As I watched Glory Girl descend from the skies, I couldn't help but think she reminded me of Kirby.
That sounded insane on the surface of it. One was an adorable little ball of roving suction and annihilation, the other was Brockton Bay's most photogenic superhero, and very much human. When the thought had first crossed my mind, I'd assumed it was Victoria trying to pull something over me with her secondary power, an aura that she could tune up or down that made people either in awe of her or terrified of her depending on if they had a good reason to be scared of her. As she'd always been an ally, I got the awe, and if there was one thing between my two worlds that I was outright in awe of it was the pink warrior who could probably reshape a mountain range with just his tiny fists.
But then I went away and thought about it more logically, and realized that if you looked below the surface level I was actually on to something. They weren't the same by any means, but there were parallels. Both were willful, actions over words, energetic, good-hearted heroes. I could easily see them getting along well over a shared love for peace and justice.
The problem was, as I later realized, that she also shared some of Kirby's flaws. She was willful, but that meant she was incredibly stubborn. She could usually be found rushing off into something without thinking it through. She wasn't quite so easily tricked as the guy who hand ultimate power to an evil mastermind twice, but replaced that with a maybe even worse flaw of her own. Kirby matched incredible power with an equally incredible degree of control. His fighting style was a work of art, seeing him move and strike so flawlessly and fluidly that when he was playing for keeps he never even got hit, and he never hurt anyone more than he had to in order to win. Glory Girl wasn't anywhere near as strong, but she still had a lot of power. More flight, speed, strength, and durability than my armor, to the point where she was one of the four Brockton parahumans that I wasn't sure I could defeat in a duel even if I held nothing back, along with Dauntless, Armsmaster, and Lung with a head start. Raw strength enough to easily kill a man, and I'd gathered from her sister that she'd nearly done so by accident more than once. She lacked the kind of self-control that Kirby or I had.
So when I could, I tried to encourage her not to do dumb shit. It had sort of worked. There was no one big incident where I got close with Victoria, we'd just sort of made friends over a year and a half of occasionally fighting together and less occasionally needing to go to her sister Panacea for healing after a battle went badly for me.
She sedately landed on the rooftop she'd asked me to meet her on, flashing me a bright smile. I stood impassively opposite her, arms folded, long cape billowing in the evening breeze.
"I'm glad you called." So I can keep you in check, I thought but didn't add. "You said something about wanting my help in an investigation?"
Her expression shifted to a more serious one as she nodded. Despite her bubbly enthusiasm, she knew when to turn up the professionalism. Again, familiar. "Yeah. I've been following up on a lead we got a while back. This obvious skinhead got let off on an assault charge thanks to missing evidence and weirdly good lawyers. Mom felt bad about not taking the case herself, looked into it, and figured he was a Triple-E lieutenant. Which means he's done some other stuff we can get him for. So, we collect some evidence, and mom thinks we're ready to make another case with a better chance of success. I get sent to make sure he doesn't try anything stupid, see him leave his place really suspiciously. I think he's going to some big Empire meeting and I want to get a bunch of birds with one stone."
That did explain things, but left one glaring question unanswered. "So why call me? You're in a team already. There's literally half a dozen people waiting to back you up." I suspected I knew the answer already, and felt vindicated when she turned her head down as if the rooftop was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, having the good graces to look bashful.
"Well, you know..." She trailed off, but I stayed firm, letting the silence drag out until she explained herself. Eventually, she sighed in defeat and looked up. "The adults would probably think it's too dangerous, and Shielder and Laserdream aren't willing to go behind their parents' backs. But you get it, right? We have to take risks sometimes."
Half a dozen retorts came to mind, but I clamped down. It wouldn't be helpful right now, and I did agree with her. The fully cautious approach was to never take any major villains, or even any villains at all, into custody, and just let them run free. The underworld of any city was like an ecosystem in equilibrium. As long as nothing drastically changed, it was stable. But take a big player out of the picture, and what do you get? Feeding frenzy on their old territory, if they had any, and civilians would inevitably get caught in the crossfire. Obviously, absolutely nobody seriously believed that specifically was the right thing to do, but it demonstrated the point. You had to take chances if you wanted to change things for the better, and sometimes before they did things would get worse first. It was unpleasant, but necessary, especially for a city as close to the brink as the Bay.
"We do." I inclined my head. "But you know you're not gonna be able to hide this from them, right?"
Her expression returned to its usual upbeat self as she shrugged. "Well, you know, New Wave's all about accountability, right? And they're probably not gonna be too mad if I show up with more Empire creeps than they expected. If they want to punish me, that's fine." I had a mixed opinion on the group's no secret identity policy myself. It made you vulnerable if you didn't have something like Victoria's always-on skintight force field, as shown by poor Fleur, and I wasn't sure it was for me. The mask helped me separate out the parts of myself that were less controlled. It helped make me someone the city could almost look up to. I didn't want that to change, so it stayed on. Fortunately, nobody had really pressured me to reveal my identity yet, unless you counted the identity swap with Brian, which I considered a special case.
"Then let's not waste more time. Do you know where the guy is now?" I asked.
"I know where he was and the direction he was heading fifteen minutes ago, and I think I know where he might be heading to." As she answered, I noted that she was back to serious facts mode.
"Then we'll start from there and search from the air until we find him." I suggest, although I used a tone that was more ordering than suggesting. "I can start from where he was, you can start from where you think he's going to, we can meet in the middle." I paused and really looked at her for a second. Lustrous, long blonde hair; short dress and long boots, both white with gold trim; a cape over one shoulder; a literal golden tiara on her head. A look best described as 'blindingly obvious, emphasis on the blinding'. Fortunately, people very rarely looked up at the sky for no reason, so it might work. Still, we shouldn't leave this to chance. "Stay as high up as you can while still being able to catch him, and try not to look like you're searching for him. The one who finds him first should call the other over the phone to let them know. Unless you have a better idea?"
She paused to seriously consider if she did before resolutely shaking her head. "I've got nothing."
I let a malicious smirk spread across my face as my cape likewise spread before transforming into wings. "Then let the hunt begin."
A slight effort of will and I was shooting away into the sky, almost horizontal as I mixed the occasional powerful flap with high speed gliding. This kind of flying let me go pretty fast, but I had limited agility. In a few seconds, Glory Girl had caught up, and was flying beside me with a wild grin of her own.
"How are you just so effortlessly cool?" She asked. I shook my head and rolled slightly to face her.
"It's not effortless." I reminded her. "It's through training and experience. And I'm not trying to be cool. I'm trying to be effective."
"Yeah that's what I mean!" She exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "You're cool without trying. When I want to look cool I have to put in the effort and everything."
I still didn't get why she held me in high esteem. I was pretty sure it was the mysterious protector of the night stuff, but that was only because I was a vigilante who could physically only patrol in the late afternoon at the earliest. Still, it was probably the only reason Victoria listened to me when I talked to her, so I wasn't about to point that out. Another reason to keep this mask as good as welded to my face.
"It's all in the self-control." I state simply. "You say you have to put in the effort to control your body when you want to put on a show. I'm just always carefully controlling myself. You're smart and have good willpower. You could do it too."
"Yeah yeah yeah." She stuck her tongue out at me in response to the obvious lecture. "Starting point is near Spayder and Rock. End point is this empty Medhall warehouse five blocks due east of their HQ. See you in a few!" She accelerated, and quickly left my sight. I estimated she was probably pushing eighty miles per hour.
I diverted to the area she specified and started searching in a criss-crossing pattern, searching not only the straight line between the two locations but also potential side routes. If anything those were the more likely paths if this guy didn't want to be followed. I switched to my second alternate vision mode, thermal, and scanned the streets below intensely. For every human sized and shaped heat signature, I switched back to low-light to take a better look at. I didn't find anyone who matched even Victoria's loose description of 'skinhead'.
After about five minutes, my integrated phone lit up. Victoria again. "Talk to me."
"Found him." Even over the line, she sounded smugly satisfied. "Looks like I was right, too. He's making the final approach to the warehouse now, come meet me there."
She didn't need to tell me twice. I twisted in mid air, hanging for a moment after one flap brings me to a halt, before dashing off to rejoin her. It wasn't long before I saw her and the building in question, slowly coming to a halt alongside her, she gestured down with her head, and sure enough I could see a guy who fit the bill furtively look around before entering through a side door. The fact he didn't look up as well would be his last mistake as a free man. Glory Girl descended and I followed, both of us touching down silently.
"Alright, let's go!" She eagerly whispered to me. I frowned as my cape reformed, glancing at the door. If this was a big meeting, chances were some Empire cape or sub-unit were at its head. If it was, say, Victor and Othala, that wouldn't be so bad. If this was a secret welcome back party for Purity, Night, and Fog, that was much more of an issue.
"We should try and check the inside first. See if there are any windows or other entrances around, poke through them before we engage. Know what we're up against." I quietly said back, my low voice coming through with less distortion than usual to ensure it was still understandable.
It was Glory Girl's turn to fold her arms. "We don't even know how long they'll be staying here. While we're hunting for a window they could be leaving through a different entrance! We have to go in now. Listen, you know I look up to you-"
"Stop." I knew from being friends with Emma the telltale signs of when a social butterfly was about to manipulate you into doing what they wanted. I'd gotten to know Victoria reasonably well, but at the same time she'd gotten to know me and my buttons, and my reserves of willpower weren't infinite. Plus, I did kinda want to beat up a couple of Empire thugs. Just because I'd gotten good at suppressing my anger didn't mean it had ever gone away, and these people deserved it. Hell, they deserved worse. Just before the pause in the conversation got awkward, I continued. "Fine. Since we're probably going to do it your way in any case, may as well do it your way now."
She pumped her fist into the air in triumph before flying straight through the door, throwing it clean off its hinges in the process. "Alright!" She yelled out as she did so.
"Oh. Shit." She added moments later as I stepped through after her. I'd give her this: She'd been right about this being a big Empire meeting. What both of us had failed to realize was that this was the Empire meeting. Not only were a dozen or so people in civilian clothes and simple cloth face masks hanging around, one of which in the middle of it all was our target, so were five capes in full costume. Kaiser, leader of the Empire 88. Fenja and Menja, twins who served as his personal bodyguards. And Hookwolf and Krieg, Kaiser's two chief lieutenants. This must have been a high-level strategy meeting before we showed up. I didn't know why Kaiser felt he needed to have a meeting like that with his high command, but there was no way it could be good.
I turned my head to look at Glory Girl just as she turned hers to look at me. It could just have been my imagination, but I would swear that an entire wordless conversation took place between us when we locked eyes. And I was pretty sure it went something like this:
I messed up.
Oh, you think?
The pair of us were enough of a thorn in the Empire's side that they didn't bother with talking, instead shifting into combat mode right away. The only good news was that four of the five present needed to take a precious few seconds to power up first. Extending a hand, Kaiser caused a palisade of metal to emerge between him and us, with his bodyguards drawing their weapons and adopting a combat stance before they began to grow larger in size. Hookwolf simply walked steadily forward as whirring chains, blades, hooks, and similar burst from beneath his skin, or rather his skin retracted into the growing metal that was rapidly forming into the shape of a wolf. Krieg also took a few steps forward, but stopped when he was only a bit beyond Kaiser's barrier, watching us carefully.
In the time it had taken them to do that I was already moving towards Hookwolf. While it didn't look like it, he was safer for me to be near than Krieg. Not safe by any means, but the latter could slow me down more as I got closer to him with his power to manipulate kinetic energy. That meant I was more vulnerable to a grown spear of metal from Kaiser, or a regular but massive spear from Menja. I saw Glory Girl shoot straight ahead towards our unfortunate prey, who was in front of Kaiser's protective barrier and away from his fellow normal humans. The result of him being a new arrival, probably. He reached for something, cursing, and it must have been a gun since I heard a few shots while I turned back to my more immediate problem.
The still growing metal wolf lunged at me as I grabbed my sheathed blade from my side. I brought the weapon down in a large arc on the mass of metal that made up its head, and my wings flared as I leapt forward, landing squarely on Hookwolf's back. Blades tried to cut away at my armoured boots, and metal grew up to try and drag me in. If I was actually caught in his machinery I'd be minced, but a flap of my wings I was off of him before that could happen.
The warehouse had a fairly tall ceiling, but wasn't that large. I could feel the air try and push me down as I ascended, Krieg slowing me for Fenja to try and hit. Her movement was practiced, efficient, and hit nothing but air as she swung her sword just past me. If I'd been so much as a second slower curving around the blow I'd have been smashed to the floor. She recovered quickly, but not quickly enough to prevent me from bringing my weapon up straight into her exposed jaw. A blow like that would have sent a normal person to the ground and probably knocked out a few of their teeth, but the fifteen foot tall Valkyrie just had her head forced up a bit. It clearly hurt, but not enough.
A few more wingbeats sent me sailing back, just in time to avoid a lance of metal generated by Kaiser. I spared a glance and saw that both Glory Girl and the lieutenant were gone. Considering that it had only been a few seconds and I was already majorly on the back foot, I decided that was my cue to get the hell out of there. I altered the position of my wings, gliding back and down towards the door as Menja and Hookwolf began to advance towards me. I flipped them the bird before turning and running. The second I was outside, I flew up into the sky as fast as I could.
That entire battle couldn't have been more than a minute, maybe a minute and a half, but I felt like I was five years older coming out of the warehouse compared to when I went in. I scanned the nearby rooftops, and saw Victoria on one in the middle distance waving at me. I flew over and landed heavily, collapsing on the ground at her feet. I noted my heart was racing in a surprisingly detached way, as if I was recording the heart rate of some other person. I looked up to see her panicking.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Are you okay?" She asked, stress evident in her voice. I wanted to laugh, but couldn't muster the energy as I picked myself up off of the floor, my wings moving to prop me up before they shifted back into cape form.
"I'm fine. Just exhausted. That was my second cape fight in twenty-four hours, and it was way too close. But it could have been a lot worse. We at least got what we came for." I nodded towards the snarling Imperial lieutenant. "Good work, by the way. I barely even had to do anything."
She smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of her head. "I'm not sure I'd have been able to get in and out like that if you didn't distract them. And I really shouldn't have ignored you."
I just shrugged. "You're getting better. You took care to capture this fucker intact, and the worst thing that could have happened from what you did is that we get hurt. Which would suck, but we can handle it. Or I guess Panacea more than us."
Victoria frowned. "One of us could have died."
I just shrugged at that. "Yeah but that's always a risk. And like you said, we have to take risks sometimes. Maybe not that exact risk, but you also had a point when you said we didn't know how much time we had. Listen, all either of us can do now is learn for next time, and be happy we got the guy. I used to be more reckless than you, if anything, so I know you can change more."
An enormous grin grew on her face, which she moved to cover with her hand. "No! No way!"
I nodded as sincerely as I could with no visible face to work with. "Believe it or not, it's true." I left it at that.
"Well, with the evidence we have already, plus this bodycam footage of him talking to Kaiser and shooting at me, ought to put him away for a while." Victoria tapped part of her uniform, and I squinted. It was actually barely visible, but sure enough, there was a small camera there. Smart of her to bring one to a capture like this.
"I'll let you take it from here. For me, tonight's work isn't finished yet." I once more turned around, spreading my wings as I did, and took off. It was probably my imagination, but I could swear I heard Victoria say 'so cool' as I left.
I wasn't sure if I was thankful or disappointed that the rest of the night was as quiet as I'd ever see. I flew back up from downtown into the docks and ABB territory, went far north enough that I was skimming Merchant-held areas, and then returned home with nothing new to show for it. A couple of people saw me fly above them and ran off who were probably gang members, but I didn't even know if they'd planned for anything that night that I'd interrupted.
It was about eleven thirty when I finally got back, and sure enough there were the Waddle Dees I'd left with Brian in the afternoon crouching down as best they could behind my house. I grabbed them and shifted worlds, changed back into civilian clothes, and jumped back. Then I walked back around to the front of my house and let myself back in before going up to bed, not wanting to arouse suspicion with my mom who thought I'd been out working. I supposed that technically I had been.
Being in bed with lights off at about eleven forty was slightly early for me, but after everything that went down today I was fine with that.
Before I drifted off into dreamless sleep, I thought about what I'd said to Victoria. The incident where I'd been stabbed wasn't that reckless. Impulsive, maybe. Risky, definitely. But not actually reckless. No, there was something I did about two years before that when I'd first gotten my power. Another bittersweet memory saved by good friends. That time a bit more literally.
