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Mature
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Graphic Depictions Of Violence
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Gen
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Parahumans Series - Wildbow亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon (Anime & Manga)
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverDanny HebertBrockton Bay WardsLisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
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Canon-Typical ViolenceCanon-Typical Body Horrorshard-altered psychologytags to be added as we go
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Timballisto's Curated Works
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Published:2019-05-24Updated:2020-03-11Words:99,568Chapters:29/?Comments:226Kudos:730Bookmarks:266Hits:29,369
(Restricted) The Shadow Over Brockton Bay
Temeritous
Chapter 7: Lich 2.1
Chapter Text
"And now, allow me to introduce our newest hero, the Ward Lazarus and her minion, Coryn!" Harold 'call me Harry' Miller had what I could only call stage presence , capturing attention as effortlessly as if he had a parahuman power for it.
He looked the part of a Public Relations guy a lot more than Glenn Chambers had, well-dressed in a tailored white and gray suit, a dark blue scarf draped around his neck in deference to the mild winter temperatures.
I was in my own new costume on stage with him: a red bodysuit made of some material that stretched but didn't rip easily, secured around my wrists, ankles, neck and waist with electric blue metal bands. It wouldn't stop punctures or a bullet, but if something blasted me I wouldn't have limbs flying off in all directions. They'd taken my measurements a week ago so it was fitted but not skin-tight; I had flatly refused to wear something that only accentuated my lack of feminine attributes, and the PR woman agreed with me.
My mask was a play on the old plague-doctor masks, covering my eyes and cheekbones with a barn owl pattern, blacked-out prescription lenses over the eye-holes, and extending down over my nose in a beak-like shape. I'd pushed for a full face mask like Clockblocker had, but when they made me choose between a skirt and the mask I'd gone for pants. I had my hair pulled back into a high ponytail with both a hair-tie and a Dust band, both to change the look of my dark curls and to keep it out of the way.
Coryn was dressed up in contrast: electric blue paint, red accents around the face, wings, and talons. I had had the idea to secure her paint by layering more Dust on top once the little particles caught on her rough skin, which meant it all stayed in place instead of blowing or rubbing off. A loose blue tabard with a red abstract pattern of feathers went over her chest, covering the too-thin waist.
The press conference was open to the public, held in Glade Park near the Boardwalk on a mild Sunday evening. Glade was one of the nicest parks in Brockton Bay, largely because the Protectorate funded it for events like this, with a clamshell stage in good repair and working electricity.
I looked out over the sea of faces, reporters with cameras in the front and normal people behind the press line. Somehow, I hadn't expected this many people to show up for some random Ward announcement, even if it had been teased out in local news for the past week.
"Feel like you can talk?" Harry asked out of the corner of his mouth, away from the mic.
I hadn't been sure if I got stage fright, and I'd told him as much. He had a backup plan for if I couldn't say anything.
My heart was beating a mile a minute, almost painfully against my ribs, but at the same time I felt distanced from the situation: like I was watching it from outside my body. Which, through my Dust, I was.
"I can talk," I said, listening closely to make sure that my strange heartbeat wasn't shaking my voice.
Harry queued up his mic again, reminding me that I would have to do the same. "Lazarus and Coryn have a few minutes to answer your questions before they have to go, who wants to go first?"
One of the PRT troopers on security duty for the event hopped off the stage with a corded microphone, eventually handing it to a blond reporter.
"Good morning, Lazarus. Mister Miller introduced your friend as a minion, but would you please elaborate on your power?"
"My power lets me create Coryn," I waved one hand at her, and made her lift her wing and wave back. "She's strong, fast, and can fly, and I can see and hear what she does. There are other aspects to it, but I have to keep some things up my sleeve."
"Like why you chose the name Lazarus?" the reporter asked, a bit coy now. The PRT trooper snatched the mic back almost before she was done talking.
"Exactly," I said. "Next question?"
While another person was being chosen - this time not a reporter - someone in the crowd shouted out, "Any romance brewing in the Wards?" People laughed.
I blinked, stunned wordless for a moment. Harry cleared his throat. "Please remember that all of our Wards are, by definition, underage . Such speculation is highly inappropriate and, in some cases, illegal ."
There was some good-natured booing at that, and Harry smiled tightly. He muttered to me, "Don't respond to comments like that. Nothing you say helps."
"I've browsed PHO and the internet a lot," I told him. "I'm well aware." I just hadn't ever really considered that it might happen to me.
The microphone had made its way to a little boy sitting on a man's shoulders to see above the crowd, clutching it in both hands to keep it steady.
"Um," his voice was very soft. The crowd went dead silent. "What's your favorite animal?"
I looked over at Coryn, over-acting the way I'd been taught to do in costume. I turned back to the crowd.
"I'm a little partial to owls."
"Stopping for a second, Aegis, I wanna try something." I had Coryn wrap her arms around my chest and under my arms, and her legs deformed to go around my waist and thighs in the same way a rock-climbing harness did. I tried and mostly succeeded in keeping her paint in her Dust and off of my costume. When I felt secure, Coryn began to lift.
Aegis paused above me and watched, floating with his shield strapped to his back.
"Awesome," Kid Win on Console said, apparently watching through nearby traffic cameras. "Clockblocker owes me a dare, he didn't think you could do it."
"Guess you figured out the flying thing," Aegis called over to me.
"Kind of," I called back. Coryn's wings beat rhythmically, although I knew they didn't really need to. Dust didn't have weight and it went where I told it to with no regard for gravity; Coryn didn't fly using any principles of aerodynamics, her wings were for show. It still felt more natural to flap them, so I did.
"Not a big fan," I admitted as he came closer. "Flying is nice, but it's not great having all my eggs in one basket. With Coryn keeping me up, I don't have a lot of offensive capability."
"I'll keep it in mind," he nodded. "But you have to admit, patrolling is going to be a lot easier like this."
I could admit that. It was my first real patrol, after a full week of shared console shifts to get an idea of what to expect. Our route was planned out in a rough sense, but we could deviate in any direction for a couple blocks. We weren't allowed to wander into known gang territory without backup, which was easier said than done sometimes. The Merchants, for example, didn't so much hold territory as they just lived everywhere underfoot like cockroaches.
"Just remember if we get any action, you're supposed to keep your distance," Aegis nodded at me, more specifically at my lightweight costume.
"If Clock was here, he'd make you pay for that phrasing," I told Aegis.
He winced. "And I'd just fly away from his ground-bound as-self." No cursing in costume was a memo we got once a week through our Ward email.
"Nice catch," Kid Win said over comms. "By the way, EMS call north-north-east of you, car accident. Services are on the way, but you can get there faster. Sounds like there might be someone trapped in one of the cars."
Aegis took off, at a slight angle with the streets flowing past underneath us. The car accident entered the range of my Dust sensors quickly, and I sent one in to the overturned car.
It looked like a T-bone collision, one car coming out of a nearly-blind alley to slam into the other. The second car was probably going pretty fast, as it continued farther down the street and eventually wound up upside down. The car from the alley was sitting empty, engine off but lights on, only bystanders around it.
My sensor in the overturned car found a dark-skinned woman hanging from her seatbelt, arms splayed limply against the roof. There were more gawkers gathering around her car, but none of them were moving to help.
I relayed this to Aegis and Console as we approached.
"Empire territory," Aegis muttered, scowling. "Even if they aren't in the Empire, they can't afford to be seen helping one of the coloreds . I'm going to see if I can get her conscious, you keep the people back and see about finding the other driver."
Coryn dropped me between the two cars and then went over to Aegis at the overturned one, keeping the rubberneckers back with her wings flared as a barrier. I scanned the crowd with a dozen eyes, looking for someone with injuries, someone moving funny. No luck, so I spread my net wider, looking for someone leaving too quickly.
A couple alleys away, I found a man limping along steadily, cursing with every step. There were stains of blood in the corners of his nose and mouth, and a faint powder all over his upper body: the airbag released powder as it deployed, and the force of it hitting had given him a nosebleed.
"Found the other driver," I reported. "Alley between... Clayton and Broad. Can I send Coryn to detain?"
Console was mute for a long minute, while I shifted from one foot to the other in agitation. The man was slowly approaching the end of my range.
"Confirmed, apprehend the suspect," Kid Win said. "I told the police to send a cruiser that way, so just hold him there. Coryn has a flare for them?"
She and I both had five red flares attached to our belts as part of the standard hero loadout. "Yeah... okay, I have him secured. I'll bring him to the sidewalk and flare it."
The man was spitting and cursing at Coryn, but I ignored him. Hit-and-run scum had nothing important to say.
"Lazarus, come help me with this woman. She says her neck is fine, but I need you to pull her out while I lift the car," Aegis said. I vaguely remembered hearing him and the woman talking through my sensor, but of course while I was concentrating on Kid Win I couldn't listen to them too.
This was a problem I needed to work on. If I can multitask a thousand Dust motes at once, I should be able to split my attention between two conversations.
I went to Aegis, took hold of the woman's wrists and felt her grab mine in turn, and together we managed to pull her from the wreck. She was alternately trembling and stuttering thanks at us as she scrambled farther away. I watched, but the car didn't seem like it would explode the way movies had taught me it would.
An eighteen-inch piece of rebar stabbed into Coryn's chest like a spear. She staggered, rotating her head to see where it had come from; outside my range, I saw a figure floating on a cement slab coming toward Coryn.
"Rune of the Empire is coming up on Coryn's position," I reported, taking a step away from the victim and looking at Aegis. His expression was resigned.
After a moment, Kid Win came back: "Pull her back to your position, Lazarus. Do not engage with Rune." Another beat, and he explained, "You're in Empire territory, there's no backup nearby. Don't antagonize her."
I hated the injustice of it; she got to pick a fight, and I had to back down? Had I left high school bullying for the high-stakes world of cape bullying?
No, fuck that.
"Fine," I agreed. Coryn spread her wings and took off, flying back to Aegis and me.
With the hit-and-runner still in her talons, wrapped up like I had been a few minutes ago; Kid Win hadn't said to leave him behind.
The first Aegis knew of it was the sound of screaming coming from above us as Coryn circled while I cleared a spot for her to land. Through the eye-slit in his helmet, he gave me a withering look.
"Sorry, was I supposed to let him go first?" I asked, pretending not to understand. "Also, incoming." Rune was following Coryn.
"Console, please advise," Aegis asked, watching Rune approach.
"Uh... I've directed backup toward you guys, Assault and Battery ETA eight minutes. Try to retreat south-east if you can."
"Retreating. Lazarus, drop the suspect."
"You sure? They're still pretty high."
He glared. "You know what I meant!"
"Console, please advise EMS that I'll be leaving the suspect restrained near the scene," I waved to the dark-skinned woman, motioning her to come over. "Hey, this is the guy that hit you. He's tied up with zips right now, already pretty beat up. Don't hurt him, and hand him over to the police when they get here. If someone else tries to rescue him, uh, don't fight them."
"You can't just - Jesus! Let's go!" Aegis gained something of an accent when he was exclaiming in surprise. Rune had sent two more bits of rebar rocketing into the ground near us.
Either her aim was shit or those were warning shots.
"Yeah, let's lead her away." I sent Coryn up, joining Aegis in the air. "You fly, I'll run. Coryn can do more without carrying me."
"Fuck off!" Rune shouted at us as her slab floated closer, shooting out two more bars from under her hands. There seemed to be an ample supply gathered in a hollowed-out section of the slab, which she touched with her power as she knelt for balance.
She couldn't be allowed to keep those, I decided. I sent Coryn toward her, chasing as she dodged in all three dimensions. We were pretty evenly matched for speed, but her power didn't seem to cancel out momentum; she didn't change direction as fast as I did. Coryn latched on to the edge of her slab and crawled forward.
It was only when Coryn had a handful of rebar that I realized the flaw in this plan: if I dropped it from this height, I might just kill someone myself.
"Aegis, you ever played catch before?" I asked over comms, panting from the effort of running.
"You gonna throw her ammo at me?"
"Yeah, get below. I'll go a few at a time, hold them together with Dust."
"Got it. Be careful."
Careful or not, Rune couldn't do much to Coryn. She was beating my minion with two more bars, one in each hand, but having little effect. Coryn clung to the concrete slab with little vine-like tendrils of Dust, so there was no shaking her off. She was also shouting something I wasn't paying much attention to, but I'm sure I heard her drop the n-bomb a couple times.
Rune darted forward, trying to tag the bundle of rebar as Coryn dropped it off the slab, but wasn't fast enough. She did see Aegis below waiting to catch it, and pointed both her current weapons his way.
He could probably survive getting impaled by those, but I didn't want to risk it. "Aegis, dodge!" I shouted into comms, as I split off the bottom half of Coryn to intercept. Both halves reformed into Coryn's default shape, although smaller.
The second Coryn - Nyroc, I'd call her - had taken half her paint, but it wasn't as evenly distributed. Abstract swirls outlined just the vaguest shape of her as she dove after Rune's projectiles. Nyroc caught both of them, but apparently Rune still had hold with her power because they wrenched themselves upward, out of my grip, and then came right back.
Aegis had caught the first bundle of rebar and deposited it safely on a roof, and was flying back up for more. Rune tried to get at her ammo, but Coryn had spread a wing across the hole and Rune had no way of getting through, nor the strength to lift it up. She shouted in frustration and the slab started to drop, toward a lot more options for her power.
"I got her ammo, grab her," I panted to Aegis. "And then run."
Coryn watched as Aegis tackled Rune off her slab, both of them clinging to each other for Rune's life. The slab still gave chase, now rotating freely but still under her control. Coryn scooped the remaining rebar up and dove for the ground just as the slab turned upside down and would have dumped them.
"Console," was all I could say, out of breath as I was. The two bars Nyroc had been chasing were inert again, and I rejoined my two minions.
"Someone flare up for Assault and Battery," Kid Win ordered. "It's dark, they can't see you."
I had Coryn light a flare and stick it in her back. My body moved along at a pathetic jog, falling behind.
I need more Dust. Enough to carry myself without Coryn, at least.
"Let's see how you like being taken hostage," a voice snarled to my left. Hookwolf was standing in the middle of the street, his metal mask glowing under the lamps. He ran at me, arms morphing into a mass of blades and fish-hooks.
I cut my open comm-line, so that it would only let sound through when I tapped it. The others needed to focus on Rune, not get worked up about me.
I tried to dodge, but Hookwolf's mass clipped my wrist and sent me spinning with the force of the blow. My whole left arm went numb; a quick assessment told me it was a shattered radius and ulna and wrenched elbow, but everything was still attached.
"The heroes are just getting more and more pathetic," Hookwolf growled, transforming even more. Metal covered his chest and crept up his neck. "Can you even do anything but stand there?"
My options were limited: Coryn was helping Aegis and her flare was leading backup right to them. The other Dust was great for surveillance, but grouped together it was only about a fourth the size of Coryn and not nearly dense enough at that size. If I pulled it into enough density....
I stood holding, from my perspective, a short black knife. The cutting edge was one speck of Dust, as thin as I could make it, but I didn't know how thin that translated to in real measurements. I always know where every mote of Dust is, but separated down to its smallest possible pieces, I can't see it anymore. That tiny, it passes through everything - which is how it can heal me even when my body is crushed under another object. The downside is that Dust only gets strong when there's enough of it packed together.
Hookwolf saw me with my right fist clenched and held awkwardly in front of me. I raised my left hand, fighting through the pain to make a 'come on' gesture. That limb was radiating alternately hot and cold up to my shoulder, which was difficult to ignore.
"I'll give you back to them in pieces!" Hookwolf snarled, lunging forward on all fours. I held my ground, closed my eyes, and stabbed forward blindly with my knife.
I didn't feel the impact of the knife, just the impact of him hitting my hand; I thought he'd slowed down, knocked my arm out of the way. Then the rest of his weight came crashing into me head-on, every blade cutting deep.
Thirty seconds . Everything had slowed down, gone cold. I recognized the feeling of weakness, the darkness gathering at the edge of my vision; this was blood loss, and I had about thirty seconds left.
The knife.
It was there in Hookwolf's chest. I had hit but felt so little resistance that I thought I hadn't. I pulled it out, using my power instead of my hand - which was actually no longer attached to me anyway. Hookwolf grunted, shifting on top of me. Not dead, then. I tried, but I couldn't get the force or the leverage behind the knife to stab him again without using my own strength. Whatever lets me move my Dust, it doesn't give me enough force with such a small amount.
And then I was dead, and I was only Coryn.
I slammed into Cricket again, wings flaring out to either side to confuse her echolocation. Her kama, lost a few seconds ago, laid abandoned behind me. I swept my wings closed around her and took off, up into the sky.
There was Stormtiger in Assault's face, and Battery trading blows with Victor; Aegis still held Rune, high in the air where neither of them could really join in the battle. She had her arms wrapped around his grenade belt to stop him from reaching them, and was... biting his arm. He seemed content to allow this as long as it meant he could keep a grip on her.
There: some space was opening up between Victor and Battery as Assault came in to give her time to recharge.
I hope for your sake that Othala's healing is as good as they say, I thought, and then I dropped Cricket between them.
She landed feet-first in front of Victor, letting out a ear-piercing noise that had everyone present cringing and covering their ears. Only Aegis seemed unaffected - and me, of course.
I landed over her, Coryn's wings flared protectively in front of Assault and Battery, beak open to issue a silent threat.
" I thought Hookwolf was taking care of the Master ," I heard Victor mutter something through one of my sensors. It made as much sense as any speech did while I was asleep.
There was a moment of tense silence where it seemed like they might try to keep fighting, and I clenched Coryn's talons into the asphalt for grip. Then Stormtiger burst out with some exclamation.
Through the Dust around my body, I saw that the ribbons were almost done doing their thing. I collected the excess, but there wasn't much. Hookwolf was fully conscious again, as my regeneration had sliced off the pieces of him still in my flesh.
Hookwolf coughed, staring down at my corpse; blood came up with it, but nowhere near what it should have been. I came back into my body with a deep breath, my eyes flicking open and staring right at his.
"Try again." I told him. "Keep trying. Stay here while I kill all your friends."
Without another word, he swung a sword-arm at my neck and took off running. I could see Aegis in the sky, accidentally marking the site of battle for him, and then I saw Aegis start to fly away.
Victor and Stormtiger closed defensively around their fallen teammate; Coryn picked up Assault, and Battery took off with enough charge to shoot herself at least four blocks away. Once my head reattached, I rolled to my feet and turned my comms back on to hear the rendezvous, setting off at a refreshed jog.
Rune captured, Cricket out of commission for a couple days; this was an unconditional win as far as I was concerned.
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