of shock. Not to mention the fact that the parahuman criminal element was close to extinct in the city by now. She'd even read on PHO that Faultline and her Crew were considering upping stakes and moving to another city. Any city, anywhere else. Normally, this would be cause for celebration, but Emily knew damn well that it wasn't due to anything she'd done. Except maybe been polite to Butterfly.
The noise of rotors became audible in the distance. Emily turned and shaded her eyes until she spotted the incoming transport. Glory Girl perked up and flew into the air, obviously intending to go meet it.
"Victoria, come back here!" Brandish ordered. "That's an official PRT transport. They aren't permitted to allow you on board."
"Aw, mo-om," pouted Glory Girl, but she came back as directed. "Did Ames even say why she was in New York? She coulda told me, and we coulda gone and done stuff while we were there."
"She did not." Brandish's freezing tone was good at shutting down lines of enquiry like that. "No doubt it's got something to do with this new hobby or whatever it is she's doing. Well, no more. If she can't be responsible enough to either be home at a reasonable hour or ask permission first, she's grounded."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" asked Lady Photon. "I mean, it's the first time she's done something like this, and it is Eidolon, after all …" She glanced at Emily. "Did you ever find out what they were doing in New York?"
Emily shrugged. "I have no idea. Eidolon does what Eidolon does."
She watched as the transport came in for a landing. The helipad was FOD'd (picked over for anything that might cause Foreign Object Damage) before every transport arrival and departure, which meant she had little to worry about except the actual downgust of wind. A stray memory crossed her mind of a visiting Australian cape referring to the FOD procedure as an 'emu parade'. An emu, she'd heard, was a big flightless bird similar to an ostrich, but she had no idea what parades had to do with it.
With a roar of engine and a rush of wind, the transport touched down, settling on to its landing gear. The rear ramp opened and passengers filtered out, but Emily was only looking for one. Even then, Panacea nearly escaped her notice, partly because the girl wasn't in costume (why not?) and partly because of her attitude. Panacea normally walked with her eyes down, as if she were trying to hide from the world. Or maybe because she felt she bore the weight of it on her shoulders.
This Panacea was as far from that girl as someone could be, and still look the same. Her head was up, her eyes bright and she moved with a confident stride. She faltered a little as her eyes swept over Emily's little group (no doubt due to Brandish's censorious glare) but she kept coming anyway. Emily saw her fists clench at her sides, quite possibly without her conscious knowledge.
"Ames!" Emily felt a rush of happiness as Glory Girl rushed at her sister, pulling to a halt at the last moment and spinning the two of them around. "I've been worried sick about you! Stuck in New York all alone? Anything could've happened to you!"
As Emily was opening her mouth to say something, Panacea leaned in and whispered to her sister, and the unnatural emotion died away. Emily shut her mouth again and watched the reunion carefully. Glory Girl had a very … forceful personality, but Panacea seemed to be right up there with her at the moment. "Well, something did," the healer said, a crooked grin quirking her mouth. "Tell you later."
She didn't get the chance to say anything more, because Brandish was marching forward. "Panacea!" she snapped. "Why didn't you call before you went to New York? Your father and I have been worried!"
Panacea turned to look at her, and visibly wilted before Emily's eyes. "I'm sorry," she began. "I didn't know—"
"That's hardly an excuse," Brandish said flatly. "You're grounded until you can prove to be more responsible. You're coming home right now." Nodding to Glory Girl, she turned to Lady Photon. "Let's go."
"You didn't let me finish. No, wait, Vicky. I've got something to say."
Emily's eyes were drawn to Panacea like a magnet. The girl's tone had changed from deferential to forceful, and something had injected iron back into her backbone; the subtle hunch to her shoulders had straightened right out again. Okay, what the hell?
"Ames?" Glory Girl looked at her quizzically, but didn't try to pick her up. "What's going on?"
"That's what I'd like to know, too." Lady Photon rubbed her chin while looking her niece over with a furrowed brow. "Carol, do you seriously not see this?"
"See what?" Brandish pressed her lips together. "Amy left the city without letting me know she was going to be away overnight. That's a serious breach of trust, right there."
"I didn't know I was going to be away overnight," Panacea said flatly. "Eidolon wanted to introduce me to a friend of his. Plans changed, and he ended up being unavailable, so I went straight to the Protectorate base. They put me up for the night."
To Emily's trained ear, the recitation of events sounded almost … rehearsed. If she didn't already have that impression, the way Panacea's eyes jumped around as she was saying it would've aroused her suspicions. A practised liar, Panacea was not. While Emily was almost certain the statements were factual, Emily would have bet rather a lot of money that there was a great deal Panacea was leaving out of the story. Especially considering the faint blush that rose over her face as she said the last sentence.
"What are you talking about, Aunt Sarah?" asked Glory Girl. "See what?"
As fascinating as all this was, Emily Piggot was a busy woman. "Panacea, I understand that you've requested to speak to me. I'm listening."
Panacea's eyes jumped around even more. "Can we, uh, do this in your office? Alone?"
"Certainly not," Brandish said flatly. "You're a minor and you need a parent or legal guardian present when you speak to her. That's me."
Emily wondered if Brandish heard the irritation in the sigh that Panacea let out. "Fine. Director Piggot, I want to join the Wards, on one condition."
"What?" Glory Girl beat out her mother, but only barely.
"What?" Brandish hit the high notes almost immediately.
"What, really?" Lady Photon's eyebrows rose.
What? Emily blinked. She'd been through a lot, but having Panacea simply ask to join the Wards … it certainly made the top ten 'wtf' moments in her life. "I'm sure that can be arranged," she said, purely on reflex. "What is your condition?"
"I want to be transferred to the New York Wards," Panacea said boldly.
The chorus of startled exclamations only went as far as Glory Girl and Brandish, this time. Lady Photon merely looked thoughtful, while Emily felt a burst of enlightenment. Panacea's newfound confidence, coupled with her wish to be in the New York Wards, said one thing to her. It seemed that Panacea's aunt had also caught the ramifications, while Brandish and Glory Girl were still distracted with the peripheral matters.
The choice was a simple one; accept the offer, or no. On the face of it, it was the very definition of a no-brainer. The Director who recruited a high-powered healer such as Panacea into the Wards would earn a well-deserved pat on the back from Chief Director Costa-Brown when the time came. Of course, the condition meant that she wouldn't be able to keep Panacea in Brockton Bay, but the workload facing the Brockton Bay Protectorate and Wards had fallen away dramatically of late. She strongly suspected that the majority of the Protectorate and Wards personnel in the city would be transferring away in the not too distant future anyway.
"I believe that can be arranged," she said smoothly. All she'd need would be proof of consent from Panacea's legal guardians—in the event, Brandish—and the right forms could be filled out and signed just as soon as possible. "Brandish?" This, she suspected, might be more of a problem.
"Absolutely not!" snapped Brandish, confirming Piggot's worst fears. "It's out of the question. Amy, you're coming home right now, and then you're explaining to me and your father exactly where you've been and what you've been doing. This is very irresponsible of you, and—"
"Shut up, Carol!"
To Emily's surprise, the exclamation came from Lady Photon. To be honest, she'd half expected it from Panacea herself. The healer seemed to have been gearing herself up to do it, if Emily was any judge.
If Emily was surprised, Brandish was astonished. "Sarah?" she demanded. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Protecting you from making a costly mistake." Lady Photon looked at Panacea. "You've had your sixteenth birthday, which means you can join anyway without requiring parental approval." It wasn't quite a question.
"That's right." Panacea's response was short, but the tone clued Emily into the fact that she'd already been thinking about it. Probably for most of the flight. Wanted to see how Brandish reacted before popping that little fact in her face.
Oh. Oh. She doesn't like Brandish very much if she's willing to blindside her like that.
That was a new insight into the workings of New Wave, but it wasn't going to be valid for very long. Emily looked at Brandish, who seemed to be working up to a new tirade. "Brandish," she said quietly.
"What?" Brandish didn't sound happy, which didn't surprise Emily.
"I'm inclined to accept Panacea's offer. You can oppose it and lose all hope of keeping any sort of a connection, or you can accept what your daughter wants."
"I'm her mother," Brandish snapped. "You can't transfer her away without parental approval."
"Actually, given certain legal hoops to jump through, yes I can," Emily replied without heat. "We've had incidences of overly-controlling parents before now." Brandish's eyes flashed as the subtext in Emily's words hit her but it was too late to do anything but forge on. "If she joins, Panacea will by definition have a place of residence and a salaried job, which means we would be able to apply for emancipation on her behalf." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Do not try to fight this. You will lose."
"Wait, wait, time out!" Glory Girl protested, holding her hands up in the classic 'T' formation. "Ames, what the heck? Joining the Wards? Transferring to New York? What's going on here? What's got into you?"
Panacea's sudden blush and giggle were unexpected, but they served to cement the supposition that had been growing in Emily's mind. Her feelings about the suspected reasons for Panacea's defection from New Wave were mixed, to say the least. She didn't know who had caught the healer's eye, or how long the infatuation would last, or even if it was mutual. From Panacea's attitude, something significant had happened between herself and the other Ward (at least, Emily hoped it was a Ward), although 'significant' was a term that could only be defined by Panacea herself. And what would happen when (if) the relationship ran its course? Would Panacea want to stay in the Wards, or would she want to wash her hands of them?
Militating against that was the rock-solid assurance that the Chief Director would want her to at least try to get Panacea into the Wards. Not that Emily was against the idea in principle; PRT troopers and capes had a depressing ability to hurt each other and get hurt in a most expensive fashion. But it meant that she was going to have to set some conditions of her own before she accepted.
"Never mind all that," she said firmly. "Panacea, I'm going to provisionally accept your offer. However, I am going to have to give you a complete entrance interview, with a third party available to handle your interests in the matter. At any time, if you wish, you can walk away. Do you understand?" Because there was no way in hell she was going to finish signing Panacea before finding out exactly what had happened, and if it was legal, moral and ethical. If charges needed to be laid … well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.
Panacea nodded vigorously. "How soon can we have it?"
<><>
Eidolon
David rose above the New York skyline. He felt … energised. It couldn't all be due to the extra time spent in bed, or the breakfast that Jamie had insisted on cooking for him, though those had both been … amazing. It was like he'd woken up in an entire different reality, where the sunlight was brighter and the world was a better place. Indeed, for a moment he'd suspected a Master effect might be in play, but then he recalled what he'd read about endorphins and other such matters. This was natural; it had just never happened to him before.
He'd contacted the Protectorate building and verified that Panacea was in their care, which didn't surprise him. The girl was both smart and resourceful. She was a good hero, and she'd been utterly invaluable with his projects with Blasto. Which reminded him; it was time for field trials. Amy and Blasto had forced the food plant through a thousand generations in just a couple of days, and no significant problems had shown up in that time. He wasn't quite sure how they'd made the gene sequence so stable, but that was why one brought in outside assistance, after all.
North Africa, he decided. He'd collect a sample bag of seeds from Blasto, pick a location, speak with the local community leaders, and set about dispersing the food plants. It would take a month for them to show results, but he had plenty of work with his other projects to keep him busy. And once the plants were growing properly, he'd bring Jamie to show her what she'd wrought.
With a broad grin stretching his mouth, he brought up his teleport ability. Green light flashed, and he was gone.
<><>
Somewhere in America
"You're shitting me. Give." Quarrel, now known as Butcher, reached out for the newspaper.
"Uh, sure." Animos handed it over, then got up and headed for the fridge.
The skulls that Butcher had strung over her shoulder clattered against each other as she sat back with the paper. On the front page, the picture of the teenage girl straightening up with butterflies perched on her head and arms—and knife tip—was actually quite impressive. Below it, smaller pictures showed the girl with the same knife held to her throat by a man Quarrel tentatively identified as Jack Slash, and a blurred image of a piano in the air above him. The headline read: BUTTERFLY: 9. SLAUGHTERHOUSE: 0.
If she was to believe this story, the Slaugherhouse Nine had come to a city called Brockton Bay, and … died. A series of coincidences and unlikely occurrences—including the piano which had fallen on Jack Slash—had killed them all over just a few days, before they had the chance to begin terrorising the place. Before the authorities were even aware of them. The breathless tone of the article made it irritating to read, but she persisted. It seemed that the girl in the picture, one Taylor Hebert (aka 'Butterfly'), was the focal point of all this. Not from anything she'd done, but it seemed that whenever anything bad was about to happen to her, her power kicked in and the misfortune was reflected back tenfold.
There was an interview with Director Emily Piggot of the PRT on page two. Instead of the 'no comment' common in this sort of situation, Piggot had actually gone on the record with a series of statements.
Interviewer: So, this Butterfly … she's a real person? This isn't some sort of hoax?
Piggot: This is not a hoax. Butterfly is a real person. I strongly recommend you not harass her.
I: And her powers are … luck? Just that?
P: Her powers are absolutely genuine. I've seen the evidence, many times.
I: So how soon will she be joining the Wards?
P: She won't be, unless she decides that she wants to.
I: So you haven't tried to recruit her?
P: Not since her power decided that she'd be happier outside the Wards.
I: Her … power decided that?
P: Exactly.
I: And you haven't got a problem with this? Is she a danger to anyone?
P: [expletive deleted], don't ask that question unless you want her to be one. We at the PRT have an agreement with Butterfly. We don't harass her, and she lets us do our job in matters that she doesn't care about. [Pause] Can we wipe the tape on that?
I: Sorry, that's not my call. So she's really that powerful?
P: Yes.
I: Can you expand on that?
P: Okay, let me be absolutely clear on this. I am going on the record, and I want you to print everything I say. Got it?
I: Got it.
P: Good. Now, you have to understand that Butterfly only came to our attention two weeks ago. In that time, her power has exposed more than one case of corruption in the ranks of the PRT and the heroes, brought down both major gangs in the city, apparently converted a number of minor parahuman criminals to heroism, and caused a major solo player to spontaneously decide to become a benefit to society. All while she was attending school, sleeping, or doing other things. Any questions so far?
I: Uh, yeah. About the Nine?
P: They came to our city, all right. And they never stood a chance. You've seen the footage of Uber and Leet capturing the Siberian?
I: The Ghostbusters thing? That was real?
P: That was absolutely, unequivocally real. If I understand matters correctly, Butterfly's power began manipulating reality three weeks ago and thirteen hundred miles away, to counter threats that hadn't even happened yet. And I have no doubt that it's still preparing for threats she might meet in the future. So here's my word on Butterfly: leave her alone. Don't annoy her, and don't threaten anyone she cares about. You'll probably survive the backlash, but I can't guarantee that. [Pause] Actually, she's got quite a few friends now, so if you're considering any sort of criminal activity, don't come to Brockton Bay. You can quote me on that.
Butcher crumpled the paper and threw it aside. "Luck powers," she said derisively. "Bullshit." Raising her eyes to where Animos had opened a beer, she smiled coldly. "Time to see how lucky this bitch really is. Get everyone together. We're going to Brockton Bay."
<><>
Amy
"Panacea, this is Dolores Henderson," the Director said. "She's our in-house counsel for situations like this. Everything you say to her will be held in strict confidentiality, so long as it doesn't involve an actual breakage of the law. You can have a family member sit with you while you talk to her, if you want."
"Hi, Panacea," said Dolores Henderson, holding out her hand. She was a slender woman with shoulder-length mousy-brown hair and large round glasses. "I'm very pleased to meet you."
Automatically, Amy shook the woman's hand, but her mind was elsewhere. She hadn't thought that anything she'd done might be illegal. "Um, what if I've broken the law? What happens then?"
Piggot sighed. "In which case, it happened on Protectorate property and must be investigated, but coming clean with it from the beginning will give us considerable leeway for dealing with it." She paused. "Understand that I'm not asking for details—that's Ms Henderson's job—but do you think you might have broken the law?"
"I … don't think so?" Amy frowned. "You said earlier that I could just walk away if I wanted to. Can I just walk away now? If I want to?"
"Yes and no," Henderson said. "You could walk out that door right now. However, because the possibility of a legal issue has come up, we would be bound to investigate what happened from the New York Protectorate end, and anything that arose from that would be something we would have to follow up on. Do you understand?"
Which meant they'd question Lily as well as everyone who'd seen the two of them together. She began to regret the kiss just before she got on the transport. Better to sort this out now and hope for the best. "Yeah, I understand. Let's do this."
"A wise decision." Piggot's smile almost reached her eyes this time. "Did you want a family member to sit in?"
Hastily, Amy shook her head. "Uh no." There were details she didn't want anyone in her family to hear.
"Very well. I'll leave you to it." Opening the door, Piggot exited. It closed behind her.
"Well, then." Dolores Henderson sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher that sat there. Flipping open her notebook to a clean page, she clicked her pen then poised it over the paper.
Amy took a seat across from her. "I thought this was being recorded." She nodded to the pad.
"Oh, it is," Henderson said readily. "This is for my own personal thought process. Shall we begin?"
Amy took a deep breath. "When I got to the Protectorate building, they called down Flechette to take me up and get me settled …"
<><>
Danny Hebert
Roy Christner stood up and leaned over his desk to shake hands with Danny. "Good to see you," he said heartily.
Danny knew he was lying, but it was a politician's lie, so he decided to let it go. "Nice to see you too, Roy." He smiled more widely than Roy had, and saw the first jolt of uncertainty in the mayor's eyes. "I take it you've heard the news over the last few days?"
"I have." Roy's voice was somewhat more cautious than before. "How's your girl holding up? I hear fame can be a strain."
Danny rolled his eyes. "She's loving it. Nobody bothers her if she doesn't want them to. One guy who tried to get in her face with a microphone tripped and fell into an open manhole. Damnedest thing. And then there's that thing with Jack Slash." He saw the man twitch as he said the name, and derived a certain amount of guilty pleasure from it.
"Uh … yes. About that." Roy's voice was still firm and confident, but there was now a sheen of sweat on his forehead. "You didn't give my secretary any actual reason for this meeting."
"No. I didn't." Danny's smile widened slightly. "And yet, here I am."
"Because every person I tried to schedule for this timeslot cancelled their meetings almost immediately afterward, even though I hadn't told them." Roy's eyes searched Danny's. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want." Danny made his voice flat and hard.
"The ferry?"
Danny nodded. "The ferry. Plus, some other things I intend to finance myself. With our share of the Slaugherhouse Nine reward."
"Which are …?"
The chair creaked as Danny leaned back. "I've already started buying up the leases on the buildings immediately surrounding Lord's Port. I intend to renovate them, then get the Port up and running again, just as soon as I can get the Boat Graveyard cleared." Just listing the steps out loud gave him a heady feeling. We really can do this.
" … the Boat Graveyard cleared?" Roy shook his head. "How are you going to do that? And what do you want from me?"
"I'm not sure yet," Danny said lightly. "Something will come up. And as for what I want from you is simple: don't stand in my way." He sat forward abruptly, seeing the shock in Christner's eyes as he closed the distance. "I have tried, and tried, and tried to get the ferry reinstated. But there's always been someone with an agenda to block mine. Well, that ends now. The ferry will come back. And nobody blocks what I'm doing with Lord's Port, or buys up the leases just so they can make a buck selling them back to me. Understood?"
Christner nodded jerkily. "Understood."
"Excellent." Danny got up. "I'll see myself out."
As the door closed behind him, he smiled grimly. That felt good.
<><>
Emily Piggot
Emily looked up as Henderson entered her office. "So, how bad is it?" she asked. She had hopes that it would be all right, but the world had a way of shitting on her expectations.
"Actually, it's not bad at all," Dolores said cheerfully. "You were correct, of course. The other party in the matter was Flechette. She's seventeen, so that aspect isn't a problem. I put a call through to New York and had Legend ask the girl about her intentions toward Panacea. To quote him, she became 'positively lyrical'. I gather that both of them have been lonely for a long time, and the amount of emotional bonding has been rather intense."
Some of the weight lifted from Emily's shoulders. "So it's not just a casual flirtation on the part of either one of them."
Henderson snorted with dry amusement. "I should think not. They're both lacking dependable outside ties, which I suspect they've formed with each other. Given the opportunity, these will only grow stronger."
There was another potential problem that Emily could think of. "You don't think their relationship will be a problem within the team?"
"Hardly. This is Legend's team, after all." Henderson shrugged. "Even if there was someone in the Wards or Protectorate team with any sort of opinion about openly gay or lesbian relationships, do you honestly think they'd make trouble about it?"
The woman had a point. "So your opinion is that we should go through with the recruitment process and transfer Panacea to New York?"
Dolores Henderson smiled. "I think if you did that, Panacea would love you forever."
<><>
One Week Later
PRT Building
Brockton Bay
Director Piggot
"All the arrangements have been made." Emily nodded to the stack of forms that sat between her and Dolores Henderson. "Once you sign those, you will be a member of the Wards. Do you understand?"
Panacea nodded. "Yes, I understand." She looked longingly at the documents, but her eyes went back to Emily when the Director kept speaking.
Emily chose her words carefully, wanting to impress on the healer the gravity of what she was doing. "While we understand that your motivations for joining the Wards are strongly connected to your relationship with Flechette, we cannot officially acknowledge this, for obvious reasons. However, we do not disapprove of this relationship, nor will we discourage it, so long as it does not interfere with your duties as a Ward. Do you understand this?"
"Yes." Panacea's voice was subdued but firm. "I won't let you down."
"Good." Emily caught Panacea's eyes with her own. "Finally, if that relationship were to end, this will in no way release you from your contract with the Wards. Is that understood?"
Jerkily, Panacea nodded. "Yeah." She took a deep breath. "But I still want to do it."
Dolores Henderson spoke up for the first time. "That's the spirit." She slid the first form over and placed a pen on top. "Read it through, then sign here and here."
Panacea picked up the pen.
<><>
Over North Africa
Eidolon
David hovered in the baking air, two thousand feet up, his fists clenched in frustration. "No. No, no, no, NO!"
It wasn't the worst thing that could happen, but it was close. Not only had Ash Beast taken a random turn that had him bearing down on the villages that were even now husbanding the trial crops of food plants, but there were ominous seismic rumblings in the area. Rumblings which had just one meaning: Behemoth was digging his way to the surface.
There was only one problem with that. Behemoth had no reason to attack this region. There were fewer than five thousand people within range of his rampage, and David knew he could evacuate them all before they were in imminent danger. The trouble was, any sort of rampage would see the seedlings destroyed, forcing him to start all over again. And if he engaged Behemoth, then Ash Beast was likely to travel through that area anyway, rendering his efforts futile.
David gritted his teeth, trying to decide whether to save the villagers first, destroy Ash Beast where he stood, or salvage the seedlings. There would be no stopping Behemoth instantly, and engaging the beast when he could be doing something more useful would be counter-productive. I'll save the villagers, he decided. If I can divert Ash Beast after that, then I will. Behemoth won't destroy anything I can't rebuild, so he can wait.
Just as he was preparing to put this plan into action, a small hill burst asunder and Behemoth pulled himself to the surface. He was farther away from the villages than David had thought he would be, and closer to Ash Beast's line of travel. Which made the upcoming battle a little more convenient, for a given definition of the word. David had battled more than one opponent before at a time, but never at this power level. Would it be better to take out Ash Beast so that I can focus on Behemoth? The trouble with that strategy was if he poured all his effort into destroying the almost-indestructible Ash Beast, he would almost certainly leave himself open to any attack Behemoth wanted to throw his way.
And then Behemoth stepped into Ash Beast's path and started loping toward the oncoming unnatural disaster, each footfall shaking the terrain.
What?
Had Behemoth somehow mistaken Ash Beast for a hero? David shook his head in puzzlement, trying to reason out the Endbringer's motivations. The villages, such as they were, stood in the opposite direction. Every other time he'd attacked, he'd aimed for terror and loss of life. This time … he was doing neither.
And then David thought of another explanation, one that sent chills down his back. Perhaps his emergence so far from any city was a ruse. If there was something else nearby that Behemoth could destroy, thus harming a huge number of people, that would make sense of his actions. Perhaps an underground aquifer that he could contaminate with radiation.
Whatever it was, David knew that he'd have to deal with Ash Beast once Behemoth passed the other parahuman by, so that the villagers would be in no danger. And the seedlings, too. After that, he could chase down the running Endbringer and engage him long enough for help to arrive, while the Thinkers figured out what he wanted in this desolate part of the world.
Behemoth stopped in Ash Beast's path, barely a hundred yards ahead of the leading edge of the cloud of fire and destruction. Then he began to walk directly into it. David watched, fully aware of what he was seeing, but in no way comprehending what it meant. The cloud reached Behemoth then engulfed his lower legs, reaching almost up to his waist. He kept walking, the fire breaking around him like an oncoming wave.
David watched carefully but he didn't see any change in Behemoth's stride, even when the fire cut out and the cloud began to dissipate. By the time it was all gone, Behemoth had stopped once more. The trail of destruction left by Ash Beast stretched to the horizon, ending at Behemoth's feet. Of the parahuman himself, there was no sign. Whatever Behemoth had done, it had destroyed him utterly. Perhaps Behemoth had absorbed so much of Ash Beast's energy that he'd killed him outright? It was a working theory, anyway.
Okay … David fought to get his head around the implications. His potential battle had just gone from two opponents down to one, when Behemoth had just annihilated Ash Beast. He had no idea what was going on, except maybe that Behemoth had decided that only one walking proponent of utter destruction was allowed in his vicinity.
That was when Behemoth turned toward where David hovered, two thousand feet up and half a mile away. The Endbringer would still be able to hit him with any of several ranged attacks from that distance, David was aware. But if a fight started here and now, the spillover from the energies unleashed would almost certainly kill people. Maybe he could lead the monster away …
And then Behemoth raised one arm. David tensed, expecting an attack. But instead of flinging fire or lightning at him, Behemoth waved. The motion was jerky, utilising the whole arm, but it was undeniably a wave. While David was still gaping, the Endbringer began to dig himself back underground again. In seconds, all that was left was an area of disturbed (and somewhat scorched) earth, and diminishing seismic traces.
Jamie is never going to believe this.
<><>
Panacea
" … and sign here." Dolores Henderson slid the last form over toward Amy.
Checking over the wording, Amy saw nothing wrong with it and signed her name at the bottom. "Is that it?" she asked.
"Yes." Director Piggot's smile reached all the way to her eyes, this time. "Congratulations. You're now a Ward. We'll have you on the next flight to New York, if that's what you want."
Oh, I want, I want. Amy tried to keep her smile demure, but inside she was dancing up and down. "I think that would be nice." She paused. "Could I … could I stop back at home? To get some of my stuff?" She hadn't been 'home' since the initial meeting with Piggot. This had been partly because of what Carol was almost certain to say, and partly because she had the obscure feeling that she was somehow cheating on Vicky with Lily, even though there was nothing between her and Vicky, and never would be.
"Certainly," the Director said firmly. "I'll have someone organise a vehicle for you. How long do you need?"
"Um." Amy tried to recall the driving time between the PRT building and Carol's house. "An hour?" That should give her plenty of leeway, even with Carol shouting at her. Well, screw her and the horse she rode in on.
Director Piggot nodded. "One hour it is. Welcome to the Wards." She pushed herself to her feet and left the room, but Amy was already pulling out her phone.
Lily is gonna be so thrilled!
<><>
Downtown Brockton Bay
Taylor
"Guh."
I smirked at Alec as I stole one of Lisa's chocolates. Lisa didn't seem to mind, as she had three crammed into her own mouth, with a blissful expression on her face. "You okay there?"
Alec stared at the garishly-coloured case in his hands. "You just happened to be the one-millionth customer to walk into the store, so they gifted you with the store copy of the only-on-pre-order new release of BattleMaster: In Extremis. And you gave it to me!" He wasn't big on emotions, but there were a few showing through now. I thought I might have even seen a tear in his eye.
"Well, I wasn't going to be playing it," I said reasonably. "And I was going to get you something nice anyway. We were just lucky enough to show up at the right time, I guess."
Brian snorted with laughter, even as he carefully stroked Chick Norris' downy head. "Yeah, like that's uncommon with you." He gazed back at me as I gave him a dry look. "What? It's true."
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "But it's not like I'm doing it on purpose." I grinned at Alec. "Not like the way you made Emma hit herself in the face with that dessert." That was a memory I would treasure forever.
"Uh huh," he agreed. "Got any other enemies? Line 'em up and I'll hit 'em in the face with dessert as much as you want."
"I'll let you know when I get any more enemies," I noted, my grin widening. It didn't seem likely; that picture of me after Jack Slash had gone viral. Even on PHO, my detractors only seemed to last so long before they thought better of their rash words.
I heard the screech of tyres and turned my head as a PRT van pulled to an abrupt halt at the curb, not five yards away. Brian tensed and stepped up, but Lisa shook her head. "There's no trouble," she assured him.
"Good," he said, relaxing his hands from their protective cage around Chick Norris. "What's going on?"
His question was answered a second or so later when the passenger door burst open and Amy Dallon emerged. She made a beeline toward me and hugged me fiercely. "Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou!" she babbled. "You're amazing! Thank you!"
"Um, wow, okay," I said, returning the hug. "You're welcome. What did I do now?"
She gave me one last squeeze, then stepped back, her face glowing with happiness. "I met someone!"
"And you're joining the Wards so you can be with … uh, her," Lisa guessed. She tilted her head. "Congratulations. And for what it's worth, I think you'll be very happy together."
Amy beamed. "Thank you," she said again, aiming it at all of us indiscriminately. "I'm just going to get my stuff from home, then I'm flying to New York. Come see me sometime?"
I nodded. "Definitely. Wow, you look like you're over the moon. She really must be something."
It was the right thing to say. Amy hugged me again. She looked like she wanted to stay and give us every last detail, but her driver coughed significantly and looked at his watch. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Gotta go. See you guys later?"
"Well, duh." Lisa smirked. "If only so we can tease the two of you for being such a cute couple."
Amy wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Lisa, then got back in the van. As it pulled back into traffic, she wound the window down and waved goodbye.
"Well, that happened," Brian observed, petting Chick Norris again. The little chicken cheeped at him, obviously enjoying the attention.
"What happened?" asked Alec, tearing himself away from his avid study of the game case. "Did something just happen?"
Lisa sighed. "Seriously, put that away before you walk into traffic—whoa, shit!"
I looked around at the honking of horns and screeching of tyres that had prompted Lisa's exclamation. Cars were swerving to the left and right as two fearsome figures stalked down the middle of the road. One was a tall woman wearing a piecemeal costume which included a bunch of skulls and other brutal imagery. Slung over her shoulder was a minigun that looked as long as I was tall. Her companion looked kind of like a wolf from someone's nightmares. Five feet tall at the shoulder, it had powerful forequarters and a large mouth filled with sharp fangs.
"Shit," Brian muttered. "It's the Teeth."
"Not all of them, though," Lisa replied, sounding more intrigued than scared. "Just Butcher and Animos. Why only the two?"
"And why here and now?" asked Brian.
"Taylor, duh," Lisa said flatly. "They heard about her and Jack Slash, and decided that they could take her."
"If we back up now," Alec murmured, "I think me and Brian can keep her from shooting us."
"Wouldn't help." Lisa didn't sound happy. "She never misses. I think she bends space or something. And she can sense vital organs, even from a distance."
I took a deep breath. "Keep Chick Norris safe," I told Brian. Stepping forward, I raised my voice. "Butcher!" I yelled. "That's far enough! What do you want?"
Butcher took a few more steps, then brought the minigun to bear. "You're Taylor Hebert? You're the lucky girl?"
I spread my hands. It wasn't like I could deny it, after all. "That's me. What do you want?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Butcher let her head fall back and she laughed. "We'll fight. If I kill you, I win. If you kill me, the Teeth win. Either way, I get revenge for all the bullshit you just put me through."
"I'm sorry?" I asked cautiously. "What bullshit?"
"Don't tell me you don't know!" Her voice was savage. "I started out with my whole team, plus fifty followers. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Flat tyres, wheels falling off, flash floods, crashed cars, exploding engines, stupid fights, people accidentally shooting each other, people deliberately shooting each other, bees in the cars, venomous snakes in the cars, an African honey badger in one car, the PRT, the Protectorate and the fucking cops. Vex and Spree got as far as the edge of town, then got dumped in the fucking Florida Everglades by some kind of blue-rimmed portal! Vex got eaten by an alligator, and Spree was kidnapped by the Fallen!" She waved her hand at Animos. "We're all that's left. We're the ones you couldn't stop. And now I'm gonna blow your guts out through your ass, then crush your skull under my boot. Got it?"
"You know," I said, trying for the voice of reason, "if you'd just given up and gone home, none of this would've happened."
"Fuck you!" she shouted. "Animos!" She took a long step to the side, to get out of the wolf-like cape's way.
Animos opened its mouth and let out a bellow of … well, it wasn't quite sound. I thought I saw a wavefront washing forward then engulfing us. Butcher snarled in triumph and pointed the minigun at us. The barrels began to spin, faster and faster.
"You don't want to do this," I called out. "It's a really bad idea!"
"Fuck," muttered Brian. "No powers." Lisa had her eyes clenched shut as she mouthed the same word over and over again. I thought it might be 'please', but I couldn't be sure.
"And what are you gonna do to stop me, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—" Butcher's voice dopplered into the distance as she was shot skyward by a water column under the oversized manhole cover she'd stepped on to.
I blinked. "Well, I didn't expect that, but I'll take it." Shading my eyes, I stared skyward, just in time to see a distant figure swoop down and intercept Butcher's flailing form. White wings spread wide in a number of directions, the pale feminine figure hovered for just a moment. I couldn't see much at this distance, but I got the distinct impression of an amused smile. And then she began to recede once more, taking Butcher with her.
"Um …" Lisa's voice was a little ragged. "Was that … was that the …"
"Simurgh?" Brian didn't sound much better. "Uh, maybe?" By the time he finished speaking, the white form was out of sight, as was Butcher.
I pulled my attention down toward ground level, where Animos was stalking toward us, fur bristled out and teeth bared. It occurred to me that if he could nullify everyone's powers, then he could simply tear us to pieces. And there were no convenient manholes around for him to fall into.
That was when the manhole cover landed on him. It was larger than most, and obviously very heavy, and he collapsed without a sound. While I was still trying to take that in, the water column also began to come down. Weirdly enough, it wasn't spraying everywhere, but instead seemed to be sucking back into the manhole it came from with barely a drop spilled. I stared, wondering what was going to happen next.
I found out when a head popped up from the manhole, bearing a very distinctive appearance. Four eyes, glowing green, asymmetrically placed.
Leviathan.
As we watched, frozen, I heard a whimper from someone. I couldn't guarantee it wasn't me. My luck was good, but there was no way it could shield me if an Endbringer decided to attack me.
One of the glowing green orbs dimmed briefly, as if to convey a wink, and then the head ducked down out of sight. It was replaced by a long clawed arm that reached out and hooked on to the manhole cover. I watched in stunned disbelief as the cover scraped over the asphalt and then clunked into place over the manhole. All that was left was Animos' unmoving body.
The silence that followed was broken by Lisa beginning to giggle. She leaned on me for support, and laughed louder and louder until the rest of us joined in. When the PRT finally arrived, they found us sitting at the side of the road, laughing until our sides hurt.
<><>
One Month Later
Taylor
Ours was the first reported Endbringer intervention, but it wasn't the last. News reports, skeptical at first, described how Behemoth destroyed the Fallen (including Spree, presumably) in half an hour, leaving their captives alive but bewildered, and disappearing before authorities were able to show up. The Simurgh located Heartbreaker and sang over him and his slaves, releasing them from his power and rendering him incapable of re-enslaving them. By all reports, he led them a merry chase before they caught him. I wasn't quite sure what happened then, but I got the impression he didn't survive the experience.
She was also seen attacking Toronto briefly, confining her effect to one small area before flying off again. Nobody quite knew what that was about, though Dragon spent a lot of time combing the area with her suits afterward.
Leviathan wasn't idle either; Dad showed up at the Lord's Port worksite one morning to find the various ships of the Boat Graveyard compressed into cubes of steel and stacked neatly off to one side, out of the way. The only clue as to who had done it was a large number of footprints that matched the Endbringer perfectly.
Dad's plans for revitalising Brockton Bay were going full steam ahead. With just a little encouragement, Mayor Christner put out the word that Lord's Port was going to be reopening in the next year, increasing interest in the operation. Closer to home, the ferry was also due to be brought back into service, sooner rather than later.
I got to meet Eidolon and Lily, Amy's girlfriend, when the Triumvirate hero brought them up from New York to visit. Apparently they were working on a project to end world hunger, and it was going well. They brought along one of their food-plant fruits for me to try. It was bland, but definitely edible. Lisa teased Amy and Lily endlessly, which surprised nobody.
Rachel's dog shelter was off to a booming start, with Coil's stolen funds giving it the needed boost to begin with. I went and saw her occasionally, bringing Chick Norris along. Norris was getting bigger by the day, almost, but he was still just as devoted to me. Rachel seemed as happy to see him as she was to see me.
<><>
One Year Later
Cauldron
Legend
"Well, it's official." Doctor Mother leaned back in her chair. "Scion's dead, and the Endbringers are heroes."
"That makes things a little difficult for us," admitted Alexandria. "Especially if this Butterfly decides to out us for whatever reason."
Legend shook his head. "Can anyone even think of a reason why the Endbringers might have shifted their focus so totally? They're literally doing more good than Scion ever did, and he was trying to pretend to be a hero." The conundrum irritated him.
"Don't look at me." Contessa unscrewed the cap from a hip flask and took a drink. "I can't Path any of this shit." She pretended not to notice Legend's annoyed glance.
Alexandria sighed. "Well, they've had a year to change their behaviour, and they haven't. What do we do now?"
"We shut it all down. Start rehabilitating the Case 53s when and where we can," Legend stated flatly. "If and when we're uncovered, we need to show that we're trying to do the right thing." He looked around, frowning. "And where's David, anyway?"
Alexandria shrugged. "On a date, apparently."
"Right." Legend didn't say any more, but the thought crossed his mind. David's been seeing his girlfriend for about as long as the Endbringers have been acting weird. Could there be some sort of connection?
A moment later, he shook his head. Nah. That's ridiculous. I've been married to Arthur for years, and nothing like this happened with us. There's got to be another reason.
<><>
New York City
Jamie Nightingale's Apartment
Eidolon
David lounged back on the sofa, with Jamie snuggled up under his arm. It felt comfortable. It felt right. "So, our first shipment went through last week," he said idly. "People seem to like it. In another six months, we'll be feeding everyone who needs it."
"You've done a wonderful thing," she murmured. "And the other projects?"
"Crime's down, pollution is down, and we're making headway on global warming." He kissed her on the forehead. "And it's all due to you asking me awkward questions."
"At a play that neither one of us wanted to be at." She giggled. "But I'm glad we were."
"Me too."
<><>
New York City
Protectorate Base
Panacea
"You ready?"
Amy looked up as Lily leaned in through the door to her room. "Oh, hi, hon. Sure, nearly there." She leaned over to zip up her boots, then blushed as her girlfriend let out a wolf-whistle. "Oh, behave." But she smiled all the same.
"Never." Lily giggled. "I can not believe we're actually going on a first-anniversary date."
"Why? Because you forgot our anniversary was tonight?" Amy smiled to take the sting out of her words, then picked up her purse from the dresser. Going to the door, she took Lily's hand.
"No. Because I've never managed to date anyone for a year before now." Lily shook her head, then leaned in and kissed Amy. "They'd always make excuses and move on, like it was such a chore dating me. But you don't seem to have any trouble at all."
Amy slipped her arm around the waist of the girl she loved and leaned her head on Lily's shoulder. "I'm gonna go with 'every other girl you've dated is an idiot'."
"I like the way you think." Lily smiled down at her. "So are we gonna go on this date, or just make out here in the hallway?"
"Hmm, decisions, decisions …"
<><>
Brockton Bay
Taylor
"So where are we going?" I asked Lisa as we got out of the car. She was smirking over something she'd been planning for the last couple of weeks. I hadn't been too worried; Lisa loved her secrets. Brian had been invited along as well, which I didn't object to at all. While Rachel was constantly busy running her dog shelter/training facility (and loving every second of it) and Alec had drifted away after hearing about his father's death (and boy, was that a surprise to me) I had kept in close contact with Lisa and Brian. Though I did hear that Alec was dating Brian's sister Aisha, so there was that. I wondered if Brian had given Alec the shovel speech yet.
"Concert," Lisa said, which was more information than she'd given me before.
I frowned. "I'm not big on music venues. Too many people, too much noise." To be honest, I'd much rather stay home and spend time with Dad and Chook Norris. (Dad told me the word was Australian slang.)
"You get to dance with Brian," she hinted.
I tried to conceal my flush. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, puh-leeze," she snorted. "I've seen the way you two look at each other now. How long have you been dating behind my back?"
" … couple of months," I admitted. The first date had been kind of a fluke, to celebrate the reopening of Lord's Port, but we'd gone on a second, and then a third. "It's just that the way you kept shoving us at each other, we really didn't want to give you a reason to gloat about being right all this time."
"Gloating shall commence forthwith," she announced grandly, then spoiled it with a giggle. "No, seriously, I'm glad you two finally saw the light. You're my two best friends, and you deserve the happiness."
"Aw, thanks." I hugged her. "So who's doing the concert?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Hadn't you heard? The Canary trial fell through. She had to pay damages and refrain from performing for something like six months, but there was no jail time, even though everyone was talking Birdcage at the beginning."
"Wow, no, I hadn't heard." Then again, I didn't pay much attention to the news. "What changed their minds?"
Lisa smirked. "Well, nobody's actually admitting to it, but for my money, the prosecution was angling for her resemblance to the Simurgh. Once the Simurgh started doing good stuff, that pulled the rug out from under them. The jury declared her innocent on just about all charges. So she's crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's, and she's allowed to perform again. And I got us front row tickets." Her smirk widened. "And someone might've had a word in her ear. Her opening song's called 'Butterfly'."
"Okay, wow," I admitted. "That is kinda cool. Did you have to pay much for the tickets?"
She snorted with amusement. "Would you believe it, no? They basically fell into my lap. Sheer luck."
"Luck, huh?" I caught her eye and snorted. We both burst out laughing.
My powers are awesome.
End of Part Twenty
End of It Gets Worse
