Omake
Help me, Bro. The words on the screen chilled Brian's heart, just like they had years ago. That's all that she said. That's all Aisha had ever needed to say to get him to come running.
He was already half-suited up by the time Lisa finally answered her phone. The new 'Philadelphia branch' of the Guild wasn't fully operational yet, as it was only a few days ago that they'd even had a proper lair-headquarters, he reminded himself-but in the first shipment of supplies included some surprisingly well-made costumes. Or perhaps not so surprising; Dragon's involvement alone meant that they had the kind of budget that their former mystery employer could only dream of. Still, the undersuit of bulletproof spider silk and flame retardant dyes that Slate wore was far better than the best motorcycle leathers that Grue ever had, and the various sensors and the like his helmet had were, if not Tinkertech, very helpful in keeping track of dangerous situations.
"Hello?" Lisa asked, sounding more than half asleep. She'd been working on a mystery project that she refused to talk about ever since the new secure computers came in, which had resulted in her working particularly strange hours lately. "Fuck, what time is it?"
"I got a text from" what should he call her now? Aisha? His sister? Who? He hadn't really seen her since the camps, and even then neither of them were really in the best headspace. He wanted to curse Taylor Hebert for taking his only living family from her, just as he wanted to thank her for making sure she was at least cared for. What kind of guardian could he be if he couldn't even remember his own sister half the time? "your friend from camp." He said with barely a hitch in his voice. Most people wouldn't notice it, but Tattletale-or Inquisition now, he supposed- certainly did. What it told her, he wasn't sure. Probably not something he wanted to share with anyone right now, and he sure as hell didn't want her sympathy at the moment. "I'm going to check it out."
"Give me..." Inquisition paused for a second "five minutes to see what's going on." There was some sort of program Dragon had provided which summarized various information sources for her, everything from news broadcasts to the local APB bulletins to the Guild-Protectorate databases. Lisa'd called it her little crystal ball, and had barely left it alone since she'd gotten it. Given that he'd need that much to get everyone roused, he was willing to grant the time. It wasn't ten seconds after that that he was pounding on Alec's door, probably harder than he intended. "Suit up." Slate called, passing by on his way to Wyld's garden.
The Garden was, by Lisa's unofficial decree, off limits to anyone who wasn't Amy unless she invited them in. So far, the only one who'd gotten an invite was Sabah, so Brian simply rapped his knuckles on the sealed greenhouse with as much politeness as he could muster at the moment. He'd seen the inside of it once; the interior was like the ground floor of some alien rainforest, dimly lit by glowing bulbs, vines that twitched in time to some unseen heartbeat...the lizard hindbrain of Brian Laborn told him not to enter there, and the rest of him didn't care to disagree. He tried not to think about what it said of Amy Dallon that this is where she felt the most comfortable spending her time.
He tried very, very hard.
"Slate, there's something big going on at Protectorate Island." Inquisition's voice came through the phone. "There's some sort of safeguard on their tinker-tech stash that triggered, and Bezezal seems to have gone off the reservation. Apparently whatever's going on someone felt that they needed to make a shake-and-bake black hole to stop it from getting worse."
"Have we been activated?"
"No. Dragon's not answering, Papyrus is currently in the Belgian Remanent dealing with the Blasphemies, and The Seminary is under lockdown after some sort of Stranger event in the Congo." That meant that according to their organizational charter, they weren't allowed to intervene in any ongoing crisis as part of their probationary status. This had been made abundantly clear to the Undersiders when they'd joined on. Dragon was willing to equip them, support them, fund them, train them, even help smooth over their previous 'legal irregularities', but what they were getting was not a free pass for their time spent as villains. The four of them were effectively under a sort of community service, and would not (in the words of Director Sampson) "rampage about his town willy-nilly".
He could walk out the door anyway. The Undersiders were more loyal to him than they were to Dragon or the Guild, and Amy would follow Lisa's lead, while Sabah would follow Amy's lead. He would be breaking every agreement that he'd made with the authorities, possibly throwing away the chance to finally become Aisha's legal guardian...but she'd be alive. Alive and happy, even if he wasn't part of her life.
Like you're a part of her life now? A cruel line of thought asked. Ignoring it, he turned to Amy who had just opened the door. He could lie to her, tell her that they'd been activated. He could even just tell her that they were moving out, she probably wouldn't ask. He wouldn't need to ruin it for everyone, just himself.
"Yes?" She asked, with her arms folded over herself self-conciously. She'd been crying again, which made him uncomfortable on a pretty basic level, but he took his reservations and emotions and locked them up for now. It probably wasn't healthy, but it was unsettlingly easy to ignore distracting things like 'emotion' and 'moral qualms' if it helped with The Mission.
"There's been a black hole at Protectorate Island." Slate said bluntly. "Dragon isn't answering, and everyone else is tied up so we aren't activated." Her eyes went wide at that. He wasn't sure how she'd react to the news; on the one hand, she was a wallflower by preference, but one raised by a family of heroes. Smart enough to read between the lines, at least; the Undersiders weren't allowed to go off the reservation without permission from their parole officers.
Amy Dallon had never been an Undersider.
"...please, my sister needs help." Brian said softly. It was hitting below the belt, and probably undid weeks of Lisa's efforts to make her emotionally stable to even passingly remind her of Glory Girl's death, but fighting dirty had kept Grue alive, and it helped Slate now.
"A-alright. Give me a minute to get ready."
--
Maestro's minion of choice today was another of Wyld's creations; more plant and fungus by volume than meat, but with a close enough approximation of a human nervous system for Alec to wear it like a puppet. Tonight's disposable meat-thing was ejected from a chute in the side of the Garden from some...thing that had caused Alec to joke about 'pod people' and Amy to flinch. Inquisition would stay behind and monitor the situation with the helmet-cams and drones that Dragon had provided, while Skein traveled with Wyld on some sort of giant sunflower creature that could probably do very unlikely things, which left Maestro to be carried by his 'pod person' and Slate to hold tight to Feral's waist as they rode Brutus to the gathering point for heroes that Inquisition pointed them towards.
Hold on, Aisha. Please.
