- Location
- Australia
Meanwhile, Sophia saves Emma, and she becomes a bitch within a week.*Considers Skitter*
...Delayed effects?
They harass Taylor for eighteen months, and she only becomes a hardass bitch after Sophia goes to juvey.
How delayed do you want to make it?
- Location
- western US
maybe it was just surpressed/less-noticeable during the bullying (hard to be a sophia when your being stepped on all the time)
then, once it was over, it comes out again?
huh; this is a interesting twist on canon. I like this fanon.
- Location
- Australia
Actually, I know why it didn't work on Taylor.
It only targets non-parahumans.
That's why none of her teammates were affected.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
That would be another way of saying it works on everyone but the parahumans have shards that say "no" to the power that does the Mastering effect. As soon as they got powers, they became immune.
As for Taylor's exposure, if the mastering is keyed to the use of Sophia's phasing power, that would be a very low value for Taylor who was actively avoiding Sophia in general. Madison could be taken as not knowing Sophia is SS, but SS flexing her abilities out of line of sight as an in joke with Emma. Exposure without revealing things.
Note: I was fully ready to let this die on the vine, but Ack himself continued. Trying to be clear it isn't a rule breaker; I will steer clear if he decides that enough is enough.
- Location
- Australia
It's definitely an interesting twist that could be taken for a fic in its own right.
- Location
- Bosnia
Oh man! I bet that's when Ravager hatched the 'HIRE SH9' plan to get rid of MP, and no wonder at all! I'm just surprised she didn't second-triggered.
Part Eighteen: Communications
- Location
- Australia
Earning Her Stripes
Part Eighteen: Communications
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Taylor
I dusted my hands off. "Okay, first things first. We have to locate Sophia right the fuck now. As it is, she's a danger to Dad, and I'm not gonna let that shit stand. Also, Dad, I'm thinking you're going to have to go to a motel or something for the next few days."
Dad nudged me. "Can I make a suggestion?"
"Absolutely." I was good for any and all suggestions right then. As boldly as I'd grabbed for command, it wasn't exactly something I had much—or any—experience in.
"Sophia's a danger to more than just me." He paused, waiting for me to get it, then went on when I gave him a confused look. "As far as she's concerned, Emma and Madison just turned on her. She might just go after them in retaliation. Emma, you and Madison need to call your parents now, explain as much as you need to, and tell them to get out. Does Madison have any sisters or brothers?"
"No," Emma replied. I knew that her sister Anne was attending college in Boston, so she'd be safe at least. Pulling her phone out of a pouch on her belt, Emma paused. "What should we tell them?"
"Whatever will get them out of harm's way as quickly as possible," Dad said grimly. "We should really have done this before we opened the door for the police."
I nodded. "Right." He had a really good point. "Emma? You'd better make those calls now."
Shadow Stalker
It should have worked.
It should have worked.
It should have worked.
Sophia would've been muttering to herself, but she was spending more time in shadow form than otherwise, and speaking was impossible in that state. As it was, she gritted her teeth (when she had them) and clenched her fists (when they were able to be clenched). She was pissed off to a degree that she'd rarely reached before, and it was all down to Hebert, Emma and Madison.
The plan had been perfect. With Hebert's father dead, the bloody knife under her bed would've made it an open and shut case, especially once the cops found her prints on it. Hebert would've either wimped out and let them arrest her like the dweeb she was, or she would've put up a fight. And that was when the heroes (being her, Emma and Madison) could swoop in and take her down. Winslow plan, version two point oh.
But Emma and Madison … Sophia didn't even know what was going on there. They'd been down for fucking over Hebert … hadn't they? Oh, sure, there'd been that bullshit over stepping back for a bit, but that was surely about Emma flexing once she'd yanked the top spot out from under Sophia. They had no reason for going soft on Hebert. If there was one, Sophia would've known about it. She was perceptive like that.
She paused on a rooftop to catch her breath and regain her bearings. There was no roar in the sky to show that Madison was airborne again, and Emma's armour pieces caught the light from various angles, so she couldn't be as sneaky as Sophia.
Still, they had figured out where she was going, and gotten there pretty quickly. That had to be Emma's doing; as far as Sophia knew, Madison didn't even know where Hebert lived. But how the fuck did they figure out where I was?
Sophia was not a tech person. She could use a radio and a phone, but the ins and outs of them were a mystery to her. Press the button; it does the job.
But she did know enough to be aware that radios and phones alike could be used to track a person's location. In fact, phones had to do it so they knew which cell towers to link up to and shit. And radios … well, tracking bugs basically were radios, right?
Dropping down into an alleyway between the houses, Sophia took out her radio and turned it all the way off, then removed the batteries and dropped it on the concrete. Next, she pulled out her phone and peered at it. She wasn't sure how to get the batteries out of it, so she dropped it on the ground and stomped on it a few times. The screen cracked across and she stomped again, satisfied that she'd dealt with the electronic snitch.
Leaping to the rooftop again, she continued across the rooftops, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. While she'd get Hebert eventually, first she had to deal with her traitorous ex-teammates. Whatever bug had gotten up Emma's ass about Hebert—it had to be Emma, because Madison barely said a word that the other two didn't approve of first—Sophia had to stomp on, and hard.
There was going to have to be a meeting of minds, and by that Sophia meant a solid beatdown. Emma and Madison had totally lost their way when it came to The Real Thing's purpose, and it was up to her to kick their asses until they figured out where they'd gone wrong. But Emma's kung-fu power bullshit and Madison's good-steel bullshit made that far too hard, so they were going to have to come to her, on her terms.
Of course, if she found out that they'd outed her to the cops or the PRT, then someone was going to have to die. What they'd done was bad enough, but that sort of betrayal was totally unforgivable.
Not for an instant did it cross her mind that her avowed intention of ruining Taylor Hebert's life purely because she'd decided Hebert needed to stay down in the dirt was in any way an unacceptable course of action. Even if it had, she wouldn't have cared. Sophia Hess did what Sophia Hess wanted to do, and if that happened to screw over Hebert's pissy little existence, then it sucked to be her.
Okay, so do I grab Emma's parents or Madison's? The best way to get Emma and Madison to come to her—and accept what was coming to them—was to grab people they cared for. That way, they were less likely to try to pull some bullshit stunt, when all she really wanted to do was show them where the fuck they were going wrong.
Once she started considering the question, the answer was simple. She'd never met Madison's parents and had never been inside their home. The Barneses, on the other hand, she absolutely had met, and she even knew where their master bedroom was. One downside, of course, was that Alan Barnes knew who she was under the mask.
With a little thought, she decided that wasn't so much of a problem as it could've been. Emma's dad knew exactly what she was capable of, and would make sure his wife didn't try anything stupid. And afterward, once she'd brought Emma and Madison back into line, Emma herself would convince them not to say a damn thing to anyone. As far as Sophia was concerned, snitches got a hell of a lot more than stitches.
If she was right, Emma's house was in … that general direction. Running to the edge of the roof, she turned to shadow and glided across the gap to the next house.
It was all going to work out the way she wanted. She was going to make absolutely damned certain of it.
Alan Barnes
As far as Alan was concerned, Sunday evenings were best occupied by reviewing his notes for the cases he was going to be addressing on Monday, and adding any insights that had come to him over the weekend. Zoe, used to this practice, had watched some TV then gone to bed. Emma had eaten supper and retired even earlier than normal, mentioning something about studying for her entry exam into Arcadia.
He had to admit, he was pleasantly surprised by the change that had come over Emma in the last few months. She was more energetic, her academic marks had taken a distinct jump from the previous school year, and she'd actually spent more than a few afternoons discussing the socio-political situation of Brockton Bay with him. If he had to describe it in a nutshell, he would've said his little girl was maturing into a fine adult.
Which was why he frowned when his phone buzzed at his elbow and he saw that it was her number. The house wasn't all that big; what did she have to call him for that she couldn't just walk downstairs and tap on his study door? Oh, well. Let's see what this is about. Rolling his eyes, he picked up the mobile and swiped the icon to answer. "What's the matter? Couldn't sleep?"
"Dad." The grim note in her voice shook him to his heels. Emma had never spoken like that in his hearing. "You need to listen to me and do exactly what I say. Do you understand?"
"I … no, I don't understand." Alan shook his head. What's Emma playing at? "What's going on?"
She took a deep breath. "Dad, there will be time for questions later. You need to get Mom now and leave the house. Go to a motel or something. You're in mortal danger if you stay in the house."
"Leave the house? Why? What are you talking about?" Emma wasn't making sense. Besides, she was in the house, too. "What do you mean, mortal danger? And what about you? Don't you need to leave too? Why are you calling me like this?"
"Jesus Christ, Dad, can't you switch off the lawyer for once and just listen? I'm not in the house. I'm a superhero. Firebird, from the Real Thing. Shadow Stalker has … she's gone nuts. She might be targeting you, so you need to get Mom now and get out of the fucking house before she gets there!"
Emma ended with a shout, forcing Alan to hold his phone away from his ear. He was still having trouble correlating his peaceful surroundings with the grim, forceful tone that his daughter was using. Besides, Shadow Stalker was a hero. She'd saved him and Emma, after all. He'd been reading about the team she'd joined, and thought they were doing a lot of good. "Emma, if this is some kind of weird prank …"
"It's not a prank, Dad. I really am Firebird. Sophia Hess was my teammate, but she … look, I'll explain everything afterward, but the bottom line is, she already tried to murder Taylor's dad tonight, and we think you might be next on her list. So, I need you to get Mom and leave the house right the fuck now. Please, just do what I say. You can ground me forever afterward."
The intensity in Emma's voice was getting through to him. Wait, she tried to murder Danny? That was a step-up in the story, one he wouldn't really expect from a prank. In any case, there was a simple way to check on this. Standing up, he left the study and headed for the stairs. If Emma was still in her bedroom, giggling over the prank she was playing on her dear old gullible dad, he would absolutely ground her forever. But if she wasn't …
"Okay, I'm going upstairs now. Are you really Firebird?" He could kind of see it, especially with the red hair and the fact that Sophia was a known member of the Real Thing, but her other best friend was Madison, and he was pretty sure Blockade was a guy. "And who's Blockade, anyway? A boyfriend I don't know about?" If she was trying to pull a fast one, there would be an indignant squawk in three … two … one …
No squawk came. "Dad, you need to hurry up. Blockade's Madison if you really have to know, but that's not important. We don't know how far Sophia is away from the house, and we really don't know what she'll do once she gets there."
Madison? Blockade was Madison? Okay, now he was starting to swing back toward this whole thing being a prank, even though she hadn't given him the expected reaction. Madison was petite and cutesy and sweet, and was about as far removed from his idea of someone who got around in a set of chunky, blocky power armour as he could imagine.
Drawing in a breath preparatory to denounce Emma, he reached her bedroom door and yanked it open. It was dark inside, without even the tell-tale glow of a phone screen to break the gloom. But Emma lay in bed, apparently asleep. "Nice try," he said, and flicked the light on.
It wasn't Emma. In the dark it had looked like her, but with illumination came the discovery of carefully piled pillows under deceptively arranged covers. A flutter of movement caught his eye, and he turned his head to see that one of her windows was open a couple of inches, the breeze from outside stirring the curtain.
"Now do you believe me?" demanded Emma. "Now get Mom and get out of there!"
Alan stared at the pillow dummy for far too long as he tried to equate that with what he'd thought to be true. His thoughts, jolted into staccato motion, lurched through the inevitable chain of logic until it reached the inevitable end.
Emma's not here.
She snuck out.
She's actually Firebird.
This isn't a prank.
Shadow Stalker is coming here to hurt us.
Fuck.
Leaving the door open and the light on, he spun on his heel and hustled along the corridor to his bedroom. With any luck, Zoe would still be awake. "Okay, I get it," he said rapidly into the phone. "I'll call you once we're clear."
"Good. Just hurry. Please." She ended the call, and he slid the phone into his pocket.
He wasn't thinking in terms of a prank anymore. Even though he knew it was technically possible that she'd snuck out specifically to make the phone call, such an action didn't jibe with her recent uptick in maturity. She was both smart and responsible, and had to know it would invite repercussions out of all proportion to any benefit she'd get out of it.
When he opened the bedroom door, the reading-lamp was on; Zoe, leaning back on her pillows, had a romance novel open in front of her. She looked up as he burst into the room, a look of surprise crossing her face.
"Alan?" she asked. "What's the matter, dear?"
"Get up." He headed around to his side of the bed, where he kept his wallet and keys … and a small automatic pistol, one that he hadn't touched in months. He'd bought it in the aftermath of the horrific episode with Emma and the ABB, but he'd never even had occasion to point it at someone, much less fire it. "We have to go. Now."
She stared at him in confusion, which rapidly mutated into alarm as he produced the firearm as well as the other items. "Alan? What are you doing with that?"
"Zoe, we're in danger," he snapped, shoving the wallet and keys into his pockets. The pistol, he kept in his hand. "Get up! We have to go now!" How much effect the pistol would have on Shadow Stalker, he wasn't sure. But merely holding it gave him a sense of security he sorely lacked otherwise.
The repetition seemed to get through to her. She pulled back the covers and climbed out of bed, then patted her clothing down. "I need to get changed …"
"No time!" He pointed at the door, now fully infected with the urgency Emma had been displaying. "There's someone coming to hurt us! We need to get out of the house, now!"
She finally did as she was told, only pausing to slide her feet into a pair of fluffy slippers. "Who is it? One of your clients? Someone you got a settlement against?"
"It's …" He hesitated, even as he led the way out the door. She didn't know Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker, and explaining that and Emma's role as Firebird and her desperate warning would take far too long. Zoe only knew Sophia as 'that nice friend of Emma's' and had no idea about how violent Shadow Stalker could get on her nightly patrols. "… complicated. I'll explain later."
"Why don't we call the police? The doors are locked, aren't they?" Halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned. "Emma!" she called. "Where's Emma?"
"Emma's safe. Come on," he urged. "The house isn't secure enough. They can get in before the police arrive."
"But … I don't understand. What do you mean, she's safe? Where is she?" Still, she let him hustle her through into the garage, where he hit the fob to unlock the car doors.
"I told you, Emma's safe." He could see the questions in her eyes and tried not to shout at her. "Just trust me and get in the car! Please!"
As Emma's tone had gotten through to him, his seemed to get her attention. "Alright, but I'm going to want to know everything after this, mister." She hurried around the hood of the car and opened the passenger-side door. Climbing in, she closed the door and started putting her seatbelt on.
Alan closed the door leading into the house, then got into the driver's seat. He hit the garage-door opener, then started the car. While the door was rolling upward, he kept an eye on the mirror as he fastened his own seatbelt. This wasn't easy with the pistol in his hand, so he dropped the firearm in the centre console before he managed to click the tab into place.
The garage door finished rumbling upward and no shadowy figures had appeared in the opening, so he put the car in reverse and rolled out, down the driveway. A click of the opener had the garage door rolling down again, but he refused to feel safe until he'd backed out on the road and put the car in Drive. Smoothly accelerating off down the road—he loved the feeling of power in the late-model sedan's engine—he took several turns at random before finally pulling over in a quiet side street.
"Now will you tell me what's going on?" demanded Zoe.
"In a minute," Alan muttered, pulling his phone out. He knew that cops loved booking motorists for cell-phone infractions—and they really loved booking lawyers for anything at all—so he made sure that the park brake was on, the engine was off, and the keys were out of the ignition before he woke the phone up. Emma's number was at the top of the Recent Calls list, which made it easy. Hitting the button, he waited for the call to go through, the dial tone clearly audible in the silent vehicle.
"Dad?" It was Emma's voice.
"It's me, honey." He smiled. "We're out of the house. Safe and sound."
A hand reached over from the back seat and plucked the phone from his hand. At the same time, a razor-tipped arrow pricked him just behind the line of his jaw. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," purred Sophia Hess.
Shadow Stalker
Sophia was a goddamn genius.
She'd been about to head into the house and confront Alan Barnes directly, along with Zoe, but then she'd had second thoughts. They'd be in their home territory, and she was reasonably sure she'd smelt gun oil on at least one of her visits there, so he probably owned a pistol. The last thing she wanted or needed was to get shot in the back by one of her 'harmless' hostages because she didn't know where he kept the fucking thing.
No, it was a much better idea to wait for Emma to warn them, then let them drive her away from their nice comfortable well-lit sanctuary. Though whenever she'd seen this in the movies, she'd always scoffed. Who didn't check their back seat footwell when they were in danger? Now she had her answer: everyone, it seemed.
"Shadow Stalker." Emma's voice had a venom to it that Sophia could almost admire. "Leave my parents out of this. This is between you and me."
"Pfft, yeah, as if," Sophia scoffed. "If I left you alone, you'd come after me. Or out me. You haven't outed me, have you? Because if you have, you're gonna be down one parent. Trust me on this. I don't deal well with betrayal."
"No. We told the police and PRT nothing." Emma's tone was flat and harsh. "All they know is that Shadow Stalker tried to kill Danny Hebert, and we don't know why."
Sophia grimaced. That was bad enough, but it technically didn't count as outing her. It just made her cape identity into a villain. "Okay, fine," she forced herself to say. She could clear her name. In fact—the epiphany burst on her all of a sudden—Emma would even help her. And then they could go back to making Hebert into the villain of the piece.
"Nothing about this is fine." Emma wasn't giving up on this. "Surrender, and we'll get you the therapy you need. My parents don't need to be any part of this."
Therapy? Sophia didn't need therapy. She was going to win. "Fuck surrendering." She smiled tightly into the phone. "Meet me near Winslow. Bring Hebert and that useless father of hers. No cops or PRT, or they die. Got it?"
She was already discarding the original plan of beating sense into Emma and Madison. Well, maybe she'd beat up Madison a bit. Outside her armour, she'd be a pushover. Fighting Emma was a whole different story; she'd never encountered someone as fast and deadly.
But if she held Alan and Zoe at arrow-point and ordered Emma to kill Danny Hebert while she filmed it …
Yeah, that'll work. It would turn Hebert against Emma forever, and it would bind Emma and her parents to silence about how the elder Hebert really died. Madison wouldn't dare say anything that might get Emma arrested either. With a little nudging, they'd change their statement to the cops about how Taylor was the real culprit and Sophia was the misunderstood victim in all this.
And then the Real Thing could be a team again, with her in charge, and with Hebert as the loner psycho villain they could chase down and beat up as many times as they wanted.
Just the way it should be.
I am a goddamn genius.
End of Part Eighteen
Part Eighteen: Communications
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Taylor
I dusted my hands off. "Okay, first things first. We have to locate Sophia right the fuck now. As it is, she's a danger to Dad, and I'm not gonna let that shit stand. Also, Dad, I'm thinking you're going to have to go to a motel or something for the next few days."
Dad nudged me. "Can I make a suggestion?"
"Absolutely." I was good for any and all suggestions right then. As boldly as I'd grabbed for command, it wasn't exactly something I had much—or any—experience in.
"Sophia's a danger to more than just me." He paused, waiting for me to get it, then went on when I gave him a confused look. "As far as she's concerned, Emma and Madison just turned on her. She might just go after them in retaliation. Emma, you and Madison need to call your parents now, explain as much as you need to, and tell them to get out. Does Madison have any sisters or brothers?"
"No," Emma replied. I knew that her sister Anne was attending college in Boston, so she'd be safe at least. Pulling her phone out of a pouch on her belt, Emma paused. "What should we tell them?"
"Whatever will get them out of harm's way as quickly as possible," Dad said grimly. "We should really have done this before we opened the door for the police."
I nodded. "Right." He had a really good point. "Emma? You'd better make those calls now."
<><>
Shadow Stalker
It should have worked.
It should have worked.
It should have worked.
Sophia would've been muttering to herself, but she was spending more time in shadow form than otherwise, and speaking was impossible in that state. As it was, she gritted her teeth (when she had them) and clenched her fists (when they were able to be clenched). She was pissed off to a degree that she'd rarely reached before, and it was all down to Hebert, Emma and Madison.
The plan had been perfect. With Hebert's father dead, the bloody knife under her bed would've made it an open and shut case, especially once the cops found her prints on it. Hebert would've either wimped out and let them arrest her like the dweeb she was, or she would've put up a fight. And that was when the heroes (being her, Emma and Madison) could swoop in and take her down. Winslow plan, version two point oh.
But Emma and Madison … Sophia didn't even know what was going on there. They'd been down for fucking over Hebert … hadn't they? Oh, sure, there'd been that bullshit over stepping back for a bit, but that was surely about Emma flexing once she'd yanked the top spot out from under Sophia. They had no reason for going soft on Hebert. If there was one, Sophia would've known about it. She was perceptive like that.
She paused on a rooftop to catch her breath and regain her bearings. There was no roar in the sky to show that Madison was airborne again, and Emma's armour pieces caught the light from various angles, so she couldn't be as sneaky as Sophia.
Still, they had figured out where she was going, and gotten there pretty quickly. That had to be Emma's doing; as far as Sophia knew, Madison didn't even know where Hebert lived. But how the fuck did they figure out where I was?
Sophia was not a tech person. She could use a radio and a phone, but the ins and outs of them were a mystery to her. Press the button; it does the job.
But she did know enough to be aware that radios and phones alike could be used to track a person's location. In fact, phones had to do it so they knew which cell towers to link up to and shit. And radios … well, tracking bugs basically were radios, right?
Dropping down into an alleyway between the houses, Sophia took out her radio and turned it all the way off, then removed the batteries and dropped it on the concrete. Next, she pulled out her phone and peered at it. She wasn't sure how to get the batteries out of it, so she dropped it on the ground and stomped on it a few times. The screen cracked across and she stomped again, satisfied that she'd dealt with the electronic snitch.
Leaping to the rooftop again, she continued across the rooftops, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. While she'd get Hebert eventually, first she had to deal with her traitorous ex-teammates. Whatever bug had gotten up Emma's ass about Hebert—it had to be Emma, because Madison barely said a word that the other two didn't approve of first—Sophia had to stomp on, and hard.
There was going to have to be a meeting of minds, and by that Sophia meant a solid beatdown. Emma and Madison had totally lost their way when it came to The Real Thing's purpose, and it was up to her to kick their asses until they figured out where they'd gone wrong. But Emma's kung-fu power bullshit and Madison's good-steel bullshit made that far too hard, so they were going to have to come to her, on her terms.
Of course, if she found out that they'd outed her to the cops or the PRT, then someone was going to have to die. What they'd done was bad enough, but that sort of betrayal was totally unforgivable.
Not for an instant did it cross her mind that her avowed intention of ruining Taylor Hebert's life purely because she'd decided Hebert needed to stay down in the dirt was in any way an unacceptable course of action. Even if it had, she wouldn't have cared. Sophia Hess did what Sophia Hess wanted to do, and if that happened to screw over Hebert's pissy little existence, then it sucked to be her.
Okay, so do I grab Emma's parents or Madison's? The best way to get Emma and Madison to come to her—and accept what was coming to them—was to grab people they cared for. That way, they were less likely to try to pull some bullshit stunt, when all she really wanted to do was show them where the fuck they were going wrong.
Once she started considering the question, the answer was simple. She'd never met Madison's parents and had never been inside their home. The Barneses, on the other hand, she absolutely had met, and she even knew where their master bedroom was. One downside, of course, was that Alan Barnes knew who she was under the mask.
With a little thought, she decided that wasn't so much of a problem as it could've been. Emma's dad knew exactly what she was capable of, and would make sure his wife didn't try anything stupid. And afterward, once she'd brought Emma and Madison back into line, Emma herself would convince them not to say a damn thing to anyone. As far as Sophia was concerned, snitches got a hell of a lot more than stitches.
If she was right, Emma's house was in … that general direction. Running to the edge of the roof, she turned to shadow and glided across the gap to the next house.
It was all going to work out the way she wanted. She was going to make absolutely damned certain of it.
<><>
Alan Barnes
As far as Alan was concerned, Sunday evenings were best occupied by reviewing his notes for the cases he was going to be addressing on Monday, and adding any insights that had come to him over the weekend. Zoe, used to this practice, had watched some TV then gone to bed. Emma had eaten supper and retired even earlier than normal, mentioning something about studying for her entry exam into Arcadia.
He had to admit, he was pleasantly surprised by the change that had come over Emma in the last few months. She was more energetic, her academic marks had taken a distinct jump from the previous school year, and she'd actually spent more than a few afternoons discussing the socio-political situation of Brockton Bay with him. If he had to describe it in a nutshell, he would've said his little girl was maturing into a fine adult.
Which was why he frowned when his phone buzzed at his elbow and he saw that it was her number. The house wasn't all that big; what did she have to call him for that she couldn't just walk downstairs and tap on his study door? Oh, well. Let's see what this is about. Rolling his eyes, he picked up the mobile and swiped the icon to answer. "What's the matter? Couldn't sleep?"
"Dad." The grim note in her voice shook him to his heels. Emma had never spoken like that in his hearing. "You need to listen to me and do exactly what I say. Do you understand?"
"I … no, I don't understand." Alan shook his head. What's Emma playing at? "What's going on?"
She took a deep breath. "Dad, there will be time for questions later. You need to get Mom now and leave the house. Go to a motel or something. You're in mortal danger if you stay in the house."
"Leave the house? Why? What are you talking about?" Emma wasn't making sense. Besides, she was in the house, too. "What do you mean, mortal danger? And what about you? Don't you need to leave too? Why are you calling me like this?"
"Jesus Christ, Dad, can't you switch off the lawyer for once and just listen? I'm not in the house. I'm a superhero. Firebird, from the Real Thing. Shadow Stalker has … she's gone nuts. She might be targeting you, so you need to get Mom now and get out of the fucking house before she gets there!"
Emma ended with a shout, forcing Alan to hold his phone away from his ear. He was still having trouble correlating his peaceful surroundings with the grim, forceful tone that his daughter was using. Besides, Shadow Stalker was a hero. She'd saved him and Emma, after all. He'd been reading about the team she'd joined, and thought they were doing a lot of good. "Emma, if this is some kind of weird prank …"
"It's not a prank, Dad. I really am Firebird. Sophia Hess was my teammate, but she … look, I'll explain everything afterward, but the bottom line is, she already tried to murder Taylor's dad tonight, and we think you might be next on her list. So, I need you to get Mom and leave the house right the fuck now. Please, just do what I say. You can ground me forever afterward."
The intensity in Emma's voice was getting through to him. Wait, she tried to murder Danny? That was a step-up in the story, one he wouldn't really expect from a prank. In any case, there was a simple way to check on this. Standing up, he left the study and headed for the stairs. If Emma was still in her bedroom, giggling over the prank she was playing on her dear old gullible dad, he would absolutely ground her forever. But if she wasn't …
"Okay, I'm going upstairs now. Are you really Firebird?" He could kind of see it, especially with the red hair and the fact that Sophia was a known member of the Real Thing, but her other best friend was Madison, and he was pretty sure Blockade was a guy. "And who's Blockade, anyway? A boyfriend I don't know about?" If she was trying to pull a fast one, there would be an indignant squawk in three … two … one …
No squawk came. "Dad, you need to hurry up. Blockade's Madison if you really have to know, but that's not important. We don't know how far Sophia is away from the house, and we really don't know what she'll do once she gets there."
Madison? Blockade was Madison? Okay, now he was starting to swing back toward this whole thing being a prank, even though she hadn't given him the expected reaction. Madison was petite and cutesy and sweet, and was about as far removed from his idea of someone who got around in a set of chunky, blocky power armour as he could imagine.
Drawing in a breath preparatory to denounce Emma, he reached her bedroom door and yanked it open. It was dark inside, without even the tell-tale glow of a phone screen to break the gloom. But Emma lay in bed, apparently asleep. "Nice try," he said, and flicked the light on.
It wasn't Emma. In the dark it had looked like her, but with illumination came the discovery of carefully piled pillows under deceptively arranged covers. A flutter of movement caught his eye, and he turned his head to see that one of her windows was open a couple of inches, the breeze from outside stirring the curtain.
"Now do you believe me?" demanded Emma. "Now get Mom and get out of there!"
Alan stared at the pillow dummy for far too long as he tried to equate that with what he'd thought to be true. His thoughts, jolted into staccato motion, lurched through the inevitable chain of logic until it reached the inevitable end.
Emma's not here.
She snuck out.
She's actually Firebird.
This isn't a prank.
Shadow Stalker is coming here to hurt us.
Fuck.
Leaving the door open and the light on, he spun on his heel and hustled along the corridor to his bedroom. With any luck, Zoe would still be awake. "Okay, I get it," he said rapidly into the phone. "I'll call you once we're clear."
"Good. Just hurry. Please." She ended the call, and he slid the phone into his pocket.
He wasn't thinking in terms of a prank anymore. Even though he knew it was technically possible that she'd snuck out specifically to make the phone call, such an action didn't jibe with her recent uptick in maturity. She was both smart and responsible, and had to know it would invite repercussions out of all proportion to any benefit she'd get out of it.
When he opened the bedroom door, the reading-lamp was on; Zoe, leaning back on her pillows, had a romance novel open in front of her. She looked up as he burst into the room, a look of surprise crossing her face.
"Alan?" she asked. "What's the matter, dear?"
"Get up." He headed around to his side of the bed, where he kept his wallet and keys … and a small automatic pistol, one that he hadn't touched in months. He'd bought it in the aftermath of the horrific episode with Emma and the ABB, but he'd never even had occasion to point it at someone, much less fire it. "We have to go. Now."
She stared at him in confusion, which rapidly mutated into alarm as he produced the firearm as well as the other items. "Alan? What are you doing with that?"
"Zoe, we're in danger," he snapped, shoving the wallet and keys into his pockets. The pistol, he kept in his hand. "Get up! We have to go now!" How much effect the pistol would have on Shadow Stalker, he wasn't sure. But merely holding it gave him a sense of security he sorely lacked otherwise.
The repetition seemed to get through to her. She pulled back the covers and climbed out of bed, then patted her clothing down. "I need to get changed …"
"No time!" He pointed at the door, now fully infected with the urgency Emma had been displaying. "There's someone coming to hurt us! We need to get out of the house, now!"
She finally did as she was told, only pausing to slide her feet into a pair of fluffy slippers. "Who is it? One of your clients? Someone you got a settlement against?"
"It's …" He hesitated, even as he led the way out the door. She didn't know Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker, and explaining that and Emma's role as Firebird and her desperate warning would take far too long. Zoe only knew Sophia as 'that nice friend of Emma's' and had no idea about how violent Shadow Stalker could get on her nightly patrols. "… complicated. I'll explain later."
"Why don't we call the police? The doors are locked, aren't they?" Halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned. "Emma!" she called. "Where's Emma?"
"Emma's safe. Come on," he urged. "The house isn't secure enough. They can get in before the police arrive."
"But … I don't understand. What do you mean, she's safe? Where is she?" Still, she let him hustle her through into the garage, where he hit the fob to unlock the car doors.
"I told you, Emma's safe." He could see the questions in her eyes and tried not to shout at her. "Just trust me and get in the car! Please!"
As Emma's tone had gotten through to him, his seemed to get her attention. "Alright, but I'm going to want to know everything after this, mister." She hurried around the hood of the car and opened the passenger-side door. Climbing in, she closed the door and started putting her seatbelt on.
Alan closed the door leading into the house, then got into the driver's seat. He hit the garage-door opener, then started the car. While the door was rolling upward, he kept an eye on the mirror as he fastened his own seatbelt. This wasn't easy with the pistol in his hand, so he dropped the firearm in the centre console before he managed to click the tab into place.
The garage door finished rumbling upward and no shadowy figures had appeared in the opening, so he put the car in reverse and rolled out, down the driveway. A click of the opener had the garage door rolling down again, but he refused to feel safe until he'd backed out on the road and put the car in Drive. Smoothly accelerating off down the road—he loved the feeling of power in the late-model sedan's engine—he took several turns at random before finally pulling over in a quiet side street.
"Now will you tell me what's going on?" demanded Zoe.
"In a minute," Alan muttered, pulling his phone out. He knew that cops loved booking motorists for cell-phone infractions—and they really loved booking lawyers for anything at all—so he made sure that the park brake was on, the engine was off, and the keys were out of the ignition before he woke the phone up. Emma's number was at the top of the Recent Calls list, which made it easy. Hitting the button, he waited for the call to go through, the dial tone clearly audible in the silent vehicle.
"Dad?" It was Emma's voice.
"It's me, honey." He smiled. "We're out of the house. Safe and sound."
A hand reached over from the back seat and plucked the phone from his hand. At the same time, a razor-tipped arrow pricked him just behind the line of his jaw. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," purred Sophia Hess.
<><>
Shadow Stalker
Sophia was a goddamn genius.
She'd been about to head into the house and confront Alan Barnes directly, along with Zoe, but then she'd had second thoughts. They'd be in their home territory, and she was reasonably sure she'd smelt gun oil on at least one of her visits there, so he probably owned a pistol. The last thing she wanted or needed was to get shot in the back by one of her 'harmless' hostages because she didn't know where he kept the fucking thing.
No, it was a much better idea to wait for Emma to warn them, then let them drive her away from their nice comfortable well-lit sanctuary. Though whenever she'd seen this in the movies, she'd always scoffed. Who didn't check their back seat footwell when they were in danger? Now she had her answer: everyone, it seemed.
"Shadow Stalker." Emma's voice had a venom to it that Sophia could almost admire. "Leave my parents out of this. This is between you and me."
"Pfft, yeah, as if," Sophia scoffed. "If I left you alone, you'd come after me. Or out me. You haven't outed me, have you? Because if you have, you're gonna be down one parent. Trust me on this. I don't deal well with betrayal."
"No. We told the police and PRT nothing." Emma's tone was flat and harsh. "All they know is that Shadow Stalker tried to kill Danny Hebert, and we don't know why."
Sophia grimaced. That was bad enough, but it technically didn't count as outing her. It just made her cape identity into a villain. "Okay, fine," she forced herself to say. She could clear her name. In fact—the epiphany burst on her all of a sudden—Emma would even help her. And then they could go back to making Hebert into the villain of the piece.
"Nothing about this is fine." Emma wasn't giving up on this. "Surrender, and we'll get you the therapy you need. My parents don't need to be any part of this."
Therapy? Sophia didn't need therapy. She was going to win. "Fuck surrendering." She smiled tightly into the phone. "Meet me near Winslow. Bring Hebert and that useless father of hers. No cops or PRT, or they die. Got it?"
She was already discarding the original plan of beating sense into Emma and Madison. Well, maybe she'd beat up Madison a bit. Outside her armour, she'd be a pushover. Fighting Emma was a whole different story; she'd never encountered someone as fast and deadly.
But if she held Alan and Zoe at arrow-point and ordered Emma to kill Danny Hebert while she filmed it …
Yeah, that'll work. It would turn Hebert against Emma forever, and it would bind Emma and her parents to silence about how the elder Hebert really died. Madison wouldn't dare say anything that might get Emma arrested either. With a little nudging, they'd change their statement to the cops about how Taylor was the real culprit and Sophia was the misunderstood victim in all this.
And then the Real Thing could be a team again, with her in charge, and with Hebert as the loner psycho villain they could chase down and beat up as many times as they wanted.
Just the way it should be.
I am a goddamn genius.
End of Part Eighteen
KillerFish
Grumpy Owl, Bird Lawyer
I see Sophia's Main Character Syndrome is ticking over nicely.
- Location
- Australia
If by 'ticking over' you mean 'activated its turbocharge, disable the brakes, and is heading full-tilt for the cliff' ... yeah.
- Location
- Australia
It's not.
They have a much higher chance of becoming a Case 53. (Or in this case, a Case 52).
- Location
- Virginia
Ok cool. Thanks for the answer.
Sophia's shard has grabbed the idiot ball and is keeping it. Sophia's issues are, unfortunately, right in line with the crap the shard is feeding her.
At some point in the near future, that shard is going to be looking for a new host, saying {WTF}.
At some point in the near future, that shard is going to be looking for a new host, saying {WTF}.
- Location
- Australia
"I know we were supposed to gather data, but not a list of Things Not To Do!"
Kaernetron
Feuergeist
- Location
- Weit, Weit dort Oben
That latest plan of Sophia's is so far past delusional, I lack the words to express my bafflement.
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Okibruez
(Verified Mid-Boss)
- Location
- Dreams
Sophia being some flavor of psychotic bitch is fairly common in fanon, and that's built off the fact that she really is borderline sociopathic by canon.
Sophia being this far gone is definitely fairly rare. It's fun to see, though, because this is about as unhinged as it gets.
Sophia being this far gone is definitely fairly rare. It's fun to see, though, because this is about as unhinged as it gets.
SanguisAnima
Σ Series Z10/0 Group A 4A-GELU Mk1
- Location
- nowhere important
Some people would say this is probably as best as a karmic outcome as Sophia could get.
TheatrclBarristr
Not a barrister
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What is a case 52? I can't find it via web search, and it isn't specified in the Worm wiki.
- Location
- Australia
This is exactly correct.
The Siberian was actually Case 01.
(Scion was Case 00).
Which makes the situation when two or more capes share the same body a Case 69. ("Nice.")
Evonix
Aspiring Lovecraft antagonist.
- Location
- Canada to 2 sigmas
I like this, it's smaller scale than Worm fics usually are which I think is a good thing, it's also more tightly plotted.
That said I think how Emma and Madison reached a degree of emotional stability so quickly and completely seems a bit of a copout, though it's nice that it's acknowledged in story. There's also a surprising lack of bitterness and passive-agressiveness on Taylor's part, suppressed for the sake of current events or not.
I just don't think you can really get inside the head of emotionally unstable individuals such as these, with their excuses to themselves, inner conflicts and cruelty.
Maybe that's a compliment?
That said I think how Emma and Madison reached a degree of emotional stability so quickly and completely seems a bit of a copout, though it's nice that it's acknowledged in story. There's also a surprising lack of bitterness and passive-agressiveness on Taylor's part, suppressed for the sake of current events or not.
I just don't think you can really get inside the head of emotionally unstable individuals such as these, with their excuses to themselves, inner conflicts and cruelty.
Maybe that's a compliment?
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Isn't that because of influence from their shards?
- Location
- Australia
For all three, yes.
Taylor is dwelling on the past far less these days. Yes, she's still pissed at them, but moving on ...