A Different Time, A Different Age [Worm Age-Swap AU]

Chapter 22: Crush

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If only we could have run even faster, though; the moment that we turned to escape, Rune was already after us, flying as fast as a Liberty Lady or an Adamantium could. As she hit the rear of our pack, she tapped the two of our members that were slowest to react, levitating them off of the ground: Leet and Trainwreck. "Shit! Open up on her!" At Grue's orders, we all stopped in our tracks and turned back to where Rune was floating next to our two Tinker team mates, Leet and Trainwreck struggling as unseen telekinetic forces strained on their bodies.

All of us in the warehouse began using our various abilities on the Empire woman, but nothing seemed to have any meaningful effect. I piled rats into a small hill to reach where Rune was levitating, but even once they reached her, their teeth and claws only found some sort of forcefield surrounding her body, preventing their attacks from reaching her flesh. Chariot fired his repulsor rifle onto Leet and Trainwreck, in an attempt to knock them out of whatever Rune's new range might have been; unfortunately, Rune's hold on our allies was strong enough that they barely budged an inch each time Chariot's shots hit them. Circus brought out several throwing knives, directing them with perfect aim at Rune's neck, only to watch helplessly as they plinked off the Nazi woman's telekinetic shield; Biter's punches as he circled around to a rear strike experienced no better luck, the force from his blows not even enough to set Rune off-balance. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit." Barker next to me was hyperventilating, gas coming out from between his lips in large bursts as he desperately tried to figure out a way to apply his power without harming Leet or Trainwreck in the process.

Regent was swinging his arms that way and the other in an attempt to apply his ability to Rune, but the Empire woman used her powers to right herself each time she was set off-balance by the Master. Grue was desperately attempting to blind Rune with his darkness, but the telekinetic was somehow managing to push even that power away whenever it touched her. As a knife began to stab itself into the Nazi woman's back - to as little avail as Circus or Biter had managed with their attacks - Bitch sent her dogs charging in whenever there was an opening; while they managed to either push, shove, or toss her away, no damage was caused by their teeth or their claws, and she kept pulling her two captives along with her wherever she went. As Leet began to scream in pain while his spine twisted horrifically, Uber shouted in fury, pulling out a pistol from his holster. "Fuck this!" Opting for full lethality, the combat Thinker began firing onto Rune with as many bullets as his guns could hold.

As if on Uber's cue, the rest of us pulled out our own firearms - myself included - before opening up on the Nazi leader whenever we had a clear shot that didn't threaten to hit Leet or Trainwreck; unfortunately, hot lead didn't seem to have any more effect than knives, monstrous dogs, or gigantic knuckle dusters had, as all of the bullets simply lost their momentum the moment they hit Rune's forcefield, and a second later, a snapping noise was heard from Leet's body, the Tinker's upper half twisted at a 90 degree angle to the side. As Uber screamed in dismay at the sudden, horrifying death of his partner, us of the Entwined could only watch helplessly as Rune stripped away the power armor that Trainwreck always wore. "H... He... Help me! Please!"

I reloaded my pistol as Chariot swapped out to his teleporter rifle, apparently hoping that if he got our team mate far enough away from Rune, that her ability would cease quite literally tearing Trainwreck apart; the Empire woman, for her part, simply moved Trainwreck that way and the other, preventing Chariot from being able to get a proper bead on our Tinker friend. "Please! Chariot! Help me!" Our commander clenched his jaw as he began taking pot shots with his teleportation gun, hitting nothing but pieces of scrap scattered around the warehouse; as the rest of us continued sending whatever offensive power we could toward Rune, she managed to strip Trainwreck down to his "real", amorphous blob body that I had seen here and there during my time with him.

"Disgusting." Rune sported a sneer on her face that suggested that she felt like she was looking at nothing more than dogshit while she examined Trainwreck's monstrous form. "This is why the world needs the Empire. To rid society of filthy mongrels like this." Trainwreck froze stiff for a moment, and none of us understood why until blood began flowing out of his nose a second later, our friend's head dropping limply down.

"No! Trainwreck! You... You fucking bitch!" Barker had to be actively constrained by Biter as the anger he felt at seeing our team mate sadistically killed right in front of us began to overwhelm the fear and anxiety that had arrested him just a moment early.

"Fall back!" Grue's voice cut through the din, as Bitch's dogs formed up a rear guard to allow the rest of us time to complete our escape from the warehouse. "Fall back, regroup! We're on the back foot right now! Get out of here!" Bitch visibly tensed up as Rune reached for one of the monstrous hounds, but no immediate effect was visible as the dog snapped impotently at the Nazi leader; with a click of her tongue at seeing her power not work on the hound, Rune thankfully, graciously, fell back to where Theo's body was still suspended on the cross, eyeing the rest of us dangerously.

"Barker! Come on! We have to go! We can't fight her like this!" Chariot had grabbed our team mate even as he seemed ready to go fist-fight the crazy, Davis Limit-breaking telekinetic that had just killed three people in as many minutes; even as Barker continued to curse and shout in Rune's direction, though, we remaining members of the Entwined grit our teeth, clenched our jaws, and rushed back out of the warehouse to our van.

Right before I was out of ear shot, I heard Rune speak up again. "And you three. You failed to assist me. You failed to assist your leader. You are not fit to defend the white race with me." A second later, the sound of Cricket's gargled, muted, raspy scream could be heard, before we were gone.

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"He's dead. He's dead. Trainwreck. He's dead. Danny. Trainwreck's dead. He's dead." Barker's eyes stared ahead at nothing, his voice weak and raspy while Chariot drove as quickly as he could away from that damned warehouse.

"Barker. Barker, listen to me. You need to get a hold of yourself." As I grabbed onto Barker's shoulders, Biter - on the other side of his friend - gently cradled the black kid's head. "This isn't over yet. We're going to get her, okay?" As I spoke, I noticed Circus sitting on the other side of the van, their eyes closed and jaw clenched as they rapidly cycled throwing knives through their hammerspace; all of us had coping mechanisms, I supposed. "We're going to get her back for what she did to Trainwreck, okay? We're going to get revenge. We're going to kill her, okay?" I could barely believe the venom in my own words. There I was, Danny Hebert, actively declaring that I was going to participate in the death of another human being; I doubted that anyone could blame me, though, not after what I had just seen Rune do to three other people. If anything, the woman was a mad dog, far more vicious than anything Bitch could ever make, and in desperate need of being put down before she hurt anybody else.

"This is Undersiders actual, on all channels." Grue's voice came over our headsets, prompting all of us to perk up and pay attention. "Fox, please for the love of God tell me you were watching that, and please for the love of fucking God tell me that you know what that shit was. Over." It was odd, hearing the normally composed Brian clearly feeling rather out of his element with what had just happened in the warehouse.

"Yeah, I was watching it." What was even more odd was the sheer panic in Tattletale's voice, an emotion that I never would have imagined that particular woman was capable of possessing. "Your helmcam didn't show me everything, but, uhh... Okay, let's see. Second trigger, obviously. Broke the Davis Limit, obviously. She can TK herself, obviously. Uhm. Weight limit now, that she didn't have before; survey says it's... Three hundred pounds? Maybe a bit higher. She won't be hitting Bitch's dogs or throwing cars around, at least." I let out a slightly sardonic scoff at that; after what had happened to Steinn, Leet, and Trainwreck, I wasn't sure if having trucks tossed at us was what we needed to worry about. " She can only tag two things at a time, same as before. Limited amount of force that she can exert across all objects she's marked, and- Shit, ouch, fuck, hold on a moment."

With a curse, Tattletale continued listing off all of the information that her power was giving her. "Headache. Fuck. Ow. Alright. Okay. Her personal telekinesis is a lot stronger than what she applies to other things, so her shield is going to be really hard to get through with physical attacks. Chariot's repulsor and teleportation guns will still affect her and her marked objects, since there's no projectile being fired, just an effect. Uhm, let's see... She's still affected by Master and Stranger effects, as Regent and Imp showed us; sadly, we don't have any mindcontrollers in the city right now, so that's kind of useless to us... Shit. Christ almighty. Who'd'a fuckin' thought she'd go and have a second trigger like that? Fuck me." If the situation wasn't so screwed beyond believe, I would have more than delighted in hearing Tattletale sound as stressed out as she was. "Accord!"

Without missing a beat, her apprentice's voice came over our headsets, already detailing out a course of attack against Rune. "Assume that energy based attacks can penetrate her telekinetic shield. Grue's tendrils were deflected, but we don't know yet if lasers or fire will be. Laserdream, Browbeat and Shielder are assisting the PRT against Spitfire's crew; explain to the heroes what the situation is - they won't be content to let a Davis-broken telekinetic freely rampage around the city, to say the least - and have the Undersiders draw Rune to where Laserdream and Spitfire are while the Entwined make their way over on their own. If energy based attacks don't work against Rune, then..." I felt my heart clench up for a moment as one of the three villainous masterminds in Brockton Bay found himself at a loss. "...we gather information and plan again from there. Over."

"Spitfire here." The mercenary woman's voice came through our headsets, the sounds of battle in the background. "We'll try to get the heroes to play nice, but they're apparently really pissed after what happened at Winslow. A lot of them are still over at the school running damage control, but a lot of them are still here, too." I winced for a moment, remembering that Alan and my mom were still unaccounted for, on top of everything else that had been going on. "The sooner we can get backup over here the better. Over."

Chariot spoke up, audible both in the van and on our radios. "Entwined actual here. We're on our way, Spitfire. Sit tight and hold out." A brief second passed, before Chariot chimed in again. "And Coil? Not your fault. Don't even think for a moment that it was, or I'll beat your ass when this is all over." We hadn't heard our leader speak over the radio, but we knew that Coil was likely there with Tattletale and Accord, had likely seen the moment that Rune crushed Trainwreck's internal organs and brutally murdered him; everyone in the van darkened a little bit, even as Chariot continued to rush off toward where Spitfire's crew was.

"This is Undersiders actual. We'll have Rune there shortly. Be ready for when she arrives. Over." With Grue's transmission, our radios went silent; the only sound that any of us in the van could hear was the noise of Chariot gunning his engines as fast as they could safely go, interspersed briefly by a quiet sob or a soft curse from Barker. As I stared at the seat that Trainwreck would normally have taken, I felt the rats that quickly entered and then left my range as we drove along scream in fury and anger during what few seconds I had control over them for.

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"Dropping us in three... Two... One... Dropping." As Chariot counted down, those of us left in the van tensed up, preparing ourselves to be dropped right in the middle of the fight between the Palanquin mercenaries and a combined PRT and New Wave Team; to say that it was chaos would have been an understatement. Labyrinth's power had turned the surrounding battlefield into something like a Greek temple, with marble pillars and statues of various gods likely known only to the Shaker herself; Faultline was running around and collapsing the towers of marble in the direction of the heroes, with Labyrinth creating more each time her team mate brought one crashing down. Spitfire was opting for a "spray and pray" tactic, sending her napalm fire out all across the half-temple, half-city area and keeping pressure on the heroes; as Newter jumped around and attempted to tag those of his enemies who had skin showing, Gregor played interference by throwing balls of goop wherever the heroes tried to advance.

The PRT and New Wave were keeping as much pressure on Spitfire's crew as the Palanquin mercenaries were pushing onto the heroes themselves; in addition to Laserdream, her husband, and her brother, Victory Man, Gallant, and Clockblocker from the Protectorate were engaged, as well. As Laserdream and Shielder shot beams of light that Gregor frantically blocked with his slime, Browbeat and Clockblocker desperately tried to catch the far too agile Newter in either a power hold or a time stop; Victory Man and Gallant attempted to handle Spitfire, but the zoning that her flames and Faultline's collapsed pillars caused prevented either from getting a proper bead on any of the other three mercenaries.

"Stop!" As soon as we landed, Chariot shouted out an authoritative commanded, shooting his repulsor rifle into the air for emphasis; the heroes and the Palanquin crew both paused their fighting, looking toward us of the Entwined even as they remained tense and ready to get back into the conflict at a moment's notice. "In case you hadn't heard, heroes, we have much bigger issues at hand than this little playground bullshit."

As Chariot stopped to see if the heroes would cooperate with us or not, I noticed Clockblocker with his helmet-covered head turned my way; I wasn't sure if he was looking directly at me, but as he spoke, he removed all doubt. "Hey, kid." Everyone turned to me as Clockblocker pointed, and I gulped and nodded in response. "Do you remember what I told you when we met in the PRT offices? That if you turned villain, that I'd treat you like any other villain?" As the time-stopping hero stepped forward, the other members of the Entwined drew up around me, pointing their respective weapons toward Clockblocker. "That I'd beat your ass and haul you in? I don't give a shit if we're outnumbered right now or not; give me one good reason not to do that right now."

I pushed forward through Circus and Biter, moving closer even as Chariot put a hand on my shoulder to try and stop me; I felt my swarm of rats grow larger, ready to descend upon the battlefield if it became necessary. "Clockblocker, sir, please, just listen to me, alright?" The hero folded his arms, but didn't interrupt me, either; taking that as permission, I continued speaking while new marble columns slowly grew nearby via Labyrinth's power. "Steinn is dead." That caused the other heroes to freeze, the eyes that I could see focused intently on me. "Leet is dead. Trainwreck is dead." I heard Barker behind me make a small noise of dismay and anger. "I'm pretty sure Cricket is dead, too. Rune's had a second trigger event. She's broken the Davis limit, and she's gone insane. She's killing everyone in sight, saying some shit about how she's the only person worthy of leading the Empire, and some other Nazi fuckery, I don't really know." I stepped forward, holding my arms wide in a peace gesture. "Nothing we tried worked against her. Not bullets, not knives, not Bitch's mutant dogs. Accord says that our best bet right now is energy based attacks." I pointed toward Laserdream, then Shielder, then Spitfire. "Please. We need you to cooperate with us, or Rune's bodycount is going to keep rising. Please, Clockblocker, sir."

Clockblocker looked back to where his allies were standing, seeking a response from them; after several seconds, Laserdream nodded, followed by Shielder, and then the rest of the heroes. Turning to me, the time-stopper nodded, his voice still sharp as he spoke. "Fine. Temporary truce. Give me a second, I need to call this shit in." The hero pressed a hand to the side of his helmet, waited a few seconds, and then continued speaking. "Clockblocker, highest priority message." Another several moments, before continuing. "Director. Rune's broken the Davis limit. She's already killed Steinn, Leet, Trainwreck, and Cricket. I need you to designate her an A-Class threat and issue a kill order for her, effective immediately. I also need you to have the other groups establish a field truce with the villains they're engaged with." Several seconds, followed by a nod. "Thank you, Director. Clockblocker out." Looking to the Entwined and to Spitfire's crew, he spoke up so we could all hear. "Alright. All of our efforts will be directed to stopping Rune, before she kills anybody else. What happens after she's been neutralized is a different story, but-" The sound of mutant dogs howling interrupted Clockblocker, and we all turned our attention to where the Undersiders had appeared on a nearby rooftop.

"She's here!" Chariot shouted out even as Rune appeared in the midday sky, moving as fast as Laserdream or Shielder themselves could have hoped to; as Bitch's hounds landed in the midst of Labyrinth's marble temple, unloading their passengers, everybody prepared to engage with the telekinetic.

And then I noticed something, or rather somebody that wasn't supposed to be there, that was out of place. "Max?! What the fuck are you doing here?!" Using my rodents to keep an eye on the situation, I rushed over to where the Empire teenager was curled up behind one of the pillars; Chariot watched me go, but neither he nor anybody else moved to stop me. "I thought you were back at the warehouse?!"

I heard the sounds of battle start to erupt, but knowing that neither my rats nor my pistol would have any effect, I focused on Max as he spoke. "Mom, she said... She said I... That I wasn't fit to be her son..." The teenager spoke, his blue eyes wide with fear as he shook from fright. "No powers... Not... Not worthy for the Empire... She was going to..." Max looked up at me, grabbing onto my arm and squeezing it tight. "She was going to kill me, Gnaw. She... She was going to kill me." He swallowed past a heavy lump in his throat, a slightly unhinged smile on his face as he continued. "I... I grabbed onto one of the dogs, I... I had to get away, didn't know what else to do... I... Dad... Mom..."

As surreal as it was to watch the Max Anders - sociopath extraordinaire and leader of the youth wing of a skinhead gang - be on the verge of a breakdown, I had to turn my attention to the fight. When I did, part of me wished that I hadn't; the energy attacks weren't working. As much as they managed to knock Rune around, and prevent The Nazi woman from approaching any of her opponents, neither the beams of light from Laserdream and Shielder nor the flames from Spitfire were causing any real, noticeable damage to Rune; the lasers didn't do much but keep her off balance, and the napalm that Spitfire threw out just slid off of Rune's body, dropping to the floor without any meaningful effect on the white supremacist leader. It wasn't working. Jesus Christ. Nothing was working against her. Was she immune to everything? Was there nothing that could hurt her? Even Victory Man's Tinker weapons and Gallant's emotion orbs were having no effect, whenever they managed to hit.

In desperation, I pulled my pistol out, taking shots at her that I knew would be utterly ineffective; I had to try something, though, couldn't just sit there and do nothing, had to hope that maybe, somehow, one of my bullets would penetrate her forcefield, would just... Something, God damnit! I immediately regretted my choice of action; turning her attention to the new source of attack, Rune laid eyes on me... And on Max. "Maximilian. You naughty, naughty boy." A beam from Laserdream knocked Rune through the air a few feet, but the Empire woman righted herself and continued floating slowly toward where I and Max were. "You ran away from your mother. Not only are you useless and worthless to the Empire, to the cause, to the white race, you are disobedient, as well." As Rune began to speed up, I saw a crazed look cross her face as she bared her teeth in our direction. "I'll make sure that your punishment is especially excruciating, Maximilian!"

Right before Rune reached us, something appeared between Max, myself, and the Nazi cape. It was a blue blur, at first, as it landed in front of us, but once my eyes took stock of him and the barrier he erected between himself and Rune, I recognized the man: Shielder. "Get out of here, you stupid kids! Go!" Not needing to be told twice, I grabbed Max - assisted by Biter, who had rushed over to help me - and retreated away from where Shielder was holding off Rune.

"Pathetic." One word from Rune, before I heard a low zap of energy, the sound of a shield dissipating; turning around, I saw that the woman had marked Shielder, the New Wave hero floating off the ground, his face contorted in pain.

"No!" Laserdream screamed in fury and terror as she began throwing every last beam of light she could manage; Browbeat looked on helplessly as his brother-in-law's arms and legs began to twist at unnatural angles, the Brute unable to try and deal with Rune lest he get in range for her to tag him, as well. As I reloaded my completely useless and pointless gun, I saw Chariot level his teleportation gun at Shielder; as our commander attempted to draw a bead on the hero in question, Rune dragged Shielder along with her in the air as Laserdream's attacks shoved the Nazi cape around. "No, no, no, no!" Laserdream continued yelling, her attacks managing to throw Rune that way and the other, but not disorienting the Empire woman enough to force Rune to let up her grip on Shielder. Faultline was attempting to collapse Laybrinth's pillars on top of Rune, but the Empire woman dodged each one with ease. The next few events happened in rapid succession: Chariot growled, I heard several of Shielder's bones cracking apart, and then the New Wave hero's body teleported, close to where Spitfire was; the man was limp, unmoving, not breathing. "Nooo!" Laserdream's cry was blood curdling.

"Tattletale!" Grue's voice came loud over our headsets, completely ignoring the protocols that we had previously established for communication. "For fuck's sake! We need something, and we need it now!"

"Her forcefield doesn't let anything in unless she wants it to." The sound of the Undersiders' strategist speaking came next. "Not objects, not kinetic force, not your darkness, not even energy or things like Gallant's attacks, except if she chooses to allow it. She can let air in from outside, can let in heat if she needs it, but nothing else gets in unless she allows it. There's a limit to what her field can take from a single, individual source - it's why she allows herself to be knocked back by the lasers being shot at her or by Bitch's hounds, to keep their full force from hitting the shield and getting through it to cause actual damage - but it's nothing that we can possibly manage to penetrate with anything we have. Would probably take Scion or an Endbringer to get past it. It's that strong." Even as Tattletale gave us the information her power had granted her, Rune returned to the fight, aiming for Laserdream with a sadistic expression on her face. "God damn fucking headache! Okay, here's the important part. She can control what enters her barrier, but she can't control what leaves it, in turn.

"Okay?! What fucking good does that do us?! If none of us can get into her field, then how can any of us pull anything out of it?!" Grue sent a tendril out to touch Laserdream, copying her powers to help add to the firepower being sent in Rune's direction.

"When a warm object is placed in a cold environment, its heat naturally migrates out and into its surrounding area; the chill itself doesn't actually 'enter' the object, so Rune's shield won't be able to mitigate it." Accord's voice, talking calmly, and clinically; I was glad that Tattletale's apprentice, at least, was staying steady. "That being said, we need to produce a flash freeze around Rune; her forcefield won't be able to keep her body's heat from escaping, and she'll enter a hypothermic state, either rendering her incapacitated or killing her."

Everyone tapped into the communication and not otherwise engaged with zoning out Rune turned to the one individual in our group capable of creating a burst of cold like that. "Barker." Coil's voice, that time, with a heavy, solid, and meaningful intonation.

The boy in question looked at all of us with an expression of sheer terror and overwhelming apprehension on his face; as he fell back a step, his legs trembling as he did, he shook his head, muttering a weak protest out in a quiet voice. "Nuh uh. No way. No way in fucking hell." As lasers fell elsewhere in the temple, we stared pointedly at Barker, as he himself stared back at us with fear and anxiety; as much as his body shook from the increasing horror, he knew as well as the rest of us did that there was no other choice. Whether anybody liked it or not, Barker was our only salvation, our only hope against the crazed, maniacal Nazi woman that had been tearing our ranks to shreds; what a fucking situation we had gotten ourselves into.

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Edit: Modified some sections to clarify the limit of Rune's new powers.

 

Interlude: Ezekiel King and Bradley Waters

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They had told him that he should have felt "lucky" that he was "only" mute; after all, most people born with congenital muteness were born deaf, as well, and he had two perfectly functional set of ears, didn't he? Maybe it had made him ungrateful, then, but Ezekiel King had not felt even remotely "lucky" to have been born "only" mute. Being able to hear, after all, meant that he could listen in on the conversations his albeit otherwise very loving parents had about him, and it meant that he could hear the pity and defeat and regret that seeped into their voice when they thought that he wouldn't notice; being able to hear, after all, meant that he could hear when the other kids called him names, call him a "mime", and it meant that he could hear as his teachers only barely seemed to care when they reprimanded his peers for their bullying.

It also, of course, meant that he could listen to the adults around him talk how shitty it was to have to live in Baltimore; it meant that he could hear about how high the robbery and murder and burglary rates were, and meant that he could hear his parents argue over whether or not they could afford a new, better security system that might be the difference between the King family waking up alive or dead in the morning. Having two perfectly function sets of eyeballs meant that Ezekiel could see what was happening in the city around him, too, meant that he could see how many homeless people and beggars there were living rough on the streets, in spite of Baltimore's efforts to "clean things up"; it meant that Ezekiel could see the gang tags and the graffiti crowding out the walls, could see the boarded up windows and condemned buildings, and being mute didn't keep him from understanding what all of that meant for the city that he lived in.

At the very least, Ezekiel managed to find a friend early on in his school career, amongst the midst of young children that didn't want to have anything to do with "the mime"; mayhaps the fact that Bradley Waters, too, had chronic health issues that the other kids made fun of him for wasn't necessarily the best reason for him and Ezekiel to form a friendship, but in the savage jungle that was the Baltimore public school system, they both supposed that the "cripples" had to stick together, if only for the sake of safety in numbers. Regardless, the two of them managed to turn a friendship of necessity into a friendship of genuine feelings over the years, if only because Ezekiel and Bradley both knew that neither of them were likely to find meaningful companionship anywhere else.

Ezekiel himself wasn't exactly the biggest kid on the playground; it wasn't as if his muteness caused him to be short and scrawny, but his genes just weren't the best in that department, either. Compared to the perpetually weak, frail, and sickly Bradley, though, his friend was practically a titan; Ezekiel knew, of course, that his attempts to stand up to the much bigger boys when they were pushing Bradley around would only ever end badly - though he did manage to get a nice sucker punch on the other kids every once-in-a-while, when they weren't looking - but he wasn't willing to just sit back as his friend got beat up for no other reason than how badly his DNA was fucked up. Bradley, of course, repeatedly insisted to Ezekiel that the boy stop putting himself on the line like that just for his friend's sake - especially given the bloody noses, black eyes, and busted lips that Ezekiel consistently suffered on Bradley's behalf - but Ezekiel, ever abrasive and ever defiant, refused to listen to even Bradley's pleas, insisting that he'd defend his best friend from the bullies even if it killed him.

Bradley didn't quite understand how much Ezekiel meant that, though, until their second year of middle school, the both of them having just entered their teenage years; while younger children are certainly capable of severe degrees of physical harassment, the older kids get, the more brutal, deliberate, and conscious their violence becomes. With that in mind, it should perhaps have come as no surprise that the first fight Ezekiel got into after turning thirteen landed him not in the nurse's office or the principal's office, but right into the emergency room; given the economic status of the King family, Ezekiel's visit to the hospital was a rather short and yet still rather expensive one, the boy having receive no care beyond a few stitches and a sling for his arm. Even so, Bradley was able to see the aftermath, was able to see just how much Ezekiel had suffered for his sake, knew how much Ezekiel had been suffering for his sake for almost a decade, and Bradley knew that the only reason that his best friend was suffering like that was because of the Waters' boy's own feeble, sickly nature. If only he wasn't so fragile, if only he wasn't so decrepit, if only...

It happened when Ezekiel was out for suspension following the fight that gave him his broken arm; the Baltimore public school system was very strict with its zero-tolerance policy, so no matter how much Bradley defended his friend, Ezekiel knew from the outset that he'd end up suspended along with at least one of Bradley's attackers. Unfortunately, one of his bullies gone meant that there was still more than enough to properly harass Bradley, and without Ezekiel there to defend him - stupid, moronic Ezekiel, leaving him alone like that - the boy was completely at the mercy of the other boys. "Cripple", they called him. "Gimp", as well. "Defective", one of the smarter kids said; it was all the usual, typical stuff, but Bradley could see the way that their harassment was escalating, the way that it was slowly but surely turning into assault, and then into battery as they slaps turned into punches, their pushes turned into shoves, and Bradley was smart enough to know that he was going to get hurt, get hurt even more than Ezekiel had, all because of his stupid, broken, "defective" body, and-

He had passed out. When he had woken up, that body of his was... Different. He felt that he could... Move it, shift it, change it, to make it bigger, to make it stronger, to turn himself into a person capable of not only defending himself, but also of protecting Ezekiel, to make sure that neither of them were ever harassed or attacked by anybody ever again. Bradley didn't kill any of the bullies, but the damage that he did cause them - as well as the damage he caused surrounding school property - was significant enough that it couldn't have not drawn the attention of PRT Department 26; given that there were significant extenuating circumstances - including the fact that the school system had utterly failed to protect two of its most vulnerable students - the PRT ensured that no charges were pressed against Bradley, and extended a voluntary offer to join the Wards to the newly triggered boy. Ever-cautious and ever-careful, Bradley decided to at least temporarily turn down the offer, stating that he needed time to think about things before making any commitment; Houndstooth stated that he understood the boy's position, but Bradley still ended up finding himself receiving regular house visits from PRT officials, reminding him of the offer he had been given. To say that Bradley Waters had found himself in one of the most stressful positions of his entire life would have been an understatement, to say the least.

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"So are you joining the Wards, then?" Ever since Ezekiel's parents had managed to scrounge up enough money for a text-to-speech device, the boy had been using the tool almost to the point of excess, delighting in the ability to "talk" to people - and to his best friend - as much as he wanted. "It would be SO cool if you become a superhero, Brad! And then, hey, I could say that I'M a friend of a superhero, too!"

As overly excitable as Ezekiel could be, Bradley had to admit that his friend's smile was infectious, and he couldn't help but feel a grin spread on his face as Ezekiel "spoke"; with a shake of his head, though, Bradley responded with a serious tone. "You know that superheroes have secret identities, right? You can't just go around blabbing like that, Zeke." Perhaps it could be constituted as some sort of "abuse" of his power, but ever since his trigger, Bradley had insisted on using his ability to make him as reasonably tall, intimidating, and muscular as a boy his size could be; the end result was that - as the two of them sat on the roof of Bradley's apartment building - Bradley was head and shoulders above his friend.

Ezekiel, for his part, didn't seem to mind, didn't seem to even treat his friend all that differently than before, aside from being a little more enthusiastic than normal in their conversations; that was, perhaps, one of the reasons that Bradley enjoyed Ezekiel's company so much, regardless of the original reasons that the two of them had first become friends. "Alright, alright! But I can still cheer you on, yeah?" Bradley smiled and nodded as his friend's device spoke the words that Ezekiel had typed, before the black kid continued on. "But seriously! Answer my question, dude. You joining the Wards, or what?"

Bradley frowned slightly, mulling the question over; it was a question that he had already mulled over plenty over the past couple of weeks, and it was one that he knew that he would have to answer eventually. "I... Don't know yet, honestly." With a sigh, though, Bradley supposed that on an apartment rooftop, watching the Baltimore sunset with his best friend, wasn't the best place to answer such a life-changing question; Ezekiel, though, scowled in response, clearly not satisfied with what Bradley had said. "Look, it's... It's a big thing, yeah? My parents want me to, and I understand why, 'cause the pay would really help us out, but like..." Bradley looked out over the city again; ever since he had gained his powers, he had found himself with quite literally a new perspective on things, being over a foot taller than he had been before. "This city sucks, Zeke. It sucks fucking balls."

Ezekiel frowned, but nodded in agreement; thirteen years spent in Baltimore had taught them just how much the city did indeed "suck fucking balls". With a grimace, Bradley continued speaking. "I do want to be a superhero. I do want to help make Baltimore a better place. I know I have the power to do it, even if I'm not as strong as like, Heroic or Scion or whatever." The boy looked at his left fist as it grew in size temporarily, before he shrunk it back down. "But the Wards and the Protectorate have been trying to clean this city up for decades, and they haven't managed to do shit." With a sardonic smirk, Bradley shook his head, as he spoke up again. "Or maybe they haven't wanted to do shit. Maybe they want to keep the city sucking fucking balls so that they'd have a reason for sticking around." It was a bit of a conspiracy theory, but Bradley hadn't been feeling particularly charitable after the PRT had been harassing him at his home just as much as his bullies had at school. "So maybe I could do better as an independent hero, even if it's more dangerous." Bradley stood up, stretching out his superhumanly enhanced muscles and tendons as Ezekiel climbed up to his own feet next to his friend; with a sad smile, Bradley turned toward the other boy, and continued. "Or maybe Baltimore's just so fucked that nobody can fix it. Maybe I'm just better off using my powers for my sake, for my family's sake, and for your sake, Zeke."

Bradley's friend stared at him with concern, fingers hovering over the keyboard of his text-to-speech device as he considered his words; eventually, with trepidation, Ezekiel typed a few things in, and an electronic voice echoed his thoughts. "Do you got a name, at least? Like, Ward, independent, or whatever, you gotta have a name, right? Even if everyone in school knows who you are, and stuff?" A small, apprehensive smile appeared on Ezekiel's face as his device spoke for him.

With a grin, Bradley supposed that such a statement was classic Ezekiel; always trying to keep the atmosphere light, always trying to keep Bradley happy and smiling, even if it was in an albeit inappropriate fashion. "I, uhh... I've thought of a few, but none of them are really that great." Rubbing the back of his head, Bradley blushed slightly, looking away sheepishly as he continued. "One name I kind of like is, uhh, 'Biter'." A small noise that Bradley recognized as a muted laugh came from Ezekiel as he stared at his newly gigantic friend in disbelief. "Look! None of the others are any good, either! If you had seen the way I chomped down on Mike's arm with a super big head, you'd think it was at least halfway cool, though!" Ezekiel guffawed again as he grabbed onto Bradley's muscular arm and made a mocking biting motion; Bradley, despite himself, laughed a long with his friend, glad that the two of them could share small moments like that, no matter how otherwise fucked up things were.

----------

Small moments like those could only last so long, though, before they had to end; while Ezekiel's parents were fine with him being out after dark - especially since they knew that he never did anything worse than hang out with Bradley - the boy still had something of a curfew, and had to start making his way back home. The fact that Ezekiel had started carrying a knife with him - even though he knew that he had no idea how to use the thing, if it had ever ended up coming down to it - spoke volumes about why his parents wanted him indoors before it got too late, and the fact that there had already been over a hundred homicides in Baltimore that year only reinforced how risky things could be, even if one wasn't a thirteen year old kid walking home by himself; it was with no small amount of glances over his shoulder, then, that Ezekiel King made his way down familiar but still dangerous city streets.

Unfortunately, there are other things that young black kids have to worry about in a city like Baltimore beyond fiending drug addicts and gangbangers with a chip on their shoulder; if Ezekiel had been capable of cursing when he heard the singular whoop of a police siren behind him accompanied by red and blue lights flashing in his lights, he most certainly would have. Instead, he simply raised his hands plaintively as the cruiser pulled up on the curb beside him, the officer inside eyeing him up cautiously; to say that the knife in Ezekiel's back pocket felt like a lead weight at that moment would have been a fair bit of an understatement.

Ezekiel was fairly certain that the way the cop simply stared at him for half a minute after he had gotten out of the police car was part of some shitty intimidation tactic on his part; even so, it wasn't like Ezekiel could call him out on it, for multiple reasons. "Isn't it a little late for you to be out, son?" Ezekiel twinged a little bit at being called "son" by the officer, and didn't have enough self-control to keep a scowl from forming on his face in response; impotently, the boy motioned toward his mouth and his neck, opening his lips and closing them, desperately hoping that the policeman would understand. With a scoff and a shake of his head, the cop simply put on a mocking tone of voice and spoke up again. "Can't speak, huh? Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before." Ezekiel felt his fists ball up and his teeth begin to grind, but even that impetuous young teenager knew better than to try and deck a cop just because he was pissed off at him; with a derisive motion of his hand, the police officer continued. "Let me see some ID, son."

ID? ID? How the fuck was a thirteen year old kid supposed to have some fucking ID?! He was three years off from even being able to get a driver's license - and he doubted that he'd be able to afford one, once he even turned sixteen - so what the fuck was the cop expecting out of him?! With a muted growl of annoyance, Ezekiel reached into his back pocket - very aware of the way that the officer's hand was on his gun, to say the least - making sure to grab his text-to-speech device, rather than his knife; Ezekiel didn't exactly feel like becoming some sort of statistic, not when he had a superhero of a friend that he would have to start supporting.

"Hey!" The cop had drawn his gun, and had it trained on Ezekiel. "What the fuck is that?!" The boy looked at the electronic device in his hand, and silently kicked himself for not realizing how much it could look like a gun to a paranoid cop looking for a reason to pull the trigger. With an angry grunt, Ezekiel did his best to show the text-to-speech tool to the officer, slowly - so very slowly - handing it over to the man, motioning again to his mouth and his throat as he did; the cop yanked it out of Ezekiel's hand, looked it over several times, and scoffed. "Christ, son. You carry one of these around to convince cops that you really are mute? I guess your type really can have brains sometimes. Enough of this bullshit, though."

With a smash, the officer threw the device onto the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces of plastic, glass, and silicon. For a moment, Ezekiel could only be shocked, seeing his most precious position destroyed in nary an arbitrary second; his parents had managed to get financial assistance and a payment plan, but even young Ezekiel understood the financial burden that buying it had placed on them, and had cherished it more than his own life. The next moment, Ezekiel felt only anger; it wasn't just anger at the cop, it wasn't just anger at his text-to-speech device being smashed like that, but it was anger at everything, anger at the way he had been born, anger at the city he lived in, anger at what the school had let him and Bradley go through, anger that their situation was so fucked up that Bradley didn't think that being a hero would be worth it, anger at the gangs and the criminals that were fucking Baltimore up, anger at every single God damned thing he knew.

What the fuck?! Ezekiel might not have had a voice, but he could still speak, could still make small, weak, but tenacious sounds from his throat. Fuck you! Do you know how much that fucking thing cost?! The boy, at least, managed to keep himself from advancing upon the cop, but that wasn't saying much.

"Jesus Christ, you really are mute, aren't you?!" The officer sneered, even as he pointed his pistol at Ezekiel again. "Whatever, you fucking mime. Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head."

I said, fuck you, shithead! Ezekiel jabbed a finger in the cop's direction, his patience and care for his own safety wearing thin in equal measure. First you fuckers don't help any of us when we need it, and then you come into our neighborhoods and harass us like this? As if making up for his lack of speech, Ezekiel threw his arms around in wide, powerful gesticulations. You break people's shit, you draw guns on kids that aren't doing a single God damned thing wrong?!

"I said, get on the ground, son." The officer's face had drawn into a hard line, and Ezekiel could see his finger resting on the trigger. "I will use force if I feel that you are threatening me."

Threatening you?! The boy had an incredulous look of disbelief on his face as he shook his head in frustration. I'm a scrawny thirteen year old kid, dipshit! How the fuck can I possibly threaten-

Perhaps walking toward the cop wasn't the best course of action for Ezekiel. Perhaps, if he hadn't done so, he wouldn't have received a bullet to the shoulder. Perhaps those things were true, but perhaps none of them would have happened if Ezekiel's situation hadn't had been as fucked up as it had been, if life just hadn't been unfair to the kid every step of his way, screwing up his genes, screwing up his city, screwing up everything. A muted scream tore itself out of his throat as he writhed on the ground, hand on his shoulder as fiery pain shot out through the wound. Fuck! Fuck! You shot me! What the fuck?! Lights popped on in nearby windows, as on-lookers joined those who had already been watching before.

"I told you to get on the ground, you stupid fucking mute! Now get onto your fucking stomach and put your hands behind your head!" The officer was still pointing his gun at Ezekiel, the look in his eye still suggesting that he... "Unless you really want to give me a reason to take out the trash, kid."

Where was he? He wasn't there. But then he was there. And something was different. "Fuck you!" A voice range out from nearby, one that Ezekiel didn't recognize, and something like smoke or gas appeared in front of his face, billowing out toward the cop.

"What the fuck?! The hell is this?!" The policeman flailed around, desperately trying to bat the gas away even as it surrounded his head and blocked his vision; in response, the cop began firing his pistol wildly, bullets ricocheting off the ground near Ezekiel.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" The boy recognized the voice, at that point; he had never heard it before, but he knew who it belonged to. "Stupid shitty fucking cops! Stupid shitty fucking Baltimore! Stupid shitty fucking school! Fuck all of you!" More and more smoke billowed out from Ezekiel's mouth as he yelled, surrounding the officer as his sidearm began to click impotently. "Fuck! You!" As if on instinct, Ezekiel clacked his teeth together; the gas exploded, sending a warm, comforting air over Ezekiel, but leaving nothing except a scorch mark where the officer had been. As car alarms began to go off and even more lamps turned on in nearby buildings, the boy realized the gravity of what had just happened, and what he had just done. "Shit." A word said with fear, rather than anger, and Ezekiel began to ran.

----------

"Bradley. I fucked up."

By the time Ezekiel returned to his friend's house, his face was pale, from terror and from loss of blood both; thankfully, Bradley's father had been a medic in the Army, and so he was more than happy to provide impromptu surgery for Ezekiel, repeatedly telling his son's friend to not worry about the way that he was bleeding all over the Waters' family's couch. Everyone knew, of course, that there was no way that Ezekiel could stay there; even as Bradley's parents were concerned about the safety of their household, Ezekiel would have never forgiven himself if he ended up causing trouble for his friend's family. One night, they agreed, and then Ezekiel would have to figure out something on his own.

His parents would probably know soon enough; the police cruiser's dashcam would make sure of that, and a dozen different bystander recordings would make doubly sure. Could Ezekiel return home? Could he force his parents to deal with a child that had, in essence, turned into a cop-killer? Could he go on the run, become a fugitive from justice? Christ, the kid was only thirteen, so why in the hell was his life forcing him to make decisions like that at such a young age? He didn't want to go to jail, of course - who in the hell ever wanted to go to jail? - but Ezekiel worried that his moms and pops would have to suffer police harassment so long as he was on the loose; could he put that on them?

After his parents had gone to work and his little sister had gone off to school in the morning, Bradley came and talked to Ezekiel. After what had happened, Bradley told him, there was no way that he was going to become a hero, no way that he was going to help defend a fucked up system or try to fix a fucked up city that could not be fixed, no matter how hard anybody tried; instead, Bradley said, he would do whatever it was that Ezekiel wanted to do. He had defended Bradley for eight years, since they had met each other in kindergarten, had always stood by his side and protected him; even if the police and news declaimed Ezekiel as some sort of supervillain cop-killer, Bradley insisted that Ezekiel would always be his hero, no matter what, and that Bradley would follow Ezekiel wherever he went.

Ezekiel couldn't remember the last time he had cried before that point, but as Bradley spoke, his friend began to cry, and cried for a long, hard time; his life was fucked, he knew, and there was no way that he would be able to fix things for himself, let alone be able to use his powers to help try and fix Baltimore, like he had talked to Bradley about so much. There was nothing to be done; he couldn't stay in Baltimore, not with his face likely plastered all over PRT Department 26's walls, with every hero in the Wards and the Protectorate likely looking for him. He had to go somewhere else, where he wouldn't be as recognized, wouldn't be as infamous, but somewhere that he could still use his powers to make a living, somewhere that he could be... Somewhere that he could be... Christ, he supposed, somewhere that he would have to be a supervillain, even at the tender age of thirteen.

Bradley was the one that made the suggestion for where they could go. A city with a small overall population, but that was in the top ten for overall parahuman populations: Brockton Bay.

Ezekiel hoped that his parents understood why he couldn't say goodbye in person, and then he left.

----------

A year later, and the two of them found themselves in an abandoned, boarded up store, across the table from the single most suspicious looking motherfucker that Ezekiel had ever seen.

"Gentlemen. My name is Coil." He wore a black suit with a white serpent image on it; Ezekiel didn't have to be a genius to know that the guy wasn't trustworthy, but he was the only formal job offer that the two of them had received, and he and Bradley weren't going to be able to eke out a living on petty small time solo villainy. "This is my associate, Trainwreck. I believe you've already met, though, when he delivered my offer." The man - no, Christ, Coil was a kid, barely older than he and Bradley were - motioned toward an ugly looking guy, wearing power armor that looked like it was made from scrap metal. "My group currently only consists of him and I, so I hope you understand why I've been recruiting for additional members."

Ezekiel looked to Bradley, sitting next to him, and he could tell that his friend didn't trust Coil any more than Ezekiel himself did; looking back to their potential employer, he opened up his mouth, gas billowing out in small rivulets as he spoke. "Yeah, sure. I'm Barker, this is Biter." Ezekiel motioned to himself, and then to Bradley, keeping his eyes narrowed at Coil even as he spoke. "We're a package deal though, yeah? You want even one of us, you gotta take both of us, deal?" Bradley nodded as Ezekiel took control of the conversation; ever since he had triggered, Ezekiel reveled in being able to verbally speak, as if attempting to make up for thirteen years of muteness, and Bradley was more than happy to let his friend take the reins.

"Of course, of course, I understand. If anything, I'm glad to get a two for one deal, as it were." The way that Coil talked rubbed Ezekiel the wrong way, as if the guy was weighing every single word he chose for maximum effect; it was probably a real good way of conversing, but it still fuzzed Ezekiel out a little bit. "Now then, before we get into payment details and such, I did want to get a feeling for your personalities." Ezekiel could see a smile spread itself underneath Coil's suit, and it made him flinch, slightly. "After all, workplace compatibility is rather important."

He wanted to call Coil out on it, call Coil out on the way that he talked like some adult businessman even though he was just a teenager like him and Bradley and presumably Trainwreck, call him out on how fucking pretentious he came off using phrases like "workplace compatibility", but he didn't, if only because he didn't want to upset Bradley. "Alright. Whatever." He'd allow himself a little bit of snark, at least. "What do you want to know about us? Not that there's much to tell."

Another smirk from Coil, spreading the fabric of his mask. "Oh, dear Barker, but I do believe that there is much you two could tell of your history together." Ezekiel saw Bradley shift uncomfortably next to him; they knew that anyone with an internet connection was capable of looking them up and finding out their identities, especially after Ezekiel's fiasco with the police officer. "Even so, I'm primarily interested in your... Motivations." Coil folded his hands on the table, tilting his head slightly as he spoke. "Why do you do what you do, as parahumans, and as capes? Why are you interested in working with me? Those sort of things. And please, do be honest, don't feel the need to flatter me."

Another look between Ezekiel and Bradley, before the former turned back to Coil. "Money, really. I suppose that's the reason most of us are in for it, right? I mean, what are you in for it, dude?" Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and jabbed a finger in Coil's direction, but the black-suited man didn't even seem to flinch at the gesture; Trainwreck's hand rested on what looked to be some sort of Tinkertech gun, though, and Ezekiel readied himself just in case things went south.

An unexpected emotion took over Coil as the question was asked, though: Excitement. "Oh, dear Barker, but I am so very glad that you asked!" Coil stood out of his seat, his chair scraping against the tiled of the shop as he did; the man's shadow was cast large by the floodlight he stood in front of, his arms spread out wide as he spoke. "Money is a fine motivation, and I can never fault anyone for that, no I cannot." In spite of his words, Ezekiel still detected a small amount of derision in Coil's voice. "But you wish to know what I myself am in for it, Barker?" The black-suited man slammed his hands down on the table, metal ringing loud through the empty room. "I want to be a hero, Barker." Ezekiel and Bradley glanced at each other again, their faces twisted in concern; to say that Coil sounded a bit crazed at that moment would have been an understatement.

"But I don't want to be a hero like the Protectorate, or the Wards, or New Wave, who sit up in their ivory towers, sneering down at the rest of us, abandoning us to our fates." Coil paced back and forth, gesticulating dramatically as he continued. "No. I want to do more than that. I want to be a better hero than those PRT stooges could ever dream of being. I don't want to just dive into the trenches to fight off supervillains and evildoers whenever it suits me." He came up behind Ezekiel and Bradley, placing one hand on either of them; they both tensed up, and Ezekiel noticed one of his partner's hands grow slightly larger. "Barker. Biter. You want to know what I'm in this for? I want to fix this city. I want to make it a truly better place, so that I can show the world that the PRT are nothing but frauds, who wouldn't know how to be heroes if Scion himself came and demonstrated it."

Fix the city. Those words resounded in both Ezekiel and Bradley's heads, words that they had once bandied around in youthful naivety as they dreamed of turning Bradley into a superhero of the ages for Baltimore, but which they had long abandoned as childish folly; the two friends looked each other in the eye, staring for long, silent seconds, Coil in their peripheral vision as they did so. Eventually, a nod was shared, and Ezekiel spoke again. "...alright. Sounds good, I guess." Giving a small frown as he looked up at Coil, the boy continued. "So, uhh, we gonna discuss payment and shit like that, or what?"

Coil clapped his hands, and returned to his position across the desk from the two of them. "I'm glad that you could come to a decision so quickly, friends!" Christ, the guy looked almost ecstatic. "But yes, let us discuss payment, and shit like that."

As Coil began to list off the terms of their employment with him, Ezekiel and Bradley looked at each other again; Coil, more than likely, was crazy. The guy spoke about fixing the city, about being a better hero than the PRT, about doing things that were absurd and grandiose and almost megalomaniacal, to some degree; even so, he also spoke of things that neither of them had ever believed that they would ever hear another person speak about ever again, and that... The look that Ezekiel and Bradley shared turned into a smile, and they shared a small fist-bump underneath the table, as they readied themselves to get a job working for a crazy, megalomaniacal, untrustworthy, snake who - maybe, just maybe - was also a heroic snake on top of everything else.

----------

"Nuh uh. No way. No way in fucking hell." Lasers continued blasting in the background as Barker spoke, stared at by Biter, by Gnaw, by Circus, and by the other arrayed heroes and villains; as his body shook, Barker's voice trembled. "She's killed four people already. Fuck, maybe more, for all we know. And you want me to go up against that monster?! With this stupid fucking power of mine?!" It had been a point of frustration for Barker, since he had triggered, that his power seemed so useless sometimes; he had managed to obliterate a man's body with it the first time he used his ability, but ever since him and Biter had gone on the road, his friend had always done the heavy lifting. And now they wanted him to use it to defeat Rune? A crazy, Davis-broken telekinetic that was in the midst of a murder spree? Fuck that.

"Barker." Gnaw came forward, grabbing the boy in question by the shoulders. "You're the only one who can do this. Like Tattletale said, we don't have any Masters that can affect her, and nobody else can create cold like you can." Fucking Gnaw. Barker liked the guy, don't get him wrong, but he also kind of hated the guy in some ways, too; kid's as old as he is, has only been with the Entwined for a few weeks, but he somehow managed to become practically best buds with Coil in that time? Fucked up, if you asked Barker. Sure, Gnaw had great force of personality, and sure, Gnaw was always pushing forward, always doing things to try to make himself and the rest of the team even better than they were, and sure, Gnaw held ideals as strongly as Coil did, but... Okay, maybe Barker could see why Coil and him became best buds so quickly, but he still got annoyed at how pushy Gnaw could be a lot of the time, how he tried to force other people into his plans, and shit like that; like right then, for example, when he was trying to get Barker to go toe-to-toe with a crazy Nazi lady and potentially get himself killed.

"We'll have you do a drive-by, okay?" The eyes behind Gnaw's mask were hard, even as they trembled slightly with fear; that was another thing Barker hated about him, how much Gnaw could keep going even as terror gripped his heart. "You move around her, spread your gas around her, get out, and then activate it, yeah? It'll be a lot safer than you think, alright? You'll be going quickly, she won't be able to catch you, I promise." Barker clenched his jaws, hands balling into fists as his heart sent a flood of adrenaline into his system. "Bitch!" Gnaw called out to the Undersider, the woman in question having long lost her mask. "She can't tag your dogs, right? Let's use one of them for the attack!"

Bitch looked ready to tear Gnaw apart for giving her orders like that, but Imp intercepted the dog-controller and prevented the situation from escalating. "Her dogs are over Rune's weight limit, yes, and they're agile and fast enough that she won't be able to catch one of their riders." Imp looked back toward Bitch, an assuaging tone in her voice. "Are you okay with that, Bitch? Does it make sense?" The woman in question glared at Gnaw for several seconds, before responding with a simple whistle, bringing one of her hounds in front of Gnaw and Barker. "Bitch can give the commands to move him around. Just hang on tight and do your thing, okay, Barker?"

The boy stared at the dog with a look of sheer terror on his face; so he wasn't just being expected to fight against Rune, but he was being expected to do it while riding a gigantic fucking mutant canine?! Alright, sure. Why the fuck not. Whatever the fuck. As if that day couldn't have got any worse. As if things weren't fucked up enough with Trainwreck being dead, killed by that stupid Nazi bitch. As if he had any real fucking choice in the matter, since he was sure that Gnaw would get everyone to tie him up to the hound and force him to do it. "Fuck shit fuck shit cunts fuck God damnit fuck shit fuck." As a modest amount of smoke billowed out of his mouth, Barker awkwardly clambered onto the dog, delighting to find that there was nothing resembling a saddle for it; as Bitch growled at him in annoyance - oh, what, had he not gotten on her stupid fucking monster dog properly? Boo fucking hoo. - Barker pointed at Gnaw, Biter, Circus, Imp, Bitch, and then Rune, all in turn. "Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you, too, I don't give a shit. And especially." He jabbed a finger in the Empire cape's direction, as she flew around, ignorant of him, attempting to tag the other parahumans arrayed against her. "Fuck you!" Turning back to Bitch, he flipped her off, and called out. "Let's fucking do this, already! I don't got all day!" His hands gripped any holds he could find on the dog, legs squeezing into its side tightly, fear filling his heart, his arms trembling.

A whistle, and the dog took off; for a moment, Barker thought that he would be thrown to the side in an instant, but he conjured up every inch of strength in his muscles to hang on as tightly as he could. The hound charged toward Rune, and the other heroes and villains dodged out of the way as Barker approached; the sight and sounds of Leet, Trainwreck, and Shielder all being twisted and destroyed by Rune filled his head, and he froze up for a moment when the woman's eyes caught his. "Fuck! You!" Anger, rage, and pure fury replaced the terror, and profanities began to spill out of his mouth once again, that time directed at Rune; gas accompanied his words, moving at an unfortunately slow speed toward the cape. "Fuck you, you stupid fucking Nazi white supremacist piece of shit!" Smoke poured out between Barker's lips, enough that its meager speed didn't matter once there was enough volume; it wasn't touching her skin, of course, but with the plan they had in mind, that wouldn't matter. Rune, of course, wasn't just standing still - not in response to Barker's insults, nor toward the build-up of his attack; she flew around with a rapidity that the mutant dog could only barely keep a head of, the thing bouncing around on pillars and walls, nearly throwing Barker off. "Stupid God damned skinhead cunt! You killed my fucking friend! You killed Uber's friend! You killed Laserdream's brother! You wanted to kill your own fucking son! You stupid fucking bitch! You-!"

Barker had lost his grasp. He had fallen to the floor. Rune was advancing upon him, but that was fine. There was enough of his gas, by that point, enough that she was surrounded by it. No matter how fast she flew, there was so much of his smoke that she just couldn't get away from it. As their eyes met, both of their gazes smoldering with rage, Barker clacked his teeth together. A wave of gentle, calming chill passed over Barker, but Rune fell out of the sky like an anvil, her pale body cracking the tile of Labyrinth's temple slightly as she landed next to the boy. At the sound of a command from Bitch, the dog grabbed Barker and yanked him away from where Rune was. "Now!" It was impossible to tell who had given the command, but in the next second, every ounce of offensive power in the room was directed at Rune. Bullets, lasers, knives, and everything in between descended, and before his view of her began to be obscured, Barker saw blood, saw limbs and flesh being blown away, saw Rune's body be obliterated in nearly an instant.

Several seconds later, and the smoke began to clear. There was nothing left of Rune except for a few pieces of gore and a bloody smear; the Nazi murderess was dead. They had won, but nobody cheered, as there was simply nothing for any of them to cheer about.

Barker, for his part, simply began to cry; it had been around two years since he had last cried, after all, and he supposed that right then and there was as good of a time as any.

 

Chapter 23: Scatter

-------------------------

For what must have been at least a minute or two, I stared at the crater that had once been Rune's body, replaying the day's events in my mind; Trainwreck's horrified face was first and foremost, and his screams for help almost echoed in my ears. I myself had added a magazine from my pistol to the barrage that had destroyed the white supremacist leader, out of fury at what had happened to my team mate and friend; I supposed that doing so - even though it was unlikely that any shots I made were of significant consequence - had made me a "killer", in so much as I had participated in another human being's death, but I didn't feel particularly guilty about that fact, not then and there, not at that point, with the death and destruction that Rune had caused so fresh in my mind.

As the rest of the arrayed heroes and villains shuffled impotently around back into their teams - Max was looking practically catatonic as he sat up against a wall, while Grue and Imp helped to comfort an emotional Uber; Laserdream blankly held onto her brother's limp, lifeless hand, with Browbeat powerless to help his wife in her moment of crisis - the rest of the Entwined made our way over to where Barker was; in some way, one could supposed that our team mate had been the "hero" of the day, being instrumental in defeating the Empire woman, but it was clear from the way that he sobbed and cried that he didn't feel like anything akin to a hero at that moment. I allowed Biter to go on first, the muscular boy wrapping his friend up in a hug, before Circus and I both approached Barker and offered our own touches of support; Chariot stood off to the side, stoic and silent as usual, but his presence still obvious and apparent to the rest of us.

"Trainwreck... God damnit, Trainwreck! If I had just... If I had just done that sooner, then maybe Trainwreck would still be... Fuck!" Barker punched impotently at Biter's chest, his friend more than willing to take the punishment if it meant that Barker could get his emotions out; Circus and I looked at each other, but neither of us seemed to know how to approach the subject, and we instead opted to just let Barker work through things himself. "Fucking shit, Trainwreck. Coil's gonna be so pissed at me; Trainwreck was the first one he picked up, you know that, Danny?" I couldn't mind the slip of my civilian name, not at that point, not with the situation as it was; I just smiled, and offered a small nod, as Barker continued. "Coil always said that... Always said that Trainwreck and him, they helped each other out a lot, back when they first started out, and it was just the two of them, on their own, barely surviving. And now... And now Trainwreck's dead, because I just couldn't fucking... Fuck! Shit! God damnit!" Biter held onto his friend tighter, as if the crushing embrace could somehow force all of Barker's despair out of him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chariot tense up, and as I turned to where he was looking, I could see the reason why: Liberty Lady had just arrived, accompanied by a Photon Girl flying next to her. With her face a blank stone, the New Wave leader marched over to where her siblings were, and stared down at Shielder's body for a long minute; while Photon Girl cried over the corpse of her dead uncle, I saw Liberty Lady begin to look around Labyrinth's temple, her head violently whipping back and forth as her eyes searched for whatever her target was. When her gaze settled on me, I instantly disentangled myself from the rest of the Entwined, putting myself a safe distance away from them as I prepared for what I knew would be coming next; I doubted that she would kill me - hoped that she wouldn't kill me - but I mentally prepared myself for a broken bone or two.

"You stupid fucking brat!" As much as I tried to ready myself for it, there's no way that one can completely prepare oneself for a bull-rushing Liberty Lady, especially not when her fear aura was going full blast; one second she was standing over her dead brother, and the next she was on me, having grabbed the collar of my body suit and flying us both into a marble wall with a noise that rang through my head. "What the fuck is this?! What the absolute fuck did you hope to accomplish with all of this bullshit?! Huh?! Answer me, kid, before I reach down your throat and pull the answer out!"

I was fairly certain that my spine wasn't broken, but the force of hitting the wall had quite literally knocked the breath out of me, and I heaved in air as I struggled to respond; in the background, I could see Chariot and Grue shouting at some of the heroes while pointing at us. "I... We dismantled the Empire. They're leaderless. They're going to scatter like rats. We've done good for the Docks, Liberty Lady, whether you can see it or not." I didn't quite completely believe what I was saying at that moment, but I still had to say it, regardless, for both myself and for Coil.

"This is doing good for the Docks?!" Liberty Lady motioned around us at the temple that Labyrinth had constructed, which I assumed would end up being a permanent fixture of the neighborhood. "It's not even that your bullshit got my fucking brother killed, though, believe me, I am livid about that right now, and you are lucky that I'm not just cracking your skull open right now, you shitty brat." I grimaced, quite aware that Liberty Lady was more than capable and more than desirous of doing such at that moment. "I just got here from Winslow. We drove Lung and the rest of them off a while ago, but me and the rest of New Wave have been stuck there doing search and rescue." I felt the blood drain out of my face, images of my mom and Alan flashing through my head. "But you know what? Right now, we've moved on to recovery." A bitter smile was on her face, as angry tears filled her eyes.

I stared at her for several seconds, my mouth growing dry and my body going numb, as the sound of blood rushing through my veins filled my ears. "Recovery?" I knew what she meant, of course, but I didn't want to accept it, not right away.

"Yeah, kid. Recovery." Liberty Lady pulled me back, before slamming me into the wall again, causing blunt pain to shoot through my body; with renewed fury, she continued screaming into my face, spittle flying as she did. "We have a fucking body count, you stupid shit. A body count of civilians, of students, of kids younger than you!" Another smash against the wall, and I could feel actual damage being done to me that time. "Winslow's a pile of fucking rubble right now, you brat. But hey, you know what? That's not all, kid." With another cynical grin, Liberty Lady began to shed tears, her teeth grit hard together. "D'you think that Bakuda gives a shit about collateral damage or civilian casualties when she's blowing up Empire outposts? D'you think that Squealer's sober enough to notice when her landship blows open an apartment building?" She scowled, baring all of her teeth that she could as one of her hands went to my throat. "Dozens dead, kid. Maybe hundreds. Hundreds of people have died today, because of the shit that you and your friends pulled. People with families, with friends, parents who have left kids as orphans, kids whose parents are going to have to bury, now; we thought that little gang war the other week was bad, but this? The Docks are fucked, Gnaw. You fucked the Docks."

I struggled against the grasp on my neck, my body squirming, feet desperately trying to reach the ground so that I could stand and relieve the pressure on my esophagus. "I'm... I'm not responsible for what Lung or the others did. That's not... That's not our fault!" I was becoming quite the consummate liar, it seemed. "We're... We're trying to help the Docks, God damnit... Maybe we fucked up today, but..." I weakly batted at Liberty Lady's arm, to obviously no effect. "We're trying to be heroes, Liberty Lady. We're trying to be... Hrngh... Better heroes than you and the PRT. We're trying to save the city, for fuck's sake! Maybe we fucked up, but at least we're trying!"

A look of disbelief and incredulity spread itself across Liberty Lady's face, and she simply shook her head and scoffed at me. "Kid? Look around you. Look at the Docks. Look at the city." The grip on my windpipe tightened up, and I felt myself unable to breathe, precious oxygen having its pathway to my lungs cut off. "You and the rest of the Entwined? You're no saviors." She leaned in close, close enough that I could feel hot, furious breath on my face as her hand squeezed down more, threatening to crush my throat. "Your talents lie elsewhere, you stupid shit."

Just as I felt my neck about to be squeezed into pulp, Liberty Lady stopped; quite literally, she was stopped, by Clockblocker, standing behind her, hand on her back. "Alright. That's enough of that. Your go, Chariot." I turned to see the Tinker in question level his teleporter rifle at me, and a second later, I was in the middle of the temple, collapsing onto my knees as my windpipe struggled to recover itself; as I coughed, sputtered, and desperately tried to breathe, the rest of the Entwined rushed to my side, accompanied by Clockblocker. "She's right, though, you know. You and the rest of your friends seriously fucked the dog on this one." I looked up at the Protectorate hero, my eyes watering as oxygen slowly seeped into my lungs. "Like, congratulations, kid, you destroyed the Empire. That's great, and all, but you screwed the pooch in all other regards." Chariot tensed up, but Clockblocker waved him off. "No. I talked to the Director. We're ending it here for today. The ABB and the Merchants have been driven off, and they're the ones primarily responsible for the civilian deaths. As much as the rest of you are accomplices, none of you directly caused any collateral casualties. We've got damage control to handle, and you've got friends to bury." The hero looked down at me as he spoke, his meaning clear. "But the next time we meet? All bets are off. Now get the fuck out of here."

Circus and Biter helped me up onto my feet, while all the other teams began to disperse; I idly noticed Max being left behind in the temple, but I didn't have the energy to worry about him, not at that moment. As our team made our way back to Chariot's van, though, the feeling of Liberty Lady's hand on my neck felt like it only grew stronger with every passing thought.

----------

We had collected Trainwreck's body from the warehouse, and wrapped it up in an emergency blanket that Chariot had in the back of his van; it felt crude and almost offensive to carry him like that - Barker stomped away, rather than watch us roll him up - but it was the best thing we had. Having to be in the back of the vehicle with Trainwreck's corpse lying right there next to me was, perhaps, one of the worst things that I had been forced to experience in recent memory by that point; I couldn't blame Barker when he insisted on taking the passenger seat and looking out of the window the entire trip back to Randy's place. Nobody was really willing to talk, considering the situation, but I idly wondered how we'd give him a funeral; it wasn't exactly like supervillains were allowed public ceremonies, and it wasn't like Trainwreck had a civilian identity to bury him in, but I hoped that we could at least do something for our friend.

As Chariot's van teleported back into Randy's garage, there seemed to be some silent agreement that we'd leave Trainwreck in the back, at least until we could get something better figured out; even so, it didn't make trudging up the steps to the second level of our hideout any easier. Once I made my way through the door and into the loft, though, I felt my heart lighten at least a little bit. "Alan." My voice was croaky from the punishment my throat had taken, but it was all I could do to not start breaking down into tears of joy when I saw my best friend, unhurt, sitting on the couch. "Alan. Thank God." Thomas and Kayden were there, too, but the swirling emotions I had been feeling kept me from directing my attention to either of them. "I'm so glad you're safe, Alan. I... I heard about what happened at Winslow. Was it... Was it really that bad?"

As I sat down on the couch next to Alan, the look that he gave me made that previous lightness of heart reverse with force; his expression was serious, morbid, and I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. "Danny. Listen to me." He placed his hands on my shoulders, and I silently begged him to just get it over with. "Your mom's alive." That didn't relieve me, not in the slightest, not with the way that he was looking at me. "But she's hurt. She's in the hospital right now. She got burned by Lung, when she was protecting some students. It's... It's bad, Danny."

My head immediately turned toward Thomas, but I had absolutely no idea what expression was on my face at that moment; whatever I looked like, my request seemed to have been received by Thomas, who sighed, shook his head, and waved me off. "Go on, Danny. Go see your mom. The rest of us can handle everything here."

"Thank you, Thomas." My words came weak, partly from my injury, partly from my emotion. "Thank you so much. I'll be back, later. I swear I will. I just... I need to..." My vision began to be slightly obscured by moisture, and I desperately tried to blink the tears out of my eyes.

Trevor's voice came from nearby. "Kid. Listen to the boss. Don't worry about us. Your mom is more important right now." He motioned with his head back down into the garage, a soft, compassionate look on his face. "C'mon. I'll take you and Alan there on my motorcycle. Don't want you to have to walk all the way there, not like how you are right now." As Trevor looked to Thomas for confirmation, our boss nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, Trevor. Seriously, I..." Even as I struggled to speak, Alan grabbed my arm and yanked me up, pulling me along as he headed us back down to the first floor; Trevor, for his part, simply clapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me an understanding nod, before we began to make our way out. "Thank you... Everyone, thank you so much..." I spoke not because I expected my words to mean anything, or for anyone to listen to them, but rather, simply, because I just needed to speak.

----------

The hospital was a veritable warzone, with doctors and nurses and screaming patients and everything in between flooding the halls and the rooms; I wasn't even able to find out where my mom was from the staff, and simply had to search room after room, until I found her, devoid of any nurses or doctors, everyone too busy elsewhere. When I saw the state that she was in, I almost wished that I hadn't managed to find her: She was lying on her stomach in the hospital bed, with the back of her gown open, exposing the burnt flesh that covered most of the rear of her body in the process, and the fact that her hair - her beautiful, gorgeous hair - was all but missing, as well, her scalp scorched to a crisp. "Mom..." Alan supported me as I barely managed to walk to her bed side, my eyes wide in horror as I saw the extent of damage that Lung's fiery dragon breath had caused her; some small part of me vowed revenge on the ABB leader for what he had done to my mother, but I knew that those sort of thoughts weren't suited for that exact moment in time. Instead, I opted to pull my chair up next to where she was facing - Alan bringing one up beside me, his hand on my arm, squeezing down to comfort me as much as he could - and gently called out to her. "Mom? Can... Can you hear me?"

When her eyelids began to flutter, I felt a small relief flush through my body. "Dan... Danny? Is that you?" Her voice was frail, even weaker than mine was at that point, and I could tell that she was only barely capable of consciousness.

I resisted my initial urge to grab her hand - the skin on that as burnt as any other part of her body - and instead busied my palms by grabbing onto the arms of my chair. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me, Mom. I'm here, now. Sorry I couldn't get here sooner." And sorry that I caused that to happen to you. And sorry that I fucked up. And sorry that I've been so fucking stupid. And sorry that... And sorry that... And sorry that...!

She made a small shaking motion of her head, wincing in the process as some tender part of her flesh brushed up against her bed in a painful way. "It's fine, Danny. I... I know that you had things that you had to do." The way that my mom smiled at me, so full of understanding, so full of acceptance, nearly broke my heart; I didn't deserve a mother like Taylor Hebert, but it seemed that God had seemed fit to grant me her either way. "Did you..." With a playful smirk, my mom lowered her voice a decibel, to the point that I could only just barely hear her. "Did you win, Danny? Are... Are they gone?"

I started to cry. There was nothing else I could do. My mom was laying there, in a hospital bed, more than half of her body covered in second and third degree burns, in what I could only assume was excruciating pain, and yet all she was worried about was me, her stupid, fucking idiot of a son that had essentially been the one to put her there in the first place; with a choked up voice, I nodded, and answered her. "Yeah. Yeah, Mom. I won. They're gone." As I began to bawl, Alan grabbed onto me, pulling me into a hug and allowing me to cry into his shoulder.

For her part, my mom simply gave me another, soul-crushing smile, and whispered quietly: "Good job, Danny. I'm proud of you." I started crying even louder, adding my voice to the chorus of screams and sobbing that were filling the hospital.

Alan and I stayed there by my mom's bedside for what must have been a solid twenty minutes, allowing me time to emotionally recover myself, but no signs of any medical staff showed themselves, apart from the occasional nurse that dashed past the door to our room; what did eventually happen, though, was that a young woman wearing a white skintight bodysuit with the image of a Celtic knot emblazoned on the front came in, cursing loudly as she saw the state that my mom was in. "Jesus Christ. Probably the worst I've seen from someone still alive." Once the initial shock of her barging in like that wore off, I took a moment to recognize who the lady was; she was going by the name of Seeress those days, but she had once been known as Othala, a member of the Empire Eighty-Eight. At some point, she had been captured by the PRT, and agreed to turn over a new leaf as a probationary member for the Protectorate; most of what she did, though, involved going to hospitals and using her regeneration-granting powers to heal the sick and injured wherever she could.

"You her sons, or something?" At Othala's question, Alan shook his head, while I raised my hand. "Supporting your friend, huh?" She looked at Alan when she spoke that time, and my friend nodded silently. "Pretty nice. Don't take a friend like that for granted, yeah?" I nodded dumbly at Seeress' words, while the healer-cape gently nudged us out of the way, kneeling down next to where my mom was facing. "She awake? Needs to be awake so that she can use the power once I give it to her." As Mom's eyelids fluttered open again, Seeress nodded, and placed her finger gently onto an unburnt part of my mom's body. "Alright, ma'am, hoping you can hear me. I just gave you my regeneration power. Just think about your body healing, and it should..." Before Seeress could even finish, the burns that had covered my mom's flesh began to mend themselves, prompting a whistle from the healer-cape. "Whew. Probably the fastest I've seen someone get it. Not bad, lady." Standing back up, Seeress leaned up against a nearby empty wall, crossing her arms in the process. "Alright. Might take a minute or two to fully heal, judging by the severity of those burns." As her gaze turn to me, I saw Seeress' eyes narrow, before she pointed at my neck, where bruises had formed from Liberty Lady's treatment of me. "You need help too, kid?"

I had quickly dressed civilian clothes over my Gnaw-bodysuit, but I began to worry that Seeress might recognize me if she heard anything about what had happened in Labyrinth's temple; swallowing hard - and prompting a wince of pain from myself in the process - I nodded, my voice crackly as I spoke. "Y... Yeah, if that's okay? I, uhm. I did get wounded, in the middle of everything." Not a complete lie, I supposed. "I mean, I know there's a lot of other people you need to help, so I understand if you'd rather just get going, and, erm..."

Seeress gave me an incredulous look before shaking her head. "Kid? This is my job right now, to help everyone who got injured today. I don't care if it's a mom who's half burnt to a crisp or her son who got his throat busted up." With a bit of a defeated smile, the healer-cape tilted her head and added: "'Sides, it's my old buddies that are partially to blame for all of this, so I feel like I've got some kind of responsibility here, yeah?" I frowned at that, but didn't say anything; if anybody in that room had responsibility for what had happened, God knew that it wasn't her. Directing my attention back to my mom, though, I watched as Seeress' regeneration began to grow her hair back - my mom's wonderful, beautiful hair - before it turned the rest of her burns into minor first degree ones; as Mom let out a sigh of relief and began to stir further, Seeress continued speaking. "Alright, well, your body already started to heal on its own before I got here, so you've still got some injuries that my power can't heal. It's a lot better than it was, though, obviously, and you should probably be able to get out of here and give up the room to someone else."

"Thank you." My voice trembled as I gently squeezed down onto my mom's hand, staring into her eyes as I repeatedly expressed my gratitude. "Thank you so much, Seeress. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh my God, thank you. Mom..."

As my mom pulled herself up into a sitting position - still somewhat in pain, apparently, but significantly more conscious than she had been a few minutes ago - I felt Seeress touch my scalp, and send her power into me. "Alright, as sweet as watching that is, we still have to get a move on, yeah?" I let go of Mom's hand, nodding as I turned around to face Seeress, who was smiling in spite of her words. "So, just like I told your mom over there, just kind of try and think about your throat healing..." I followed the healer-cape's instructions, and felt the strange sensation of her power reach into my neck, and start to mend the injuries that Liberty Lady had caused me; it was slower than I had expected, but it still worked perfectly, and I felt my windpipe recover to nearly one hundred percent. "Hey, like mother, like son, I guess. Makes it easier for me, though, not having to sit there and hold your hand through it." As soon as I was fully healed, Seeress started to make her way out of the hospital room, leaving just as quickly as she had entered, like the hurricane that she was. "Anyways, see you folks, try not to get burned up by any crazy dragon guys again."

"Wait!" My voice once again strong enough to properly use, I extended a hand out toward Seeress; turning toward me with a confused look on her face, she motioned for me to hurry up. "Thank you, Seeress. Seriously, thank you. You..." I swallowed past a lump in my throat, tears building up in my eyes again. "You're a real hero." Why had I said that? Even I wasn't quite sure.

With a jovial laugh and a friendly smirk, Seeress simply shook her head, before responding. "Like I said, kid. It's just my job." And with that, she was gone, leaving the myself, Alan, and my mom alone in the room again.

The smiles that the two of them gave me threatened to tear me apart. Even if my school had been burnt to the ground, the fact of the matter was that my best friend was okay, my mom was okay, and the Entwined had succeeded in our objectives; so why did I feel so much worse than I had before?

----------

The next week went by in a blur. School, obviously, was canceled for Alan and I, given the fact that Winslow was indeed just a pile of rubble after Lung had gone on his rampage; there was, apparently, talk of just graduating all of the seniors and passing everybody else for the semester. My mom, thankfully, still received her salary, even if she was relegated to spending her "work" days sitting around idly in the house; I didn't miss the way that she stared blankly at the walls some times, though, or the way that she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, and I certainly couldn't avoid feeling a mountain of guilt over her having to suffer through that. Without its core leadership, the Empire had dissolved, as we had all expected; a number of their capes simply skipped town, while those who remained in Brockton numbered too few and were too disorganized to pose a serious threat to either public safety or any of the other gangs. The ABB and the Merchants had barely been able to poke their heads up, what with the PRT and New Wave gunning so hard for them after their "performance" on that Thursday; while there seemed to be a noticeable presence of Asians and junkies starting to organize themselves more seriously, nobody managed to see hide nor hair of the gang capes themselves.

As for the Entwined, Thomas and Trevor together managed to move things forward with surprising speed. As grief-stricken at Thomas obviously was at Trainwreck's death - the way that he openly sobbed at our friend's private, midnight funeral proved that more than enough - he simultaneously seemed intent to not let his emotions or the tragedy of that day slow him down; I felt slightly bitter that our boss was strong-willed enough to move past Trainwreck's passing like that, but I knew that those emotions came from envy, even so. With numerous career criminals having ended up out of jobs at the Empire's dissolution, Thomas found himself with a rather large pool of job-seekers ready to join our burgeoning organization. As much opportunity as we had to sweep a significant portion of the Docks, though, our boss was ever pragmatic and ever cautious, and started off by simply selling the pot we had looted from the Empire and setting up protection agreements in a small radius around Randy's place; I did my best to look the other way as some of the heroin and meth that Thomas swore would only be shipped out of the city began to disappear bit by bit from our stock, and did my best to accept it as a necessary evil for us to raise funds and establish control over the Docks.

Regardless, things began to look as up as they could, given our circumstances; there wasn't any push back to speak of against the Entwined as we began slowly claiming our territory, and we didn't get any unwelcome visits from the other gangs, from the PRT, or from New Wave. Maybe things would end up a bit more hectic once Lung and Skidmark decided to show up and start partying again, but for that moment, we found ourselves in something resembling peace, as much as a criminal, villainous gang could have "peace".

After a day or two of being nearly catatonic, Zeke began pushing himself to the limit, using his power to help clear debris in both the Entwined's area and anywhere else in the Docks that he felt like he could operate unmolested; Brad, of course, accompanied his friend, and the two of them began generating significant goodwill with the local populace as they assisted in recovery efforts where the city government either couldn't or wouldn't help. Trevor spent most of his time in the garage, reverse engineering Trainwreck's stuff as well as he could, claiming that he felt that it was necessary to "honor" our friend's memory. Thomas, obviously was spending most of his time doing organizational and administrative work, but I noticed the way that he and Blake would retire to their room, and I noticed the way that Thomas would quietly sob into his partner's embrace when he thought that nobody else was listening.

For my part, I patrolled around the Docks with my rats, looking for any instances where a person was being harassed, assaulted, or otherwise victimized; while I didn't bother letting myself be seen, the swarm of rats that descended upon whatever thug or creep was trying to hurt someone was an identity in and of itself. Over time, people began to talk, began to talk about how Gnaw kept them safe, protected them against the more violent criminals. Liberty Lady and Clockblocker wanted to say that I wasn't a hero? That I wasn't doing good work in the Docks? Fuck them, I didn't need their approval. I knew that I was being a hero, and that was all that I needed.

Peace, no matter what, though, is an ephemeral thing. That following Sunday itself was fairly normal, perhaps even better than most of the days that had passed by since Trainwreck's death; Thomas, Blake, Zeke, Bradley, Trevor and I were all in the living room area of our hideout, slouched over couches and leaning back in chairs as we watched some schlocky action flick. Soda and beers were had, as was some junk food, and I even saw Zeke and Thomas laugh a little bit for the first time in several days. I was something resembling happy, being able to just sit around with my friends and make fun of dumb movies and have a good time and...

As soon as we heard it, all of us froze up simultaneously, every face in the room going pale in fear at the same time; it was singing, coming from the direction of the bay itself, loud enough to be heard in our loft, even though it was clearly coming from miles away. Nobody said anything as the PRT's emergency system hijacked our television, turning our kung-fu movie into a live broadcast of a pale, blonde woman, floating above the water, singing her ghostly song: The Siren - formerly known as Paige McAbee - with a massive storm approaching from behind her, Leviathan having been lured out by her voice from whatever watery pit he had been hiding in. "ENDBRINGER ALERT FOR BROCKTON BAY." As the captions started to scroll on the screen, we heard warning whistles start to sound outside. "IMMEDIATELY SEEK SHELTER. ENDBRINGER ALERT FOR BROCKTON BAY. IMMEDIATELY..."

Everyone looked at each other, then we all looked at Thomas. Him and I had spoken about it before, idly, about what we would do in the event of an Endbringer attack, but I doubted that either of us ever, for once, considered it a real, genuine possibility that Brockton Bay would end up being hit; and yet, there we were, with the Siren singing her ballad, bringing Leviathan himself down onto our city. There wasn't much time to make a decision, we all knew, but our leader was only rarely one to hesitate; he took but a single moment to squeeze his eyes shut, take a deep breath, swallow past the lump in his throat, and then he looked at all of us, nodded, and spoke with as much strength as anybody could have expected him to muster in that situation: "We're going."

Unheeding of the Siren's continued song, Coil stood up and strode confidently for the garage; the Entwined loyally followed behind, and readied ourselves for whatever would come.

 

Chapter 24: Swim

-----------------------

After having dropped Kayden off at one of the shelters - following a brief spat where the girl insisted that she could somehow be of use against an Endbringer - the rest of us dashed off ahead to the PRT HQ building; I hadn't even bothered trying to call up my mom or Alan - knowing how the phone lines were likely to either be locked down for emergency calls only or otherwise just completely swamped - but I did my best to simply hope that they made it to safety, before trying to focus on the more pertinent issue at hand. We reached the PRT building around the same time that several VTOL-like aircraft began to land on the nearby streets; as various capes began to file out of the craft, I vaguely recognized them as being Wards and Protectorate members from other departments, apparently come to join the defense of Brockton Bay. As another group of heroes simply teleported in onto the street, Chariot sent the van back to Randy's place on autopilot, before the six of us made our way into what would normally be the single place in the city most secured against people like us.

As we entered the building, the noise of the Siren's singing no longer reached our ears; the woman's song wasn't like the screaming of her pet Simurgh - it didn't jab directly into your mind, didn't threaten to drive you insane at any given moment - but the ceaseless dread caused by the Siren's endless chanting still had significant psychological effect when one was forced to listen to it for long enough. Silently thanking whoever had designed the PRT HQ's soundproof walls, I followed along behind Coil and Chariot as we were directed by various unpowered PRT officials to a large conference room on the first floor; their professionalism astounded me, the fact that none of us were getting even the slightest glare for being villains making me appreciate just how much the PRT took Endbringer attacks seriously, that even their normal soldiers refused to hold any grudges when the Siren showed up.

Walking into the conference room, I noticed a number of familiar faces already having arrived. Grue was there, with most of the other Undersiders - alongside a melancholy-looking Uber but sans Tattletale and Accord, who I assumed were hiding out in one of the woman's underground lairs - and he gave me a nod of recognition when he saw me, that I returned plainly before continuing to look around. The Travelers were there, as well - Genesis, appropriately enough, in the form of some sort of Merman - and Spitfire's crew sat near them; the villains of Brockton Bay, apparently, were still wary enough that they sought out one another's company even during an Endbringer attack, and I wasn't sure how much I could blame them. The ABB and the Merchants were absent, and I idly wondered whether either of them would even bother showing up at all, or would just hide out and let everybody else handle the fight for them.

Villains aside, though, I also took stock of the heroes that I could put names to. The whole New Wave family was gathered together, accompanied by Gallant. When Liberty Lady noticed us - or, perhaps, when she noticed me - entering the room, she sneered, scowled, let out a loud, exaggerated scoff, before looking away; Fracture, too, simply raised an eyebrow as he saw us, giving a dismissive smirk before shaking his head and turning away. Barker, I could tell, wanted to pop off on them for that - to say that our friend had been on edge for the past several days would have been an understatement - but Biter restrained him; nobody could afford a fight, not right then and there, not when Leviathan was only miles away.

The Triumvirate had already arrived, as I had expected. Adamantium and Heroic could be seen on television screens, the both of them outside in the approaching storm, attempting and failing to breach the Siren's defenses, as they always did during an Endbringer attack. Legendary, meanwhile, sat by impatiently, opting to preserve her charge for when the actual fight began; it was clear that she wasn't happy that she had to stand around while her compatriots were up there without her, but she apparently had the experience required to maintain herself, even so. I noticed Coil tense up as he saw the members of the Triumvirate, saw the way he clenched his fists tight enough to make the fabric of his suit stretch; I didn't say anything, and neither did he.

The actual PRT members were there as well, of course. For the local Brockton Bay Wards, there was Squire - the hard-faced Tinker and team captain - along with Miss Militia, Dauntless, Blitzen - accompanied by the perpetual shit eating grin on his face - Velocity, Sere, and Dovetail. While all of the teenagers were obviously nervous at the prospect of facing down an Endbringer, I noticed that Sere especially was fidgeting around anxiously. During my time reading the PHO Boards, I noticed that many people had idly suggested that Sere could operate as some "hard counter" to Leviathan, given that the Ward could draw moisture from his environment in a way that wasn't limited by the Davis effect; apparently, the weight of that expectation was weighing down on Sere, and the looks that some of the other heroes gave the young teen suggested that they were placing a lot of their hopes on him.

And then the Protectorate, who were holding the proverbial party. Aegis was up front, behind a podium, while Victory Man, Clockblocker, and Vista were handing out what looked to be armbands to the arrayed capes. The timestopping cape made sure to be the one to give me my armband, and he made sure to give me a hard time about it when he did. Prick. "For those of you who just came in." Aegis spoke up, his voice loud and clear from behind his helmet. "These are armbands designed by Titan. We request that everyone wear one - that everyone wear one." His eyes settled on where we villains had congregated together, and I could her scoffs and tongue clicks of annoyance at that; nobody bothered calling Aegis out on it, though, and the Protectorate captain continued. "They'll allow for greater cooperation between everybody here. I'll go ahead and explain how they work here again in a moment." They were neat little devices, made up by that mysterious Tinker from Newfoundland, who otherwise had accomplishments like administrating the Birdcage under his belt. They offered a priority communication system, tracking devices, a bunch of other things, and... Vital sign readings and casualty announcements. Plenty of people gave Aegis an odd look when he explained that part, but he insisted that information was key to battle, and that it was necessary to know who had been incapacitated or killed, so that we could adjust our battle plans accordingly.

We members of the Entwined all looked around at each other, nodding as we tested the communicators we wore. Coil had opted to take them as "payment" from Tattletale following the fight with the Empire, and our group had settled on a private frequency for us to use to talk to one another whenever we were in a fight; all that we could hope at that point, though, was that Leviathan's storm wasn't going to interrupt our signals. As we sat there and waited for the other capes to file in, I watched as the rest of my team mates struggled to remain calm in the situation that we had found ourselves in. Circus had leaned into Coil, and our leader held his partner close, gently stroking the jester's hair as the black-suited teenager forced himself to breathe. Barker's anxiety had been causing more gas than normal to trickle out of his lips, and that in turn had garnered suspicious looks from nearby heroes; Biter grabbed onto his friend's shoulder, in response, doing his best to calm Barker down and slow the escape of the boy's smoke from his mouth. Chariot was checking, rechecking, triplechecking the gear he brought. Normally, the man kept most of his goodies at home, lest they end up unnecessarily damaged or destroyed in a fight. That day, though, Chariot had brought essentially everything that he could carry; his repulsor and teleporter rifles, his jetpack, his jetrollers, his personal teleporter, and a number of other odd gadgets and whizmos that did a variety of minor things.

As for myself, I tapped into every rodent I could feel within my radius. There were, unfortunately, significantly less in Downtown as compared to the Docks, given that the area was more upscale, with less garbage, and a greater concentration of exterminators and people who could afford their services; fortunately, there were also a lot more parks than in the Docks, and I could grab control of a number of more squirrels and chipmunks than usual, forcing them out from their burrows and trees into the storm that was causing them increasing amounts of terror. I knew, of course, that my critters would be completely and utterly useless in terms of actually trying to fight Leviathan; I knew that no amount of mice, rat, squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit teeth would be able to a single meaningful God damned thing to the monstrous hide that even the Triumvirate members had difficulty getting through, and that was even if Leviathan allowed my swarm to get that close to him in the first place. I supposed, at least, that I could use my rodents to perform search and rescue, and that I could manage to be marginally useful in that way, at least.

Before I could lament the uselessness of my power any further, though, I felt the entire room tense up. As I turned to see the source of the sudden anxiety, my eyes landed on the person who had just entered the room: Lung, the first signs of his transformation already upon him, and with Bakuda and Oni Lee flanking either side of the dragon-guy. Victory Man did his best to seem confident as he walked toward Lung with a set of three armbands for the ABB members, but the shaking in the Tinker's legs betrayed just how much Lung intimidated even a member of the Protectorate. Lung, for his part, simply scoffed and batted away the offered armband - I doubted that it would even stay intact once his transformation fully went going - while Oni Lee and Bakuda yanked them away impolitely from Victory Man, before following behind their leader. Once it was clear that Lung wasn't about to turn into a giant hulking mass of scales and fire right there in the PRT building, everyone managed to calm down slightly, though everybody still kept their eyes on the ABB members.

Lung's introduction was dramatic enough that most people barely cared when the Merchants walked in through the door, a minute or two after the ABB had. While seeing Lung show up wasn't necessarily too much of a surprise - I was aware of how much the guy's ego drove him to fight strong opponents, even ones as powerful as Leviathan - having Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush enter my vision was a bit of a shock; I hadn't actually expected the cowardly, erratic bunch of teenage junkies to bother participating in a fight that almost guaranteed a high casualty rate, and yet there they were, in all of their methed-out glory. A cursory scouting with my rodents revealed that Squealer's landship had parked itself outside, apparently having been repaired in the time between Crusader busting it up and the Siren showing up. I was sure that the PRT was concerned about the potential collateral damage that folks like Lung, Bakuda, or Squealer could cause yet again - the casualty lists from our fights against the Empire rolled through my head yet again - but I doubted that any of that mattered when a city was facing down an Endbringer; the firepower that those three could bring was just too valuable to reject them out of hand.

On the thought of the Empire, I looked around again. I saw Crusader, Iron Rain, and Hookwolf sitting in a corner, the latter two holding hands. Three Empire capes. Three Empire capes, out of what once had been a force of nearly a dozen; because of what we had done over the past month - because of what I had done over the past month - one of the most powerful forces that we could have brought to bear against Leviathan had been reduced to less than a third of their original number. I noticed that Liberty Lady was watching me as I gazing at the three Empire members. When I turned to look at the New Wave matriarch, she simply gave me a patronizing, knowing smile, suggesting that she knew exactly what it was that I was thinking while watching the trio of capes. I simply scowled and looked away, not willing or able to deal with her nonsense. So most of the Empire was either dead or had left town. Who cared? We could still face down an Endbringer, even without a bunch of Neo-Nazi shitheads by our side. Or so I hoped, at least.

At one point, Parian showed up, as well - the sole independent cape of note in Brockton Bay, apparently willing to defend her city along with everyone else - but the stream of capes trickling in eventually slowed to nothing, and Aegis called out to the assembled heroes and villains. "Alright, everyone. Listen up. Titan's readings suggest that Leviathan should be here shortly, so I'm going to make this quick." Everyone turned to face the Protectorate captain, as Legendary pulled up position alongside his flank; if Aegis felt even slightly apprehensive at having one of the greatest heroes in the world standing next to him, he didn't show it. "Most of what I'm going to say, you all already know, but it bears repeating, right here, right now." Barker fidgeted around nervously, and I added my hand to Biter's; our friend looked at us appreciatively, before nodding and turning his attention back to Aegis. "Our enemy today is Leviathan. Heroes, your enemies are not the villains. Villains, your enemies are not the heroes. That Endbringer threatens to kill us all if we don't work together. If someone you've fought against before asks for your help, if someone that you hate on a normal day asks for your help, you give it to them. Is that understood?" A murmur of assent came from the capes, and my eyes temporarily flitted to Liberty Lady again, who looked at me just the same.

"Alright. Very good." Apparently satisfied, Aegis began to call out roles. "Long-range attackers, with Gallant." The hero in question stood from where he was with his wife and kids, making his way up to the front of the room; a significant portion of New Wave followed after him, as did Miss Militia, Dauntless, Spitfire, Gregor, Sundancer, Ballistic, Iron Rain, Squealer, Bakuda, and some out of town capes. "Short range attackers, over in that corner. I'll be joining you shortly." Biter stood up from our group, giving Barker one last squeeze on his friend's shoulder, and the rest of us a grim, determined nod, before heading over; he was joined by Squire, Blitzen, Liberty Lady, Browbeat, Brandish, Power Boy, Parian, Crusader, Hookwolf, Skidmark, Mush, Bitch - accompanied by half a dozen dogs of various sizes - some more out of towners, and, last but most certainly not least, Lung himself.

As the room carefully eyed up the ABB leader, Aegis continued speaking, unperturbed by the way that Lung's body seemed to grow an inch or two as he walked. "Transporters, with Vista." Chariot rose at that, giving us a rare smile before he went; Trickster accompanied him, along with Newter - toxic skin completely covered from the neck down - and a few more strangers. "Defense, with Victory Man." None of the Entwined qualified for that - hell, none of us beside Biter and Chariot seemed to have qualified for anything of note - but I watched as Sere, Dovetail, Labyrinth - in a fairly lucid state, apparently - and some heroes that I didn't recognize joined up. "Grue." All of our heads swung to the Undersiders' leader, whose face was unreadable beneath his helmet. "With Legendary." Murmurs rose up, but Grue himself simply nodded and made his way over to the Triumvirate member, where one of his tendrils of darkness touched her and began to clone her powers; I felt a little bit of albeit unjustified pride in the fact that my mom's boyfriend was considered powerful enough to fight side by side with the Triumvirate.

"Utility. With Clockblocker." I frowned, being all too aware as to what that category meant. For people like Clockblocker, it did indeed mean that their power possessed some sort of otherwise unclassifiable use that could be effective against Leviathan; for the rest of us, though, it meant that we were too weak to do anything of note against the Endbringer, and that we would instead be relegated to things like search and rescue. It sucked, to say the least, and I saw the way that Coil, Circus, and Barker all looked fairly dour as we stood up and made our way over to Clockblocker, but I supposed that being able to help in a minor, minuscule way in the fight against Leviathan was better than not being able to help at all. Regent, Imp, Uber, Oni Lee, Charmer, Faultline, and Velocity formed up alongside us, followed by the last of the visiting capes.

Once we all gathered around Clockblocker, the time-stopper called our attention. "Alright, folks, listen up. I only have time to explain this one time. Once you're out there, you're going to do this with your armbands." Pressing down onto a button on his own device, Clockblocker spoke into the armband slowly and clearly. "Clockblocker. Utility." A few seconds later, a deep male voice confirmed what Clockblocker had said, before the hero turned back to us. "Titan is watching communications, and he will cut you off if you even pretend to misuse the airwaves. Is that understood?" We all murmured our assent, before Clockblocker continued, his voice more deadly serious than I could have ever imagined the usually jovial hero could sound like. "Once you assign yourself to utility, you can call in for evac if you find an incapacitated cape that needs assistance from one of our transporters. The system will route your message, and the closest transporter will be alerted to your position. You also have the option to send an emergency, top-priority transmission by pressing all three buttons and holding them down for five seconds, but again-" His face was inscrutable behind his helmet, but his words still carried the necessary tone. "-if you misuse that function, you will be cut off."

A few more short explanations, and our group quieted up, turning to where Aegis was finishing up with the rest of the short-range attackers. "Alright. Has everything been explained? Does anyone have any highly pertinent last minute questions, before we head out?" When nobody spoke up Aegis motioned for the door. "Alright, people. There's not much else to say, then. Don't die."

It was so abrupt and sudden that it took me off guard, but after I processed those two simple words, I nodded and repeated them quietly to myself. "Don't die, Danny. Just... Don't die." And then, we were off.

----------

As soon as we had left the PRT building, I immediately began to miss the soundproofing that they had constructed; the Siren's serenade for Leviathan may have technically been a pleasant, euphonious song, but having it ring loud across all of Brockton Bay slowly made it sound more and more cacophonous with every passing moment. The utility crew had been sent further back from the shore, and we had all split up to cover more ground. For myself, I had used my ability to set a mouse on every cape that I could find, either in a pocket or just on any place that it could reasonably hang onto; I instantly regretted my attempt at placing one of my rodents on Newter, and had to quickly force the critter to commit suicide before the intoxicating effects of the cape's skin overwhelmed my own mind through the senses of my mouse. Regardless, as I stood there, nervous, waiting for the battle to begin, I felt a small amount of confidence build knowing that I had managed to use my power in even a small way as that.

"Tidal wave incoming. Seek cover immediately." The robotic male voice from my armband spoke, and I saw the attack in question appear on the horizon; the fight was on, apparently. I ran to the side of a nearby building that was facing away from the ocean, bashing in the glass of a coffee shop to force my way into the empty store; figuring that the enclosed bathroom was as good of shelter as any - and it wasn't as if I had time to explore any other options, either - I locked myself in there, curled up, and waited for the impact. Several seconds later, it came, and my armband immediately began reciting off casualties. "Grumman, RC-8, incapacitated. Arbiter, SD-9, deceased. Ghost, PE-4, incapacitated. Mush, RC-7, deceased." Christ, Mush was already dead? In spite of myself, I felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Skidmark and Squealer; it wasn't as if I enjoyed the Merchants' company very much, but I knew just how hard it could be to lose a friend. The armband rattled off more names, but once I felt it was safe, I exited the bathroom back out onto Brockton's streets.

Said streets were, at that moment, flooded halfway up my calves. The windows of the coffee shop I had taken refuge in had shattered, at some point, and I felt little bits of glass crunch in the water underneath my feet as I began to trudge out of the building. In the distance, I saw peeks of Leviathan himself through the gaps in the buildings; monstrous, green, and more terrifying in person than I could have ever imagined, even with only a glance of him here and there. I felt myself freeze up for several seconds as I watched our capes engage him. Up close, I saw the Triumvirate members, accompanied by Grue, slam into the Endbringer, smacking Leviathan that way and the other, but never managing to properly knock him down. As Leviathan lashed out with his claws and his tail, the Triumvirate members fell back for a moment, allowing their artillery to open up on the Endbringer. It was ridiculous, really. It was ridiculous that anything could sit there and take innumerable amount of lasers, beams, explosives, and all other sorts of attacks and barely look fazed by it. What in the fuck even was Leviathan, that he could stand up to dozens of the most powerful capes in the world without a sweat?

I shook myself out of my fear, though, and returned my attention back to my swarm. I had a job to do, after all and I couldn't let the fact that one of the most deadly monsters in the world was in eyesight distract me from my tasks. Rodents, thankfully, were rather skilled swimmers in spite of common perception, and I was able to send rats and mice around in the water to look for the injured while squirrels and chipmunks scaled buildings, searching rooftops for anybody that might have been knocked out. "Leister, SD-4, deceased." Simultaneously, I desperately tried to drown out the sound of my armband letting me know each time that another one of my allies had lost their life; I understand what Aegis had said about information being the key to battle, but... Christ, was listening to names being so unceremoniously called out like that taking a psychological toll on me. "Fume, QC-5, incapacitated." I watched as Leviathan leapt, landing on top of one of the buildings that some of our capes were arrayed on, before beginning to lay into them. "Lightslinger, QC-5, deceased. Rail, QC-5, deceased." I grit my teeth, and kept moving.

One of my rats found what appeared to be a young girl, maybe around my age, lying face-up in the water, still breathing. I rushed as fast as I could through the flooded streets of Brockton Bay to where she was, watching as Leviathan was knocked down to the street by Titan, the Tinker having arrived in one of his giant mechanical suits; as Titan and Leviathan began to brawl on the ground, I checked the incapacitated cape. An Asian girl, it looked like, with a kimono and a painted mask. Revel, from the Chicago Wards, if I remembered correctly; she had served admirably in the Behemoth attack back last November, but I supposed that her energy capture didn't perform very well against the Herokiller's brother. After checking to make sure that Revel didn't have any serious injuries or any water down her lungs, I pressed a button on my armband and spoke into it. "Gnaw here. I have Revel, who is currently incapacitated. Requesting evacuation for her. Over."

A few seconds later, and the electronic male voice spoke up. "Affirmative, Gnaw. Newter will be there shortly. Please remain on-site until he arrives." I made a nodding motion with my head, even though I knew that it was useless; it wasn't as if the armband had eyes, after all, nor was it looking for any sort of affirmation for me. As I waited for Newter to arrive, I busied myself by double-checking Revel, keeping my fingers on her pulse, and generally doing anything that made me feel even remotely useful as I gazed over to where Grue, with abilities from several different capes, was letting loose a superpowered barrage onto our enemy; it managed to force Leviathan onto his back, which I supposed was at least some small victory.

After a couple of long, arduous minutes, Newter jumped down from a nearby building. "This Revel?" He spoke quickly, sharply, the normally jokesterish cape clearly not having any time for levity, not in the middle of an Endbringer attack. Regardless, I nodded, lifting Revel up slightly to help him grab her. "Alright. Keep it up." With his gloved hands, Newter hauled the girl out of my arms, and began leaping away from Leviathan to wherever they had their triage set up. And there I was, alone again, with nothing but my legion of critters to keep me company as I desperately tried to be a help in a completely helpless situation; well, my army of critters as well as that damned fucking singing from the Siren that just refused to let up, even as her pet fishman fought against an army of parahumans.

As my rodents spread out again, I noticed a particular figure fighting alongside our forces on the ground. It was humanoid, with glowing, silver scales, and fire and smoke spewing out of its mouth and its hands: Lung, whose power had begun to ramp up even further, and was about half Leviathan's size at that point. As psychopathic and as violent as the leader of the ABB was, I supposed that it was good, in some way, that we had him on our side, especially against a monster that was as equally psychopathic and as violent as he was. I heard the booming sound of Squealer's landship opening fire onto Leviathan, but the artillery and machine gun barrage barely seemed to do anything to the Endbringer; all it actually managed to do, apparently, was force our close-range combatants to fall back lest they end up as collateral. I had no doubt that Squealer was in a rather bad way after Mush's death had been announced, but I seriously hoped that the junkie girl wasn't going to cause us even more problems, not in the middle of an Endbringer attack.

As Hookwolf barreled into Leviathan - unheeding of the friendly fire he was taking as he did so - I found another girl lying sideways in the water, closer to where the fighting was. I couldn't get a reading on whether she was alive or not, but I grit my teeth, clenched my jaw, and started sprinting through the ankle-high water toward where she was. As I ran I did my best to not look directly at the miniature star that Sundancer had created, as it rapidly evaporated all of the water around her into superheated steam; it was an impressive ability, to say the least, but Leviathan was clearly not interested in sticking around to go toe-to-toe with it, and retreated toward the shore, followed along by our capes. The same second that I reached the woman, though, another person appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a young guy, my age, wearing a red suit: Velocity. As he checked the girl's pulse - I recognized her as Clay, at that point, from the New York Wards - Velocity looked at me, with a sour look on his face; a shake of his head confirmed my suspicions, and a moment later, the speedster cape was off again, looking for other casualties.

"Fuck." I felt my frustration building, as pointless, as impotent, and as counter-productive as it was. "Fuck!" I kicked at the water, sending a splash of it up, before staring hard down at Clay's lifeless body. "Fucking fuck shit fuck! Why?! Why?!" I didn't know what question I was screaming, or who I was even asking; I just needed to yell, just needed to shout, just for a moment, to let myself be heard, by my rodents if by nobody else. "Why Brockton Bay?! Why not somewhere else?!" It was selfish, I knew, to wish an Endbringer attack on another city, but I was feeling selfish at that moment, as I heard Vista's name be called out by my armband as having joined the deceased. "Why Endbringers?! Why?! Just fucking... Why?!" Nobody responded, of course; I doubted that anybody in the world had an answer to me, aside from that damned serenading blonde bitch still floating so peacefully about our bay.

"Prefab, VF-3, deceased. Horizon, VF-4, incapacitated." Was that what an Endbringer attack was like? Nothing but an endless parade of death and injury as we struggled like a bunch of fucking ants to take down an unrelenting abomination out of some horror story? Everyone always said that Endbringer defenses were usually meant as stalling actions, to hold off Leviathan, or Behemoth, or the Simurgh, until Scion arrived and could actually do something meaningful against the creatures. How pathetic was that? Was that how small we were, that even people like Legendary, Heroic, and Adamantium could only hope to hold off Leviathan? What a joke. What a fucking-

As Lung roared loud enough to temporarily drown out the Siren's song, my armband spoke up again. "Tidal wave incoming. Seek cover immediately." What? Again? So soon? Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. I did my best to calm myself, before looking in every direction for some place that I could seek shelter. With little to no time available to me, I dashed into a nearby public bathroom, a small building constructed from brick and cement; it wasn't great, but it was also better than absolutely nothing, I supposed. I rushed into a stall, slammed the door shut, and tried not to think about how familiar of a situation I was in; at the last minute, I covered myself in a mountain of rodents, trying to give myself some semblance of protection.

Rumbling. Rumbling. Rumbling. Then the wave hit. Crashing, my ears filled with noise, filled with the Siren's sonata, filled with Lung's animalistic howling, filled with the sound of buildings near the shore crumbling, collapsing. The tidal wave, its force barely slowed by the buildings that were between my shelter and the ocean, slammed into the public bathroom, causing the structure to collapse down and sideways onto me; dozens of rats and mice died, their bodies shielding and cushioning me from the bricks and concrete that would have smashed down into me if they hadn't had been there. As the tidal wave petered out, I pushed up against the materials that had piled up on me, and graciously found that I was able to push up and out of what might otherwise have been my tomb.

The water was knee high, at that point, and the lower floors of buildings were looking decimated by having been struck by two tidal waves in short succession. Off near the shore, I watched heroes and villains struggle to regain their footing as Leviathan continued his assault, untroubled by his own tidal wave. The announcements came in short order. "Prism, RF-7, deceased. Iron Rain, RH-5, deceased." I thought of Max, for a brief moment, felt sympathy for the kid that I hated so much, knowing that he had thusly lost his entire family in the span of a week; I wondered, though, if either him or I would have the time to mourn, once Leviathan was done with Brockton Bay. "Fidelis, RF-7, incapacitated. Liberty Lady, SE-6, deceased." My breath hitched in my throat; a tiny, venomous part of me wanted to celebrate, but I couldn't, not at that moment. "Gallant, SE-6, deceased. Flashbang, SE-6, deceased. Fracture, SE-6, incapacitated." What? How was that possible? Half of the Stansfields, taken out, just like that, in a single, brief moment? Liberty Lady was one of the most powerful capes in Brockton Bay, and Leviathan had just killed her as if she was some sort of fucking fly? That wasn't fair. As much as I might have despised Liberty Lady, that was simply not fair.

"Alexandria, TH-3, deceased. Gully, TF-7, incapacitated. Crusader, TF-7, deceased." The first cape I had ever gone up against - Neo-Nazi villain or not - was dead, just like that, without any ceremony what-so-ever beyond a monotone voice announcing his death. Leviathan, for his part, continued jumping from rooftop to rooftop, slaughtering any cape that was too slow to get out of the way in time. I saw Lung clambering around on the side of buildings, in a frenzy to keep up with and continue fighting Leviathan; I had previously thought that we were lucky that we had someone like Lung on our side, but the way that I saw the ABB leader gleefully tear his surroundings apart as he charged forward into battle against the Endbringer, I began to consider that, perhaps, Lung might have been just as much of a threat to Brockton Bay as Leviathan himself was.

Desperate to stop Leviathan's rampage against their less powerful allies, the Triumvirate, along with Grue, flew forward together in a charge, attempting to knock the Endbringer back down onto the street again. As Adamantium turned his arms into blades and began to cut into Leviathan, Heroic slammed a piledriver down into the Endbringer's back, that began to thump powerfully and rhythmically in an attempt to send tremors through the monster's body; Legendary and Grue joined up together to land powerful, unarmed blows against Leviathan, trying with every ounce of their abilities' charges to at the very least unbalance the abomination. As the capes relentlessly battered into him, Leviathan curled up into a defensive posture, wrapping his arms and tail around him in an attempt to prevent the Triumvirate and Grue from causing damage to him.

...or so that's what it looked like to everyone, at first. In a split second, though, Leviathan burst out of his curled up position, sending claws and tail lashing out in all directions. As strong as the members of the Triumvirate were, they couldn't stand up against the full force of an Endbringer smashing into them at point blank range; Heroic, Adamantium, and Legendary all went flying away, while Grue - absent Legendary's power - fell down several feet onto the rooftop where Leviathan was. "Heroic, UF-5, incapacitated." Then, I saw the Endbringer heave up a foot, and bring it come slamming down, accompanied by a crash, and a voice from my armband. "Grue, UF-5, deceased."

As every rodent in my range began to scream, I let out a small cry, and collapsed to my knees in the flooded streets.