A Darker Path
Part One Hundred Five: Debriefing
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
An Hour Later
PRT ENE Conference Room A
Atropos
"—yeah, I'm totally in town, but a funny thing happened on the way to the PRT building, so I won't be able to come see you until tomorrow. Yeah, sorry, it's a hero thing. Um, no, I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell you. Pretty sure they're gonna talk to me about that now." I watched as Flechette glanced around at where everyone was carefully not listening to her end of the phone conversation. "Yeah, me too. I mean, you too. You know what I mean. Bye."
Leaning back in my chair, with my feet up on another chair, I typed out a text of my own, to Parian.
Sorry about accidentally leaving Amy stranded in Philly. I have it on good authority that they're flying her back up right now, along with the other three. Totes my bad. I underestimated an asshole, but now he's dead so all's well with the world. See you next Saturday. Toodles.
The funny thing was, she'd probably think I was talking about an ordinary garden-variety asshole instead of the mega-bitch variety that Scion had been. (I mean, seriously, who mopes about their dead partner for thirty years instead of doing something constructive with their life?) The irony being, the thought of me killing
anyone would leave her entirely unsurprised and unalarmed.
Raising my head, I turned and caught Vicky's eye. "Brace yourself," I murmured.
Her eyes widened, but she only looked slightly alarmed, probably due to her post-adrenaline crash. "What? Why?"
Right on cue, the door to the conference room opened and her parents burst in, Brandish in the lead. "Vicky! Are you okay? Where have you
been? We've been so worried!" The last words were muffled, due to mother embracing daughter fiercely, but I heard them anyway.
"Y'know," I drawled without moving from my relaxed posture, "if I were the type to get offended easily, that might actually upset me a little. Relax. Unclench. Everyone did their jobs, and we all came home safely. Except the bad guy. He
dead."
Flashbang stared at me. "Who were you
fighting? Why did you need three other people to help you fight them?"
I raised a finger. "End. The word is
End. I don't do battles where the other guy gets to walk away, unless I planned it that way from the beginning. As for who it was and why I needed other people … well, that's what this whole gathering's about." I gestured down the length of the table, to the other people already sitting around it. "Grab a chair. Park yourselves, and pin your ears back. You're about to
learn some shit."
They retrieved chairs from the (sadly depleted) row that had been put up against the wall, and sat down on either side of Vicky. Flashbang took his turn to hug her, while Brandish wasn't finished with me yet. "I also got a call from Amy. The PRT's having to fly her and three other capes up from Philadelphia. If the battle's over, couldn't you just teleport down there and get them? You've gone farther than that before."
"I could've … if I still had my teleporter." My finger was raised again, to forestall her next words. "And while you'll absolutely be signing an NDA tonight, that bit's not on it. I'm just going to ask you nicely not to tell anyone about it, mmkay?"
Which of course put the seal on their lips more securely than any NDA could. After all, violating one of those pretty pieces of paper would only bring legal penalties. There were any number of
illegal penalties that I could (and would) inflict without a second thought, and they damn well knew it.
"NDA?" asked Flashbang next, looking confused. "What in the world have you been doing that requires an NDA? Unless we need to be informed about the secret identity of an important cape?"
I had to chuckle. "For a very specific definition of the phrase … yes." Scion's secret identity as '
the big bad who wanted to end the world' would indeed be revealed to all. "But I'm not the one who's going to be running this show. Think of me as the peanut gallery." Raising my hand, I snapped my fingers just as the conference room doors opened again. "Ta-da!"
"Hello again, Atropos." Chief Director Costa-Brown entered the room, with Legend at her side. "It's good to meet you face to face at last."
We both knew (as Legend did) that I'd met
Alexandria face to face when the Boat Graveyard got un-Graveyarded (and un-Boated, for that matter), but we were all going to politely ignore that aspect of matters. So long as she didn't stomp in my mud puddle, I wasn't going to stomp in hers.
As a show of common courtesy (I am totally capable of that, and anyone who says otherwise can bite me), I lifted my feet off the chair I'd been using as a rest, and stood up along with everyone else in the room. "And to you too, Chief Director. How's Wilkins doing?"
A corner of her mouth quirked at the reminder about the idiot ex-New York Director. "Everyone, please, sit." Her attention returned to me. "She's warming a cell. Contemplating her misdeeds. And you? Quite a feat you pulled off tonight."
"Team effort." I gestured toward where Missy sat with her parents, Ashley had Dad alongside as her union rep (not that this was a union situation, but moral support was totally a thing), Lily sat with Triumph and Armsmaster, Dragon's face showed up on a computer screen, and of course Vicky was flanked by her parents. "I can honestly say that I couldn't have done it without them."
"I'm personally astonished that you pulled it off
with them, but we'll get to that." Costa-Brown turned to Director Renick. "Paul, you've got the NDAs all ready to go?"
"Yes, ma'am." That, at least, was no surprise. For all his inexperience in handling the PRT and Protectorate in emergency situations, the man was a past master at admin and paperwork. "I've already signed mine." Picking up the stack in front of him, he started around the table, dropping one at every place. "Please, take your time reading the conditions before signing." That everyone would sign was beyond a doubt; already, people were picking up the pens that had been laid out on the table ahead of time.
Dragon had no doubt already electronically signed hers, as had Director Piggot, who was observing the proceedings via her own screen. The latter was being looped in due to the fact that Lily had been there and might need someone to talk to about it later.
"I had my doubts when Emily designated him as her successor," Costa-Brown murmured to Legend, too softly for either Renick or Piggot to hear. "But the man definitely knows how to anticipate orders. Wilkins could've learned a thing or two from him."
In my opinion, the number of things Wilkins could have learned from Director Renick would've filled a stack of encyclopedias, but that would've also required her to be willing to learn.
As they took their places at the head of the table, Director Renick came up along my side, still handing out the NDAs. The last one was placed in front of Brandish, then he went back to his seat.
"Excuse me." That was Brandish. "I believe you missed Atropos."
I could have sworn the soundless gasp from basically everyone else at the table lowered the air pressure in the room significantly. The thought '
Oh no, she didn't' had to be going through every mind. I turned my head and gave her what she had to know was an amused look. She responded with the closest I'd ever seen to someone poking their tongue out at me, without actually doing it.
Director Renick raised his eyebrows slightly. "Everyone at this table should be fully aware by now that if Atropos chose to violate the terms of the NDA, there isn't a single thing any of us could do to enforce it on her. Likewise, I trust her word implicitly. If she says she isn't going to spread any of it around—and she's already assured me as much—then she won't."
Brandish's tone was pure lawyer-bland. "Well, if you say so, that's good enough for me."
I knew what she was doing; from the look on Dad's face, so did he. As a lawyer, if Brandish hadn't called out my lack of an NDA, it would've looked bad for her. So she mentioned it, knowing full-well that Renick (or perhaps Costa-Brown) would shut her down. But she'd crossed the T's and dotted the I's, and that was all that mattered. Her ass was covered.
The room fell silent apart from the subliminal hum of the air conditioning and the gentle rustling of pages being turned as the people around the table read their NDAs. Soon, this gave way to the equally quiet noise of signatures being scribbled on paper. In the meantime, I amused myself by checking the messages on my phone.
Foremost among them was one from Cherie. I'd already notified her that I was fine, and she was now replying.
You ran off and killed someone who desperately needed it and left me behind? You suck. On the upside, hanging with Tenebrae and Miss Medic was actually pretty cool. TB's all kind of hunky, had you noticed? MM's noticed me noticing. She's already told me that if I hurt him, she'll carve out my spleen with a rusty spork. I like her. She's fun.
I would've chuckled out loud, but that would have then involved me explaining the humorous aspect to everyone there, and that would be tedious, so I didn't. Instead, as the last person (Brandish, naturally) finished scrutinising her NDA and signed it, I put my phone away and pretended to look attentive.
Director Renick cleared his throat. "Well, then. If you could kindly pass the NDAs up? Thank you."
When the stack on my side of the table came my way, I handed it on, then watched as Chief Director Costa-Brown squared them all in front of her. "Thank you all for coming here on such short notice," she announced. "Some of you will be aware that Atropos took Vista, Glory Girl, and … do you still go by Damsel of Distress?"
Ashley shook her head confidently. "No, ma'am. I do not. On the worksite, I'm Ash. Otherwise, I just use my real name."
"Thank you. Atropos took Vista, Glory Girl, and Ash, along with some others, down to Philadelphia for an informal meet and greet with several patients from the Parahuman Asylum there. A few hours later, she left very quickly, with the capes I have mentioned. Also, some people will have heard about the cape battle that took place south of the city this evening, starting a small forest fire and destroying a section of highway. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and the fire has since gone out." She looked over as Dad raised his hand. "Yes, Mr Hebert?"
"I've already contacted Accord." I had to hand it to Dad; he'd gotten used to having an infamous supervillain as his planning coordinator really, really fast. "He's in the process of adjusting his plans to deal with the highway situation as we speak."
"That's good to hear." It was better than just 'good', and we all knew it. Anywhere else, that sort of thing would be held up for weeks while committees looked it over. If that section of highway wasn't sorted out by lunchtime Monday, I'd be astonished. Replanting the trees ashed by Scion's last big hit would probably take a little longer, but that wasn't my problem. "Now, all this came down to the thing we're going to cover here tonight. There has been, since the demise of the Endbringers, a secret that the highest echelons of the PRT and Protectorate were made aware of by Atropos, and that we've been necessarily keeping from the public. Specifically, the still-active members of the Triumvirate were filled in on it, as was I. Nobody else. Legend?"
"Thank you, Chief Director." As Legend took over talking, he glanced at me. I knew he had to be hoping that I wouldn't spill the beans at this late juncture, but he had nothing to worry about. While it hadn't been my idea to run with '
Atropos figured it out and told us' as opposed to '
we knew all along and kept it from everyone', I found it hilarious that they were giving me all the credit in order to save their butts from being raked over the coals. "If everyone can look at the screen, please? Yes, that's Scion. What we didn't know about him until very recently was that he wasn't the hero everyone saw him to be. In fact, his ultimate aim was to destroy the world."
He paused then, to let his words sink in. Around the table, everyone who hadn't been there was reacting with appropriate shock and surprise, including Dad (who'd already known, because I'd told him). I was fully aware that Alexandria was scrutinising everyone around the table to see if anyone was faking their reaction; I
also knew that Dad was drawing on his power to convince everyone in this group activity (especially Alexandria) that his reaction was genuine.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave …
Flashbang was the first to speak up. "If it wasn't Atropos telling us, I wouldn't believe it. He was the first hero, and the strongest."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." My tone was light, but I meant every word. "His sheer level of power should've been a clue, right there. Who just shows up with all the powers, then never talks to anyone, especially if they're the
first one with powers? Every cape I've ever seen with more than one power literally can't shut up about them."
A chuckle ran around the room, somewhat rueful in the case of the adults. Even Vicky had to hide a somewhat embarrassed smirk. Evidently, there was enough truth in what I'd said to remind them of when they first got their powers.
"Yes, thank you." Legend had the humility to join in the general mirth. "Your point is well made. In any case, once Atropos had informed us of her awareness of his intentions, we did a little careful digging of our own, and found enough corroborating evidence to back her up. The trouble then was that we had no way to deal with him. He'd already demonstrated enough power to take down any cape, or group of capes, that we might field against him, and that was assuming we could convince enough heroes to go up against him, on minimal evidence. Chief Director?"
Costa-Brown nodded, taking up the narrative once more. I had to admire how neatly falsehood was being meshed in with reality; if I didn't know what was really going on, I might've even been taken in by it. "When I spoke with Atropos on the matter, she assured us that we didn't have to worry about it, that she had her own plans for dealing with him. Understandably, I was a little dubious about it, but she
had just destroyed an Endbringer in front of dozens of witnesses, and made it look easy. So there was that."
"Can I ask exactly what these plans consisted of?" asked Armsmaster. I had to give him credit for his restraint; he'd clearly been straining at the bit since he first learned that Scion had been killed. "
How did you do it?"
This was my cue. "I Ended Scion the same way I End all my other problems. I brought the right weapon along. Some people call it '
making it look easy'. I just go with the rule of the seven P's. Proper preparation, et cetera." I paused to make sure he didn't need me to explain the rest of it. He didn't (no big surprise there) so I kept talking. "I'd already made connections with the five capes I needed to help me out, so once I noticed Scion starting to pay hostile attention to me, I made sure to have them all close at hand, or at least available when I needed them. Glory Girl for her force field, Vista for her ability to shuffle space around, Ash for her Blaster ability, Flechette for her ability to charge items to cut through anything, and Dragon to give the rest of us mobility. This meant that when Scion made his move, I was able to scramble the troops, collect Flechette, then get close enough to insert a charged blade right where it did him the least amount of good."
As I spoke, footage started to play on the wall-screen at the far end of the room. It was from just as I'd gotten within range, and jumped at him. He caught me around the throat, which hadn't been the most pleasant of experiences, then my voice came across, rough and raspy, but just barely understandable. Someone (probably Dragon) had gone all-out with separating it out from the engine scream. "
Hey, asshole. Existence is a privilege." Then, of course, I stabbed him, and he popped like yesterday's soap bubble.
Vicky turned to me, eyes wide, as voices rose around the room. "So
that's what you said!"
"Holy fuck," agreed Ashley. "That was even more badass than I thought it was."
"Wait." Legend had his hand up, like a student trying to get the teacher's attention. People quieted as he spoke. "How was Glory Girl's force field supposed to help? It only covers her, nothing more." He paused as he saw exactly how smug Vicky's expression was right then. "… doesn't it?"
Brandish and Flashbang shared a startled glance. "Well,
I thought it did," Brandish said. "Victoria?"
Vicky sighed, faux-modestly. "So, it turns out that if I'm encouraged
really strongly by someone as terrifying as Atropos, I'm actually able to push my field out to cover whatever vehicle I'm riding in." She glanced at me, and I knew she was going to leave out any reference to the Shard Bar. Probably a wise decision, all told. "It still pops when it gets a good hit, but Vista was able to help us play keep-away until it came back."
Mr Biron (we hadn't been introduced, but that didn't matter) cleared his throat. "Are you really sure you needed her? She's
twelve, for crying out loud! Way too young to be going into combat against capes like
Scion!"
He shrank back as I turned to look at him—it appeared he and his wife remembered my one visit to their home quite vividly—but when I spoke, I kept my voice mild. "In a word: yes. We literally couldn't have done it without her. I'm very,
very good at what I do, but there comes a point where no amount of skill can beat overwhelming opposition. With me at the controls, Scion couldn't use his combat precog to predict where we were going to be, but he
could simply saturate the sky with his attacks. Every time we took a hit, Vista made gaps where there were no gaps, until Glory Girl's force field could come back online. She
saved us, time and again."
Missy raised her chin. "Can I just say something?" I bowed slightly and made a
go-on gesture, so she stood up. "I just want to say that even though I had no idea what I was getting into, and I was terrified the whole time, I'd do it again. Because it needed doing, and because I knew Atropos wouldn't put us into any danger she wouldn't go into herself, and
she always comes out alive. That's all I wanted to say." Carefully, as though her knees were shaking, she sat down again.
I took a deep breath. "Thank you, Vista. Your dad's right, of course. You're too young to be going into life-and-death combat of any kind. So's everyone else here. I'm about the only one who's
not going to be psychologically affected by it, because my power's already desensitised me to the idea of killing. But the trouble is, when someone like Scion
needs to be permanently stopped, someone's got to do it. The paradox here of course is that you don't want to send proven killers to do your killing, because they might get a taste for it. You need people who don't
like killing, because they'll stop." I gave her a serious nod. "And if you ever need to talk about what happened, I'm no psychologist, but I recommend Jessica Yamada. She's pretty good at it."
Missy nodded. "We've met. She's nice. You think I should?"
I gave her a thumb's up in lieu of a smile. "Couldn't hurt."
"Thank you, Atropos and Vista." Legend effortlessly took up the ball once more. "From what I understand, Scion wasn't human, or even remotely so. He was keeping the majority of his body hidden in an extradimensional space?"
"Yeah." I gestured at Ashley, across the table. "That's what Ash was along for. Well, that and keeping golden boy honest while we were retrieving Flechette. If she hadn't been along for that bit, he would've come up on our ass and splattered us. But once we got into his home space, she just
wrecked him. Doesn't matter how good the rest of us were. We wouldn't have done one
tenth the damage she did. And then we got out by the skin of our teeth, just before the whole place blew."
By the time I finished, Ashley was visibly sitting straighter, enjoying my praise and the stares of everyone else. Then, like Vista, she steeled herself to speak up. "Uh … can I say something now?"
The Chief Director nodded. "Certainly you may." I hid a grin; she was definitely learning more than she'd expected from this.
Ashley cleared her throat. "Yeah, well, I just wanted to say that none of this would've happened if Atropos hadn't turned my life around for me. Got Panacea and Miss Medic and Flechette there to fix my hands so my power worked right, then got Mr Hebert there to bring me into the Betterment Committee, then got Scapegoat and Teacher to fix my head. If anyone had told me back when I first tried to sneak into Brockton Bay …" she broke off, frowning.
"January eleventh," I offered helpfully. "Tuesday. You got off the bus at three in the morning. I'd spent the night blowing up drug stashes."
"I remember that," murmured Armsmaster, just loudly enough for me to hear. Every other hero at the table nodded, as did Director Piggot. This didn't surprise me. Operation: Drugs Are Bad had been memorable, intentionally so. Using drugs to make a mushroom cloud—
twice—sends a message.
Fuck off with that shit.
"Yeah, that's the one." Ashley nodded. "If anyone had told me then that you'd ask me to come gank the biggest baddie there was in two months and one week, I'd think they were nuts. And I'd probably try to kill them, because that's how I was back then."
"Thank you for that, Ash." Legend bestowed his trademark warm smile upon her. "I'm truly pleased to see that you're doing better. And thank you for your part in this. We all owe you a great debt of gratitude." He gestured around the table. "Each of you, in fact. Flechette, did you have anything you wanted to say?"
Lily blinked, then nodded. "I … I guess so. I came into this halfway through, but I've been through enough with Atropos that it was just a matter of '
oh, we're doing this now?'. I'm glad I could help out, and that we got it done, and that Atropos trusts me to
get it done. Like Vista said, I'd do it again, in a heartbeat." She spread her hands. "Um, yeah, that was it."
"This is the girl, by the way," observed Vicky, "that when Atropos said to jump out of a chopper mid-flight, she jumped out of the damn chopper." She gave Lily an admiring glance.
"What?" asked Lily, sounding defensive. "You caught me." I got the distinct impression that she would rather not have had that come up any time soon.
The Chief Director cleared her throat. "Be that as it may. The time has come to discuss exactly how this is to be presented to the public. We have four options before us: first, we have no idea where Scion may have gone to; second, we put forth that he had to go back to his people, gave a moving farewell, and left; third, we tell the truth; fourth, we tell the public that he recently turned evil and had to be put down."
I briefly raised my hand. "Or fifth, we use the bit about how he's always been evil, but instead of me being the only one to figure it out, we tie in that secret organisation Cauldron. Say it was formed way back when to counter him, but they're incompetent as hell, so when I showed up, they were glad to stand back and let me take care of him."
Legend visibly flinched at that (at least, it was visible to me) and I was pretty sure I could hear Chief Director Costa-Brown's tendons creaking as she clenched the fist that was out of sight under the table. "Ah—" began Legend.
Director Piggot snorted. "
That last one actually sounds the most plausible, to be honest. The only problem is, who do we use to stand in for agents of Cauldron?"
Dragon spoke up at that point, her voice briskly professional.
"Easily done. A dark silhouette against a bright background, with the 'C' logo showing, and run the voice through a modulator. I could put together a sample shot in five minutes."
"Oh." Flechette raised her hand. "And it even makes sense that Cauldron supposedly sells super-powers in a bottle, if they're trying to put more and more capes out there for an army to fight Scion." She sounded quite pleased with herself; meanwhile, Triumph looked like he wanted to hide under the table.
The Chief Director shared a glance with Legend, which I interpreted as,
okay, what the hell. Let's run with this. They weren't happy, but if they pushed back too hard, people might start asking why. "We can do that, yes," agreed Legend, then hesitated. "Ah, Atropos, I don't think there'll be a reward this time. There was no publicly perceived threat, you understand."
"Like I keep telling you people," I said with an exaggerated sigh, "it's never
been about the money. It was about making Brockton Bay a nice, safe, prosperous place to live, and I intend to keep it that way." I shrugged. "Besides, the Betterment Committee has a very solid revenue stream for the next ten years, and I'd be astonished if Accord doesn't include plans for some of that to get invested for ongoing passive income thereafter."
"That is indeed in the plans," Dad confirmed. He looked around as people started edging their chairs out and preparing to get up. "So, was that it?"
"It appears so." Legend stood up. "Thank you all, for helping out with this. Remember, what you tell anyone must line up with the story we'll be telling the public. With Dragon's assistance, 'Cauldron' will be presenting a TV spot in the next few days to announce their thanks to Atropos." The smile he gave me wasn't even forced, which just confirmed my suspicion that he was a nice guy, even in defeat.
The Chief Director's jaw muscles, on the other hand, could probably have cracked granite.
"Well, that works for me." I stood up and pushed my chair back. "It was really great working with you all. I hope it never has to come to that again, but if you want to hang out, I'll be down on the Boardwalk next Saturday for the Rogues' Guild show. Toodles." Opening the conference room door, I stepped out, heading for the elevator.
Behind me, I heard the door open and close again. "Atropos!" Legend called. I pretended not to hear him. The elevator was already on this floor (mainly because I'd pre-programmed it to be) so when I hit the button, the doors interleaved open immediately. I stepped inside.
"Atropos!" This time it was the Chief Director. I could tell she was pissed about the dig I'd made at Cauldron. Well, it sucked to be her.
I jabbed the 'door close' button, and my view of the corridor was cut off.
<><>
YOU TWO CLOWNS KNOW WHAT I WANT. IF YOU DON'T PLAY BALL, I WILL COME OVER THERE.
DO IT NOW.
<><>
Legend
Using just a little of his flight speed, Keith made it to the elevator before it started moving, and pressed the button to open the doors again. Rebecca was just behind him, fuming. He knew she wouldn't make any hostile moves against Atropos (because she wasn't
stupid) but she still wanted to have a few sharp words; without her teleporter, Atropos would have no quick way to duck out of it.
The doors opened.
The elevator was empty.
Keith shared a startled glance with Rebecca. "What the
hell?"
She had no answer, either.
<><>
Atropos
I stepped out of the Doorway into my living room, and smiled.
It was so
nice when Ending could help me reach an understanding with people.
I wouldn't use it often, but I could see it coming in handy from time to time.
End of Part One Hundred Five
