Chapter 779 - The bank job wards intervention part 2

XXX

(Taylor/Khepri/Queen Administrator/Weaver/Skitter/Spider Queen)

Interruptions, my life seemed like a series of interruptions and things designed to take away my focus. Ever since we had taken out the Nine it had been one thing after another, the crazy mass delusion causing Yule, the return of magic to the world, my mom returning from the dead, my Dad being a (non super) villain.

At least Nicce the cause of all these divergences and root cause of my current situation was easy to handle and seemed fairly content to watch children's programming. I think she was also putting on a bit of weight, normally I'd say this was a bad thing for a child her apparent age, but she looked like she needed it.

She had started gaining a bit of weight after biting Coil, then more after Crawler, well it was that or all the peanut butter. My Shard memory was making correlation graphs in my head. Maybe Nicce was some kind of natural enemy to the Entities like Scion, or at least his shards.

Considering I was sort of one of those shards I had reason to be a bit nervous, but I'd be a pretty crappy person if I held those actions taken to help and protect me against her.

I needed to clear my head, so I went for a run.

It was only roughly halfway through said run that it occurred to me that it was a weekday and I was supposed to be at school.

On top of everything else I had to deal with the school crap again. Unfortunately this insight came from the police car pulling up next to me.

I was basically caught being truant. Wonderful. I thought fast and told the officer I was just running to school, because my alarm hadn't gone off.

It was only a few minutes after first period, so this was somewhat believable. That and the course I was running was roughly in the right direction.

The nice officer offered to give me a ride.

Looks like I was going to visit my old stomping grounds.

Winslow was just as crapsack as I remembered. If anything it seemed to smell worse. Oh right, plumbing issues.

I also saw where the office had been moderately crushed by run-away construction equipment. My only regret was that it had happened at night. They had a crappy little tent set up outside the office with power cords and a generator running next to it.

So noisier, smellier and even worse than I remembered.

I walked the empty halls and noticed a forgotten flyer for a Wards visit that supposedly would be happening next week.

With their kidnapping by forces from another dimension I was laying pretty low odds that would happen.

I started laughing. Of all the things I hadn't wanted to do, taking revenge on Winslow as the place of my misery, my trigger, was not even on my list. Yet here it was, an unwanted revenge fantasy made real by my father.

My villainous laughter echoed off the worn defeated halls and I found this un-looked for victory to be hollow and meaningless, but amusing nonetheless.

I took stock of the place before going to my class. I discovered that all the working bathrooms were on the top floor. The rest had out of order signs on them.

Having taken in the sights I made my way to class. I panicked a moment as I realized how strange my lavender hair might make me seem to my classmates, not so strangely as the invisible girl it drew no comments from the teacher and class at large. People had their own problems. Class was as dull as I remembered. Especially with perfect memory and better skills from several years more education under my belt it was easier than normal to make up my missed assignments, finish the current ones and even have a moment to browse PHO.

What I saw was panic. People were going insane about the loss of the Wards from a secure government building. The supposed presence of Alexandria had reassured most of a return to law and order, but the lack of any meaningful results had worn her reassurances thin. The Protectorate was fiercely waving the flag, but people were buying it less and less by the hour.

Rill was being called the Pied Piper by most, some sort of new master/stranger kidnapping young parahumans. The handle seemed to stick despite the PRT officially labeling her as Jackal. I guess their PR team wanted to give her all the negative connotations they could.

Elsewhere life went on but some were definitely noting a down trend in Brockton Bay. I mean it was normally a bad place, but the loss of the wards was really hurting what little spin the PRT had locally.

No-one had noticed Coil's demise, this surprised me, as I knew he kept his operation very secretive, but for him to be simply gone and have no one notice? The Undersiders leaving the Bay was a footnote. The ABB had almost fallen to a full court press from the local Nazi's. Things had gotten bad enough that a new batch of Parahuman's had risen from their rank and file. A cape calling themselves the Blue Dragon was the new leader, given their unknown powers they had managed to do well initially and beaten back the E88 with the help of their gang and managed to take back most of the territory they had lost.

The ABB seemed much diminished, but they seemed to be under better management and some were saying they had the potential to be more powerful as a group than ever. Freaking wonderful, and I didn't even know what their powers were. Looking them up I found that they had a paper-kinetic named Shinigami, Blue Dragon had some sort of blue fire/energy projection that made him a wide area blaster who was being compared to both Lung and Purity. (Or being their lovechild… damn shippers) There was extremely limited information about some sort of Thinker or precog that was being associated with fortune cookies. Rounding out their group were several variable appearance brutes being called Oni, some were saying it was a master, projections or several different capes with cosmetic change abilities keeping everyone guessing.

At least they seemed to be slightly nicer than Lung. The prostitution rings and human trafficking had fallen away with the new management. However their rhetoric was getting surprisingly similar to the E88 as they were getting their hate crimes on against non-Asians in their territory.

It was a lot to take in, I had definitely made a change, but it was looking like it was a change only marginally for the better.

I went to my next class, head still spinning with plans, ramifications and potential issues when I ran almost headlong into Emma.

She started to go into one of her typical insulting tirades I remembered so well. Her few remaining followers fanned out to make escape difficult. I blocked out most of what she was saying, it wasn't anything new aside from perhaps some halfhearted mocking of my dying my hair as a sign of my being promiscuous or a merchant or something. The few remaining hangers on seemed not as confident as usual. As I made real eye contact with each one I noticed they shied away instead of staring back. No Madison, no Sophia, I looked from uncertain face to face and thought the ragged little group was starting to fray about the edges. All it would take was a bit of pressure applied just so to bring the entire social structure down.

As I thought of it I got bored, this petty stuff was really not a good use of my time. I could take the GED Class and pass anytime I felt like it. There wasn't anything keeping me here but damned social convention.

Social Convention could be damned then. I walked out. In the process I may have nudged Emma and one of the girls out of my way. I wasn't huge, I wasn't particularly strong, even as much as I had been later in my career as Weaver. But I knew how to move and balance, I knew how to put my mass to work for me effectively, against two girls smaller than me and not expecting a sudden move forward it was more than enough. They went sprawling, I barely missed a step as I pushed my way through. I said over my shoulder to the spluttering and imprecation spewing Emma. "Sorry don't care."

I walked by my next class and kept walking. I didn't stop till I was past the sad little tent that was the current main office.

My mind free and going over current problems I looked at all the threads and permutations of cause and effect and I chose one path I had not yet thought of. It would net me my next target and free up resources for Scion. Work on a potential alliance that could make big differences down the line. I could use some of Coil's resources, his contacts and some information about people from the future to leverage me some influence, and a meeting.

I walked, eagerly down the street, aware of everything around me for blocks due to the senses of my insects. I waited for moments when no one was looking and flipped a flame cantrip from my fingers. It was still taking me several minutes per, but my Shard memory told me the interval was lessening as some part of me got stronger. The flame, approximating a bic lighter in strength was slowly gaining in size as well.

XXX

(Danny Hebert)

My wife was alive. Everything I had gambled had been worth it. My life had meaning. The light of hope, my love was right there and I could embrace her for a few short minutes. I reveled in it, enjoying the soft idle caress again as she fussed with my tie. The music of her voice as she said my name, the little things, mannerisms and inside jokes I thought gone forever had returned. It was all so sweet and the time so precious and too short.

Then it was time to get back to work. Annette went down stairs to work on food. Nicce and Taylor were absent, they must have gone somewhere, before this would have worried me greatly. Having the pair of them meant very little could meaningfully threaten them however.

It was strange to think my little girl had super powers. That she could change the world. I was just normal, or I had been before making certain arrangements. Now it was time to pay the bills and find out how much of my soul was part of the price tag for all of this.

I closed the door firmly, locking the flimsy thing for a bit of privacy. I then approached my bedroom mirror and prepared to give the devil his due.

Without preamble I uttered his name.

"Melkor." I uttered with finality as I stared into my mirror.

The reflection seemed to waver and dim, the window to the west seemed to shudder for a moment as an unseasonable hot wind brushed it like a soft breath of the apocalypse.

The handsome visage returned, replacing my own balding middle aged features with a visage of power, confidence and Darkness.

"Danny a singular pleasure as always. How are things on your side of reality?" Melkor said in a friendly tone than evinced interest and sincerity.

I hung my head in abject loss. My voice broke as I uttered. "Everything you offered me has come to pass. I am yours as per our agreement."

"Danny, please no need to be melodramatic. It is not for your subservience I have offered you this partnership, it is for our mutual benefit. You are a man of will and fire, willing to do what needs be done. I need you, I need your fire and your iron will to act in your world. What we do together will shake the very firmament and bring us power, stability and safety for our daughters." The charismatic man of Darkness and Flames uttered in hypnotic fashion. He was smooth, smoother than any used car salesman or corporate lawyer I'd ever had to sit at the bargaining table with. Strangely despite the knowledge that he was playing me like a fiddle I could not bring myself to resent him. It was impossible to say if it was the skill with which he manipulated me, his charisma, or the obvious results I had seen under his guidance. When I had screamed for vengeance he had offered it to me, when I had cried for despair he had shown me that all was possible if I but reached out for the power to change my fate. When I was stymied by corruption and greed and justice lay stillborn in the trash heap he had shown me how to turn everything around and use these very facets of my enemies against them.

I simply nodded, accepting his points.

"Now then, our next project after successfully getting your house in order was a look at your local gang problems. Tell me Danny, tell me of those who claim to be an Empire and these Bad Boys again, perhaps we can forge these issues into newfound strength. These gangs have long meddled in the affairs of your Dockworkers, perhaps it is time to turn that paradigm upon its head." The smile he gave me was far from pleasant, but given all the pain and misery I had to deal with from those fucking gangs I could not help but answer his feral smile with one of my own.

XXX

(Taylor)

I returned from my run/school excursion and picked up Nicce at the house. I told Mom we were going to the Library. Mom to my surprise offered to go with. She wanted to do a bit of looking around and maybe start the inevitable job hunt. When she had been alive she had been the primary bread winner for the family, and while I think she was not going to say too much she had seemed disappointed at the household's financial situation.

I kept a firm eye on our surroundings. I felt fiercely protective of Mom and I'd fight Scion himself if it meant keeping her safe. Nicce seemed to pick up and this and offered Mom a few random articles of clothing in silver and black that I was sure could stop everything from bullets and lasers to potentially Greyboy's timeloop ability. Mom wore them in good humor.

Speaking of Greyboy, I wondered if Nicce's webs could free the victim's of Grayboy from their eternal torment. That would also solve our financial situation. I would have to look into it. Another thing to add to my to do list.

We got to the Library and found our path blocked by yet another Police officer.

We were stopped by the officer and he inquired why Nicce, and myself were not is school.

My Mom calmly strode forward till she was uncomfortably close to the officer and began explaining at volume "My children have to be home schooled because of the garbage going on at Winslow. We refuse to be part of that failing school that prioritized attendance over safety, learning or sanitation. IF you wanted to make a difference, Winslow High is that way. It could use a few officers patrolling the halls given the violence, bullying and drug activity on school grounds that have necessitated my children being pulled from the school. Now excuse me officer I have to get to the business of teaching my own children because your system is failing while you walk around hassling random passerby going into a Library, because if we were going to avoid education obviously we would come to a Library like the proper degenerates we were." Her fierce judging gaze did not break eye contact till the police officer found somewhere else to be.

Yeah mom was cool like that. Maybe some of my authority issues were inherited from her; she did not suffer fools lightly and had a bad habit of speaking truth to power.

I walked over to embrace my mom, Nicce glomped onto her other side to feel included and my mom gave off a fierce victorious smile before herding us inside.

Once inside Mom started us each on a project. Nicce was taking some sort of learning test. I was running down the Victim's of Gray boy for possible release and checking PHO. Mom was looking into recent history, and looking for teaching jobs.

Part way in Mom stopped looking for teaching jobs and started trying to figure out how someone proves they are alive, looking up false death stories and the legal hoops one had to go through to prove one's identity.

I made a discovery when I checked PHO. Tattletale had finally messaged me back.

It read. 'Got your message and am back in town with some friends, you still interested in meeting up?'

I messaged her back 'I would love to meet your friends, perhaps a walk in the park on 73rd?'

The response was quick. 'We can be there at two, easy to get there from the Library right?'

Ah Lisa always needing to get the last word in to prove she knew more than whomever she was talking with.

I checked in with Mom and Nicce. Nicce was proudly showing off her test scores, the scores themselves looked a bit, uh kinda bad to me but Mom was saying that with her background it wasn't bad at all. Her math scores were phenomenal and her language skills were good for the first grade level at least. Everything else was pretty much non-existent.

My mother gave me a long look that I recognized as a 'we need to talk' order.

Once Nicce was happily busy reacquainting herself with her little pony cartoon we spoke in a nearby forgotten corner of the library.

"Taylor we really need to talk. Your friend is very nice…"

"Nee-Say" I corrected.

My mother sighed at the word play. "She is a 'good' girl, but I really need to know all the details about what you are planning and what is going on, excuse me what is 'REALLY' going on so I can help you. I realize you've had me brought back from the dead and mention of magic and all has been batted around, but with you and her being independent heroes. Your father being into god knows what in the Union now and me being a few years out of date, more than a quick rundown would be good, the full damn story would be better.

Parenting, well crap it looked like I had some now. All those times I had asked my mom what she would do, if she would be proud of me came back to haunt me as I considered what to leave out.

Nothing, I would leave out nothing. My Mom was smart, canny and experienced. If she had any insights I would be a fool to ignore them. She was as fully on my side as anyone could be and so entwined in everything going on keeping information from her would be negligent on my part.

I wondered idly if this was original me thinking this or my shard with its perfect logic giving my reasoning a firm push. Didn't really matter we were one and the same now but it was a disturbing thing to realize. I had been pretty limited and made some 'interesting' decisions before, now would I choose differently because I was a different person or because that person didn't exist. I had continuity of consciousness, didn't I? I mean I remembered everything as Taylor, but I also remembered everything as the 'Queen Administrator'. Mind you I also remembered not remembering either of those perspectives and being stuck as me at the beginning of my career, so was it two Taylors and a shard in here or did I just have their memories?

I started to get a headache thinking about it. I decided enough introspection, now it was story time.

I had a limited amount of time, but I covered the important bits. I told her about my memories from the future, Nicce befriending me because of what I 'had' done. Magic being a thing now, Scion, the whole mess that was Cauldron and Eidolon and the Endbringers. Leviathan's pending attack and both the original way things had gone with my becoming a villain, joining the Undersiders and Coil being killed by me and then Nicce respectively, or would it be three or four times? Coil's whole deal with the Travelers, Echidna and even the fact that I had had a 'relationship' with Grue, who I now had not yet met, well till two which was about a half hour from now as I finished.

My mom seemed dizzy with the implications of everything I was telling her, but still she asked several important questions I had not given much thought to till now.

"What happened to all of Coil's money and the rest of his organization?" My mother asked. Before I could answer she then added the questions. "Cauldron has an inter-dimensional base and Nicce can take people between dimensions, is that also how Cauldron got people out of the Birdcage?"

I was rather horrified that a) My mom had picked out things I had missed, and B) This represented an unbelievable source of power for me, as Khepri, to have access to both Cauldron's bases and the Bird Cage was a game changer.

I saw my Mom also thinking of possibilities and we nodded at each other in mutual understanding.

"Right, well while I go see about recruiting a group of former, hopefully to be, friends and also more help…" I started.

My Mom finished as if we had planned it. "Then we will take a walk and see if we can figure out where Mr. Coil left some of his things."

XXX

So with barely any time for set up I made it to the park. Mom and Nicce were having smoothies at some place next to the park advertising that their smoothies were so good they had been suspected of having a Master Rating.

I had my costume on under my clothes, baggy hoodie and sweat pants. Not exactly a great fashion statement but close enough to what I had met them in the first time to be eerie. I didn't bother with a mask. I trusted them. I did have a decent swarm built around the park. Good for defense, showing off or a quick getaway. Also good to tell me when they were here.

…And there they were, I provided an insect arrow to point myself out for Tattletale to notice.

I sat alone on the park bench in a high visibility section of park. Nicce and Mom could see us, as could Aisha who was set up not far from them. By the fact I was noticing her at all I took it she hadn't triggered, she wouldn't till after Leviathan, unless butterflies, but it was weird she was already working with them, if in a undercover capacity.

Then I noticed they had an additional cape. She was a twig like girl wearing a weathered grey hoodie. I saw her multicolor bangs hanging out the front of the hoodie to further cover her face. Aside from being slightly shorter and a slight color swap I thought it was some alternate version of me. Was this time weirdness attempting to make the group look the same without me or just another girl to fill out the roster who happened to share my (lack of) fashion sense? No she seemed familiar somehow, I think I knew her, or recognized her on some level. My shard memory plumbed through my less reliable human memories from the future and got no exact matches but several close matches, I needed a touch more info.

Bitch, two of her dogs on leashes (Brutus and Judas), Regent and Grue in the lead, followed along by the new girl and a limping Tattletale bringing up the rear in a walking cast. I noted with a twinge that Lisa had a patch over one eye that looked permanent and a cautious almost manic alertness that was offset only by her being obviously very tired.

I knew her well enough to see the toll that whatever it was had taken on her. She could use a rest, and pain pills if she wasn't already strung out on some.

I stood and greeted them like the old friends they were. Perhaps expecting something different this led to something of a standoff.

"Hey Guys, um I mean hello?" I said wondering what I said or did wrong now.

"What do you want?" Brian Laborn as Grue was a tough looking customer, seeing him from outside, as a threat as opposed to one of the ones he was defending was just a weird feeling, like the universe was sideways or something.

"Um I came to meet you to discuss, you know? You don't know? Can we start over?" I said desperately thinking and observing the group as if by pure concentration I could imitate Tattletale's power and pull the info from the air that would let me make friends, connect with them like we had before. Why were they being so hostile?

"Yeah, you chase us out of town, cause our Thinker nightmares and Kill our meal ticket fixer which sort of almost got us all killed. We just want it over with. What the hell do you want?" Grue said with finality and a touch of anger.

"I didn't chase you, I mean I saved you from Lung, I… I saved Li… Tattletale from being tortured. Didn't I? What happened to you?" I said letting my honest desperation leak into my voice.

"Let's just fight her. I'm done running." Bitch input and I noticed her dogs grow a size and wind started to pick up in a counterclockwise direction around the new girl."

Aha it was Whirlygig, they somehow got her recruited after I left Lisa on their way out of town. Makes sense, on the run teens run into on the run teen. Her hair was dyed different and she had a bit more meat on her, probably a lack of being addicted to whatever the Merchants had gotten her addicted to.

My brief aha moment was ruined by the sudden realization that the Undersiders were getting ready to fight me and I was both out of costume and not really ready or wanting to fight them.

Grue didn't call them off, it was a hell of a bluff if it was one.

"Hold on, I didn't come to fight you. I didn't chase you out of town. I did kill Coil and maybe he had a deadman's switch set up to screw all of you over, but that's on him not me. Also if this comes to a fight you have already lost, so ease up and let's see if I can help you." I desperately tried to get through to them. "Lisa tell them if I'm lying."

"I can't tell them because your little friend did something that wrecked my powers, now every time I try to get away from this damn city it goes insane, everything I see IN THIS city IS insane. Nothing makes sense, the dead arise, the great darkness clouds the land and everyone suffers and it all comes back to you!" The one eyed Lisa ranted as she readied a silenced gun in her oversized sleeve.

Woah, that just happened.

The dogs were now 2 sizes bigger, not hugely noticeable but big enough to take on scrawny little me. Grue was moving forward, not bothering to use his darkness in public when his shear physical strength should be adequate. Regent made me twitch and stumble, one leg seizing on me. The public, especially my Mom and Nicce a couple of hundred feet away had no idea how bad the situation had just gotten.

My fight or flight kicked in. I was not going to be able to run, when in my history could I? I had one trump, well aside from the Bees, hornets and spiders all over the park.

Regent had seized the nerves in my leg. I fell and didn't bother hiding it or even trying to move.

I didn't grab a few hundred nerves, I reached out through my work around and seized every nerve in all of their bodies including those that controlled their powers. They were all well within Khepri's range. Assuming full control I deescalated things. Rachel's power backed off on the dogs. They may have seemed bigger for a few moments, but no one noticed the difference from across the street. Brian lunged and instead of hitting me, seized me before I could quite hit the ground in a very chivalrous save.

Lisa replaced the gun in her stealthy little arm holster. That was definitely a new addition. Whirlygig ceased her mini tornado and I had them crowd around me as if concerned for my safety.

"Listen. I didn't want to do this, but it was this or cover you all in bugs and publicly out the lot of us in a big cape battle for which none of us had our costumes on. I seriously did not set out to cause you guys harm. I'm sorry Coil dying screwed you all over, but I'm not screwing with Tattletale's power. If I did it would be a lot more like this. I have not been hounding you or attacking you. There has however been some bad shit going on in town. That might be what is causing your issues. I might be able to help you out with understanding a bit of that. So are we going to do this friendly like or..."

It was at that point that somehow Regent tapped me with his cane.

His power was really close to how I pulled off the Khepri Trick. When he full out body jacked someone it was effectively a one person version of the same thing. He had mentioned being able to resist master powers a bit due to his own power.

Sonofabitch was dead before I went Khepri so I never had a chance to try it on him or compare notes. If his minimal movement was any indication I could probably fight him for control and win. I had to know there was a fight though. I knew the amount of juice he ran into his modified Taser was variable, maybe if the voltage… nope bastard had it set to max.

And then everything went white and I heard screaming. Some of it may have been my own.

XXX

I awoke to the familiar pathetic cute sound of Nicce crying. I was on a nice bed in a plain room. I was in the medical room of Coil's secret Base. I heard my Mom talking to someone and in horror I realized that someone was Bonesaw.

Oh dear god what has happened?

I struggled to move. Being fricking electrocuted sucks apparently. All of me felt raw and well done at the same time.

Bonesaw poked her perky head in the door, pigtails bouncing in ringlets that would look appropriate on a child's doll. Bonesaw had almost single handedly made that hair cut unpopular due to its associations with the medical horrors she inflicted on her victims.

"Hi, look who is awake, you'll be wanting a glass of water now, lemme just…" and her head disappeared out of sight.

I struggled to get out of the almost completely restraining blankets, like they were supposed to imprison me as much as keep me warm.

Panic struck and I struggled frantically free of the blanket, disturbing Nicce who finally awoken from her personal misery noticed me moving.

"Taylow, you awe OK!?" She said with a frantic need for it to be true.

"yeah I'm ok squirt…:cough:" I croaked. Damn I was really needing a drink. I sounded rough.

"Sowwy youw awmow didn't stop the lightning. I made it bettew now so that wiww nevew happen again. No mattew how bad you get zapped. Long as youw ok now." She nuzzled into me as if willing me better. Sadly it did make me feel better, or at least loved. Affectionate little tyke was starting to grow on me.

"Well if all your meetings with friends go this well we may need to put you through finishing school." My mother said wryly from the door as she swung into the room. In horror I saw Bonesaw come up behind her… only for Bonesaw to bounce past and hand me a glass of water.

I was so thirty I took it and poured it down my parched esophagus as fast as it would go. Moisture returned to my system and I started to appreciate living a bit more.

"Wait, that was the regular water right, yeah, yeah I think that was the regular water you should be fine, I gotta go check something." Bone Saw said nervously before dashing away into the base again.

That was reassuring. My appreciation of life seemed to increase as I thought I might not have it for very long. "Nicce, avenge me if anything bad or weird happens." I instructed my small cohort. She nodded eagerly.

My mother noted the exchange and reassured me. "Don't worry, Riley promised to take good care of you. I will hold her to that!" My mother said in a rising voice, audible down the hallway and directed so Riley could hear.

"Don't worry it was the real water! The nitro-glucose infused stuff is still here. Sheesh it would only have…" Riley called out in response and her voice faded from my hearing into mumbling of biotechnobabble.

"Right, so I didn't get murdered? What happened with the Undersiders?" I inquired meaningfully.

"Well we were all set to run to your rescue, but you beat us to it. The whole lot of you just fell down and would not move. We ran over only to have a young woman run over and try to get to you first. Nicce got in the way and the girl blasted her with some kind of bolt of shadow. It seemed to not bother her much, but I had Nicce tie her up too. I noticed one of the witnesses posted the whole thing online. They are mostly interested in, was it Fezzy?" My mother explained before including Nicce in the discussion.

"No it was Paul." Nicce said seriously.

"Yes it was Paul that charged over the building and got that umbrella from the café stuck to his leg. His bit of physical comedy made the whole thing much less intimidating and much funnier in retrospect." My mother smiled at the memory.

"Um ok but why are we in the base already." I prodded them both.

"Weww aftew dat youw Mom said we needed to get evewy body somewhewe safe befowe the authority people showed up. An I was worwied and I knew from what you said about dis girwl dat she did medicine an stuff so I webbed us all hewe." Nicce told me.

"As to the Undersiders, Riley said they were in a 'nerve lock' it was looking like you may have paralyzed them till Riley got them away from you for a while and fixed up. Now we have The Undersiders and that girl 'secured' in the base thanks to Nicce constructing us a holding cell for them. I gave them some sandwiches and some time to calm down while we waited to see if you were really ok." My Mom finished the tale.

"Bonesaw, er Riley didn't cause any problems, do anything bad when you got in here?" I asked desperate for reassurance.

"Wait wait Riley is our 'Bonesaw' or 'The' Bonesaw?" Mom asked as comprehension and panic became apparent on her features.

"THE" I informed her, "Remember I mentioned the whole capturing the Nine, er well some of them. Riley aka the Biotinker formerly known as Bonesaw is keeping the other survivors on ice for me if I need to use their powers, for Leviathan. We killed Hatchet Face, Mannequin and Crawler. We captured Jack Slash, Manton/Siberian, Burnscar and Shatterbird. Bonesaw got left out to keep an eye on everyone else, cause she's just a kid and I may have been suffering an acute case of Christmas spirit at the time and decided I could trust her as far as the impossible to escape from secret villain base. I did not however intend to be either at her tender mercies, nor expose my mother who was dead at the time to said biotinker."

"Ah!' My mother said succinctly. "Well she has been nothing but polite, but we should probably look in on her and the Undersiders just to be safe."

"Yeah." I said as I stood and found myself in decent shape, except for being a tad sore and burned on my ankle where the Taser had burned me through the space between my shoe and the spider/Nicce silk armor. My original one piece design may have to make a comeback. Apparently the multi layers could stretch and pull revealing small spots of vulnerability.

I stood and followed the group to the holding area, which had at one time been the Traveler's quarters. I saw the sullen Undersiders and wished I had some sort of Thinker power to help me talk. Well I had all the cards, time to put them on the table and determine where we stood. To my surprise my Mother started the conversation.

"Hello again, my daughter has made a full recovery, so we can now discuss what we are going to do with you. I realize you are teenaged supervillains, but try to keep things civil and productive." Annette said with a sweetness that had the promise of vile, vile things left unsaid."

Holy crap! My mom, my sweet intellectual mom, the source of most of my crumbling morality and the person most responsible for the ethical foundations of my childhood, was playing BAD COP. I did a double take at my own mother, remembering her association with Lustrum the supervillain and how she had been willing to kill Bakuda while a ghost. Bringing her back from the dead was providing me with some eye opening revelations about my Mom that did not match the peaceful, idealized vision of her I had in my mind.

"Yeah, um hello again Undersiders. I'm not sorry you failed to kill me but I am confused as to the exact reason or reasons why. As I told you earlier I have not been after you or indeed known anyone was after you. I was laying in wait for Lung not you. I saw Tattletale in trouble and rescued her from Coil. We killed him and took over his base, sort of. Now why did you attack me?"

Grue stepped forward. His body language defensive and threatening, when I refused to back down and stared him dead in the eyes he steadied into a less aggressive but still confrontational stance. "According to our thinker, you and the little girl are some kind of existential threat to life on earth. We have had strange people, things and unknown parahumans tracking us since we left Brockton. Our Names were leaked to the public, my sister was taken away…"

"Not that that stuck once I froze the Social Workers to the floor and walked out." Aisha snarked from the back of the group.

Wait, was Aisha some kind of Blaster now, huh damned butterflies she triggered way earlier too.

"… and Tattletale kept getting worse. She was seeing things, hallucinating like someone with PTSD. Usually right when we needed her help to get out of one ambush or another. She kept telling us we needed to go back. That it was you. Who do we trust, our thinker, or the same person who she says is doing all this?" Grue said as he glanced back at Aisha.

I looked at Tattletale who had a hat, a hood, lanky unwashed hair and both her hands over her good eye as if seeking to close out the world.

"Right so it's trust me or the person you know, whose power has been on the fritz and not working after she was tortured by the guy my friend killed. The same paranoid Jackass who knew your names and personal information who had every reason to fear people turning on him, thus having all the motive and opportunity to screw you if he bit it unexpectedly. If he revealed your info who is to say Alec's real dad doesn't have one or more of his kids after you, maybe somebody to make you crazy or paranoid, screw with Tat's powers or what the lot of you are seeing?" I poked holes in their theory, frankly trying to figure out who WAS messing with them.

"Actually I suggested that early on but well, I'm an ass." Regent perked up. "Dear old Dad has the ability and the motive." He pointed out, to himself and his team.

"Great so we might have Heartbreaker messing with everyone. Won-der-ful." I thought out loud.

"So are you going to let us go, or are we spider chow?" Whirlygig said in a washed out quiet voice.

"Leaning towards helping you… if you are willing to work with me." I offered.

"Work for the Cthulu spider people out to destroy humanity? Do we get tentacles or fish bits or extra spider legs?" Aisha said only half joking… I think.

"Actually none of that is necessary, but given a recent addition to our team it could be arranged." I said joking myself and considering the horrors Bonesaw had made it might be possible. Thinking of that made me remember the Nine having immunity to Cherish via Bonesaw's work. Damnit if it worked against us it should work for us, just hopefully with minimum creep factor.

"Hey Riley you think you can make anything to make people resistant to Masters, like Heartbreaker and his kids?" I yelled only to have Riley poke her head in the room from immediately outside as if she was just waiting. I shivered as I thought she might have been waiting for us to sick her on the Undersiders.

"Um, yeah I'm reasonably sure I could. I might need some ah, parts, but I can grow them if I need to, it will just take longer." Riley said from the door.

"Holy shit is that Bonesaw! Are you fucking working with the Slaughterhouse fucking NINE?!" Regent exclaimed as the Undersiders came to their feet.

"No, she killed and captured us, I'm just working with her because I'm terrified of her multidimensional monstrosity and she found me and those remaining alive useful to her plans. Don't worry I think she is one of those save the world to spite itself villains so she's actually pretty nice. Also she makes great pancakes, so how bad can she be?" Bonesaw said in a innocent tone of voice.

"Endorsed by the most terrifying goth-loli on the planet, wonderful" Tattletale murmured in the silence that followed Bonesaw's statement.

The Multidimensional Monstrosity spoke up. "Actually I'm fwiends wif Taywer because she already saved the world, but the time twavel bit I did scwewed it up. Sowwy again, but this time you get magic and me so you shouwd win easiwy." Nicce, chain apologizer continued her streak.

"My little girl saving the world as a villain, not sure but I think I'm mostly… proud, little bit satisfied too, knew the assholes in charge would screw it all up." My mom tousled my hair and hugged me from behind in the weirdest bit of motherly attention in front of friends (who were not friends, and Bonesaw) ever.

"OK if you are an evil villain that's going to save the world despite itself I demand an expository monologue where you gloat and explain your backstory and everything to those of us who are utterly lost as to what the hell is going on now.?" Alec demanded. Aisha apparently agreed and gave him a high five for his suggestion. Grue gave the two of them a suspicious look and I could not resist a sad smile, I hoped their relationship would work out better than it had.

I noted that Tattletale stirred a bit and even Grue, after posturing to threaten Regent, also gave a subtle nod.

"All right you guys want a story, I have a hell of one. Mom you and Nicce may want to go get lunch for everybody. Let's see you guys would like, barring butterflies in the timeline..." and I started pointing at each of them and rattling off their usual favorite order from Fugly Bob's. I then asked Riley what she wanted to eat, added her burger, fries and a coke to the list I was writing and sent My Mom and Nicce to pick it up.

"OK, My name is Taylor Hebert, and this is how everything happened last time." I began to tell them the whole story.

XXX

I was just getting to the end bringing them up to our current issues when the food got back. I was wondering what took them so long when I saw my Mom had a few shopping bags full of stuff from a number of places, some basic groceries, medical supplies, a puppy calendar and our food which was still hot, from Fugly Bob's.

"We wanted to give you awhile with your new friends, I was just showing Nicce how shopping is supposed to work while picking up a few things we might need around the secret base. We got the food last and came right back. May I say Fugly Bob's has not gotten any healthier since I had it last; if the grease dampening the bags is any indication." My mom explained as she started unloading.

Nicce handed each of the still imprisoned Undersiders their meal by dropping each bag on a thread in front of them. We got everything but Aisha and Tattletale's meals right, I had missed that the one had pickles and Tattletale's correction of my mistake seemed to perk her up for the first time since I started my story.

Riley who had been listening to the whole story took her food, then began helping mom figure out where everything should go. Her eyes lit up at the medical supplies and an actual kid's chemistry set.

"Only the best for our team." Mom Joked.

"Thanks Miss H." Riley beamed back.

Holy shit was Mom co-opting Bonesaw? It seemed to be working. Trust a mom who had raised a girl and had worked for a supervillain to figure out the way to a tinker's heart. That and the tasty food and I could see my Mom's popularity had skyrocketed beyond my own.

We ate in silence, well except the sounds of munching and groans of pleasure at the shear indulgence of grease and burger.

"So?" I prodded.

"I don't completely trust you, you do tell a compelling story, but it is not the same, some of your story seems off." Grue said contemplatively.

"Yeah you did always trust Tattletale's power a bit too much before the whole bank robbery debacle. I'm still waiting to hear from the rest of you." I commented as I looked at Tattletale.

"I still say we'd never try that." Grue muttered, but he didn't sound convinced anymore.

All eyes were on Tattletale as she stood, a bit of grandstanding on her part, typical. "What she says made too much sense, answered too many problems and fit us uncomfortably too damn well. I'm afraid my power may have been manipulated, wither through a Master..." She gestured grandly at Regent who did a small bow of acknowledgement. "…or by my power picking up some of this weird dimensional manipulation 'magic' you have apparently doomed us all to. There is one way to convince me. Show me this magic is real." She demanded trying to sound tough, I was just looking at her eye the whole time, I remembered Coil having or getting ready to do something to her eye as we came in. She had seemed fine when I left her…

"It got infected, I'll live! GOD would you stop pitying me!" Lisa burst out.

"Sorry and sure. Here you go." I said as I waited for her good eye to focus on my outstretched hand and did my now comfortable BIC lighter impersonation.

"So she has a fire power who cares, it doesn't even look as cool as Spitfires." Aisha immediately complained.

"WAIT, wait! Can you do it again." Tattletale said sounding a tad obsessive.

"Sure give me a minute, it involves some mental exertion on my part so let me concentrate a bit." I murmured the runes as I put them from my shard memory into my personal short term memory for lack of better terms. When I could just about focus on the whole thing at once, almost taste the order and the sense of the runic combination of letters I invoked its power again as an image burned into my memory.

A small blue hologram appeared of the battle with Behemoth showing Regent's last moments, his final act saving Imp. Alec looked on in Horror as Aisha, Brian and all of the Undersiders inched forward in morbid fascination. Tattletale looked at the pale blue obviously false holographic visage of an Endbringer and themselves in super tiny miniature.

"Um you can get a hologram, or a flame, is that all it does?" Tattletale asked as she squinted at the small replaying visage as I held it with concentration through several replays.

"Nah you can do pretty much anything you want, just this one has not a lot of juice so nothing real big or useful. All the bigger more powerful stuff is very, very specific and buttoned down, and complex, way beyond my ability to handle… yet." I informed her. I asked Nicce to grab me a piece of paper and a pen from the next room, they appeared in my hands as if by magic.

"So you are doing it, controlling it consciously, you can actually control what the power is?" Lisa asked for clarification.

"Pretty much, It's all just a mimetic thing you can train your brain to do if you have the talent. It all looks something like this if you write the whole thing down." I said as I wrote out the formulae in exacting precision. As the individual runes were unknown to me it was basically up to my shard memory to faithfully reproduce it. Oddly enough as I looked and formed the individual runes I almost felt a bit of meaning, just how my brain interpreted the signal or something I guess. Maybe they were meant to be pictographs leading the mind to certain thoughts that were themselves the keys to the power, or maybe they represented some deeper dimensional geometry that by thinking about you opened up actual energy channels. From what little I had asked of the two wizards in my house it seemed the answers were somewhat open to interpretation.

I had Nicce hand Tattletale the finished spell formulae, written on a piece of random printer paper.

She looked at it thoughtfully for a moment.

"Tell you what, We will let you go, free meal included. Bygones be bygones and all that. I will explain the whole magic thing as you come up with questions, though I'm still figuring out stuff myself. You help us grab the info off Coil's computers and get us set up we will split the take 80/20.

"50/50" Grue counter offered as he looked at Tattletale, an out being offered that wasn't being turned into the authorities or eaten by spiders and he seemed to jump on it, go figure.

Lisa slowly nodded.

"70/30 and I throw in Riley fixing that whole eye thing, it is REALLY distracting." I counter offered.

"I can throw in something to help you against masters and that will bleed off Thinker headaches, little neural interface on the eye can handle that." Riley said trying to be helpful. By the widening of her good eye and the distasteful wince from Lisa and Brian respectively I think it raised more ick factor than anything.

"Won't they be vulnerable to this master that's been following them if they leave." Annette Hebert, my mom, advisor to super villains, pointed out.

"We can figure out a way to deal with that, especially if we have two members that are immune and a good chunk of cash to work with." Grue pointed out as he looked at Tattletale pointedly. She slowly nodded.

"I was starting to dig the whole eyepatch piratical look too, it would be nice if it stopped itching though."

"It itching is not a good sign, infection working its way into the nerves, could be lethal if not fixed." Riley responded.

"Deal then?" I asked with finality.

"Deal." Grue said and the Undersiders behind him slowly rose and stretched from their sprawl on available crates and seats pulled in from the various rooms in the part of the complex they had been locked in.

I motioned for Nicce to let them out and the webs were wisked off to whatever dimension she stored them in.

XXX

Before the evening was over we had breached Coil's systems, gotten Tat's her eye into working shape with improvements and had a tentative alliance with the teen villain group known as the Undersiders.

Brian/Grue was pretty firm that we were allies, not members of each other's groups. A point of clarification I felt a twinge of emotional pain at, but at least they were no longer trying to kill me.

Mom and Tattletale set to work unraveling Coil's criminal empire and seeing via a selection of calls what was still viable.

Among the contacts I saw what I had been hoping for. Not a direct number for the Dragon Slayers, but at least a line on someone who would know it, or how to get it.

I dialed the number. It rang exactly three times before a measured female voice answered. "Hello who is this?"

"Hello Citrine, this is the Spider Queen. I have a deal to offer your employer. We need certain contacts and information going forward that I believe you have access to. We offer a wide range of services and are willing to make deal. I understand this will require a good deal of negotiation, tell him he can contact us on the land line for the Villain formerly known as Coil."

XXX

In exchange for a rather odd favor, we got all the information we needed to set up a meet with the Dragon Slayers. In exchange we had to do a single, simple, local crime to retrieve something Accord wanted that had been seized by the government. Retrieve an item from The First National.

"I can't believe I still have to do the Bank Job. I'll go early, less chance of all the complications that happened the first time, but what are the fricking odds."

"Time Twavel Sucks?" Nicce asked.

"Yes, Yes it does, worse than the first time because you can see all the stupid stuff coming and get to anticipate all the suckage before it even happens." I explained.

XXX

AN: Edited for lack of repeat. Silly Comp keeps doing that, I think it is having issues buffering or something. Remind me to make smaller posts, it will be easier to post AND edit.

Hey sorry it took longer than anticipated. Work and illnesses have been kicking my butt. The Good news is I have gotten some writing done so the next chapter is ready to go, just trying the whole posting in smaller bits thing everybody does to increase the viability of the Fic.

So... Melkor, yeah he has finally made his (first) appearance.

Oh yeah and the only way I finally transferred all the info was just plain typing it out, I used a template in that I just took the first one I wrote and copied it for the rest, correcting all the stats as I went so they'd be relatively uniform. (Thus the noted mistake.)Last edited: 14/2/2018 Award ReplyReport139DMfromTheAbyss13/2/2018NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Interlude: Sophia Dark Hunter New View contentDMfromTheAbyssConfirmed Dungeon Master25/2/2018Add bookmark#128XXX InterludeXXX

(Sophia Hess)

My week just kept getting better.

First we got the most pansy new Ward imaginable, a damned Master that could at best make you want to get your kid a gift. Bitch reminded me of a beaten ragdoll, slight and with the same sort of reaction to anything challenging her as that waste of space Hebert who had disappeared from school. Jewel thought she was just a precious special little snowflake, yet she flinched and whined if confronted and she just wanted to be friends with everyone instead of doing anything herself.

A useless power for a useless person.

Then the whole damned group of them got snagged by Jackal. Well except for Gallant, but he was as useless as ever.

Then to compound the idiocy the higher ups wanted to keep me and Gallant all locked up and safe from the big bad Jackal so they couldn't get us too.

Maybe if some of the other Wards knew how to fight worth a damn and didn't depend on their powers they wouldn't have gotten nabbed so easy.

"I should be out there hunting the Bitch. Not hiding in here like a coward." I ranted to myself alone in the secure cabin on the Rig.

"Then hunt." The unknown voice whispered seductively.

"What the…" I exclaimed before hard experience kicked in. I had my crossbow loaded and ready to go. I drew and rolled aside tracking for movement, using my senses to detect any movement in the air, an invisible assailant was exactly what I was expecting.

There was nothing there.

"Show yourself Bitch!" I challenged.

"Oh hoho such spirit, such viciousness, I can definitely see us getting along." The voice was soft feminine and cruel, and I don't know why but my mind wanted to describe it as silken.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

"Don't you know, poor thing. If you are alone in the room, talking to someone obviously you are speaking to yourself, your own desires, your own POWER." The voice continued and for the life of me I could not determine a direction. They were everywhere, they were in my head.

My head started to pound and my vision swam. I staggered.

Some part of me tried to resist, I pushed anger and resentment, raw Hate at the darkness in my mind all the while a sweet voice whispered that I should just stop, it was ok. The Hate and the Fear, the source of the hate seemed to redouble and multiply and then all at once it seemed to be over.

The door was thrown open and Armsmaster and several PRT Troopers charged into the room.

"What the hell can't a Teenager get their rant on without assholes charging into their room?" I found myself saying from the floor.

Armsmaster just looked at me, sprawled on the ground. Instead of giving me an answer I was hauled off the floor.

I soon found myself in MS screening and had a full medical checkup.

Partway through my power seemed to think to me. 'Thorough aren't they, they may even have a chance at detecting me, pity. I'll have to go with the light touch. Sophia, I am just your power, your new power. I'm here to help you but you must not tell them. You want to be strong don't you, you want more power, more strength. Do this and you will have strength you can scarcely imagine. There you go, such a good girl.' Everything my power said made so much sense.

So I sat through MS screening. They even let me watch some TV, just news and stuff to see if I'd react differently.

I didn't, My power thought the news about the missing wards was bloody fascinating. Even the commercials seemed to be interesting. My power needed to get out more. I complained and bitched about the quality of programming. There was some talk about me being affected by a power. They kept testing me and I was a little out of it, but I was me. They thought I might have had another trigger. I told them I didn't know, but I did feel out of it.

They talked about the stress of losing all my friends. I had to struggle not to laugh in their faces. I was a goddamn survivor. I was the Goddamn dark hunter, the Real Spider Queen!

XXX

(Sophia Hess/?????)

I was disappointed when the Wards returned. I was still in M/S lockdown, and by the sound of it they would be heading into it. Their story sounded fanciful; no it was flat out crazy. At least till Kid Win broke out the books and books of info, treaties, maps and paperwork about where they had been. He stood before the reporters who were eager to hear what had happened and he said. "We have returned from a journey, we were brought to a planet that the Natives called Renedge. It was another world. Not like Aleph, this was a world of magic and nightmare monsters where monsters of myth and legends walk the land. This was no horror movie though, they had ways of fighting back, methods they had taught us while we were there. Methods we can apply to our own monsters. They wanted to help us, our worlds were alike in they both had monsters to slay, people to protect. Countries and people on the other side are willing to help, they want to help. But the best way to really help us was to show us how to help ourselves."

When the hell did they have time to teach jack all, they were gone a fucking day and a half. I thought.

He continued talking, bastard had a long speech prepared. Kid Win had been brushing up on his speaking skills at least. I barely listened to the speech looking at them instead. The lot of them were in weird clothes and armor with swords and weaponry of a medieval bent. I heard him speak of the existence of magic and how it was returning to our world, but this world had had it like forever apparently.

My power seemed to laugh a wicked laugh at that. 'A world without magic, till now, how… delicious.' It thought in my head.

Vista… wait when the fuck had she gotten tall? Filled out too, she was no heavyweight but she looked like she was about to put on a floor show at the Olympics instead of being the pip in pipsqueak. She moved funny too. I noted my power seemed to sit up and pay attention to her suddenly.

Vista stopped to wave to the crowd and said that the Elves she had been staying with were very nice, and sorry about the faery land treatment but she was back and better than ever. She then did a cartwheel, around… the entire plaza, ended where she began going the opposite direction and gave an audible sigh for the cameras. "Ahhh Good to be back!"

'Fucking elves?' I thought.

'Damned fucking elves.' my Power agreed.

They finished speaking to the reporters that had been camped out in front of the PRT before the Protectorate even got there. They then presented themselves to the PRT. Presenting their paperwork, supplies and weapons to the Director at the door as they entered they continued to smile and wave for the viewing public as they disappeared from the cameras.

"I can't wait to get out of here." I said to myself as I banged my hands on the desk in the M/S cell I was stuck in.

"Indeed we have much to do." The silken voice said showing me visions of power and violence to wet my appetite. With my new power there was a lot more I could do, and there were a ton of unsuspecting people out there to do it to.

XXX

AN: Sorry again for the wait. The good news is I have even more written. Just haven't had time to post on the internet, or be on the internet for more than a few minutes at a time (and I am not trying to post on my phone that screwed up something fierce last time I tried it.)Last edited: 25/2/2018 Award ReplyReport100DMfromTheAbyss25/2/2018NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks The Bank Job - part1 New View contentDMfromTheAbyssConfirmed Dungeon Master27/2/2018Add bookmark#136XXX

(Taylor)

Me, Mom and Nicce left home early. Dad was nice enough to drop us off near Coil's base. He was on his way to some big conference downtown. He said there were going to be a bunch of bigwigs there and looked nervous. He said this could be the meeting that turned the whole city around.

After mom kissed him goodbye his jitters seemed to calm down and he set out with a determined look on his face.

My mom was definitely good at motivating people. I wish I had half her natural people skills.

We went into the base through the 'front entrance'. Though with Coil's base this meant through a maintenance tunnel hidden in a parking garage.

We could have had Nicce just web us in, but mom wanted to see how secure the base was and bring a woman's touch to the whole set up.

We got to where the webs blocked the path, ugly jagged black looking webs. I noted a large rat had died trying to wiggle his way past them.

"Is it air tight?" My mom asked.

"Sort of." I explained. "The original base is airtight and full bio hazard safe when on lockdown, which it is. These Webs Nicce put down are basically holding all the airtight passages shut so nothing should be getting in or out. Even Bonesaw and the rest of the Surviving Nine would, from everything I saw not be able to budge her webs."

"Very nice. Still it looks like we won't be able to get in and out of here without Nicce until you do something about the Nine." My mother gave me a look, like she was telling me to do my homework.

"Well… Nicce can you just web the lot of them in their stasis pods. That should keep them secure." I suggested.

Nicce shook her head violently. "Nuh unh, I alweady got em webbed up good. I don't twust that Bone girl to not betway us and let em all jump us when we come in, So I webbed em inside the stasis pods soon as she stuffed em in there."

"Oooh kay." I said, wondering why I hadn't thought of that. I further explained to Mom "Well we are keeping them because they have pretty busted powers, an since I can use them and their powers without feeling at all bad because well 'Slaughterhouse Nine'. Hell I figure it's a certain amount of justice in having them lose their freewill after they did the things they did, and then do some good with them…" I rationalized awkwardly.

"I'd still feel better if we turned them in, might be some pretty major money in it too." Mom suggested.

"Yeah, bad idea, every damned time the PRT has anyone of any value they escape at the drop of a hat, and they know all about us, better to just kill them." I reasoned.

My Mom winced. "Phrases you never want to hear from your daughter Bingo is going to be a breeze for me from here on out isn't it? I don't agree… but I don't disagree. We are in some murky ethical water here, just so you realize." My Mom gave me a 'don't you disappoint me' stare.

I had not actually missed that stare. I was still getting used to this receiving parenting thing.

"OK, well I was going to take a few of the Nine on walkies, combine their powers into a terrifying amalgam creation and rob a bank quick, before anything can go wrong." I informed my mom of my foolproof plan.

"Uh huh hah… NO!" My mom immediately crushed that plan. "Do you have any idea of how many people could get hurt, if they figure out any of the Nine are involved they will break out the big guns, and you have to stay close to them right, yeah that is a terrible plan Taylor."

My wince was visible and Nicce patted my shoulder in sympathy.

"But MOM! I was going to use my Glass mecha suit with pyro blaster powers courtesy of Shatterbird and Burnscar to establish a criminal identity we could use it as a throwaway identity to get a deal going with Saint to get close enough to shut him down and save Dragon, thus many millions of lives potentially saved." I explained in what I belatedly realized was my whine to mom like a nine year old voice.

"No, if you need a criminal identity to contact Saint, we are already working out of Coil's base and no one knows he is dead, we can use him. If you need to rob a bank do it like this." My mom said with a evil glint in her eye. I listened as she told me her alternate plan. It might take a few days to pull off but it could work. Who knew my Mom was an evil mastermind.

XXX a few days later XXX

"…and that is why we are dressed as girl scouts." I explained to Tattletale.

"What could possibly go wrong?" Lisa deadpanned.

"Well when 'we' did this it was about a month later, we had the whole Undersiders minus Whirlygig, she was a Merchant later, so good save there. Anyway we had a pretty good plan, involved a secret underground escape route and everything. We almost got screwed because Glory Girl and Panacea happened to be in the Bank and the whole Wards team showed up. We fought, managed a win, almost died and escaped by the skin of our teeth and Brian's opinion of your advice never did really recover." I explained in a quiet voice as we chatted in line.

"Ouch I screwed up that bad?" Lisa asked after she sucked air through her teeth.

"Well you couldn't have known about Panacea being in the bank when we took hostages." I informed her.

"Oh I see just how bad that would suck, from silly bank robbers to vile monsters in one act. I'm almost starting to believe your power is coming up with believable alternate histories." Lisa smiled at me looking all too young in the girlscout uniform.

We finally got to the front of the line and were invited to the bankers desk midway back into the bank.

"Good Morning, How can we help the Girl Scouts of America Troup 221." The friendly balding man in a blue suit said as he sat down at his desk and read our matching uniforms.

"Yeah, um, we got a donation as part of our regular fundraising, only it's a…" I stammered.

"Yah this old rich lady like gave us this massive silk wrap thing. It looks hella expensive an we need to wait till who was it?" Tattletale improvised a terrible but believable accent, I found myself trying not to wince from its awful faux ditziness.

"Mr. Herkimer, the father of, you know, Janet." I offered.

"Cha! Yah thas the guy, Anywho we need someplace to put the thing, along with the extra money from donations till we can get the thing appraised and sell it." She just couldn't… stop… ugh I was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

"Mr. Herkimer offered to give us a free appraisal and arrange for the sale, but he's in Europe till next week and no one trusts one of the parents to not have the thing stolen. So we'd like to make a deposit of 1884 dollars and 64 cents, and one big silk… clothing thing?"

"Ah I see, or rather may I see the article?" He half joked. For a middle aged guy I hoped to hell he wasn't flirting with us, or more likely flirting with Tattletale's version of a ditzy valley girl arch-type. I was stuck with the act, just don't laugh or hit Lisa.

I hefted the box onto the table and let out a sigh of exasperation. Opening the lid of the plain cardboard box he saw glittering black silk in a fancy pattern Nicce had copied from a fashion magazine. She had no sense of scale however and had made it more than a bit large. It did look expensive, the little jewel like black knots looked like pearls, well sorta. The man put his hand in a white silk glove and felt around in the box, pausing to admire the material.

"That is a rich cut of cloth, very nice nothing else in the box but some dust." He said as he rifled through the box with a professional manner, gently moving the expensive silk out of the way.

"I'm not sure if I can take it however, you would need the signature of an adult, permission from the troop and an account…" He stopped talking as I took my mother's provided paperwork out of my backpack and presented them to the banker.

"The troop already has an account and you can call to confirm with the account owner, we have a signed form here with written permission for a deposit and you can call the local head of the troop, they were just having us drop off the stuff because most of the relevant adults she trusts are at work this hour and she knows you have to make physical deposits before 9 to get them in the vault." I recited.

"Oh, well then I'll just have to give them a call, and you do know as minors who are not account holders you can't withdraw anything once it's deposited." He cautioned us as he called the number.

I heard him confirming the deposit with the lady on the phone and everything sounded like it was going smoothly.

Tattletale risked a look at me in disbelief as the man talked to the actual, legit head of the Girl scouts of America, Brockton Bay. That she was also an old friend of my mothers and the whole deposit was functionally legit was the funny part. Tattletale was still putting all the pieces together, it was funny to watch.

The man took the parcel and closed it up. Affixing a deposit tag onto it he then placed it on a cart to be properly placed in the vault. We got a receipt and said some polite goodbye noises, stood and started walking out.

"That's it, I thought we were robbing the bank, not giving the actual Girl scouts almost 2 grand plus whatever the silk is worth?" Tattletale whispered angrily at me.

"Oh we just got everything we needed." I explained. "Now we just go back, take the costumes back and we are all set, mission accomplished." I said as we walked towards the entrance to the bank.

"Then why did you even need me?" Lisa looked puzzled.

"Oh we figured you could help sell it with your power… and you did. So mission accomplished, told you it would be easy. Though I think a bit of it was Mom setting me up with a friend to go to lunch with." I taunted as I turned a circle around her considering where we could go to eat.

The unnaturally loud rumbling of an oversized diesel engine was only audible for a brief moment inside the thick walled bank. The crash that followed however was deafening.

Crashing through just right of the entrance a huge tank-like monstrosity ground over the walls, the force of the crash sends bits of masonry and debris flying like shrapnel.

Lisa was quicker than me and threw herself prone. I stood there in shock as a piece of the shattered wall left a bloody cut on my cheek and the shockwave of dust and powdered remains of the mortar blasted into me physically coating me in a layer of white dust.

I dimly heard a sound, it was my own laughter.

XXX

XXX

(Vista/ Missy Byron)

After getting back the fight to keep ourselves, our stuff and our sanity had been rough. It had taken threatening to leave the Wards, The beginnings of a lawsuit, and threatening to arrest Armsmaster for theft to get our gear back from him.

The argument that we were to go unarmed into Brockton for PR reasons was no longer being accepted. We needed the gear to protect ourselves, our city and our world. It was also our own private property and Chris had argued at length using the costuming and equipment provisions for Wards. These provisions allowed for privately provided gear being acceptable if it was better than what was provided by the Protectorate. It was a provision for Tinkers that we were abusing the hell out of.

Armsmaster had feverishly been testing our gear, and had determined it had impossible metallurgy, with qualities that defied normal logic and physics. I laughed when I heard the dwarven made double spear I had that could collapse itself into a wand sized baton had impressed even him with its mechanical efficiency.

That I specifically was going about armed did not make PR happy. That I was now 16 did not make PR happy. That I now could take most of the Protectorate ENE in a fight by myself made only me and myself happy, it also worried them about our time on the other side. We had each told our story under oath, lie detector and Think-tank observation.

That upon being released it had taken us as a group a matter of hours to destroy, put to rest and deal with all the undead we had previously been helpless to deal with was immensely satisfying and made most of the grumbling go away. Say what you would about Emily Piggot, she was willing to do what she needed to in order to get results.

Gallant had been happy to see everyone, and we were already planning on getting him trained up. Adding a tinker made shield and helmet with a stun sword had made PR a bit happier, we had a sort of theme now. Medieval shiny magi-tech. His developing headaches had put him down almost as soon as we got back though, the doctors were still checking him out. At least they ruled out us as a cause, it was nothing we had done as the headaches had started before we got back.

Sophia was another story. She had always been distant and unfriendly, now she was downright hostile and dismissive. She seemed to be trying to prove she was still tougher than us.

When we were told there was a bank robbery by the Merchants it was a no brainer for us to get there in a flash, and prepare to beat some face (non-lethally of course). Sophia was with us, keeping to herself as much as she could, but what else was new.

We got there and we saw the bank had been hit by one of Squealer's tanks. The massive Tank thing was still there blocking the hole into the bank. Two turrets on the rear of the vehicle opened up with what looked like big WW2 style machine guns.

Aegis prepared to get in the way, angling his armor to deflect the shots when I made it a moot point by bending the street up in front of the guns like a twenty foot thick wall.

It was nice to have powers again.

Shadowstalker started moving to flank and circle in towards the bank. Perhaps having taken some leadership lessons, Aegis told her to be careful and let us know if she spotted anything unusual, green lighting her scouting mission since he doubted ordering her to stick with us would work.

I think we were all getting the feeling that something unusual was going on. The Tank hadn't charged or retreated (Though my clever plan of… well 20 foot thick wall, was ready to cover that) or moved since we got on scene and the guns emptied their ammo into the wall non-stop in a futile somewhat stupid gesture even for the Merchants. Yule was having fun talking to the Wards console, currently being run by a PRT trooper. We were keeping them up to date but Aegis was deferring to Kid Win's judgment that we needed to react fast.

We got ready to move up, I stretched things a bit to give Kid a boost in speed as he hovered up and over the wall. Raining a stream of Tinkertech laser shots, he fired for a handful of seconds and managed to take out the guns at the rear of the tank.

I lowered the wall and we charged in staying close. We saw Merchant bodies by the front door, they looked to be either dead or unconscious. Not trusting our luck at this turn of affairs we stayed ready for anything as Chris checked the first victim/perpetrator's pulse.

"He's out cold but alive." Chris said as he kicked merchant's gun away from him, tagging it and the merchant separately to be safe.

That is when we heard the woman scream and the inhuman growl.

We ran over what looked like the usual merchants, all unconscious. There was Skidmark passed out at the head of the foul smelling line. The woman screaming had hidden at the back of the room under a desk. The deformed fat ugly thing looked like something out of a horror movie. It had the white color of a grub or maggot. It was only five feet tall but it was as wide as it was tall with three long spidery arms equidistant around its round blubbery body. It had three long fingers per hand, each ended in claws that looked oddly effective in a crippled deformed kind of way.

I started to stretch space to attack the thing when it stopped in a familiar manner. Clockblocker stepped around the thing, having somehow hit it from the opposite direction and gave the lady a gallant hand up.

Gallant it appeared was going to have competition.

He did not have long to savor his victory as there were more growling inhuman sounds from the entrance to the back. He led the lady, an overweight secretary back towards the front entrance, freezing more merchants as he went just to be safe, confident we had things covered.

A pack of the things waddled out, tearing the doorway larger as they poured out from the employees only area and what looked like a break room. Aegis bravely met their charge, cleaving one down the centerline and having to step back as it melted into a messy acidic pile.

Eww! Definitely going to try to kill them from range.

Kid Win offered the two furthest to the left a shot each and they both melted down similarly.

The remaining group was nicely set up by my team. I stretched the space between each of them and the others then as I swung I momentarily snapped the space closer and my spear swung through with all the force my new gauntlets and my full body spin could put behind it. The dwarven enchanted steel sang a brief note before being drowned out by the gushing burbling of the dozen things I had just cut down.

"You can't escape! " A voice yelled from a few rooms back. We charged in and found ourselves behind another larger swarm of three armed fat things. Herding them forward was a chubby little man with a vest and a unhealthy look to him. He waved his arms crazily and started to chant something about "Orcus will rend your…"

Without giving him a chance to finish I struck.

I was not alone in that reaction.

Two laser blasts, a shield slam, 3 slashes from my spinning spear and a blast of white flame from Yule all the way in the back hit him before he could finish whatever he was about to say… or should I say 'cast'.

The things did not go away when he died. Instead they seemed to go berserk. I twisted the space in the hallway to give us a narrow approach and Aegis filled the gap. We slowly pushed forward, I did little to help, poking past Aegis with my spear when I saw an opening. We had almost finished when a cackling arose behind us.

The ghoulish fat man, despite his horrific wounds stood and gave a scream as he attacked from the rear. Clockblocker met him, freezing his cloak he used it as a barrier to absorb the ghastly things initial charge. Clockblocker spun around and tried to freeze him, but as his hand almost touched the extended warped talon like fingers of the dead fat man he instead froze like his muscles had ceased up and fell over. Turning towards Yule the ghoulish corpse found even a petite two handed sword was a hard thing to swallow. He made a ghastly scream and fell again. Before me or Aegis could move to assist, Yule took another swing and removed the head while chanting a prayer.

The fact that the obscene thing turned to dust didn't surprise us at this point.

We turned to finish the few things left when another enemy attacked from the back.

Man sized spiders gave a familiar scree and I left Aegis to finish the demon things as I turned to greet our spider friends and cover the prone and not visibly moving Clockblocker.

"He got paralyzed, I think it was a ghast. Should only last a minute" Yule said as she rose to back me up.

Then the remaining spiders stopped and retreated. I heard the sounds of fighting outside and the familiar sound of Sophia swearing.

I waited only a moment as indecision was quickly replaced by action. As Durian taught me, do not hesitate, move! Travel in unexpected ways and hit from different angles.

I leapt forward, bending space and doing a bit of parkour to change directions, hopping off walls to launch myself out the door only to find Shadow Stalker confronting a veritable army of Spiders. A few mansized spiders were already down, no doubt victim to her tinkertech tranquilizers. As I approached they were already fading out in what I recognized as a summoned monster disappearing.

I twisted about putting my momentum into my swing as I rounded up the spiders with my power and knocked one out of the park with a big swing. I released the twisted space just in time to avoid a bloodbath as the spiders erupted before also fading.

Sophia looked an odd combination of shocked and self-satisfied. I saw she had a crossbow in one hand and a large survival knife in the other. She had some minor wounds but nothing life threatening.

"How did you piss off the Spider Queen?" I asked innocently.

"Bitch I am… I mean I don't know they were suddenly everywhere. I don't know what happened." Sophia's puzzled honesty was itself confusing.

"Well let's go get this sorted, good thing there weren't any of her big ones right?" I offered in an attempt at camaraderie.

The cold shoulder I got seemed more from self-absorption then her usual crass bitterness. I suppose it was an improvement from her usual.

She followed me back in with the others where we were waiting for the remaining demon to unfreeze and securing the merchants. Clockblocker was on Merchant duty, Aegis on the demon and Kid Win and Yule were helping the survivors who had holed up in a safe room in back. They had been led there by a pair of honest to god girl scouts, seniors or ambassadors if I remembered right, late highschool age. By their badges or lack thereof it was laundry day or they were being lazy about displaying. What?! I had to go to enough of their events both when I was younger and as a Ward for PR crap I couldn't help but pick up some things.

I sidled up to Kid Win and spoke softly. "This doesn't add up, Merchants asleep, Renedge weirdness demons with a summoner who worships Orcus and turns himself into a ghoul. How did a pair of girl scouts hold them off exactly?"

"Looks like the Spider Queen was giving them a hand, few of the people in here said they saw spiders blocking the hall, bugs swarming and webbing the hallway behind them." He mumbled.

"The Spiders were attacking Shadow Stalker out back, she was doing well too, why help in here and attack out there?" I sub-vocalized back.

"…and how did they put the merchants to sleep? Parahuman power or Spell?" He shared a nod with me.

I went back outside just in time to see Aegis finish off the last demon. The LEOs were just arriving and Clockblocker was flagging them to the frozen merchants. I scanned for anyone invisible with my power, getting a sense for the area and seeing where my potential was blocked by my Manton limit. I poked my head out the front, clear except for the arriving police.

Out the rear door it was the same. Inside I was only blocked by my fellow Wards, the only now being escorted out people from the bank, including the two suspiciously competent girl scouts and the few police making their way to secure the building.

I started to follow the line of survivors out, the blonde girl scout met my gaze. "Thanks for the save, is that You Vista? Wow I barely recognized you."

"Yeah I hit a faery magic fueled growth spurt, the Entdrink was quite refreshing and the elves were sarcastic as fuck but pretty nice when you got down to it." I crudely snarked, fishing for a reaction.

"Ah! Well we will miss the old cute you, but it's nice to see you are ok, the whole lot of us were worried when you disappeared. You mean a lot to us girl scouts and we appreciate all the time you spent with us." She said coyly.

Blonde, attractive, exactly the typical kind of girl I would not remember as she blended into the crowd of Vicky clones, unfortunately she remembered me from my visits and that checked out.

I nodded to her and shook her hand and made automatic PR noises then I circled looking for more info.

Her friend who had purple hair and a 'I am still in shock' look was being helped by one of the paramedics now arriving and taken toward one of the ambulances. I noticed a cut across her cheek and she was coated in plaster dust.

As I crossed with my power to the opposite side of the ambulance and came up from a different angle I found myself behind her as the medic went into the back for supplies. The girl sneezed and dusted herself off, seemed frustrated for a moment and I saw the offhand application of what I recognized from my time with the elves as a cantrip to clean the dust off her uniform. The medic did a double take and she mimed brushing herself off. He smiled and applied a clear plastic medical tape over her facial wound while holding it closed.

I ducked back behind the ambulance and hurried to Aegis and Kid Win. Yule was busy seeing to some of the wounded, getting brownie points by being the new 'Wards Healer'. Panacea would love the help, but she was in no danger of being replaced given our healer's limited spell slots.

Clockblocker, having gotten over his paralysis at the hands of the ghoul was handling the PR like the savvy attention hog he had always been. His lessons, whatever they were, (underage drinking and gambling in a den of thieves) had apparently included how to PR like a boss. To my surprise Shadow Stalker was backing him up. Huh that WAS weird.

I motioned for the other available wards and we put our heads together.

"Where are we?" Kid Win officiated.

"We have Merchants who all fell asleep, literally at the wheel in the case of Squeeler. They totally passed out asleep right as they hit the bank. Witnesses say the effect was pretty immediate except for Mush and Skidmark, who jumped out a few seconds later. They called in their backup then, apparently he and the army of puss white three armed guys came charging across the way, him bringing more out on the way. Skidmark and Mush then had the same thing happen to them as soon as they got into the bank. The puss white guys didn't have the same problem and the Bank manager and girl scouts helped herd everyone in back while spiders and bugs slowed them down. Then they started locking doors and making the things bash their way in, which bought enough time for us and giant spiders to show up." Aegis narrated to set a timeline.

"The same giant spiders who then attacked Shadow Stalker. So we have someone in the Bank who could put people to sleep, who ran out of juice and used bug control as a backup. The Merchants attacking the place, then the Spider Queen attacking the Merchants, and Shadow Stalker. Oh and the girl with the purple hair is a wizard of some sort, I saw her use a cantrip when 'no-one' was looking." I informed to complete the picture.

"Ugh this is a complicated mess, so purple hair girl is a wizard, she defended the place from the Merchants. Merchants have a demon summoner as backup, things go south, she falls back on someone with a bug power and hides while calling in the Spider Queen to bail her out, we stumble in and save their bacon. She attacks Sophia cause she looks like a shadow… because it's personal? Because it is a Tuesday?" Chris tried to reason his way through this.

"Need more info, let's ask purple girl to join us. See how she takes the old Ward pitch." I suggested.

"And If she attacks us?" Chris worried.

"Then we deal with it, we need the info." I posited.

"I'll go." Aegis volunteered.

"No…" I said with a smile," …let the charming rogue do his job and spring the trap while we play backup. If there is trouble he is best positioned to pacify the situation. Unless she is into big armor and threatening looking guys, by the way you need to clean up before the Press sees what's left of your enemies all over you."

"Ah good point. Wait why don't we Send Kid Win over?" Aegis asked.

"Because Clockblocker is more likely to be able to detain and incapacitate her if he needs to, is faster for getting away and he claims to be better with the ladies. This I want to see."

Aegis agreed. We sent Kid Win to sick our young Romeo on the wizard girl.

"Where is Stalker?" I asked Aegis when Kid Win was on his way.

"Over there… looks like she is planning on playing guard to the Merchants on the way back to base. Not a bad plan. She seem different to you?" Aegis said thoughtfully.

"Yeah." I nodded suspiciously as we saw her talking to the PRT guards on the transport van.