Biogenesis 1.4
April 2nd, 2011
I almost broke a few of the basement's stairs on my way out of the house, but in my defense, I didn't realize quite how heavy the suit was until I was actually moving around in it. The lights in the living room and kitchen were still on, and there was a note on the dining room table.
The note was from my Dad – he was staying overnight at the DWA building again to help guard it. He must have left while I was working down in the basement.
I felt immediate relief that my Dad wasn't home to potentially discover me dressed in my suit, but it was replaced by a deeper concern about what the ABB might do if they attacked tonight.
I wasn't too concerned about being spotted exiting my neighborhood; most of the houses were foreclosed and boarded up. This used to be a nice place to live before Leviathan crippled the shipping industry, but most of the wealthier residents in Brockton Bay had moved out since then. Nobody was moving into the Bay, and none of the natives could afford the upscale homes, and so they were left to rot.
I took a second to scan the area with my enhanced senses, and didn't detect anything unusual. I cautiously continued onward to the DWA building.
The ABB controlled most of the eastern half of the Docks. The southern part of their territory ended a little bit north of the Boat Graveyard and DWA building, so if the ABB really was planning to make a move, I needed to position myself slightly north of the DWA building in order to intercept them.
The only people I encountered on my way there were the homeless, and most of them were asleep. The ones who did notice me seemed to freak out and give me as wide a berth as possible. I was confused the first few times, I didn't try to make the suit that intimidating, after all. Then again, I was a new Cape, and it was common sense to avoid an unknown Cape.
After walking about six blocks east from my house, I stopped to analyze my surroundings. Still nothing. Another few minutes of waiting and I finally smelled something: gunpowder. I was able to discern that there was a group of people with guns moving a few blocks to the northwest of me.
I knew that the group weren't police officers straight away – BBPD hadn't done foot patrols in the Docks in twenty years. They had to have been ABB.
My hands shook slightly within the suit in anticipation as I urged the suit to rush toward their position as quickly and stealthily as possible. They were moving at a fairly sedate pace, which allowed me to catch up with them in just a few more minutes. I created two small holes in the suit through which a pair of my tentacles emerged, and they stretched out to their full extent.
I crouched, leapt, and caught the edge of a two-storey building with my tentacles. It was a close thing, but I managed to haul myself up and over the edge of the building without destroying its facade.
I crawled on my hands and knees to the other side of the roof, then pointed my tentacles over the edge of the roof down on the street below. There was a new moon tonight, which bathed the street in darkness. Thankfully, the sensory organs on my tentacles were good enough to make things out despite the dim lighting. A group of half a dozen figures meandered west. They were clearly ABB, but they weren't headed to the DWA building.
What was to the west of our location?
We were fairly close to the edge of the city, Captain's Hill wasn't too much further west. There was only one target they could be going after if they kept going in this direction.
My house! No, it couldn't be. Would the ABB really resort to kidnapping the DWA's top members and holding them hostage?
Then, I thought back to some of the uglier rumors I heard in Winslow about the ABB, things which even Emma didn't seem to want to insult me with. There were posters in front of the counselor's office in Winslow full of resources for girls my age who were being 'taken advantage of' by the ABB. It didn't paint a pretty picture – if they were planning to take my Dad hostage, what would they do with me if they caught me?
The thought enraged me, and I only spared one more second to examine the group. Three with guns in hand, two with baseball bats, and one unarmed shirtless guy, with some kind of mask on. I didn't know how he could stand to be out in the middle of the night like that – even if it was April, Brockton Bay's cold fronts were no joke. Whatever, he would get the same treatment as the rest.
I concentrated on my power and created several openings in the front of my suit as I leapt over the edge of the rooftop, directly on top of the group of ABB goons. I pushed my power to change the suit as quickly as I could, forcing six long, grasping tendrils to develop from the openings I had created. A thin needle appeared at the tip of each tendril, and I quickly connected them to one of my internal reservoirs of anesthetic.
Gravity carried me down far quicker than I anticipated, and I ended up partially crushing the ABB mooks between my suit and the concrete below. Five of them went down, and the sixth staggered.
Oops. Well, it was a good thing that I could probably heal them. I injected each man with the anesthetic and pulled the tendrils back into my suit, reverting the temporary changes as I went.
Right before I opened up the suit to check and heal each of the men, the sixth man – the shirtless one – exploded into a fireball. While I was distracted, he had grown about a foot, and now stood up to the shoulders of my suit.
"'Ooo dare!?" The man snarled, and the flames increased in intensity. The left arm of my suit started smoking slightly, its translucent skin peeling and flaying open, revealing the layer of scales directly below to the open air. When I moved the arm away reactively, some of the skin sloughed off and dropped to the ground.
I frowned at the unpleasant tingling sensation in my own arm. I had muted the nervous feedback from my suit, but pain was necessary to some degree. Lepers lived with no pain or sensation in their nerves, and often paid a price in fingers or whole limbs for it through avoidable accidents or infections. A sharper shock of pain hit me when the man, who must be Lung, lashed out quicker than I could react and grabbed my suit's smoldering left forearm.
I grimaced, then smirked at Lung's surprise as I slugged him with my right fist. He staggered back and pulled on my left arm, which sent us both tumbling towards the wall of a nearby warehouse.
I used my tentacles to steady myself, and a second pair of tentacles ripped themselves out of my back while I struggled to get out of Lung's grasp.
Lung let out a triumphant roar as he went through a sudden growth spurt. Scales much like those coating my own suit began to emerge from underneath his skin in the areas I had damaged him the most, and his fingers began to look more like claws. They dug long grooves into my forearm the more I struggled in his grasp. Blood welled up from the wound and began to boil until Lung's heat cauterized it.
"Coward…" Lung bellowed, "'Oo still lose!"
He laughed cruelly and pulled harder until the bones in my suit's forearm snapped. He let go and pulled back slightly. My suit's left forearm dangled loosely, only connected to the rest of the body by a thin strip of charred flesh.
This wasn't going well, and I needed to end things before Lung grew enough to put me down. I lashed out with both pairs of tentacles and restrained each of Lung's limbs, slamming him against the brick wall of the nearby warehouse hard enough that the whole structure shuddered and partially collapsed, raining bricks down on us.
I jettisoned my suit's entire left forearm along where it had been mostly severed and threw everything I had into the creation of a particularly sharp and strong needle where the suit's left hand had been. I rushed to hook it up to my reserves of anesthetic before Lung's struggling could free him from my grasp, using my free hand to crush Lung's neck in my vice grip.
Lung stared into the empty sockets of my suit with a look of deep hatred, and opened his mouth to speak. I took that opportunity to jam the needle straight into the back of his throat and inject my entire reservoir of anesthetic into his brain stem.
Lung flailed for a second, then tensed and began to seize and convulse in my grip. He shrunk rapidly and his seizure continued. I waited until Lung was fully down to his normal size before I opened a hole through the chest of my suit large enough to fit my arm through. I leaned the suit down closer to him and placed a hand on the middle of his chest before conducting a rushed diagnostic. The amount of anesthetic drugs in his system was much more than the lethal dose, and some of the damage to his brain didn't seem to be healing at all.
I quickly corrected the levels of the drugs present in his system by excreting them through his pores. I left enough of them behind to ensure he had a nice, long nap. I corrected what brain damage I could, but left the more complex parts of Lung's brain alone.
The other ABB members were pretty messed up, and in the time I had spent fighting Lung, they had come pretty close to dying. A few minutes spent on them put them mostly back together, though. I wasn't too worried about doing a perfect job on them, but I wasn't going to deny them basic healing.
I finished healing the last gangster and dragged them all into a pile next to Lung. Their guns and other weapons were placed in a smaller pile a few meters away from them. I was just beginning to consider the best way to restrain them all when I heard the rumble of a motorcycle's engine in the distance.
This was great news, really. I didn't want to keep babysitting Lung all night, and Armsmaster would be able to take him off my hands. It was only then that I realized how battered my suit was, and how the chunks of flesh scattered across a significant part of the street might create a bad first impression.
I quickly created a new opening near my suit's stomach and used its tentacles to begin shoveling the chunks of flesh into the opening. I used my suit's right hand to break off the arm-needle on the end of its left arm, making sure to crush it up a bit before feeding it into the opening too.
By the time Armsmaster rounded the corner, all of the flesh chunks bigger than an apple were gone, my tentacles were retracted back into my suit, and the suit's left arm was well on its way to regrowing.
His bike skidded to a stop, and he was off it, halberd in hand, in less than five seconds. He took up a defensive position and spoke something inaudible even to my enhanced senses before cautiously taking a few steps toward me.
I turned to face him fully, and he frowned. My entire lower half and about a ten foot radius around me were coated in still-cooling blood and small chunks of burned meat. The floor was covered in bricks from the partially collapsed warehouse.
"You look hurt," Armsmaster spoke.
"I'm just fine," I said cheerily, but something about my voice seemed to unnerve him slightly.
I spent all that time to make my voice less threatening, and he still winds up getting freaked out by it? That was disappointing.
"Are we going to fight?" Armsmaster's tone shifted, and the sudden hardness in his voice gave me the impression that he was fully prepared for the possibility.
"I hope not," I answered honestly, "I just took down Lung. He's all yours, along with these five other guys."
I gestured to the pile of men with the stump of my suit's left arm, which was slowly elongating as its wrist regrew.
Armsmaster paused for a moment, and I realized he was communicating using his visor somehow. Tinkertech, maybe?
Armsmaster took a few steps towards the men and examined them with a quick glance before he responded, "Well done, I don't see any injuries on them. Are you a regenerator, maybe a Case 53?"
I pointed a hand to my chest and said, "This is a suit."
He didn't answer, so I held out a finger on the suit's right hand and forced a green apple to grow from it. Once it was ripe, I gestured for him to take it, and he reluctantly complied. I didn't expect him to take a bite, and I wasn't surprised when he put it in a small baggie he had pulled out of some hidden compartment in his costume.
The continuing silence was becoming a bit awkward, so I decided to elaborate on my powers for him, "I can change biology. I can't make changes to things without fuel to make those changes, and I can't affect anything nonliving. Any questions?"
"Well, miss… have you-" Armsmaster was cut off by a female voice practically screaming through the connection in his visor.
Armsmaster coughed, then restarted his sentence, "Would you mind waiting here for a few minutes? The PRT will likely want a report, and your statement would be very helpful to us."
Something seemed off about his words, but I was in a great mood after my victory over Lung. My powers were working faster than ever, and I was thrilled to have succeeded in my first real fight.
"Sure," I told him, "I'm not busy. Plus, I want to make sure these guys get locked up. I honestly wasn't expecting to run into Lung tonight, but it makes sense in retrospect. I heard rumors he's been roaming the Docks – I'm just glad I caught him before he burned more stuff down."
"Let's talk about that while we wait for the PRT to arrive," Armsmaster said carefully.
I was a bit confused and spared another glance at the fallen form of Lung while I waited for him to continue.
"What methods did you use to get past Lung's regeneration? Judging by the damage this encounter caused, he must have been at least seven feet tall before you put him down."
Despite any trepidation I might have had about the strange way Armsmaster was acting, I saw no harm in telling him my version of events.
"I made a big needle and injected him with enough tranquilizers to kill an elephant," I told him honestly.
"While I might normally call such an approach crude, I'll admit that my own prototype for stopping Lung functions in much the same way," Armsmaster replied.
He wanted me to elaborate further on the fight, so I gave him a detailed description of the night's events: smelling gunpowder a few blocks away, ambushing Lung, smashing him into the building, creating the needle and knocking Lung out. I told him about Lung's potential lingering brain damage, and warned him that despite my best efforts, Lung might never be the same.
Armsmaster seemed to appreciate my openness, which ended up leading me to share more details. I was still answering the last of his questions when his reinforcements arrived.
"And why did you choose to throw him into the building, rather than try to subdue him on the street?" Armsmaster asked.
I didn't like the phrasing of the question, since I hadn't exactly chosen to bring the fight in the building's direction, but I did my best to find an appropriate answer regardless, "The incapacitated ABB members were right next to the fighting, and Lung's flames could easily have burned them to death. That's why I decided to move the fight. I did my best to avoid property damage, but I'll always pick lives over property."
"As you should," Armsmaster replied levelly.
Anything else he wanted to say was cut off by the arrival of three PRT vans. They turned the corner coming from the same direction Armsmaster had arrived from and stopped a dozen feet or so from Lung's downed form. Troopers with faceless reflective masks and black uniforms with "P.R.T." in white lettering on their backs piled out of two of the vans and secured the unpowered ABB goons. Some of the other troopers focused on Lung. They hauled him to the back of one of the vans, then placed him in one of the seats and stuck him to the wall with containment foam. Another trooper secured the handguns and other weapons on scene.
My attention shifted to the third van, and I was shocked to see Miss Militia and Vista emerge from the back of it.
"Hello," I said awkwardly, unsure of what to think about the current turn of events.
Miss Militia tried to respond, but Vista beat her to it, "Hi. Is it true you took down Lung!? You look pretty tough, I could believe it."
The youngest Ward's eagerness did a fair bit to calm my nerves, and I smiled before replying, "I did, and thank you. This is just a suit, though. I'm not that much older than you underneath all this."
The revelation of my age seemed to surprise most of the people within earshot, and I winced internally at my loose lips. Oh well, I would just have to live with a bit of increased scrutiny until I wasn't Wards-aged anymore.
Vista looked excited to ask more questions, but Miss Militia cut her off by gently placing a hand on her shoulder.
"We're grateful for what you did here today. If I may ask, have you picked a name yet?"
I froze and took a few moments to consider her words before I reluctantly told her, "No, um, not really. I've been brainstorming on it, I was thinking of picking something with a P sound. Plane- no, Panac-, no… hm. Maybe you can just call me Placenta for now."
"Are you sure?" Miss Militia seemed nonplussed about my choice of name.
"Yeah, it's got some kind of symbolic weight to it. You know, birth, death, adaptation, all that kind of stuff. Best I could come up with on the spot," I said.
"I suppose that makes sense," Miss Militia acquiesced, "Alright, Placenta. If it's not too much to ask, would you mind accompanying us back to the PRT Headquarters? I'm assuming you'd like to get registered as an independent hero, if not a Ward – some of the paperwork needs to be signed in person, and I'd like to help you along with the process. Of course, you can leave any time."
I was very close to refusing, but Miss Militia seemed genuine. I felt reasonably confident that she would back me up if the Protectorate tried to play any tricks on me – she had a longstanding reputation for fairness, and I had personally looked up to her in much the same way I had always admired Armsmaster.
"Sure," I answered, "But I need to ask you a favor. My Dad… well, he kind of doesn't know that I'm out here tonight, so can you make sure I get taken back to the Docks before the Sun comes up?"
Miss Militia's face took on a slightly amused and nostalgic expression before she replied, "I'm sure that can be arranged."
---
A/N 2: I hope you all enjoyed the Lung fight, and find the same level of enjoyment out of Taylor's Cape name that I did.
This is my first time writing and posting a fight scene, so any advice is very welcome -- I know it's a bit short, but Lung's power kind of necessitates short fights unless you want to lose/get set on fire.
I hope I did an alright job characterizing Armsmaster and the other 'good guys'. They will play an important role from now on, so I'm doing my best to capture their 'voices'.
Interlude 1.A: Lisa
April 3rd, 2011
For the third week in a row, the Undersiders were back in ABB territory. For the first few days after the casino heist, everything had gone swimmingly. They got the money, escaped Oni Lee, and there were no problems.
Lung wasn't happy about this, of course. He tried searching for us for days, then eventually just threw a fit and started burning things down. It wasn't too big of a deal, at least until he started heading in the general direction of the Undersiders' lair. At that point, Coil made me send the team out to fight Lung.
I tried to argue with him, but there was never any point in arguing with Coil. I hated the man for innumerable reasons, and sending our team out on these stupid missions against Lung was just the latest in a series of nonsensical decisions the man had made.
While it was true that Lung transformed more slowly and reacted less quickly with each successive fight, he was still more than a match for our entire team. The last time we fought Lung, Brian got captured, for God's sake. Coil managed to get him out by intercepting the prison transport, but it was an unnecessary situation that created a ton of obstacles. The Undersiders would break before Lung did. So why was Coil doing this?
Coil is testing the Undersiders. Keeping them busy. Finding weak links. Willing to replace members to make the team more effective. Willing to silence loose ends. Willing to-
Thanks, powers. As if I needed to be a Thinker to know how utterly fucked I was.
That's the funny thing about powers. They always seemed to give you the furthest thing from what you actually needed. My own powers only ever helped me in the short term, stringing me along, but did nothing to help me actually strategize enough to avoid longer term traps and pitfalls. To make matters worse, my power constantly reminded me of my own shortcomings every chance it got.
I shifted a bit on the gravel-covered rooftop to try and ease the pinpricks of pain that were coming from the shards of rock biting into me through my skin-tight bodysuit. I cursed the lack of protection my costume gave me, made worse by the biting cold of the late spring night.
"I've got eyes on them," Brian told me, "Lisa, what can you tell me?"
I peeked my head over the edge of the rooftop and saw them immediately. I started feeding what I saw into my power.
Smaller group than usual. Headed west, linking up with a larger group headed south. Knows vague location of Undersiders' base, willing to risk Protectorate retaliation to target us. Angry about-
I cut my power off before it could go too off track and answered Brian, "He's coming for us. I don't know how, but he knows what part of the city we've been staying in. I don't like this whole situation."
"Of course you don't," Alec scoffed, "You don't know something. That's got to hurt."
I did my best to ignore his needling and continued speaking, "We need to hit him hard, then turn west and deal with the other group before they get the chance to link up. Let's wait until he's right across the street from us before moving."
Brian nodded in agreement before he started issuing orders about where each member would be during the attack. I wasn't much use against Lung, so I would be hanging behind with one of Bitch's dogs, ready to jump in if anyone got hurt.
Everyone got into position, and we were seconds away from launching our attack on Lung. Then, through the near pitch-black of the night, I saw movement on the rooftop adjacent to Lung.
"Stop," I called as quietly as I could, and the other members in the group all turned to look at me.
"What?" Brian asked, "Oni Lee?"
I shook my head, and pointed to the rooftop. Lung was getting a bit far away now, and we needed to make a split second decision on whether or not to engage. Still, that thing on the roof…
"Do you see-" I began, but my words were cut off as… something launched itself off the roof with tremendous force, aiming to crush Lung and his men.
Its form looked vaguely human, but it was off in various ways – including its unnatural size. Its skin was covered in dark scales up to its neck, where the scales were replaced by visible muscle and the white of bone. The openings in its skull glowed in the darkness, giving it a vaguely toxic appearance.
A pair of tentacles connected to the creature's back slithered and flailed as the monster fell. They slammed into the ground along with the rest of the monster, which created a titanic crash as it slammed into the street below.
"Lisa, what-" Brian began.
"I don't know," I cut him off, "I don't know what the fuck that thing is. But I think it's eating Lung."
Lung grew rapidly and erupted in a fireball, staggering slightly as he turned to face the monster.
"'Ooo dare!?"
The two began exchanging powerful blows, sending viscera splattering a fair distance and further pulverizing the street below.
"Focus," Brian told me, and I tore my eyes from the creature to look at him.
"We need to make a decision about whether or not to get involved. Dealing with an unknown Cape adds risk to every decision we make, so we need to tread carefully. Lisa, did you get any good information from your powers?" Brian asked.
I let go of my hold on my powers and was immediately flooded by a stream of conflicting information. It took me a second to discard the reliable inferences my power made from unreliable speculation, and the end result was a disappointingly small amount of useful information to work off of.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that the monster is actually just someone in a suit, kind of like how Bitch's dogs work. I don't know if the person controlling it made it themself or if someone made it for them, but they're doing a good job smacking Lung around all on their own. I think we would probably just get in the way."
The collapse of a building across the street startled all of us into action, and we quickly decided to leave the scene of the unexpected Cape fight before it escalated further.
I climbed onto Angelica behind Bitch and prepared for a rough ride. Grue covered our exit using his power as our team rode Bitch's dogs to the southwest on an intercept course with the group of unpowered ABB gangsters Lung had been originally planning to meet up with.
-
I sat on the sofa with my eyes closed, nursing a Thinker headache. Last night's activities had given me a lot to think about, and I just wasn't able to help myself. Brockton Bay rarely had mysteries, so when something actually interesting happened, it was impossible for me to not look into it.
So when some no-name Cape comes out of the blue and takes down Lung, it was inevitable that I would go poking around for details. PHO didn't have any useful information, and my stolen credentials for the Protectorate East North-East branch's database must not have had a high enough clearance to access the new Cape's files.
It was all so very frustrating, and my power had been bashing itself into a brick wall all morning trying to find some lead. The rest of the team were fine, of course – they were in high spirits, even. The only one other than me who seemed to care about the new Cape was Brian, and he obviously didn't have anything to tell me about them that I didn't already know.
My phone rang once, and I frowned slightly. Alec was playing some FPS video game in front of the TV, Brian was cooking something on the stovetop idly, and Rachel was downstairs. The only person who could be calling me right now was…
The phone rang again, and my eyes shot open. I glanced at the number and sighed internally, then answered the phone once I was away from the rest of the group.
"Miss Wilbourn, it seems I am in need of your services once more."
Wonderful. Just fucking spectacular, that's exactly what I needed right now. Coil.
"What's it gonna be this time?" I asked, trying not to let myself sound openly annoyed.
"I heard a rumor that you encountered a new hero last night. Is my source mistaken about that?"
I suppressed a slight shudder. How could he have known? Whatever, I couldn't use my powers right now without making my headache even worse.
"No, you're right. They had some kind of suit, kind of like Bitch's dogs. Lung and the new Cape were slugging it out, so we backed off before they saw us."
"And can you tell me anything else about their powers?" Coil crooned.
I frowned, "No, I can't. I don't know what kind of game you're playing now, but I looked into this, and I've told you what I know. Unless you have a better lead, I've got nothing."
Coil laughed coldly, "Well then, you're in luck. In five minutes, you will receive an email containing the PRT's classified report on the hero you encountered last night. I expect you to have a complete analysis of the document ready for me by this evening."
This was really going to suck.
"Is that all?" I asked hopefully.
"No. You are to locate this hero, who has chosen the name Placenta, at the earliest opportunity. You and your teammates are to convince her that working for me is more profitable than working for the Protectorate. Understood?"
"Okay, but our team needs time to rest. You have to-" Coil had already hung up; the line was dead.
I would kill that bastard someday. Hopefully soon. I shook my head and yawned again, trying and failing to clear my mind.
I sought out Brian, but he confronted me before I could speak, "That was the boss, right? What does he want this time?"
"Yeah," I replied flatly, "He wants us to try and recruit that Cape we saw last night. I don't think it's a very good idea, especially since she's apparently going around calling herself a hero, but I didn't come up with the plan."
Brian winced, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it, "After what happened with Spitfire, I don't think suddenly introducing new members is a very good idea. I know Bitch won't like it, she never does, but I'm also concerned about how this new girl will react to us reaching out to her. Did our boss tell you anything else about her?"
"No, but-" I paused as I plopped down on the sofa before I grabbed my laptop and hurriedly logged into it, "He sent me what the PRT has on file. Let me check it real quick."
I scanned the document Coil sent me, and my eyes widened in horror.
"Yeah, we're so fucked. Striker nine, Master three, with subratings in Mover, Brute, and Thinker? Open-ended biology manipulation? Christ, this bitch could be the next Nilbog. And we're supposed to march right up to her and ask her to sign up for a villain team? It's suicide."
"Seems like we don't really have a choice. I'll have to think on a pitch to give her when we inevitably end up meeting – hopefully under Truce rules," Brian sighed.
I had no delusions about the girl actually joining our team. Whether she simply turned us down, captured us, turned us into thralls, blobs of jelly, or whatever other terrible fates a biology-manipulator could come up with – it all depended on someone pulling her aside and explaining the Unwritten Rules and Truce to her before our first interaction.
Maybe I could leave a message for her somewhere online? No, my headache was already bad enough. There really was no rush in contacting the girl, and if she slipped through Coil's grasping fingers, it wasn't like I could be blamed for it.
Everything I had ever known about Coil told me that he could not be trusted with control over such a powerful Cape. No, I think I would take the day off, and maybe tomorrow as well. Once the new Cape had more solid footing, I could approach her, bring up Coil's offer really quick, get blown off, and be done with the matter for good.
For now, it was time to find some ice cream and go straight back to the sofa. Thinker headaches really are the worst…
-
A/N 2: Really not sure how I feel about this chapter. Doing something interesting and actually new with the Undersiders is hard, and I don't think I've mastered their perspective. Lisa is kind of out of her element in this specific situation. Also, Taylor gets a high PRT threat rating (which is still way too low)
Interlude 1.B: Amy
March 31st, 2011
I opened my eyes blearily, then closed them again.
Darkness did not greet me.
A kaleidoscope of colors filled my view, same as always. I pushed down the incomprehensible rush of sensations and images and buried my head into the pillow.
"Ames," A familiar voice called out from beyond my bedroom's door.
No, I didn't want to do this today. It had been months, and the sensations had not ceased for even a second. It was exhausting. It was disgusting. Most of all, it was horrifying, because of what it meant for me.
Not all Parahumans triggered in quite the same way. Vicky had given me lectures about it enough times for the knowledge to be wedged in deep next to all the other little factoids and bits of information about powers she had hammered into my brain whenever she got the chance.
I knew enough about how powers worked to know that they tended to be passed down, and that they tended to have a theme. Not all themes were obvious, but Vicky and Carol were the quintessential example of a Cape family. A mother-daughter duo with powers so obviously related that even a blind man could see it.
I supposed that I was the same way. Just, in my case, it was a father-daughter duo instead. I didn't even want to think of his name, but I couldn't help myself. The Rat King.
I shuddered involuntarily. Carol had told me in great length about his depraved and brutal nature, and how he used his power to inspire fear over a large swath of the city. Just like I could. Just like I would, if I lost control for even a moment.
She never told me that he was my father by blood, but after I had Triggered, it was easy enough to guess. A male, high-level Master in Brockton Bay… even the timeline of his arrest and my adoption matched up perfectly.
"Ames~" Vicky called in a delightfully sweet voice.
Her ploy almost worked to ruse me from my bed, but I just shoved my face deeper into the pillow and wrapped my blankets tight around myself. This couldn't last forever, and I already knew what was coming.
The door opened, I heard a gentle whoosh, and then a voice said from above me, "Amy… we're going to be late!"
I looked up from my pillow and met her upside-down gaze as she floated lazily above me. I frowned and tried to muster up enough willpower to explain why she should let me sleep in for a few more hours. I failed, of course, and tried to look away from her. Vicky's face broke out into a playful grin as she reached for my blanket, and I tried not to blush.
"Wait!" I cried, "I'm not dressed…"
"I know," Vicky just laughed, "That's the problem, silly. Don't worry – I'll preserve your dignity."
She grabbed onto the blanket and pulled, unraveling it from me fast enough to nearly send me tumbling. I let out a small yelp and instinctively reached out to the glowing sea of stars always visible on the edges of my mind to help right myself.
Just as I was getting my bearings, Vicky dropped the blanket over my head, obscuring my view. I struggled with it, flailing blindly until I found the edge and threw it off of myself. I finally got a glimpse of what Vicky was up to and groaned when I saw her holding up an outfit excitedly.
The outfit itself wasn't the problem. It might have looked good – on Vicky, that was. I had no clue how far down she had to dig in the closet to find that old outfit in the first place. Vicky, for all that I loved her, sometimes had an issue accepting reality. I wasn't a future trophy wife like she was. I was fat; most of my extra weight went to my stomach and my thighs instead of the places I would ever actually want it to be. And for anyone who might overlook that? I was also ugly, with greasy, pimple-covered skin and unkempt hair.
Maybe if I thought like she did, I would look less like a slob and more like her. She was driven, focused, and optimistic – and why wouldn't she be? She was loved; she deserved love. She made it look easy, as if anyone could put in a little elbow grease and be just like her.
It was a lie, of course. Vicky's entire public facade was a lie from the start. She wasn't as invulnerable as she seemed, not that they would know. They weren't there when Vicky was doubled over in pain from period cramps, lending her a helping hand. They weren't there for her when her face was smeared with snot and tears as she cried her eyes out over Dean yet again.
And they certainly weren't there during the ambush. Neither was Dean.
"Amy… you have that look in your eyes again. You alright?" Vicky asked.
I couldn't speak, so I just shook my head softly and stood up from my spot on the edge of the bed.
She tossed the clothes aside and enveloped me in her warm embrace. I greedily soaked up all of her affection as I clung to her, trying to clear that awful day from my mind. I tried not to think too hard about the feeling of her hands against my back as she kept me pulled tight against her, because it was easier to pretend that nothing had happened than it was to acknowledge the two missing fingers on Vicky's right hand.
Her forcefield had only fallen for a moment. Less than half a second, and yet that had been more than enough time for Hookwolf to cut her hand in two. I could still remember the shock and revulsion I felt as Hookwolf's blade cut through her flesh and bone like butter. I could still hear the pained, strangled scream that had left her mouth, and the way it seemed to go on and on forever. I shook slightly as I relived the traumatic memory.
"It's not your fault," She told me gently.
I knew it was a lie. The only reason Vicky had been hurt in the first place was because she was holding back. If the threat of the seemingly-unstoppable and impenetrable swarm of steel wasn't bad enough, there I was forcing her to play defense. If I hadn't had my Trigger Event at that moment… Vicky and I would probably both be dead.
She told me about the vision she had seen. Two… things, sailing through space. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Hookwolf had apparently seen it too, because he had been barely conscious by the time Vicky and I woke up. Protectorate backup and my bugs both chased him off, but the damage was already done.
She would have lost a lot more than just two fingers if not for the Bacta Tank that the Protectorate had seized from Uber and Leet a year or so ago. It was a miracle the thing still worked at all; from what I understood, it took the combined efforts of Armsmaster, Dragon, and Kid Win just to keep it up and running.
Their time was more than worth it, of course. There were always more injured people than healers, especially in Brockton Bay. Maybe if Vicky had been allowed just a few more weeks in the Bacta Tank, she would have regrown her fingers completely.
The Protectorate hadn't agreed that it was necessary. They determined that she had made 'a recovery' and threw her out the first chance they got, probably because Vicky was New Wave, and Armsmaster would rather waste resources healing his own team's little scrapes and boo-boos than spend a minute more dealing with us than he absolutely had to.
Us?
Why did I group myself in with New Wave?
I wasn't really New Wave, and I never would be. Vicky could say whatever she liked, and the Pelhams didn't seem to mind me, but I wouldn't be fully accepted. Couldn't be. Carol already hated me even before the ambush.
I could imagine her reaction now when she found out about my powers. 'I just knew it!' She would scream, 'You really are your father's daughter. Get out of my house!'
I had nightmares of that day often enough – the day she would take Vicky from me. I had to take a few deep, calming breaths as the swarm began to chitter and writhe.
"Ames, c'mon," Vicky cooed, "We're already going to be late. How about…"
She trailed off and broke her embrace with me. I regretted that I could not be within her wonderful embrace forever, free from harm.
She deserves better than the likes of you.
The thought struck me like a bullet, and shocked me out of my stupor. What the hell was I doing, getting lost in those kinds of fantasies?
Vicky handed me a t-shirt, a hoodie, and a pair of sweatpants, all with neutral or darker tones. I slipped them on and started looking for my socks. Vicky held out a 'cute', slightly fuzzy pair of pink socks for me to take, and I promptly ignored her. I found a pair of boring white socks and slipped them on, ignoring her protests.
Carol was gone for work by the time we went downstairs (which I was thankful for), and Mark was on the couch watching the TV. Nothing important was even on – whatever show he was watching was in the middle of a commercial break, but he didn't look up to wish us a good day or even say hello. It bothered me, but I shouldn't blame him for feeling depressed.
What did it matter? What was being a hypocrite, on top of everything else that I was? I could blame Mark; I could even hate him. Instead, I found it hard to care. Honestly, I found it hard to care about anyone but Vicky these days, and it was increasingly difficult for me to leave my house or even my room without her.
My power might have been a curse, but I could still use them to keep Vicky safe, if nothing else.
-
School was the same boring, awful shit as usual. People pretending that they liked me, acting like I was normal, even exceptional. If it wasn't for Vicky, they wouldn't even know my name. I made my best effort not to draw attention, but it was impossible.
I had tried to sneak away to the roof so that I could eat without the constant staring from other students, but Vicky just flew up in the middle of the cafeteria.
"Oh, Ames – there you are!" She called, drawing the attention of what felt like half of the cafeteria.
I let out a long-suffering sigh as she landed next to me and led me over to sit beside her and Dean. Even better, practically the whole Wards team was there.
It was like this every day. These morons had no idea what discretion or secrecy meant; they were basically shouting with a loudspeaker to anyone who paid attention that they were all Wards. Really, it wouldn't be so bad if it was just one or two of them. But all of them, every day? When they're already always on the list of students called to the office during incidents?
I didn't respect stupid people, and the members of the Brockton Bay Wards fit that description nicely. I sat down next to Vicky and kept my gaze directed down at the table.
"Hey Amy, how's it going?" Chris asked cheerfully.
I couldn't bring myself to hate Chris, even if he was annoying. He had this kind of attitude where he'd follow someone around talking their ear off, and if they told him to shut up, he'd act like a kicked puppy. It was stupid, but effective. I had learned to just let him talk and tune him out, like I was doing now.
Vicky had been sucked into a conversation with Dean, and the two of them had leaned towards one another in a casual display of affection. She looked absolutely radiant next to her boyfriend.
I suddenly felt sick, and excused myself from the table.
"Oh, um…" Chris trailed off, seeming a bit sad that I interrupted him, "I'm sorry if I-"
I fled to the bathroom as quickly as I could without breaking into an actual run and slammed the stall door shut behind me, dropping my heavy backpack to the ground and putting my head in my hands. My world shrank down, then expanded into hundreds of thousands of tiny specks of light.
My swarm churned violently, barely hidden away from sight in air vents and dark corners around the school. Every time this happened, it got a little bit harder to control myself. I felt hollow thinking about the inevitable result of my struggle, as if I was looking into an endless abyss.
-
A/N 2: Is Amy okay? No, Amy is not okay. Did I do a good job at capturing her and Vicky, or am I off base?