It Gets Worse [Worm AU Fanfic] Complete

It Gets Worse

Part Fourteen: Whatever Happened To …?

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



Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Museum of Making Music
Carlsbad, California

The player piano was a masterpiece of its kind. It was cared for almost obsessively. Also, because the curator had a strong belief that instruments that were not used deteriorated with age, it was played on a regular basis. However, not even the sharp-eyed caretaker spotted, late one evening, a dozen caterpillars that had somehow entered the building. One by one, they inched their way up into the body of the instrument, selecting places that were both out of sight and would not interfere with the playing of the piano.

Then they attached themselves to the wood and began to shed their outer skin to let their chrysalises form.

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Saturday Evening, January 15, 2011
L33t

The sound of laughter woke L33t. Not just ordinary laughter, either. Rollicking, belly-deep guffaws. The type of laughter that Uber came out with when he was watching a Charlie Chaplin special, or perhaps Laurel & Hardy. But why he was laughing now, L33t had no idea.

Grumpily, he pulled himself out of bed and stumbled out into the main living area. The computer chair was a little way off to the side of the keyboard while Uber was lying on the floor in front of it, holding his ribs as he rolled from side to side. Shaking his head, L33t came closer, peering at the computer screen to see what Uber had downloaded this time. To his puzzlement, there was just a cityscape; specifically, a view of the Brockton Bay cityscape. “What the hell?” he muttered.

“Snitch!” cackled Uber. “Snitch got out!” He went back to his uncontrolled merriment, but he'd given L33t the clue as to what had happened. The feed was indeed from the Snitch, which was sitting innocently on its docking cradle, but the time-date stamp was from about the time they'd been returning from Captain's Hill. Pulling the chair back to the computer, he sat down and started an analysis of what was going on.

A few minutes later, he thought he had an answer. At some point, there'd been a spike in the system. Checking the log, he thought back, and narrowed the time down. It was, he surmised eventually, within five minutes of the time that Shatterbird had been removed from the equation by way of lightning strike.

Wait a minute. He hadn't seen where the lightning struck, but it wasn't hard to call up a geological survey map. And there it was; right in the zone where the lightning had fried Shatterbird, an electricity line made its way across the flank of Captain's Hill. And what's the bet it connects into the line that we steal power from? He didn't even bother making a wager on that one.

Looking things over, it hadn't done any damage, but it had managed through some weird coincidence to precisely emulate the signal for the Snitch to engage its autonomous mode and go data-gathering. Coincidence, he wondered, or luck? Glancing suspiciously at where the guns were busy exchanging luck energy, he entered the command for it to replay whatever it had recorded. Maybe then he'd have an idea of why Uber was still laughing like a hyena on crack.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening. The Snitch had taken a meandering path through the city, apparently going unnoticed by one and all. But then it had fixated on a beat-up looking RV that was just cresting an overpass near the Trainyards. It was odd, he thought, that he didn't hear any noise from the vehicle's engine as it pulled to a halt. Any curiosity about that slammed to a screeching halt of its own as the door opened and Jack Slash himself emerged. Along with Burnscar, he had headed down to the back of the vehicle, where the rear end was in the process of hinging upward to allow first Hatchet Face and then Crawler to exit. The Snitch zoomed in as the group tightened up, and then it happened.

The explosion caught L33t by surprise and he flinched backward as Jack Slash was flung one way and Burnscar another. Hatchet Face was sent cartwheeling down the overpass, while his axe spun off to the side. As luck would have it, Burnscar had been pitched almost over the edge of the overpass. She managed to grab a handhold at the last second, but then the axe came out of nowhere and sheared through her upper arm. The last L33t saw of her, she was draped across a load of trash in the back of a truck that had just driven under the overpass, her one good arm hanging out the side as though she were trying to flag down a lift.

“Wait, what just happened?” L33t mumbled when there were no more explosions forthcoming. Had someone else decided to take a run at the Nine when he wasn't looking? To his disappointment, Jack Slash appeared to be alive, if somewhat injured. As the Siberian picked Slash up, the Snitch lost interest and turned away from the scene. L33t reran the action to just before the explosion, and watched carefully.

It was on the third run-through that he identified the loud abrasive noise that came through just before the explosion, which started him giggling. Now that he knew what had happened, he could see the fire in Burnscar's hand igniting the cloud of flammable gas that Crawler had just added to the atmosphere. There was even a small mushroom cloud. He watched it again, and this time he started laughing as soon as Crawler got out of the RV.

“Rule number one!” whooped Uber. “Don't light Crawler's farts!”

That was when L33t fell out of the chair as well.

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Palanquin Nightclub
Faultline

“Found the problem, ma'am,” reported the electrician. He was an older guy with an incipient gut and thinning hair on top, but everything Melanie had seen told her that he was good at his job. “Roof developed a water leak during that rain we had. An inch to the left or right and it wouldn't have been a problem. But it fell right where something was chewing on the wiring; rat, probably. Then it somehow managed to short across to another wire, which knocked out the lights for the entire building. Never seen it happen like that before. Anyway, easy fixed. We'll be out in under an hour.”

“Oh, good,” she replied, giving him a genuine smile. As a person who prized intelligence and competence in her own people, she liked seeing it in others, especially those doing work for her. Also, if what he was saying was true, the club would be opening on time, saving her a lot of money. “I'll let you get back to it, then.”

“Ma'am,” he agreed. Turning, he left her office. She leaned back in her chair and sighed in mild aggravation. This sort of thing, even if it didn't disrupt the smooth running of her club, still unsettled members of her Crew. Elle was affected more than the others; the girl's psyche was fragile, and she didn't take well to abrupt changes in her surroundings. Her power tended to act out when that happened, reshaping the world around her to fit her mental state.

She also wouldn't have been happy with seeing tradesmen tramping through the private areas of Palanquin in their quest to locate the source of the fault that had plunged the building into darkness, so she'd sent Gregor and Newter out to take her for a stroll. This had the double benefit of giving her a slow, gentle transition from one place to another, and of keeping her moving so that her power couldn't get a grip on the local surroundings. Emily had opted to take a nap instead, which was also perfectly fine. She, at least, didn't tend to alter her environment when she was agitated.

Melanie's laptop still had charge, which meant she could work on the books until the power came back on. Sitting forward again, she booted it up and started going through the spreadsheets, checking paper receipts by the light coming in through her office window. The work was slow and tedious but it had to be done, and she prided herself in getting things right the first time.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, an almost subliminal hum heralded the lights turning themselves back on. With a sigh, she sat back in the office chair, eyes going to the screens that provided a backdrop to her laptop. They came online one by one, showing static which was then replaced by imagery from her security camera system. Carefully, she checked each image for the subtle markers she'd put into place to ensure that the footage wasn't being looped or replaced with an earlier recording; it wasn't likely, but she didn't want to depend on 'likely' for her personal security.

Nothing showed up, which was both expected and gratifying at the same time. She could clearly see the electricians finishing up, so she stood up from the chair. While she absolutely appreciated their workmanship and efficiency, she also wanted them out of the club once they were done. Just as she was about to step around the desk, however, movement on another screen caught her eye.

A moment later, she relaxed slightly; it was just Newter, Gregor and Elle returning from their stroll. Their timing, she had to admit, was excellent. Or had she left the sign on? That would've been a beacon signalling them it was time to return.

But then she spotted something else; specifically, a limp form cradled in Gregor's brawny arms. As obese as Gregor appeared, he was quite strong for his size, and the young woman afforded him no burden at all. A frown creased her forehead; what had they gotten themselves into? Newter may be irresponsible from time to time, but Gregor's phlegmatic nature provided a good check for him. Melanie just couldn't see them kidnapping a girl off the street … well, for any reason, actually. The sight of the woman's left arm, missing from mid-bicep down with the stump encased in one of Gregor's trademark slime-blobs, only made things all the more confusing. I have got to get to the bottom of this. But first, there were the electricians to deal with.

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Gregor the Snail

“Okay, you get her comfortable and I'll go tell the boss,” Newter said, stepping around Gregor to allow him to place their involuntary house-guest on the bed in the spare room. Elle watched from the side, though what was going on behind her vague expression, Gregor had no idea.

“That would be a good idea,” Faultline said from right behind Gregor. From Newter's startled eep, he hadn't heard her approaching, either. “I'm sure this is a very interesting story. Don't leave out any details.”

Leaning over the bed, Gregor carefully placed Burnscar—Mimi, as Elle had called her—on the bed. He made sure the injured arm wasn't being pushed up against anything, then checked her pulse again. As before, it was weak but steady.

Behind him, Newter took a deep breath. “So we went for a walk, like you said. And it was a good idea. Elle was enjoying herself, as much as she enjoys anything, and it was a really nice day out. Barely anyone stared at us, or took pictures even.”

“Granted.” Faultline's voice was steady. As he pulled the covers up over Mimi's lower body, Gregor thought he heard Newter gulp. “Skip to the part where you bring an unconscious girl into my club.”

Gregor turned around and faced up to Faultline. “It was very unusual,” he said, drawing her attention to him. “We were walking with Elle when a garbage truck stopped near us at the lights. It was Elle who saw the arm hanging over the side.”

“Garbage truck?” For the first time, it seemed that Faultline was on the back foot. “What was she doing in a garbage truck?” She stepped to the side so that she could look at the woman in the bed. “Wait a minute … is that Burnscar?”

“Her name is Mimi,” Elle said unexpectedly. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and whatever she was looking at didn't seem to exist in the same reality as everyone else. Of course, that wasn't unusual for her. “She was in the asylum with me. She liked talking to me.”

Gregor noted a tracery of vines that was beginning to grow around the edges of the ceiling. Tiny buds of flowers were sprouting here and there; while there were thorns, they were small and unobtrusive as yet. As far as he could tell, this meant that Elle felt secure and unthreatened, or at least as unthreatened as she ever felt.

“But you didn't know it was her at the time,” Faultline said. “You couldn't.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself as much as Elle.

“I spent a lot of time looking at her hands,” Elle replied. “I didn't like looking at her expressions. She was very unhappy a lot of the time.” Moving to the bed, she sat down on the edge and took Mimi's hand in hers. “I didn't like her very much then, but now I understand how she was thinking. She didn't have any friends then. Maybe it's why she did what she did.”

Joined the Slaughterhouse Nine, Gregor understood. He knew what it was like to be alone in all the world without even memories of his past, of his family. It would've been totally foreign to his nature to have become a member of such a murderous group, but perhaps Mimi hadn't seen another option.

“She made Gregor stand in the road so the truck wouldn't keep going, while I got Sleeping Beauty there out of the truck,” Newter explained; to Gregor's relief, he chose to leave out the minor detail of how Gregor had glued the truck's tyres to the road when the guy had tried to drive on anyway. The blobs of slime would dissolve … eventually. “Dunno how she lost her arm, but by a sheer fluke she fell so it jammed up against a mattress someone tossed out. Stopped her from bleeding out. Lucky for her, huh?”

“Less lucky for us,” Faultline said flatly. “In case you hadn't realised, this means the rest of the Nine are in town. They're likely to come looking for her, and I doubt very much they'll be so grateful for you for saving her life that they'll leave us alone, much less alive.”

“So we do not tell anyone,” Gregor said, surprising even himself. “If we do not advertise it, nobody will know she is here.”

“The big guy's got a point,” Newter agreed. “And hey, what if she ended up like that because of a disagreement? What if they're out to kill her? If we just throw her out, she might die, or they might backtrack her here, and come after us for helping her.”

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Faultline

While Melanie took care to run her Crew with a light hand, it was well understood that she gave the orders and they followed them. Sometimes, however, when they dug their heels in, she knew it was time to back off and let them have what they wanted. This seemed to be such a time. Why they were intent on saving Burnscar, she wasn't entirely certain, but that seemed to be the way of things.

“Okay,” she said. “Fine. She can stay. But someone keeps their eye on her at all times. I mean twenty-four-seven. And once she wakes up, if she acts out, we deal with it. The last thing I want is this place going up in flames.”

Elle didn't react, but Gregor nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

“Sure thing, boss,” Newter added. “I'll go tell Emily about this so she doesn't get surprised by it.”

“I'm pleased to see that someone around here is being afforded that courtesy,” Melanie observed dryly.

“I was going to come tell you!” protested the orange-skinned boy. “Just as soon as we had her settled!”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. (It had taken hours of practice in front of a mirror, but the effect was worth it). “Just so we're clear, begging for forgiveness isn't easier than asking for permission, not around here. You had a phone; you could've called me. You didn't. If she acts out, this is on you. Got it?”

“Got it,” mumbled Newter, looking and sounding suitably chastised. Ducking his head, he slunk out the door.

“All right, that's settled.” Melanie dusted her hands off. “Gregor, get her off that bed. She's going to need blood expanders and some sort of dressing for that arm once your gunk dissolves. Also, we're going to need to check her over for other injuries. It'll be much easier to do all this in the sickbay than here.” Both Elle and Gregor stared at her. She clapped her hands briskly. “Well, come on. She's not going to treat herself.”

Feeling once more in command of the situation, she led the way down to the sickbay. Fortunately, it was her practice to keep it well-stocked for situations like this one. Barring complications beyond Melanie's capacity to treat, Burnscar would survive and recover.

What happened then would be up to her.

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The Dallon Household
Amy

“You are not coming in the house like that.” Carol Dallon's voice was firm. She looked Vicky's somewhat-multicoloured form up and down with an expression of mild disbelief. “How did this even happen?”

Vicky, standing on the front doorstep of the Dallon household, on to which she was dripping slowly-congealing paint, looked away with a sheepish expression. Amy, who was miraculously untouched and standing a little away from her sister, cleared her throat while trying to hold back a smirk. “Well, there was this dumpster—”

“Ames, I got this,” Vicky said hastily. “Mom, I was out with Amy and we happened to see, uh, some kid trying to move a dumpster. So I went over and asked him if I could help. He said his dog was stuck behind it, and I could hear it whining, so I picked the dumpster up.”

“Get to the part where you get doused by paint,” Carol suggested pointedly.

Amy, finding it even harder not to laugh now, obliged. “Well, we didn't notice at the time that the dumpster was behind a hardware store that sold a lot of paint. So I'm guessing that when they throw display cans out, they don't always make sure the lids are on tight.”

Carol frowned. “I don't think that's the case. If I recall correctly, coloured paint is only made up once the customer chooses the colour. If they mix too much, they have to dispose of the excess in dumpsters with 'toxic waste' markings all over them. Did this one have those markings? If not, we might have a lawsuit in the making.”

“I'm not sure,” Vicky confessed. “I was kinda distracted, by the, uh, the dog whining. I just wanted to get it out, y'know?” She put on a good show, but she wasn't fooling Amy. It had been obvious at the time what Vicky had been distracted by.

Still, she had to stand up for Vicky in this. “I think there might have been, but there were a lot of gang tags on it.” She shrugged. “It did look a bit different from normal dumpsters, but I didn't think anything about it.”

Carol seemed to buy it. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes in what looked like mild pain. “I can't leave you alone for even a moment, can I?” She averted her eyes from Vicky's garishly-coloured hair and clothing, causing Amy to immediately assume a solemn countenance. “Whatever possessed you to hold it over your head, anyway?”

Vicky, wearing what had until not so long ago been a fashionable top with matching skirt, looked sheepish. “There were some trash cans beside it that I didn't want to knock over, so I lifted it straight up. I made sure the lid was shut and everything!” Amy wasn't sure whether Vicky was more annoyed at the fact that Amy had laughed all the way back home, or that the outfit was comprehensively ruined.

“And you didn't happen to notice that this dumpster was behind a paint store?” Carol shook her head, then looked suspiciously at Amy as the latter turned a snicker into a cough. Apparently deciding there was nothing to worry about there, she turned her attention back to Vicky. “Or consider that there might be something liquid in it? Why did you tilt it, anyway?”

“I didn't know!” wailed Vicky. “It was just easier to lift it that way!” She demonstrated, with one hand low and one high. Naturally, as she raised her arms, the high hand came back over her head while the low one stayed farther out. “The first thing I knew about it was when it started pouring all over me!” She lifted up clumps of her formerly-glorious blonde hair, now a matted mass sticky with red, blue and a mottled purple-brown shade of paint. Her clothing had fared even worse; it was actually difficult to tell what were the original colours and what had been added in the involuntary paint-bath.

“Well, at least the kid got his dog back,” Amy added, unable to contain herself any longer.

“Thank you, Amy, but you're not helping,” Carol scolded. “Don't you have something better to do?”

Amy decided that it wouldn't be the best of ideas to point out that Carol was the one who'd kept her outside while castigating Vicky, so she edged past her sister and stepmother and into the house. Doing her homework while lying back on her bed and listening to music was a lot more relaxing than listening to Carol read out Vicky, anyway. Especially as she could giggle to the mental image of Vicky's face when the paint hit her. Vicky was her sister, and she loved her dearly—maybe a little too dearly—but slapstick was still slapstick.

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Undersiders' Base

Brian was still chuckling when he got back to the loft. Brutus pulled at the lead, anxious to get back upstairs to familiar territory, and Brian leaned down to unclip it from his collar. He climbed the spiral staircase one step at a time, losing ground steadily to the dog's scrabbling paws, but he didn't care about that.

Rachel was waiting at the top, leaning on the wall. She was still favouring her twisted ankle—the result of stepping on the soap in the shower—but from the way she was walking on it anyway, it was definitely on the mend. With any luck, it wouldn't hamper them when they scouted Lung's casino on Monday. “What happened to him?” she demanded, kneeling down so she could run her hands through the happily-panting dog's fur. “He stinks!”

Yeah, see if I offer to walk your dog any more when you can't do it, he almost said. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. “He was doing well, so I took him off the lead,” he said. “But then he saw a rat and went after it. Got stuck behind a dumpster. I tried to shift it, but it wouldn't move.”

Lisa came through from the kitchen, took one look at him, and her eyes widened. Slowly, she sat down on the sofa beside Alec, who took no notice of anything except his on-screen character. “Go on,” she invited.

“You're not gonna believe this, but Glory Girl and someone I guess was Panacea showed up,” Brian went on. The identification of the blonde teen had been easy, but Panacea's face was largely hidden when she was in costume. Nonetheless, Lisa began to giggle. Rachel looked blank. Alec lifted his head at the mention of the superheroes' names. “They were in civvies, but when she heard Brutus whining, Glory Girl lifted the dumpster out of the way like it was a cardboard box.” He began to snicker; Lisa, somehow divining what he was going to say next, started to giggle. “It was behind a paint store. There was some paint loose in the bottom. She started showing off how strong she was, and the paint got out.” He paused for effect. “All over her.”

Rachel's eyes widened, and she gave a snort of laughter. Even the normally-emotionless Alec let out a bark of amusement before going back to his game. Lisa, giggling helplessly, sprawled on her end of the sofa. Brian sat down in one of the armchairs and shook his head. “The look on her face was amazing. Even Panacea couldn't help laughing too. And the best bit? I think Glory Girl wanted to get my phone number.”

Howling with laughter, Lisa fell off the sofa.

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The Dallon Household (a little later)
Amy

Amy was just rechecking her homework answers when Vicky stormed into her bedroom in a tightly-belted bathrobe, scrubbed pink with her hair hanging damp and stringy, but clean. “Fat lot of good you were,” the blonde announced huffily. “I didn't see you standing up to defend me.” Dragging the chair away from Amy's computer desk, she sat in it sidesaddle, crossing her arms over the backrest and resting her chin on them.

“I did try to defend you,” Amy protested, doing her best to keep her face straight even while a giggle threatened to sneak through. “I told her that the kid got his dog back. And I didn't point out that the 'kid' was about eighteen, and had abs to die for. Or that it wasn't even his dog, that he was walking it for a friend. Or that you were hamming it up and showing off for him.” She had to admit, tossing the dumpster into the air and catching it on one end had been impressive. What had been even more impressive was the deluge of paint that hit Vicky about half a second after the dumpster had slapped back on to her palms, directly over her head.

The dumpster had ended up at the other end of the alleyway. That was something else they weren't going to be telling Carol.

Vicky rolled her eyes loftily. “That's all sister stuff. We should be doing that shit automatically. And I still don't see why you couldn't make the paint just … just dry up and flake off me or something. You got it off my arms so I could carry you home.” She shot Amy an accusing glare. “Or why you had to laugh so much.”

“I told you,” Amy said patiently. “I could just about get it off your arms because nobody's gonna notice if you don't have any hair there. But if I worked up something to take it off the rest of you, your hair and clothes were at risk.”

“Screw my clothes,” Vicky retorted crudely. “They were a dead loss anyway. And isn't Mom riding my ass about that.”

Amy sighed and rolled her eyes. “And what would she have done if you'd shown up on the doorstep wearing nothing but a layer of paint because your hair and clothes had been dissolved by the bugs I made? Oh, wait, not even the paint.” She gestured at Vicky. “Basically, whatever you used just now was probably the best idea.” In addition, she didn't like to show off with her powers past the basic 'heal people' in case the public got the (correct) idea that she was far more versatile than she let on.

“Paint thinner from the garden shed,” Vicky said sourly. “Stinks, and it burned my scalp a little. Had to shampoo and condition it three times, and it's still a bit stringy.” She ran her hand through her hair, and made a face. “It's probably gonna fall out anyway, with all this abuse.” Suddenly, a speculative look crossed her face, and she jumped to her feet. Without saying another word, she dashed out of the room.

“Well, that happened,” mumbled Amy, and went back to checking her work.

She didn't get far with it, as Vicky was back in less than a minute, bearing a pair of sewing scissors. Amy didn't have to wonder long what they were for, because Vicky demonstrated immediately, by holding a large hank of hair away from her head and hacking away at it with the scissors. Large and sharp, they were designed more for cutting cloth, but they made good headway on her hair. Clump after clump fell away under Vicky's inexpert but enthusiastic attack.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” shouted Amy, sitting bolt upright on the bed. She admired many things about Victoria, but her sister's hair was near the top of the list. Long, with bouncing golden curls, it was everything Amy wished her own hair was.

“Well, duh,” Vicky said as she angled her head for another attack on her hair. “If I cut all my hair off and you regrow it for me, I don't have to worry about getting around like the Bride of Frankenstein for the next few days.”

Amy shook her head violently. “I am not growing you a whole new head of hair just so you can get around having stringy hair for a couple of days! Jeez!” Earlier, she'd regretted laughing at Vicky quite so much. Now, she was repenting of her regret.

“What? But you've got to regrow it!” Vicky stopped cutting, the scissors halfway through severing more of her hair. She looked like a half-shorn sheep, only messier. Her expression was stricken. “I can't go to school like this!”

The bedroom door opened, and Carol entered. “What's all this shouting—Victoria Dallon! What in heaven's name are you doing?” She stared open-mouthed at where Vicky stood, golden hair littering the floor around her feet and incriminating shears in her hand. “What have you done to your hair?”

“She's cutting it so I'll regrow it for her.” Amy's voice was flat. She was throwing Vicky to the wolves on this one, and not regretting it for an instant. “Without consulting with me first.”

The argument that followed was short, sharp and not without the occasional burst from Vicky's emotion aura. Amy didn't have to say a word, as Carol handled all the heavy lifting. She read out Vicky in excruciating detail, explaining how Amy's power was not a toy, and how cutting her own hair without permission, much less oversight, was irresponsible, dangerous and downright immature.

“But what am I gonna do?” wailed Vicky, looking and sounding much less sure of herself. She gestured at her head, from which hair hung in mismatched clumps; if Amy were to be honest with herself, Vicky looked more like a horror movie reject than a vivacious teenage superhero and darling of the city. “I can't go out like this! What'll people think?”

Which was the first smart thing she'd said, Amy decided. While Vicky almost certainly meant it in a personal sense, Carol's eyes narrowed in thought. “It certainly wouldn't look good for New Wave's image for you to show up like this, or not show up at all,” she decided. “Amy, can you neaten it up for her? Make it so it's not so frightful, and can grow out on its own?”

Amy put aside her homework. “Sure,” she said. “Vicky, gimme your hand.” Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, she reached out toward her sister.

“Can't you just make it, you know, back to the original length?” pleaded Vicky. “It took me years to get it this long.”

“No.” Amy spoke without thinking; with a shock of surprise, she realised that Carol had said exactly the same thing at the same time. She glanced at her stepmother, wondering that they'd actually managed to see eye to eye on something for once. Carol wasn't returning the glance, so Amy cleared her throat. “If Mom says no, she means no.” Taking Vicky's hand, she concentrated. “Gonna need you to turn your head so I can see what I'm doing.”

It wasn't a short process, but as Vicky turned her head from side to side, Amy had her hair grow out in patches to match what was already there. Now and again she cheated, reversing the process to shorten some of the longer bits, until it was all around the same length in a kind of curly pageboy bob.

“That's the best I can do,” she decided, releasing Vicky's hand. “Gonna need a hairdresser to fix it the rest of the way.” Tilting her head, she looked the result over critically; for a first effort, she decided, it wasn't too bad. At least Vicky didn't look like she'd been attacked by a crazed sheep-shearer or something.

Evidently, Carol thought the same. “It'll do,” she allowed grudgingly. “Monday afternoon, Victoria, you're going to a hairdresser I know. Get it properly shaped and trimmed. In the meantime, keep it brushed and shampooed.” She pointed an imperious finger at her daughter. “And don't ever do anything as stupid as this again.” Then she indicated the floor, where the evidence of Vicky's indiscretion was spread everywhere in golden strands. “And clean this up.”

“No, Mom,” sighed Vicky. “Yes, Mom.” She waited until the door closed behind her mother to add in an undertone, “Three bags full, Mom.” For the first time in Amy's memory, she added a rude gesture toward the door.

“Well, it was kind of your fault,” Amy pointed out, lying back on the bed. “You should've checked with me before you started hacking at your hair.” She smothered a giggle as Vicky wrinkled her nose.

“If you'd just gone ahead and done it,” her sister began, then reconsidered as Amy shook her head emphatically. “Okay, fine. Monday afternoon, after the hairdresser, we're going shopping. There's a place near the Forsberg Gallery that has some of the new fashions.” She pointed at Amy. “As in, you're going shopping with me, and you're going to buy at least one outfit.”

“Nope. No way.” Amy shook her head again, her frizzy brown hair bouncing around her head. “You can't make me spend my money. Anyway, I'm saving up.” It wasn't much right now, but by the time she reached college age, Amy intended to be able to move out on her own. Well, Vicky can come with if she wants.

“Okay, fine. You're gonna try on at least one outfit,” Vicky said by way of compromise. “And then we're gonna hit this new paleo place I've heard about for lunch.”

“Paleo. Right.” Amy wasn't thrilled by the idea, but if it got Vicky away from the concept of making Amy pay for an outfit she didn't want and was never likely to wear, she'd deal with it.

“Hey, it's healthy.” Vicky sat back down in the chair, then scooted it closer and poked Amy in the arm. “You could probably deal with a bit of healthy food. And you're paying. Consider it payback for not getting that guy's number for me after the paint thing. And for getting me in trouble with Mom.”

Given that both episodes had (in Amy's opinion) been Vicky's fault, Amy didn't feel overly guilty. In any case, she had … not so much of an objection, but more of a query. “Why are you even getting numbers off hunky strangers, anyway? I thought you were with Dean?”

“Dean?” Vicky sniffed imperiously and made a dismissive motion. “Dean's ancient history. He's on the junk pile. I'm not talking to him any more.”

Which meant they'd had yet another fight. Amy sighed. While the guy's abs had been pretty impressive (though Amy had been more intrigued by how he got his cornrows so neat) it would probably have been a bad idea to get his number. Dean and Vicky, no matter how much Amy might hope otherwise, would always get back together. She'd lost count of the number of breakups and makeups their relationship had gone through since they first started dating.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a snort of her own. “That'll last.” She pointed at the floor. “Anyway, I believe you've got some cleaning up to do?”

This time, Vicky gave her the rude gesture.

<><>​

Sunday Morning, January 16, 2011
Slaughterhouse Nine (now Six)
Jack Slash

“Ow.” Jack tried to move again, and regretted it. Again. “Ow.” While he felt a lot better than he had the night before, all things were relative. What he actually felt like was crap that had been gently warmed over. Or caught in the middle of a biologically-induced fuel-air explosion. As much as anyone could call what Crawler did 'biological'.

“Don't move,” Bonesaw scolded him. “Your broken bones are still knitting, and I'm making sure the skin grafts take properly. You need to lie still for another day or so, but then you'll be fine.”

“Has Shatterbird shown up yet?” Jack asked. “Or Burnscar?” The two capes weren't the heaviest hitters for the Nine, and they could always be replaced—as far as Jack was concerned, every member of the Nine apart from himself was expendable—but their abilities were very useful for spreading chaos. Aside from him, the Nine was now devoid of Blasters.

“We haven't seen either one,” Bonesaw said as she checked him over. “Nobody knows where Shatterbird could be, and if Burnscar was unconscious when she fell into the garbage truck, she'd bleed out before she ever regained consciousness. There's been nothing on TV either.”

“Okay.” It was more of a grunt than anything. “We need to scout out the city. Two teams of two. You stay here. Crawler and Siberian, and Mannequin and Hatchet Face. Hammer and anvil.” He didn't bother to explain why he was splitting them into those pairs. Mannequin was a Tinker, so it wouldn't bother him if he got too close to Hatchet Face. Crawler and Siberian, on the other hand, were the closest thing he'd ever seen to being an unstoppable force. There was nothing in Brockton Bay that could stand up to the pair of them for any length of time.

'Hammer and anvil' was a ploy they'd worked out. The four of them would travel in a rough square, the partners in each pairing keeping in sight of one another. When they saw a prospective victim, they'd herd them into the middle of the square. The resultant fight would be extremely brief and brutal.

“Oh, goody!” Bonesaw bounced on her feet and clapped her hands. “I'll make sure they bring back any capes they find. It's been ages since I had anyone to play with.” Which meant, Jack knew, to dissect and investigate the inner secrets of their powers, then build yet another hybrid monstrosity out of what remained.

He mustered a proud smile as a tear lingered in the corner of his eye. They grow up so fast. “That's my poppet.”

“I'll go tell them now!” Still full of excitement, she darted out of the RV to wherever the others were waiting. As far as he could tell, the vehicle was currently inside a warehouse of some sort. Whatever; it would make an adequate hiding place until the time came to utterly fuck up Brockton Bay and get rid of the nagging feeling of dread that he just couldn't get rid of. For a moment, his mind drifted back over the ominous message he'd gotten from the radio. Nah. Pretty sure I was hearing things.

Drifting off to sleep, he imagined that he heard laughter coming from a very long way away. Despite himself, he shivered.

<><>​

Empire Eighty-Eight (or the remnants thereof)
Crusader

“I still don't see why we had to meet at my place,” Justin groused. He considered himself to have a very good point; while his pay as an Empire cape had been quite impressive (accent on 'had been') he chose to live in an apartment and bank the majority of his income. If he bought the occasional flashy car or motorcycle with it, that was his beeswax. And as nice as the apartment was, it wasn't set up for more than one or two visitors at a time. Having two adults, two kids and a baby crowding into his front room didn't really bode well for his privacy.

“The PRT somehow got hold of Max's phone and they've seized all his assets, including Medhall,” Kayden pointed out. “They're almost certainly watching my apartment because I was married to Max. Even if I'm not under threat of arrest, they'll want me to testify against him. At worst, they'll try to take Aster away from me.” Justin knew what a bad idea that would be; Kayden took the 'momma bear' archetype and turned it up past eleven. “Rune's parents might just turn us in if we went back there. Alabaster lived in the Medhall building because of his appearance. Theo's got nowhere else to go. Krieg left town, and I'm pretty sure Victor and Othala got arrested at home. Just be glad that Night and Fog chose to stay in Boston.”

Justin was definitely glad of that. As useful as Geoff and Dorothy could be in a fight, they were creepy as fuck when it came to socialising. It wasn't that they were unsociable; more like, somehow, they'd read about socialising in a book and were applying it by the numbers. He could swear he'd heard the exact same conversation between them on several occasions, right down to the words and gestures.

“So what's the plan?” He didn't see any point in dragging things out. “Are we rescuing Max and Brad and the rest? Kicking over a new version of the Empire? Folding our tents and disappearing into the night? What?”

Kayden took a deep breath. “We're going hero.”

It took a long moment for Justin to get what she'd just said. When he did, he stared at her incredulously. “What? I mean seriously, what? You're joking. Please tell me you're joking.”

Sighing, she dragged her hands down her face. “I wish I was, but hear me out.” She glanced over at where Theo was changing Aster's diaper. “Max's capture has put all our identities at risk, but mine more than most. If the PRT decides they've got enough proof of me being Purity, Aster is in the firing line. We've got to get out in front of that. I've been trying to turn hero for a little while now, but the PRT's been treating me like I'm still a villain, even though I'm only hitting criminal targets. I'm thinking that maybe if we all show up and declare that we're rebranding as heroes, they'll pull their heads out of their asses and let us be heroes instead of insisting that we're still villains.”

“Pfft, as if,” jibed Paul. “They want their heroes lily-white, but not in the good way.” He flourished his hand, with its unnaturally-pale skin, as an example. “Even if they let us go hero, they'll be watching us like fucking hawks—”

“Language!” snapped Purity, pointing at her baby. “I don't care how much you swear on your own time, but not around Aster.”

Paul rolled his eyes, though the effect was somewhat muted due to the fact that they were solid white from side to side. “Fine. They'll be watching us like gosh-darn hawks, and if we give them any excuse at all, they'll come down on us like a ton of bricks.” Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the wall. Justin was no great shakes at body language, but this was easy to read: not a hope in hell.

“You really think they'll let us go hero?” asked Cassie, currently using her power to make Justin's salt and pepper shakers orbit her head. “They're usually pretty tight-assed about that sort of thing. I mean, even if I wanted to do it in the first place.” If Justin had to guess, she was trying to come across as 'cool and edgy'; to him, it looked more like 'indecisive teenager'.

“It's better than trying to defend the Empire's turf against the ABB and whoever else tries to take it off you,” Kayden pointed out. From her phrasing, Justin figured she'd already made the mental shift away from considering herself a part of the Empire. “They've only got a couple of capes, but Lung and Oni Lee are far too hard to put down.”

“I've fought Oni Lee,” boasted Paul. “He wasn't so tough.”

Justin looked him up and down. “Being able to bounce back from whatever damage he does to you isn't the same as beating him. I can see where Kayden's going with this. If we stay as we are, we're the Empire. Four capes against the PRT, the New Wave, the other gangs, the cops. We'd be outnumbered and, I'm sorry to say, outclassed by most everyone out there. Kayden excepted, of course.” He'd witnessed Kayden letting loose a couple of times before. Even buildings only afforded visual cover when she was really pissed.

“Oh, you've got to be kidding.” Paul's tone was deeply disgusted. “You're gonna go along with it too? Admit defeat? We're the Empire.” He shook his head. “We don't back down. We make the other guy back down. First thing, we break the others out of holding. Then we double down, and—”

“No. We don't.” Kayden spoke with finality. “When the Empire had over a dozen members in Brockton Bay alone, we called the tune and everyone else walked lightly around us. But now? It's like Justin said. We're outnumbered. We don't even have the resources to pull an effective jailbreak. But if they let us go hero, we've got the PRT and Protectorate nominally on side, as well as New Wave. We don't have to defend territory any more. That frees us up to hit the ABB where it hurts, instead of just defending against incursions.”

Paul looked around at everyone. “I can't believe we're just giving up like that. How about out of town members? We could bring them in, use them to get Max and the others loose.”

“I tried calling them,” Kayden said, her voice low. “The only ones who were interested were Geoff and Dorothy; everyone else gave excuses. And before you ask; they're good, but they're not that good. They can't make up for the lack of Max, Brad, Jessica, Nessa and the others. Which is why I didn't have them come up. They just aren't a good fit as heroes.”

“No, you didn't have them come up because you knew they wouldn't even consider going along with this defeatist attitude,” snapped Paul. “Justin. Cassie. You know Max would never condone crap like this. The Empire never rolls over and shows its belly. We don't back down; we step up.”

“That's easy for you to say,” Justin pointed out, feeling a little irritated at the constant push-back the hyper-albino cape was generating. “Even with Othala, the rest of us had to worry about dying before she got to us, and you didn't. If you hadn't noticed, we don't have Othala any more. That's not a problem for you, no matter who you go up against.”

“Yeah?” Paul stepped forward aggressively, his hand dropping toward where a pistol hung at his hip. “Well, maybe this situation needs strong leadership instead of pansy whining about what we can't do. You gonna provide it, or do I need to show you who's boss?”

This was rapidly escalating to a point that Justin didn't like. He let his ghost-forms boil out of him, launching forward to tackle Paul to the floor. They couldn't touch his weapons, but they could definitely make sure he couldn't use them. Outnumbered by seven or eight combatants to one, Alabaster fought back. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't harm the ghosts and while he was stronger than any one of them and felt no pain, they had group tactics on their side, and one mind controlling all of them.

The fight, such as it was, was over so fast that Aster hadn't even had time to get agitated. Paul was face-down on the floor with both arms wrenched hard up behind his back. Justin wasn't concerned over doing permanent damage to Paul, but he tried to keep his tone professional. No sense in coming across as gloating and giving Paul even more reason to dislike him. “Paul, give it up. I'm with Kayden on this one. The Empire is finished in Brockton Bay. We're gonna try to make it as heroes, if the PRT will let us. We won't go after you, or Empire rank and file, but if you do attack us we will fight back. And, you know, hand you in.”

“Fuck you!” yelled Paul from the floor. Kayden hissed in annoyance, but Paul didn't seem to care any more. “You're all fucking cowards! One setback and you go to jelly! Rune, are you with me? We'll show these pissweak cocksuckers what it means to be Empire!”

It was actually a pretty good speech, considering that it was delivered by a man whose face was being pressed into the floor by a bunch of selectively tangible ghosts. It had fire and spirit and a frightening amount of intensity. Reconsidering his choice to let Paul speak, Justin had a ghost clamp its hand over the prone cape's mouth.

“Um.” Cassie looked and sounded indecisive. Justin knew her as a true believer; she and Alabaster usually got along well because of that. However, a lot had gone wrong for the Empire in the last few days, and she had to know the backup they usually enjoyed just wasn't there any more. She was useful as transport and as a ranged attacker but without big hitters to distract the enemy, she'd become what Justin privately termed 'skeet'. Alabaster's distraction capability, Justin suspected, wasn't great.

“Cassie, honey.” It was Kayden, stepping forward with her hands showing. She wasn't lighting up, which everyone knew was a precursor to her attacking. “You know me. I worked under Max for ten years. I don't back down lightly from anything. But this here, this is too much for us. We can't purify Brockton Bay as villains. Not as few as we are now. But we can do it as heroes.” Lowering her voice slightly, she sent Cassie a mock-conspiratorial smile. “All we have to do is attack the right targets.”

Even knowing Kayden as well as he did, Justin wasn't sure whether she was being genuine or just saying what Cassie needed to hear. Maybe it was a bit of both. She'd most likely learned that off Max; the former leader of the Empire Eighty-Eight was good at that sort of thing.

“Huh.” Cassie tilted her head, then looked at Kayden and Justin. “I guess you're right. And I bet I'd make a rockin' hero.” She glanced down toward Paul. “What are you gonna do with him? I mean, just because we're gonna be heroes doesn't mean we're gonna just hand him over to the authorities, right? That's kind of a dick move.”

“It's not my intention, no.” Kayden crouched down next to Alabaster's head. “Paul. Listen to me. If we let you go, are you willing to just walk away? We don't want to fight you, but we will if we have to.”

Paul struggled for a moment before Justin had the ghost take its hand away from his mouth. "Fuck you all for being losers," he spat. "But fuck you most of all, Purity." The vehemence in his tone turned the name into a curse. "I thought you were strong. I thought you were a believer. You're nothing but a traitor to the cause."

“I am a believer,” she said sadly. “But we believe in different things. You're not going to let this go, are you?”

“What the fuck do you think, bitch?” he retorted, struggling vainly with the ghosts. “I know you're trying to intimidate me, but you don't get it. I don't fucking intimidate. What are you gonna do? Kill me?” He laughed harshly. “Good luck with that. It's been tried. Whatever you do to me, I'll come back from. And I'll kill you. I'll kill every one of you. Then I'll get some help from Night and Fog, bust Max out of lockup, and the Empire will go on.”

Standing up again, Kayden tilted her head toward the small kitchen area. Justin and Cassie followed her there; while it wasn't really far enough away for privacy, another ghost put its hands over Paul's ears to prevent him from overhearing what was to be said.

“All right,” Kayden said, sounding a little upset. “I was hoping he'd see reason, but he just keeps doubling down. Any ideas?”

Justin grimaced. “He's always been a little full-on for me,” he admitted. “I don't want to hand him over and I really don't want to kill him, but is there even a third option?” Besides the moral aspect, he wasn't at all sure they could even succeed in killing the unkillable man, and if they tried and failed, he'd be even more angry at them.

“He's really, really pissed off right now.” Cassie looked troubled. The salt and pepper shakers, Justin noticed, were back on the table. “I used to think he was cool and all, but wow, he's really going off the deep end, isn't he?” She looked from one adult to the other. “What are we gonna do? What can we do?”

“Well, we've got four options.” Justin took a deep breath as the other two turned their attention to him. “One, we let him go. Not ideal, because he knows our secrets, he knows where we live, and he'll come after us as hard as he can. Two, we hand him over to the PRT. Even less ideal, for basically the same reasons. He'll give them everything on us in a heartbeat, just to screw us over. Three, we kill him.” The grimace crossed his face again. “I really don't like that one. Executing a comrade in arms, even one who's turned against us, in cold blood? Not what I signed up for.”

“And the fourth option?” Kayden glanced into the front room, where Paul was still struggling against the grip of Justin's ghosts.

Justin shrugged. “We keep him prisoner until a better idea shows up.” It didn't sound great, but none of the options did.

“So in other words, we do nothing and hope for inspiration to strike.” Cassie didn't sound thrilled.

“Yeah.”

“Well, crap.”

Justin sighed. “Yeah.”

<><>​

Forsberg Gallery

Half a dozen antique pianos had been brought in to complement the exhibition of old-time arts and crafts that had culminated in nine anvils leaving the building via the window. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) the exhibition had been a great success, but now it was beginning to wind down. However, the excitement was not quite over.

One of the more stately pieces, a genuine antique pianola that had been trucked in from California, was marvelled at by the crowds who came to view the exhibition. Its flawless appearance, however, concealed a secret; within its polished wooden exterior were eleven chrysalises. The twelfth was empty, its inhabitant having already broken free and left for parts unknown a couple of days before, but the rest were still intact, awaiting the time that they would crack open and release the piano's glorious passengers to the world.

This time was close at hand.



End of Part Fourteen

Part Fifteen

 

It Gets Worse
Part Fifteen: Going, going …
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Sunday Afternoon, January 16, 2011
Uber and L33t's base
Uber

“Okay, bro, up you get.” L33t dropped a familiar khaki bundle on the gaming sofa next to Uber. “Time for us to go out and get our hero on.” He was already wearing his jumpsuit. Uber looked at the jumpsuit in confusion; had L33t actually laundered it? Who was this guy and what had he done with Uber's buddy?

“What?” Uber managed. “I figured yesterday was a once-off. I mean sure, we killed Shatterbird but there's such a thing as pushing our luck, you know?” With both luck guns discharged, he had hopes that L33t would've given up the idea of taking on the Nine. Yesterday he'd thought differently, but given time to consider it, the memory of Shatterbird arrowing in at them left him just a little weak in the knees.

“You gotta be kidding me, bro.” L33t shook his head, chuckling. “Don't you remember the footage from the Snitch? Burnscar lighting Crawler's fart? That was no accident. We were supposed to get that footage. Haven't you figured it out yet?”

Uber hated it when L33t was three steps ahead of him like this. “Figured what out?” Yes, the fart explosion had been hysterically funny, but he couldn't work out what L33t was getting at.

“Our luck's working even when we're not doing anything,” L33t insisted. “Either that, or the girl's luck is filling in for it. It wants us to go ahead and kick the Nine's collective ass. And I can prove it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Uber felt himself to be on safer ground now. “Prove it how, exactly?” He had no idea what sort of half-assed 'proof' L33t had cooked up, but he considered it to be his personal duty to ensure his buddy didn't run off and get himself killed because he thought he was untouchable.

“Check it out.” L33t plonked himself down on the computer chair and clicked on a tab. “You know how we thought nobody saw us kill Shatterbird? Well, we were wrong.”

Uber sat up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. “You're shitting me.” He'd already kissed that money goodbye. What sort of trickery was L33t pulling now?

“I shit you not, o bro of mine.” L33t's grin was almost manic by now. “See, there was a mugging up on top of Captain's Hill about a week and a half ago. Some rich visiting tourist wanted to look at the city by midnight, disturbed a bunch of Merchants who'd gone up there to drink and get high, and got his wallet ripped off. He complained to the chief of police personally so a couple days later, they wired up a security camera there.”

Uber scratched his head. “I never heard anything about this.”

“Nobody did.” L33t smirked. “They probably didn't want to make the city look bad, so they must've asked this guy very nicely not to tell the papers about it. But … remember how you hacked into City Hall that one time, and got me feeds on the security cameras around town?”

“What few there were once the ABB and Empire got finished with knocking out the ones in their territory,” Uber noted, then light dawned. “The feed's online? How come the cops haven't told the PRT about what we did, then?”

L33t held up a finger. “Because they haven't been watching it since that storm a few days ago. I'm guessing the camera wasn't secured too strongly, and the wind blew it all the way around so it looked out over the hills. Cops aren't interested in nature views, so they stopped looking at it. Couldn't be bothered switching it off or turning it back around.”

Uber rolled his eyes. I swear. Brockton Bay in a nutshell. “And the mugging? How'd you learn about that?”

“That's where we lucked out, bro,” L33t said with a grin. “Whichever genius at the precinct it was who filled out the police report thought they'd be smart and hotlink the security feed to it. But they screwed up; when I clicked on the footage, I got the report in my inbox as well.”

“ … why am I not surprised?” Uber shook his head, then he blinked as the import of L33t's words registered on him. “So we've got footage of Shatterbird biting it?” Jumping up from the game sofa, he moved to where L33t was sitting. “We're gonna be able to claim the reward?”

“Got it in one,” L33t confirmed. On the screen was a series of thumbnails. He clicked on the one right at the bottom of the list, and it opened into a window of its own. At the top was an image of tree-covered hills and under that, row upon row of numerically labelled file icons. Moving the mouse over, he clicked on a specific one; Uber recognised the timestamp as covering the period when they'd been on Captain's Hill.

The image wasn't great and the only sound from the speakers was a persistent hiss, but it was possible to see the moving dot of Shatterbird, then the beam that had reached out to her from the luck gun. When she broke free and started in toward the camera, it was with difficulty that he resisted the urge to step back. He'd known the lightning was going to strike but when it did, it came almost as a surprise; for some reason, he'd thought she'd gotten a lot closer than that. All the same, as L33t moved the slider bar back, it was totally possible to see that it was Shatterbird in the image.

“All we gotta do is bring that footage in,” L33t explained, “then demonstrate the luck gun. Show it was me that fired the beam.”

Uber frowned, dire possibilities occurring to him. “They might just decide that the footage isn't enough to prove that we did it. Or that we were even there.”

L33t moved the slider bar back again, then pushed the volume control all the way up. The hissing from the speakers turned into a rushing sound; Uber recalled that the wind had been brisk, up on the hill. Buried in the rushing sound were broken noises that became voices. Listening carefully, he could make out the conversation he'd had with L33t. Altogether too much of it.

“Uh, dude? If we take that to the PRT, they'll know we were gonna test out the luck gun on some random cape over the city.” He grimaced. “The way I see it, they can either refuse to believe in the luck gun, and refuse to pay us; or believe that we killed her with bad luck, and then they'll be looking really hard at us every time some cape stubs their toe from then onward.”

“No.” L33t shook his head wildly. “There's an amnesty on people claiming kill orders. They wouldn't pull that shit on us.”

Uber took a deep breath. “The only way I can think of to survive claiming the money is if we took out the rest of the Nine as well.” He looked at L33t, fully expecting his buddy to protest. To him, not claiming the money would leave them poorer but with a much higher chance of living through the experience.

“Well, duh,” L33t said. “Why do you think I got dressed up again? Like I said, it's time to get our hero on. Let's go out and kick some Nine butt.”

Oh, crap. What was I thinking? It wasn't often that Uber found himself winning arguments when he didn't want to. He'd been fully prepared to debate the point but gradually lose to L33t's superior position in the matter. But when L33t agreed at once, he found himself in the unpalatable position of having to actually go through with it.

“Uh, yeah,” he agreed weakly. “But how are we gonna find them? Drive around with a blindfold on until we run into them?” This time, he told himself, he wasn't actually trying to be difficult. There were many problems inherent in trying to locate a small group in a medium-large city; it wasn't as if they could just throw a dart at the map and …

His eyes widened.

If L33t wasn't spouting total bullshit about how the luck was still working for them, a dart in a map would be exactly how he and L33t could locate the Nine. And if it didn't work, it would have the upside of not encountering the Nine, and it'd be a good reason for them to rethink the whole thing. While he was thinking about it, a totally different problem came to mind. “So, uh, the luck guns. Weren't they out of charge or something?” Whatever his private opinion was on the sheer bullshit factor of a luck gun of any sort, there was no way he wanted to face any member of the Nine without L33t's bad luck gun covering his back.

“Oh, that's easy.” L33t headed over to the bench where the two power packs were lying side by side. “Each one stores the kind of luck it doesn't shoot, so I've had them charging each other from the residue of what we used yesterday. The good luck gun won't have a full charge, but it should be enough for what we need.”

Uber grimaced, but he got up from the sofa anyway. The luck guns had kept them alive so far. I suppose I should learn to trust in those things. “Okay, you've convinced me. I'll go get changed. In the meantime, get out the map. We're gonna be throwing a dart at it.”

L33t's grin widened by a few notches. “Got it.”

<><>​

Empire Eighty-Eight
Crusader

“Okay, time to take the vote.” Kayden kept her voice low, but Justin could still hear the strain in it. “Paul still hasn't budged an inch, and he's threatening anyone who comes anywhere near him. It's like he's daring us to try to kill him.” She glanced at Cassie. “I'll understand if you want to sit this one out, sweetheart. I know you get along pretty well with him.”

Justin leaned over slightly from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, and looked out into the living room. Paul was still tied up on the floor, though they'd found it necessary to gag him to stop him from shouting loudly enough to wake up Aster. By mutual agreement, they'd caught a few hours of sleep (having been up all night) and now they were ready to talk about the elephant in the room.

Justin had given Kayden and Cassie his bedroom, while Theo slept on the floor in the bedroom and Justin got the sofa. It hadn't been a pleasant sleep; Paul had delighted in kicking the sofa to keep him awake. He'd ended up having his ghosts pin the asshole down with the armchair just so he could get some rest. Paul, of course, never slept or even got tired. While this made for a useful ally, Justin would never have wanted him as an enemy. Which, apparently, he now was.

“No, I think sitting out would just be cowardly,” the teenage girl said. “So what are the options here?”

Kayden took a deep breath. “One, we put him on a bus out of town, with as much money as we can spare, on the condition that he never returns. Two, we turn him over to the PRT. Three …” She hesitated for a long moment. “Three, we figure out some way to kill him, or make sure he never threatens us again in some other way.”

“I can actually think of a couple,” Justin said. It had been a very long day. “We could dump him in a forty-four gallon drum and fill it with concrete. Once it sets, we drop it in the bay, a long way from shore.”

Kayden flinched. “That's horrible! We're not doing that to him.”

“I can't agree with doing that, either,” Cassie stated flatly. “He's saved your life more than once. He's saved my life at least once.” She turned to Kayden's stepson. “Theo?”

Theo Anders looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but there. “Do I have to vote? I'm not a cape. I'm not part of the Empire.”

Not without a certain amount of relief, Justin shook his head. “No, I guess not.” Keeping it to a three-person quorum was probably better, anyway. It would prevent deadlocks and arguments such as the one which had precipitated this whole debacle. “So killing him or otherwise putting him someplace he can't hurt us is off the table?”

Cassie nodded; after a moment, Kayden did the same. The older woman rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I don't like any of this, but deliberately executing him or putting him someplace he can't escape from forever … no, I can't do that.”

“Okay, then.” Justin held up two fingers. “We're left with bribing him to leave town, and turning him over to the PRT. Give me a second.” Getting up, he walked into the living room to where Paul was still trapped under the armchair. He untied the thick cloth bag from around Paul's neck, then pulled it off to reveal the albino cape's glare. “Paul,” he said. “We're trying to decide what to do with you. If we gave you money—a lot of money—would you agree to leave town and never return?”

Paul jerked from side to side, making the armchair sway, and made unintelligible noises through the broad strip of insulation tape that was covering his mouth; wrapped all the way around his head, in fact. He'd been very persistent in trying to make noise.

“I can't understand you, and I'm not taking the tape off,” Justin said patiently. “If you're willing to take the money and go, nod your head. If you're not, shake your head.”

There was a long, long moment during which Justin wondered if Paul would choose to make no signal at all, just to screw them over. Then Paul's features relaxed, and the white-skinned cape nodded slowly. Justin felt a little of the tension he felt ease out of his system. “Okay, then,” he said, briskly rolling up the bag to make an ad hoc pillow. “I'll just put this under your head then, and go back to talk to the others.” It had been the first sign of cooperation from Paul since this whole mess started, and he figured it rated some level of consideration in return.

Returning to the kitchen, he sat down and lowered his voice. “Okay, he says he's willing to leave town. How much money can we raise?”

“I can put in about ten thousand,” Kayden offered, then stopped. Lowering her voice even farther, she leaned forward so that only those at the table could hear her. “But I have a horrible feeling that he might take the money and then come straight back. He certainly seemed angry enough about it last night, and he's got to be even angrier with us now.”

Justin grimaced. The possibility had been lurking in the back of his mind since Paul had initially agreed to the idea, but he hadn't wanted to face it. Paul was his buddy, goddamn it! They'd gotten drunk together—well, Justin had gotten drunk while Paul just drank and stayed sober—they'd cruised meetings of the Empire's rank and file for girls, and they'd fought the good fight side by side. Well, Alabaster had been up front while Crusader hung back and sent his ghosts into the fight, but it was the principle of the thing. To fall out like this was bad enough, but to agree to part ways peacefully then turn around and backstab them … he didn't want to think Paul could do that, but …

“Empire wouldn't do that to Empire,” Cassie said firmly. “Paul's Empire through and through.” But Justin could see the concern in her eyes.

“But what if he decides we're not Empire any more?” put in Theo unexpectedly. “I mean, you guys. I never really was. But in his eyes, you attacked him and now you want to send him away. If he still considers himself to be Empire, that means he can just as easily decide you guys aren't.” He looked from Justin to Kayden to Cassie, mutely pleading with them to refute his logic.

Fuck. The kid, Justin realised, was correct. If Paul took it personally and decided they weren't Empire any more, he wouldn't see killing them as a betrayal. Or rather, he'd see it as retaliation in kind for betrayal. Either way, neither Justin's ghosts nor Cassie's floating rocks would protect them against a sudden and devastating attack from an unexpected angle. Kayden was the most powerful among them but she wasn't bulletproof, and if Paul decided to use Aster as leverage, she wouldn't even be able to put up a fight.

Closing his eyes, he leaned forward and bumped his forehead gently against the tabletop. “We can't trust him to stick to any deal we make,” he said from that position. In the back of his mind, he was fully aware that he'd been trying to repress that very understanding for the last few minutes. With that out of the way, he started trying to repress the knowledge of what he had to do next. It didn't help.

“You can't know that,” Cassie protested, giving Theo a dirty look. “If he says he'll take the deal—”

Justin overrode her, his voice harsh. “Right now, he'll say or do anything that'll get him out of here without being thrown to the wolves, just so he can come back at us later on.” It was exactly what he'd do, if the circumstances were reversed. He raised his head from the table and looked at Kayden. “You get that, right? He knows all our weaknesses, and he'll use every single one against us if he gets the chance.” Even your baby.

From the stricken look in Kayden's eyes, she got the message loud and clear. “Okay,” she said, the pain obvious in her voice. “I get it. But I still won't be a party to execution or putting him in a hole somewhere.”

Justin nodded; if they were to remain a team, he had to respect her wishes. “Then the only thing we can really do is turn him over to the PRT.” To say that he didn't like this was a vast understatement. He hated it. How they'd ended up at this juncture he wasn't exactly certain but in situations like this the only way through was forward, or something like that.

“What, just give him to them?” Cassie shook her head. “Okay, I get it we're going hero and we're gonna have to play nice with the Protectorate and stuff, but just handing him over to go to jail or the Birdcage or wherever they feel like putting him? Without even giving him the chance to defend himself? That's something a—a Merchant might do!” Her voice showed the utter disgust she felt at the idea.

“Calm down, honey,” Kayden said soothingly, putting a hand on her arm. “I know it seems like a big step, but he really is a danger to us all. From the way he was acting this morning, we can't really trust him to stick to any deal we made with him.” She looked at Justin. “So your vote is to hand him over to the PRT?”

Justin nodded. “Yeah. I can't see any other way. I guess you're voting the same way?” He gave Cassie a sympathetic look; this couldn't be easy for the girl. She was still young enough to value idealism over pragmatism.

“I am.” Kayden spoke firmly. “That settles it. I don't like it any more than you do, Cassie, but sometimes the only available options are bad ones.”

For a long moment, Justin thought Cassie was going to jump up and protest, but she didn't. Instead, she bit her lip and looked at the two adults. “That's it, huh?” Her voice was subdued. “We get to be heroes, and he gets to go to jail.”

“I'm afraid that's exactly it,” Justin confirmed. “Sh—I mean, crap happens, and sometimes all you can do is just keep going.” He looked closely at Cassie as she pushed her chair back from the table. “Are you okay with this? You don't have to come along—”

“No!” Cassie shouted the word as she came to her feet. The kitchen table bounced into the air, clipping Justin under the chin and ramming heavily into Kayden's midriff. “It's wrong and I'm not going to let you do it!”

Dazed by the unexpected blow, Justin went over sideways and sprawled on to the floor. He saw Kayden lying on her side, doubled up and holding her stomach as she tried to get her breath back. Cassie darted out the doorway into the living room, and the table followed her to form a makeshift door. Glowing on the underside was the rune she'd been using to control it. She must've drawn it there while we were still voting. The sneaky little cow.

Trying to get his head together long enough to send his ghosts out, Justin shakily sat up. His jaw hurt and his head was still ringing like a gong, but finally he managed to generate one. It blew through the barrier with ease, but what he saw through his tap into its eyes made him groan.

“What?” Kayden asked the question painfully. Theo, who'd been brushed aside by the table, helped her to her feet.

Another ghost rolled out of Justin, and a third; between them, they got him on to his feet. “She's gone,” he said, just as the table dropped out of the way to reveal what he already knew. “Door's open. She took the armchair and Paul both.”

With Theo's help, Kayden stumbled through into the living room and dropped on to the sofa. “Thanks, honey.” She looked around the room, and her face fell even farther. “And she grabbed his guns, too.”

Justin grimaced and he shook his head—gingerly, because the hit to the jaw really had really rung his bell. Walking over to the door, he pushed it shut. “That's just damn perfect. We're gonna have to go after them, aren't we?”

“Well, it's that or we wait until they choose to ambush us at the worst possible moment,” Kayden told him heavily. “Theo, get my handbag.”

Obediently, the heavy-set boy got Kayden's bag. She dug in it, opened her purse, and handed him some notes. “Take Aster, and all the formula we have. Get her to a motel room. Wait twelve hours and ring this apartment. If Justin or I answer, the safe word is 'mitigate'. If we don't use that word, or it's someone else, take her to the PRT and ask for safe haven. Got it?”

He nodded jerkily. “Motel room. Call this apartment. Mitigate. PRT. Got it.” He took a deep breath. “I don't know the number for Crusader's home phone.”

“Ah, yeah.” Justin searched around for a notepad and finally grabbed the one off the fridge with the half-finished shopping list on it. There was a pencil clipped to it, and he scribbled his home number on the pad. “There you go.” He turned to Kayden. “So how are we gonna find them?”

Her smile was a little forced. “Max is a controlling bastard, but I'm going to have to thank him for this one.” Digging farther into her handbag, she pulled out her phone. “When he issued phones to everyone, he made sure they had locator apps on them. And as one of his second in commands, I have access to those apps.”

Theo pulled out his phone and looked at it, startled. “I didn't know that.”

“Wait, what?” Justin was equally surprised. “There's a locator on my phone? I never noticed.”

Kayden nodded. “He paid top dollar and made sure it couldn't be spotted just by looking through the app list.”

“Because we'd take it out,” Justin guessed. It was what he would've done, after all.

“Because you'd take it out,” Kayden agreed. “He told me not to tell you, or take the app off my own phone. It was so you couldn't tell anyone or take it off and then be unable to be found. Theo, get Aster for me, please?” She fiddled with the phone, while Theo put his away and went into the bedroom. “Password,” she muttered. “Okay, phones … we took Paul's away, didn't we? Cassie … location … got it.”

She held up the phone as Theo came out of the bedroom with the baby in her carrier. “Okay, I have a location. Theo …” She took a deep breath and hugged him. “No matter what happens, take care of your sister.” Leaning over, she kissed the sleeping Aster gently on the forehead. “No matter what.” It would take a braver man than him, Justin reflected, to disappoint Kayden when she spoke in that tone. Grabbing his spear from where it leaned against the corner, he pulled his mask over his face.

“I will,” Theo assured her. “I promise.”

She hugged him again, then went to the window and opened it. “We haven't got much time. Cassie might realise she can be tracked with her phone at any moment. Let's go.” Her power flared to life and she launched herself out the window. Justin generated a few more ghosts and had them carry him after her.

<><>​

Cassie

Empire doesn't betray Empire.

The thought kept running through Cassie's head, even as she crouched on the flying armchair. It was tilted back at a forty-five degree angle with Paul kneeling in it, his chest against the backrest. His hands were fastened behind him with three different zip-ties and no matter how she yanked at them, they wouldn't break or come off.

It had been perhaps the hardest decision in her life to go against Justin and Kayden like that, but turning Paul over to the PRT without even giving him a fair chance wasn't what the Empire was about. Even Hookwolf and Cricket gave their opponents a chance to fight back before eviscerating them. So really, I'm actually saving them from doing something they'd regret doing later, once they realise that I'm right and they're wrong.

The knowledge made her feel a little better. Not a lot, but some. She knew beyond a doubt that Kaiser would agree with her, and Paul obviously did as well. He'd probably want to get out of town now that he was parting ways with the others (she very carefully didn't call either side 'the Empire' even in her head, because she didn't want to confuse herself any farther) and he'd probably want her to go with him, but she really didn't want to go, and these zip-ties just wouldn't come free, no matter what she'd seen people do in the movies!

Paul grunted through the electrical-tape gag and pulled his hands away from her, which confused her even farther. Didn't he want her to free him? Then, when he swung his head back at her, nearly headbutting her in the face, she realised what he wanted, though the why was still a mystery to her.

Tracing a rune on the tape, she exerted her power on the end of it until it started to unwind from his head while she wrestled with the zip-ties. She could understand him wanting it off on general principles, but it wasn't as if he could turn his head all the way around and bite the zip-ties in half. At least, she was pretty sure he couldn't. When someone didn't care what damage they did to their body, it was pretty amazing what they could do.

The last of the tape came off of his face with a long rriipp sound and he drew in a deep gasp of air. “Finally,” he rasped. “Stop fucking around pulling at the zip-ties. I've been doing that all night and I'm stronger than you. Get my guns and shoot the fucking things off.”

“Oh,” she said, enlightenment bursting in her, along with embarrassment. I should've thought of that as soon as we left! She'd dumped the gunbelt in the crook of the armchair so they wouldn't lose it, and now it was down between Paul's knees. The flush on her face deepened as she bent over, her face pressed against Paul's back as she fished down in the depths of the armchair. Her fingers brushed against the cold metal of a pistol, and she grabbed for it. The holster slid off it as it came up, although she was holding it the wrong way up. Turning it around, she pressed it against the zip-tie and squeezed the trigger.

The loud report of the weapon startled her and the heavy recoil nearly sprained her wrists, but that wasn't what made her drop the gun. The spray of blood from Paul's back was what did that, covering the front of her clothes and making her recoil in disgust. After a few seconds it stopped as Paul's body reset to the way it had been before, but she was still splattered in his blood. Two of the ties had been severed, which was a good thing, because she wasn't going through that again; she didn't know where the gun had gone and she didn't care. As she watched, Paul bunched his shoulders and heaved, and the third tie broke. He might've said something then, but she couldn't hear him through the ringing in her ears.

The chair wobbled as she did her best not to throw up. She'd seen blood before, but not all over her. Nobody had told her about the coppery reek, or the sickly warm feeling as a drop of the stuff ran down her face. Unsteadily, she guided the chair down to land in an alleyway between two decrepit buildings. In the back of her mind was the certain knowledge that Kayden and Justin would be looking for them; an armchair perched on a rooftop was as good as a bright neon sign saying, “We're down here!”

The chair crunched down into a pile of garbage that had spilled out of several nearby trash cans, but she didn't care; as soon as she didn't have to hang on any more, she frantically scrubbed at her face with her sleeve. The nausea receded, which was a good thing. She hated throwing up, whether it be in a grimy alleyway or a sparkling clean toilet bowl.

As she got herself back under control, she became aware that Paul was speaking again. Rubbing at her ears, she turned to focus on him. The ringing in her ears had subsided far enough that she could hear his voice now, albeit fuzzily. “You all right, kid? That was pretty ballsy, back there.”

She felt anything but ballsy right at that moment. Her wrist hurt, her ears hurt, and she still wasn't quite sure that her stomach was going to stay in place. “I—I couldn't let them—” she began, but he held up a hand.

“Sh!” he said sharply. “There's something …” He looked up. She looked up, too. At first she wasn't quite sure what she was looking at, but then it clicked into focus.

Oh. Fuck.

<><>​

Hatchet Face
One Minute Before

“Dibs!” said Hatchet Face, pointing upward. The shot had gained everyone's attention just as the armchair swooped into view overhead. Both the gunshot and the airborne furniture could've been the result of an extremely energetic domestic disturbance, but with the way it swerved and descended into a nearby alleyway, it was more likely to be an ad hoc flying craft. Which meant that one of the two people on top of it had to be a cape. Maybe both. This is my lucky day. “Dibs!” he repeated, just in case someone hadn't heard.

“You can't just call 'dibs',” Crawler objected. Mannequin made some signs with his hands, but Hatchet Face had no idea what they meant. Siberian just crossed her arms and glared at him. “Some of us want to kill someone, too.”

“Capes,” Hatchet Face said irritably. “You can kill everyone else. I want to kill the capes. At least one of those is a cape. Whichever one it is, I'm calling dibs on.” He loved the look of confidence turning to terror as their powers faded away under his field, then the last expression on their faces as he chopped them to bits. He called it the “I'm fucked” face.

“Fine,” groused Crawler. “But you gotta chase some at me when we find 'em. They run away too fast.” He kicked at a bus stop and it broke.

“Deal,” Hatchet Face agreed readily enough. Cutting peoples' legs off didn't count as killing them, right? Crawler could catch them real easy after that. “Give me a minute and then come in that end of the alley. I'm gonna get around the other end, and catch them as they come out.”

“They might just fly away again,” Crawler pointed out.

This, Hatchet Face thought, was a good point. Flyers had an unfair advantage; they could stay out of range of his power. Sometimes he could bring one down with a lucky throw of his axe, but that was always chancy. “Yeah. Okay.” He turned to Mannequin and Siberian. “Can you get on top of the buildings and stop them flying away?”

With a resigned look on her face, Siberian nodded, then made three definitive hand motions. First, she pointed at Hatchet Face; then she made a circle with her finger and thumb; finally, she jabbed herself in the chest with her thumb. It was pretty clear what she meant, as opposed to Mannequin's weird finger-wiggling. You owe me.

“Yeah, and I'll pay up. Come on,” he urged. “They'll get away!”

As the others moved to get into position, he loped away to get to the far side of the building. An anticipatory grin spread over his face, curling back his lip to expose a none-too-clean set of teeth. This was gonna be fun.

<><>​

Alabaster

We are so very fucked.

The simmering anger he'd felt toward his erstwhile teammates had vanished, replaced by an intense calculation of the odds against them. Above were two members of the Nine, peering down at them with … well, the Siberian had a look of mild interest, while Mannequin showed no expression at all on his white contoured mockery of a human face. Those two were bad enough, but he knew the Nine well enough to understand that where there were two, more were sure to be close behind.

Paul was nigh-unkillable; he'd survived enough fatal hits to understand this. Under normal circumstances, he'd back his power against any cape he cared to name. But the Nine were a game-changer. The Siberian had ripped Alexandria's eye clean out of her head, where even the Endbringers had failed to harm her in a quarter of a century. Did that mean she could hurt him and make it stick? He didn't know. If that wasn't bad enough, the Nine also had a power-nullifier; Hatchet Face, if he recalled correctly. The guy liked chopping capes to bits with a big axe.

There was a loud crash as something shoved a dumpster over at one end of the alley. Paul looked that way, and saw a large pitch-black moving mass … with eyes. It was equivalent in size to one of Bitch's dogs, but it didn't look anything like one of them. And last he'd heard, Bitch wasn't a member of the Nine. That's gotta be Crawler. I just pretend to be unkillable; he's the real deal.

Which left the other end of the alley clear to escape from. Except … it wasn't. Every instinct he had told him they were being goaded to flee from the oncoming monstrosity. Which means there's someone waiting for us.

“Rune,” he said, very quietly, “how fast can you make this thing go?”

“Pretty fast,” she replied, her voice barely above a murmur. He had to hand it to her; the quiver of terror in her voice was hardly audible. “Which way are we going?”

Good. She'd obviously picked up on the blatant trap as well. “Out the front door. About one story up. Fast as you can. And spin the chair around so we're standing on the back.”

A pile of trash cans scattered with a series of clanging noises. Over it rose a voice audible in multiple tones at once; “Comin' to get youuu ...”

If it hadn't been obvious before, it was now; Crawler was trying to spook them into running blindly into the trap. Cassie had dropped one gun, but Paul retrieved the second from its holster. He didn't bother grabbing the gunbelt. There was no time to strap it on, and he suspected he wouldn't be needing it in about thirty seconds. “Go, go, go!” he yelled.

The chair blasted out of the mound of garbage, turning as it went to present its solid base to whatever was waiting for it at the mouth of the alleyway. It wasn't likely to actually protect them fully, but every little bit helped. Up above, he was pretty sure he could hear running footsteps on the rooftop. They're making sure we don't fake them out at the last second. Okay, we do this the hard way.

This point in his life had been a long time coming. For the longest time, he'd gloried in being the guy who could face anyone and survive. First into the battle, last out. So long as he had some way to hurt the other side, he'd stay in there and keep shooting, stabbing, punching, kicking; even biting. Alabaster wasn't feared on the same level as Lung or even Hookwolf, but that was only because what he could do wasn't much more than what a normal could achieve. His trick was that he could keep doing it.

The trouble was, he worked best with backup. Multiple foes could surround him, pin him down and subdue him, exactly as Crusader had done the night before. Take away the Empire, take away his allies, and a majority of his strength went with them. Worse, he was invested in the Empire. They were a major part of who he was; what he was. Change didn't come easily to him. Not only physically—that was a given—but also mentally.

It was a tremendous effort for him to alter his outlook on anything. In his mind, the Empire was still the premier force in Brockton Bay. Their function in life was to keep the lesser races down. To keep them ground into the dust, where they belonged. That was heroic enough for Paul. As far as he was concerned, what he did was a public service for all right-thinking people.

Physical injury didn't cause pain for Paul in the same way it did for other people. There was only ever a sensation of mild discomfort, quickly alleviated when he reset. Where the real pain came from was within; this was the first he'd ever truly felt it. His so-called friends turning away from the path of the Empire sent a stab through the deepest part of his core; knowing they expected him to blindly follow along merely twisted the blade. Two choices, neither good; to abandon them, or to allow the Empire to vanish like fog in the morning sun.

Years previously, he'd watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and he'd scoffed at the idea of 'going out in a blaze of glory'. With his powers, he knew he could weather any volley the Mexican army would've been able to put up against the two fugitive outlaws. Even without powers, in a situation like that, he'd work to survive and not just simply throw his life away.

But now … now, he saw what people in a position like that saw. Sometimes, it was worth it. Sometimes, it had to be worth it. When the chips were down, when his back was against the wall (as it had been once before, all those years ago when he got his powers) … sometimes it was the only thing that could be done.

“If you get out of here alive, go back to the apartment,” he said rapidly, then climbed up on to the front (now the top) of the speeding chair. As he'd expected, the trap revealed itself; Hatchet Face himself, standing on a dumpster, waiting for them. His axe looked very, very sharp.

“What are you doing?” demanded Cassie, but he wasn't listening. His entire focus was on the cape-killer of the Nine. Up came his pistol and he began to fire.

He wasn't aiming at centre mass. Hatchet Face was a Brute, and if a simple bullet could've taken him out, it would have done so long ago. His aim was directed at the man's face; specifically, his eyes. If you can't see, you can't fight. Both Cricket and Hookwolf had told him that at one point or another, but he suspected they were quoting some martial arts movie or other; it had that sound to it.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Cassie hunched down, muffling a scream as she covered her ears, but the chair never slowed or veered from its path. He was hitting the guy; he knew he was scoring hits. But he wasn't hitting where he wanted to hit.

They'd halved the distance to Hatchet Face, he only had a few bullets left, and the scarred monster was pulling back his arm to throw his axe. At this range, with the strength Paul suspected the man could muster, it would go straight through their cover and take out Cassie. It was now or never. “For the Empire!” he bellowed, and launched himself forward off the chair.

For a brief moment, he flew.

The look of astonishment on Hatchet Face's face was … gratifying. But Paul had more to do than appreciate the view. His gun was levelled, and Hatchet Face's attention was on him and him alone. He fired; once, twice, three times. On the third shot, his gun locked open. But that last shot was the charm; Hatchet Face's head jerked back as his right eye exploded in blood. The axe fell to the ground as Hatchet Face instinctively dropped it in favour of grabbing at his eye-socket.

An instant later, he slammed into the guy, knocking him backward off the dumpster. Several bones broke at the same time, and holy shit, that hurt a lot. If he needed any indication that he'd just lost his powers, the pain that blasted through his body would've served notice, in spades.

However, he didn't have long to appreciate it. Grabbing Paul's head with both hands, Hatchet Face proved that he didn't really need his trademark axe to do damage.

On the upside, following the wrenching crack, it didn't hurt any more. Nothing hurt any more.

For the Empire.

<><>​

Justin

“She's over there!” shouted Kayden over the rush of wind. The statement was kind of superfluous, because Justin saw the flying armchair zoom out of the alleyway at the same time as she called out. She was alone, which raised questions. Her clothing was covered in blood, which raised more questions. As for the string of gunshots they'd heard earlier … he wasn't sure what was up with that, but if Cassie wasn't acting like she was wounded, Paul probably hadn't shot her. Which meant he'd been shooting at someone else. Someone who was stupid enough to take on Alabaster and Rune at the same time.

Just then, he spotted the two figures on the rooftop. One was a shining white and moved with a weird inhumanity, while the other was striped with white and black … and didn't seem to be wearing any clothes. There was only one cape he knew of who fitted that description and, despite his usual appreciation of the female form (the less clothing covering it, the better), he wanted absolutely nothing to do with this one. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

As he was opening his mouth to call a warning, a third figure flew out of the mouth of the alleyway. From the way it tumbled in mid-air, it wasn't flying under its own power. And from the way its head had been turned all the way around, it wasn't alive to fly under its own power. Worse, he recognised who it was; or rather, who it had been: Paul.

Cassie made it perhaps thirty feet from the mouth of the alleyway before Paul's body smashed into her, sending her flying off the chair. She seemed dazed by the impact, but Justin knew she'd be a lot more than just dazed if she hit the asphalt at that speed. He'd been using half a dozen of his ghosts to carry him along at his best speed, but now he sent four of those flying to intercept Cassie's ballistic arc.

The corner of his vision was dazzled as Kayden sent a spiralling beam at the tiger-striped woman, probably hoping to catch her by surprise. The Siberian ignored it as regally as she'd ignored every other time a Blaster attempted to hit her, even as chunks of the building exploded around her.

Two of Justin's ghosts swooped in and caught Cassie, inches from the blacktop. He generated more and more ghosts, surrounding himself with them while the ones on the rescue mission bore Cassie back toward him. Three more arrowed toward the Siberian, spears at the ready. He didn't know if they could harm her, but it was better to try and fail than never make the attempt.

His adrenaline surged as he saw Mannequin leaping off the building toward him. Instinctively, his ghosts brought their spears around to bear. Mannequin stretched out his arm, the hand detaching and extending on a chain toward a lamp-post. It latched on and began to retract, turning the armourclad Tinker's fall into a long swing.

Kayden fired again, this time at Mannequin. The armour let out more of the apparently inexhaustible supply of chain, dropping him below the blast. At the same time, Mannequin's other arm launched itself toward where Cassie was being carried back to Justin, blades unfolding and starting to spin up into a whirling blur of death. Justin knew the blades wouldn't harm his ghosts in the slightest, but nor would the ghosts be able to shield Cassie in any meaningful way.

When the blades were mere inches from Cassie, Kayden redirected her aim and fired once more, this time at Mannequin's hand where it clung to the lamp-post. The blast struck true, destroying that hand and dumping him on the ground. The other hand was halted for a vital moment, giving Justin time to realise what had to be done. As the blades on the arm slashed through the immaterial constructs toward Cassie, the ghosts did the only thing they could; they dropped her. At the same time, he redirected some of his other minions.

From the alleyway stomped Hatchet Face, carrying his oversized axe, blood running down his face from one eye. The injury didn't seem to be hampering him in the slightest, but the look of annoyance on his face as he looked up toward Justin and Kayden didn't make him look any prettier. “Dibs!” he bellowed, pointing at them.

As if stepping from one stair to the next, the Siberian jumped lightly down to ground level. Grabbing Hatchet Face by one brawny arm, she spun in place then made an almost casual throwing motion. Going against everything Justin had ever learned about physics in school, Hatchet Face was dragged off his feet then flung into the air like a frisbee. Axe spinning with the rest of him like a gigantic reaper blade, he hurtled toward Kayden.

Mannequin's arm hit the street just beyond Cassie then began to drag back to her, the blades ripping chunks from the asphalt as they continued to spin. The ghosts went to pick her up again, but Justin's attention was now divided three ways and it wasn't easy to concentrate.

Brute force moves were easier; two of his most recently-created ghosts rammed into Kayden from beneath, shoving her up and out of the way. Hatchet Face passed under her with mere inches to spare, his power-nullifying aura turning her powers off along the way. The light surrounding her winked out and she would've fallen had his ghosts not been supporting her. Onward arced her attacker until he crashed into a rooftop on the other side of the street.

At the same time, the three ghosts who had previously been moving toward Siberian slashed into Mannequin with their spears. His armour gave them no barrier at all, but there was living meat inside that shell, and they found it. Frantically, with all the force he could muster, he had them stab the Tinker again and again. The blades menacing Cassie came to a halt just before they would've torn into her; Mannequin fell to the ground, inert.

Holy shit, did I just kill Mannequin? Justin's mind ricochetted between terror and elation. Terror won out as Siberian looked at the downed body of her teammate, then up at the two capes, and snarled.

Oh shit, I just pissed off the Siberian. As if in a dream, he saw Crawler thunder out of the alleyway, a dumpster tilted upside-down over one eye like a particularly rakish hat. Without pausing, the Siberian ran toward the midnight-black monster. He could see what was going to happen next, as if it had already happened. Crawler as a missile would be a lot harder to dodge than Hatchet Face.

Cassie groaned and sat up, rubbing her head. Justin grabbed her with his ghosts and yanked her straight up off the ground, rushing her toward him. “Rune!” he yelled. Shaking what he hoped were the last traces of grogginess from her head, she looked around at the mention of her name. Her mouth opened but he cut her off, lowering his voice as much as he dared. “Put Hatchet Face on Crawler!”

She didn't stop to question him, for which he would be forever grateful. The armchair, currently lying discarded in the street, lifted straight up and headed for where Hatchet Face was eyeing the distance between himself and Kayden, flexing his leg muscles. The scarred murderer never saw the chair coming; it scooped him up and kept going, steering wide around both Justin and Kayden. Two ghosts went along for the ride, pinning Hatchet Face into his ride. All the way to the end of the line, asshole.

Before he got there, Kayden let go with another one of her blasts. It struck Crawler, but all it did was knock him back a little. Of course, it also opened up a hole in the street, into which Crawler fell. They didn't have long to wait before he surged out of the hole and Siberian grabbed him by what Justin chose to believe was his leg. She turned, performing that same insane ballet twirl that she'd done before; Crawler perforce spun with her. And then she let him go, like the world's deadliest (and ugliest) shot-put.

Cassie's chair came swooping in from the side, smashing into Crawler as he barrelled toward Justin and Kayden. With it came the ghosts—and Hatchet Face. “Now!” shouted Justin … and Kayden fired her devastating blast.

She timed it to perfection. The spiralling rays of destruction engulfed both Crawler and Hatchet Face and smashed them back into the hole the monster had initially fallen into. She poured it on, not letting up for an instant, gouging a hole dozens of feet across into the foundations of the building, until the structure itself collapsed into the hole thus created.

As dust boiled up, Justin tried to catch his breath, only to see the the black and white striped form stalk out of the fog of destruction. He'd hoped against hope that Purity's attack had somehow killed her too, but there was to be no such luck from that quarter. Slowly, but with increasing speed, the Siberian started toward them. Her pace was inexorable, her expression murderous. Justin had absolutely no doubt that she would never stop until she killed them.

And then a dilapidated car screeched around the corner with a weird (and somehow familiar) siren blaring discordantly. It rocked to a halt at the same time as Justin recognised the logo painted on to the doors. Said doors burst open and two men leaped out, dressed in khaki jumpsuits similarly decorated with the red-and-white logo.

No, he thought despairingly. Not today, of all days. We don't need Uber and L33t doing their thing here as well. If I'm going to die, I don't want to die on their goddamn show.

If there was one good thing about this, it was that the Siberian had stopped and was staring at the two newcomers in silent bemusement. Uber and L33t opened the back doors of the car and pulled out high-tech backpacks. They stepped away from the car and strode forward as each one put his pack on. “There's something strange!” shouted L33t, his voice high and tinny after the rumble of the building falling in. There was a whine as the packs charged up; even from where Justin was, he thought he could hear a certain familiar tune.

“In the neighbourhood!” Uber's voice was a lot more resonant. His rifle came to life, but he seemed to be a terrible shot. First, his beam hit his own foot, then he bathed L33t with the purple and orange beam.

“Who you gonna call?” L33t aimed his rifle at the Siberian, and fired. A crackling violet aura surrounded her. She looked at it, then at him, her eyes narrowing. With purpose in every step, she started toward the newcomers.

Uber unhooked a device from his belt and skidded it toward her, a cable unwinding from it. Justin had just enough time to register the black and yellow stripes on top before she went to bring her foot down to crush it. However, Uber's foot was faster; he slammed it down on the control unit at the end of the cable. The striped top folded back, and a coruscating energy burst forth to surround the Siberian.

To Justin's utter astonishment—and probably the Siberian's too—it wrapped around her and lifted her into the air. No matter how she struggled or struck outward, she couldn't break free of it. Slowly it began to swirl around and around, carrying the raging woman with it. And then, with an utterly improbable inevitability, it sucked itself back into the device, taking its unwilling passenger with it. Her hand clawed for freedom one last time before it, too, disappeared from sight. The top snapped shut, the device rocked a few times, then it lay still. Purple smoke drifted up from it.

The backpacks continued to play the tune; it took a few more bars before Justin snapped out of the state of shock and found his voice again. Several responses to what had just happened occurred to him, but he went with the one that had the least amount of swearing in it.

“You have got to be fucking shitting me.”

<><>​

Taylor
On the Boardwalk

The sea breeze was strong enough to make Taylor's hair whip around just a little, but she didn't mind. It was nice out here on the weekend, watching people rollerblade past or play frisbee down on the beach. It would be even better if I had friends to do it with, she mused, then dismissed the thought. After Emma, she wasn't going to go looking for friends; in fact, she had no idea how to even go about it.

She smiled as her father returned from a hot dog cart, bearing a greasy treasure piled high with fried onion. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, accepting her hot dog. “It smells delicious.”

“They always do,” he said wryly. “It's why these guys sell so many.” Proving the point of his own words, he took a bite from his hot dog.

She did the same, enjoying how the flavours flooded through her mouth. Wandering over to the rail, she rested her elbows on it as she looked out over the bay. Something caught her attention and she tilted her head. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked Danny as he joined her.

She listened intently, but it didn't happen again. “Some sort of rumble, but it's gone now.” A shrug. “Probably my stomach.”

“Well, you better eat your hot dog before we get a repeat. I've known you to hit ten on the Richter scale,” he said with a chuckle.

She stuck out her tongue at him, then followed his advice.

<><>​

Danny

Taylor finished her hot dog with a satisfied sigh. “That was good,” she declared. “What are we gonna do now?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Maybe a movie?” It seemed like a good way to round off the afternoon.

“Yeah, I like that idea,” she agreed. “I—what's wrong with that man?”

The man in question was stumbling down the Boardwalk, arms reaching for something only he could see. People stepped away from him; even lacking Merchant colours, he could still be dangerous. In a city like Brockton Bay, he wasn't even the oddest sight to be seen.

“Where is she? What have you done with her?” The old man latched on to Danny's arms with surprising strength. “Why can't I find her?”

“Calm down, buddy,” Danny said. The last thing he wanted was for the guy to get violent; Taylor could get hurt. “Who are you talking about, anyway?”

“Her,” the man said, his voice cracking in its intensity. “My wife. My daughter.” He yanked again, the motion pulling his sleeves up. On his wrist, Danny noted, was a tattoo of a white swan.

Oh, shit. He came out of a Simurgh zone. In his opinion, the practice of tattooing a white bird on victims of the third Endbringer should never have happened; all it did was paint a target on their backs. Of course, in this circumstance, it did help to explain what was wrong with the man.

<><>​

“Baker three to Dispatch, over.”

“Dispatch.”

“Yeah, we're on the Boardwalk with a ten-ninety-six. Simurgh vic. Concerned citizen flagged us down. Gonna need an ambulance, over.”

“Are there any casualties? Do you need backup, over?”

“No casualties. It's a sad one. The guy's looking for his wife and kid. My guess is they died in an attack, and his mind broke when it happened. He's more of a danger to himself than anyone else.”

“Okay, alerting the psych guys now. Do we have a name, over?”

“First name only. William. That's whiskey, india, lima, lima …”



End of Part Fifteen

Part Sixteen