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Parahumans Series - Wildbow亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon (Anime & Manga)
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Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverDanny HebertBrockton Bay WardsLisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
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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:29,370
(Restricted) The Shadow Over Brockton Bay
Temeritous
Chapter 10: Lich 2.4
Chapter Text
Downtime with the Wards wasn't what I expected.
I don't remember what Emma and I used to do for fun. I remember a lot of pretend games, a lot of me reading while she talked in the background. Looking back, I wonder if our friendship only existed because it was convenient. She wanted someone quiet and agreeable, and I wanted a buffer between myself and all the other kids. It made sense that I picked Emma, having known her my entire life through our fathers.
The Wards were a strange combination of professional and childish. If there were any adults in the room, or anyone watching, we all stood up straighter and put on our 'hero' faces. Vista especially wouldn't unwind for anything - she barely even cracked a smile when Clockblocker made a joke.
They did homework together, talked about school and teachers. I sat with them, my books open, and I responded when someone directed something at me, but words didn't flow as easily for me as it seemed they did for the others. Their complaints about teachers annoyed me - why complain? It helped nothing - and I couldn't hear gossip about another student without wondering what they'd have said about me , if they were all at Winslow. And somehow despite all of that, I wanted to like them and I wanted them to like me.
Something is broken inside me, maybe always was. Emma threw it in my face enough, calling me psycho or autistic or retarded, whichever she felt was fitting that day. There are times when I think that I see people clearer than they see themselves, and others when I can't puzzle out anything at all.
At least Emma taught me to be silent, and consider how every word could be used against me.
I was beginning to think that that might be a double-edged lesson, because my silence seemed to be making the others uncomfortable: awkward pauses falling after I spoke, because I had said too little.
"What about a movie?" Carlos suggested. "That Aleph import series came out with a new one, I haven't seen it yet."
"Oh, the magic one? I've been trying to get Vicky to go, but she's not interested in them." Dean put in.
Dennis groaned. "We always wind up seeing a movie. What about doing stupid kid stuff, like spray-painting a dick on something? I need to live a little."
"First of all, illegal," Carlos put up one finger, counting off. "And second, you know why. Jesus, if I think about what the boss would do if we got caught…."
"Have an aneurysm," Chris suggested.
"Come on, you've all seen her. Heart attack, for sure." Dennis grinned, miming Piggot's large form around himself.
"Why are we talking about going to see a movie?" I asked Missy as an aside, my voice low. I'd thought that the blocked off schedule on Fridays was for training, especially when I got the group notification to meet everyone here on the Boardwalk in front of the bridge to the PHQ.
"Mandatory time off. They used to say we couldn't even hang out together, but then some idiot realized how stupid that was. It's not like we make a lot of non you-know friends." Missy rolled her eyes. "Why'd you ask? I mean, I love the job and all, but it's good to just get out and relax."
The constant forced boredom of school was enough relaxation for me; I wanted to leave and go do something. I wanted interesting, something to capture my attention, and I knew that experimenting with my power or going out as a cape would do that. It seemed like I was probably alone in those feelings.
"Got a better idea than a movie? What do you do for fun?" Missy asked it a little too loudly, drawing the attention of the others.
"I read, mostly," I said. "I haven't seen any of that movie series you were talking about."
"So that's out," Dennis announced. "Hands up for getting into trouble?"
Only his hand went up, although he did reach over and grab Chris' wrist to raise it. Chris jerked his hand down and hit him with the back of it.
"I don't mind starting at the end," I volunteered.
"If you have questions about it, you can just ask," Missy said. "I don't mind filling you in, I've already seen it." She scowled momentarily, as if thinking of something unpleasant.
"Movie it is. And dinner after? Dennis?"
Dennis sighed and patted his back pocket, where his phone was sticking out. "Yeah, I can do dinner. Gotta go right after though."
The movie made about as much sense as I'd assumed it would, starting off right in the middle of a confrontation. The magic it depicted didn't seemed to be based on any specific cape power, and everyone could use the same spells; it was strange to think that multiple people could share the exact same power. Wouldn't that get boring?
I didn't wind up asking Missy anything, mostly because what I did understand of the story had swept me up in it.
Dean complained after, "I can't believe they ended it there! Do they know how long it's going to take us to import the next one? Have they no decency?"
I found myself smiling, feeling a little more charitable about him. He seemed much more real when he wasn't putting on a hero-show.
"I told you you wouldn't like the ending," Missy said, kicking lightly at his ankle. "Can we do Fugly's for dinner? I'm starving, I need my whole week's calorie intake."
"Counter-offers?" Carlos asked, looking around our loose group gathered outside the theater. I'd noticed that even 'off-duty', he tended to take up a leadership position naturally. "Okay then, Fugly's it is. I'll start working on my arteries in advance." He started us walking down the boardwalk toward the infamous restaurant.
"Cheater," Dennis mumbled, checking his phone at the same time. "I'm gonna have to eat fast, maybe just some grease fries."
I wondered why he alone seemed to be on a time limit, and checked my own phone: seven thirty. A bit late for my own dinner schedule, but I was hungry.
As we walked, Dean drifted away from Missy and closer to me. His head tilted in. "Hospital visiting hours end at nine," he nodded at Dennis. "He wants to go see his dad."
Oh, god.
"I'm - I'm sorry," I stuttered, flushing and hating the heat in my face.
"It's fine, he doesn't mind people knowing, he just doesn't like having to tell them. Anyway, I'm just telling you so you know it's not us he's trying to get away from."
"What is it?" Dean seemed willing to share, and I couldn't help the morbid question.
"Been fighting cancer for a while. Not sure of the specifics." Dean was uncomfortable now, for some reason.
"You don't need to say anything else," I told him.
He sighed, wordless for a long moment. I watched the others, Chris thumping Dennis on the back for some comment he'd made, Carlos shoving his head down for the same. Missy walked alone between them and us, somehow dignified and quiet and thoughtful even though she was the youngest.
"It's not that," Dean said, eventually. "I'm dating Victoria - Glory Girl. And Panacea is her sister."
I got it immediately. "So why hasn't his dad been healed?"
"He hasn't asked. I've… kind of brought it up once, felt it out. With, you know," he waved one hand, indicating his power. "And she shut me down. I think he needs to ask her directly."
I thought about that for a moment: having the power to heal but making a person beg for it first. Or even just making them ask .
I think Dean must have felt the rush of disgust that brought, because he said quickly, "I don't blame her, really. Her power is hard on her, there's a lot of demands… the same as any of us. She's a good person, she just needs to set boundaries so she can live her own life."
I shoved my emotions away into Coryn, circling above us, and tried to think sympathetic thoughts to replace them. That , I said to myself in a strange doubled train of thought, is exactly the problem with Dean. He doesn't blame anyone for anything, and some people need to be judged.
"Still," I said, catching sight of Fugly Bob's glowing half-lit sign. "It's kind of a shit thing to do."
He didn't respond. I figured that he had to agree, but couldn't say it.
When Dennis ducked out of Fugly Bob's early, I followed because I was tired and wanted to get home and be alone. Through my Dust I saw the group close in behind me, returning to the previous conversation about other movies they'd seen. Dean's eyes followed me out, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking of.
Dennis was walking quickly, forcing me to jog to catch up with him. Heading for a bus stop, I realized, and slowed down a bit. The next bus wouldn't be here for a few minutes at least.
"Hey," I said. "What number are you waiting for?"
"Following me home? You're not good at being a creep if you come up and talk to me." He grinned, but it looked a bit tired. "I'm waiting on three," which I knew, already. Three was the only one on this route that went by the hospital. "You?"
"Six, then ten. I've got a while to go yet. Hey, whatever happened with your… thing that happened last time we were here?" I meant his second trigger, but of course I couldn't say that. You never knew who might be listening.
Dennis sighed. "Some extra testing, new ratings, that sort of thing. I should've kept it secret, like you did. It was annoying, and Piggy got on my ass about separating from you, and I've got an extra session with the therapizer when one blows through."
Right, I'd forgotten about the 'highly encouraged' therapy. I chose to focus on something else. "You call her Piggy?"
He grinned at me. "Yeah, I mean… she practically begs for it, y'know? The blond hair, how fat she is… It's Miss Piggy from Sesame Street. See it?"
"I do now!" I was going to have to fight to keep a straight face the next time I was in front of her, imagining everything she said it Miss Piggy's voice. "God, why did you do this to me? I have to work with her."
"It is your last initiation," he said, expression fake-solemn as he placed one hand on my shoulder, stiff-armed. "Now that I've shared the forbidden knowledge with you, you are truly one of us."
For a moment I wanted that so intensely that it stunned me silent, and I didn't respond in time.
Dennis removed his hand quickly, clearing his throat. "Um, I wasn't trying to hit on you or anything. Sorry, made that weird."
"No, I think I'm the one who made it weird," I laughed, thought it definitely sounded forced. My Dust cloud would be whipping my clothes like the wind right now, if I hadn't shoved the radius of it so far out. "Sorry, it's just you guys are my first friends in a while… sometimes I don't know what to say, and I don't want to say the wrong thing. So, um, when you said that the only thing that popped into my head was 'Dean told me about your dad' and that would have been really bad."
"Yeah, that's always kind of a mood killer. Don't worry about it." Dennis looked down at his feet, kicking the sidewalk as he shifted them. "He's been sick for a while, so - I'm used to it. It's whatever."
I felt like I should say something comforting, but what could I say that he hadn't already heard?
A lot, actually. I'd come to terms with death a couple times now, first my mother's and then my own, and I knew, always hanging over my head, that someday my dad would die… and I wouldn't. Dennis could understand better than the others, but I didn't think there was any good way to put the words I know how you feel; I'm going to outlive all of you; I have no choice .
"I already tried using my new power," he said after another awkward pause. "And you know, I think it could work? I took him back through a whole day in a minute. Made him throw up, but it added a day, and I know I could've kept going. And he doesn't want it !"
I didn't flinch, mostly because I'd incidentally trained myself out of flinching with a lot of my experiments. Still, his sudden shout took me off guard and caught the attention of a couple walking across the street; he didn't seem to notice.
"He said he doesn't want to live through the last few years all over again, just to end up back at the start still with leukemia and the whole thing ahead of him again. He doesn't want to fight anymore. What kind of fucking bullshit is that?"
I heard, behind Dennis' words, the same things that a younger me had grappled with: still convinced that your parents are all-powerful, all-knowing beings, you have to believe that if they're gone it's because they didn't want to stay .
I eventually had to realize that my mother was human, that no amount of willpower could have saved her, but Dennis wouldn't have that comfort. His father was choosing to die rather than suffer and fight.
How much pain, for how long, would it take to make you give up on life?
Shouldn't his family measure up against that? And if it did, if he had put his pain and his son against the measuring stick, Dennis had come up short.
There was nothing I could say to make that better.
Silence fell around us, Dennis breathing harshly and turned away from me. From the way he swiped at his face a few times, I thought he might be crying; if I was younger and this was Emma, I'd try a comforting hug. While I was considering that, the bus pulled up and I lost my chance.
"Sorry 'bout all that," Dennis said, speaking up over the noise of the engine and brakes. His voice was half-choked, and he didn't turn around to face me. "Didn't mean to put that on you. See you later."
"See you," I echoed, and stood there to wait for my own bus.
"What's on the schedule for today?" Dad asked, catching sight of me over his coffee cup. He had a half-finished plate of scrambled eggs in front of him, framed by the uneaten crusts of his toast.
I opened my mouth to reply and was interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. "Meeting. Did you know heroes have meetings? The allure is fading."
He chuckled. "Meetings are a universal thing. Wherever people try to organize, meetings happen. What's it about?"
"There's a weekly briefing on the state of the city in case any of us missed stuff. Who's where, what's new, who's on vacation - that sort of thing."
"Heroes take vacations?" he sounded surprised. "I've never heard of that. I guess it makes sense, though."
"Yeah, they organize it specifically so you don't notice. Can't have the Nine dropping in because they heard Legend took a vacay to the Bahamas." I found the orange juice in the fridge, and pulled it out to drink straight from the carton. Dad didn't complain only because he never drank it.
"You gonna eat that?" I tipped my head at the rest of the eggs in the pan.
"Made it for you."
I plated it, and sat down across from him at the kitchen table. I reached over and stole his crusts. "Wasteful."
His smile was soft and a little sad: mom used to do the same thing to him, I remembered belatedly. "I was going to eat them, you know."
"Mhm," I mumbled, using a piece to scoop egg onto my fork.
I decided to use the PRT's transport service to get to the PHQ, calling for a car from my phone. A countdown started, telling me my generic cab would arrive in about twenty-five minutes.
I used the time to gather up a bag, including my costumes and the notebook with my notes on my power. I had vague ideas about transcribing it so that people could stop asking me the same questions over and over again.
Twenty minutes later, a car pulled up with a taxi light on top of it and blacked-out back windows, and my phone chimed at me. I shouted a goodbye to my dad and dropped in, scooting across the seat to make room for Coryn. She pulled the door shut behind us.
"This thing have a divider?" I asked the driver. "I need to change."
As an answer, a black panel rose up.
Changing in the backseat of a moving car wasn't something I'd done since trips to the pool when I was younger, and I'd been smaller then. I wound up having to break Coryn apart to make room for myself, sending her Dust out through tiny cracks in the car to follow along behind. She'd just have to put her costume on once we were on the rig.
I met Aegis in the lobby, also already in costume and masked up; this part of the PHQ was still nominally public-access, although there wasn't anyone here right now. He noticed the floating tabard next to me.
"No paint?" he asked, a smile in his voice.
"Not unless I wanted to get it on me, too. I think I'm going to have to ask for another way to color her, the painting is getting tiring."
"I'm sure PR can come up with something. C'mon, our room is this way."
He led me to the meeting room, opening the door to reveal that we were not the first to arrive; I hadn't expected Aegis to meet me, being so early. I'd thought that I would be waiting in the lobby for someone to escort me, which was why I had a book in my bag as well.
Miss Militia was already there, in costume but her scarf pulled down; she gave me a smile and nod in greeting, then went back to talking to Triumph sat beside her around the large oval table. Then there was Assault and Battery, the former a lot more alert than the latter, and Dauntless bent over his phone on the table tapping at the screen rapidly.
"Aegis, Lazarus," Assault nodded at both of us. He leaned back in his chair as far as it would go and held out a hand upside-down toward Coryn. "And Coryn! High five."
Bemused, I made Coryn tap his fingers with her foreclaws.
"Yes! Love to go flying with you again sometime." He stopped, thinking for a moment. "Somewhere without snipers, of course."
"So I'm beginning to understand where Clockblocker might be getting it from," I said to Aegis.
"My little protege," Assault grinned, then flinched. "I mean… I'm trying to be a good role model?"
My Dust had seen Battery kick him under the table.
"What's Dauntless doing?" Aegis asked, taking a seat next to Battery. I sat next to him, glad that I at least didn't need to wonder which chair I should take.
"Still playing that crab game," Battery said. She was clutching a steaming travel mug, and used it to cover a wide yawn. "Sorry, had the last patrol."
"So did I, but I don't have an aversion to caffeine, so I'm fine," Assault said, sounding too smug. Battery kicked him again, but he must have absorbed it with his power this time.
"I use it when it's important, which is why it still has full effectiveness on me," she countered.
I sat back and listened to them bicker for the next few minutes while the others filed in. Clockblocker and Kid Win stumbling in at the end of a race that had taken them from the front door to the conference room, Gallant and Vista with Velocity, talking about the same movie we'd seen last night. The last to arrive was Armsmaster.
"Good morning," he said, going straight to the massive screen at the front of the room. He tapped, waking it up, and touched his phone to the corner. The screen remained a blank gray, but I assumed that it had done what he wanted, because he then sat down at the head of the table. He took a quick glance around the table, eyes catching on me and then moving on.
"The villain groups in the city remain largely unchanged, barring our acquisition of Rune from the Empire. We faced some reprisal from them this past Monday in an unannounced attack on Lazarus and Clockblocker on the Boardwalk, during which Clockblocker was shot and had a second trigger. A sketch of the shooter, suspected to be Victor, and details on the investigation are in this briefing email." He touched his phone, and a chorus of vibrations and pings rose up around the table. One eyebrow raised up. "Please keep your phones on silent for meetings."
He continued while Kid Win, Dauntless, and Velocity played with their settings: "There have been unconfirmed sightings of a villain matching the description of Circus from upstate New York, but given her constant costume changes it could easily be a new villain or rogue of our own."
"I got something there," Assault broke in while Armsmaster was taking a breath. "Me'n Battery ran into her on this patrol while she was casing out a jewelry store on Lord Street, chased her off just by showing up."
Armsmaster nodded. "I'll put it in our weekly report that she's in town." He tapped his phone again, and the screen behind him lit up with a satellite map view of Brockton Bay, important streets and landmarks outlined in red. "The villains' claimed territories haven't shifted much, although you'll note that the Merchant presence in the Docks was beaten back by Lung and Oni Lee. Coil's mercenaries seized a full block into Empire territory sometime after Rune's capture, and while there hasn't yet been a response from them we can expect fighting to break out in the area soon. I'll be increasing Protectorate patrols through the block."
I figured it would probably be useless to ask if the Wards would be allowed to patrol there: we were allowed to fight if we happened upon one, but they didn't like us to go looking.
"Velocity and I encountered and broke up an Empire fighting ring early Friday evening," Armsmaster nodded at Velocity, "So this hasn't been a good week for them. Stormtiger and Cricket escaped, Cricket's injuries seemed fully healed. We can probably expect increased Empire activity in response, once they answer Coil's insult."
Armsmaster went on with the briefing, and I found myself surprisingly focused: it was interesting to see the connections between things, the factions shifting balance. Tattletale's team even got a mention: they had been active for far longer than my research on PHO indicated, at least six months at this point, but they had always been fairly low-profile until recently when they hit a payday loan business and were intercepted by police, eventually making away with tens of thousands and some media coverage.
The media was calling them 'the Undersiders'. I wondered who had chosen that name.
"A brush-up on their known powers is also available in your briefing emails for later," Armsmaster said, a wrapping-up tone in his voice. "That's all I have for this week. Does anyone have an issue to raise or something to add?"
Aegis raised his hand. "What's happening with Rune? The last teenaged parahuman we caught wound up on the team."
Armsmaster's mouth thinned at the mention of Shadow Stalker; not well-liked by anyone, apparently. "She's a villain, so that obviously can't happen here. She's been given representation both by a public defender and the Youth Guard, and after being informed of her options has chosen juvenile detention out of state."
"What were her other choices?" I asked. How many options did they give to villains?
"Joining another Wards team on the West coast, with restrictions," Armsmaster replied.
I wondered who came up with that idea, and if it ever actually worked at reforming anyone.
"If there's nothing else?" A pause. "Then that brings me up to assignments for the week. Patrol schedules have been automatically generated and posted, please remember not to print them out ," Armsmaster sent a withering look at Velocity, who became instantly interested in the ceiling, "The assignments have been optimized for power synergy so, as always, there will be no trading shifts without a very good reason. Aegis, the schedule you submitted was approved.
"Lastly, Rune's prisoner transport will be departing tomorrow night. Some of the Wards will be covering the usual Protectorate patrol to free up Miss Militia and Dauntless as escorts."
He stopped; the mood around the table had turned grimly resigned. "I expect a full assault by Empire Eighty-Eight, something to gain back the losses they faced this week. I also fully expect that we'll be able to repel them and maybe take some of them in. Dragon has a Birdcage transport with Hookwolf's name on it."
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