4.A
The kid, I had to admit, was doing better than last time. It was still fucking infuriating that I was paired with her, and I think Forehead had done his best to keep our joint patrols as infrequent as possible. But it was mandated, and so for the first time since February I was running across rooftops while Toggle was jogging along the sidewalks beneath me.
I shifted into shadow as I jumped again, crossing over the street ahead of the kid, to allow me to watch over a wider area than this stupid patrol route would usually let me see. It was a PR exercise, nothing more, running through the safest areas of the city in the evenings to show that we were keeping them safe. And that being in the wards wasn't a fucking waste of everyone's time. I crossed back, shifting to shadow and letting the wind flow through me with every jump, looking back at the kid as I crossed the street she was on.
"Oh, fucking shit, really?" Toggle had stopped, perhaps twenty meters back, and was bent over, hands on her knees. It took me a second or two to double back, and I reformed myself with my arms crossed a meter in front of her.
"Jesus and Mary, it's been like… two miles. I'd thought you were doing better, but fucking hell. Why did they even give you a mover rating." It was the other reason patrols with Toggle was so fucking annoying. Everyone else, even Winny, could keep up - or even beat me, if Vista got pissy and decided to make my life harder - but whenever any of us were with the kid the route got cut down to like, half its usual length, and she still fucking failed.
Grabbing her by the shoulder, I pulled her forwards, before shifting myself to the side and pushing her on her back. "You're not fucking stopping. Walk, at least fucking try to do your bloody job."
"I, I-" She was panting, like one of Bitch's fucking dogs, and I rolled my eyes. Fucking hell. Idiot was going to get cramps if she just fucking stopped, and then the patrol would be cut proper short. Did she think she could just skive on it all.
"I don't care, Toggle. I don't care. We've got at least that distance again on our route, and I'm not going to let you be a fucking handicap." You'd fucking survived the worst the world could through at you and came out stronger, so how pathetic did you have to be to not be able to push past the burn?
I sighed, even as Toggle started to walk at the pace I was pushing her at and not just stumbling forwards.
"I'm sorry." Oh, fucking great.
"Don't be fucking sorry." At least Toggle wasn't as anal as Browbeat, to remind me every time I swore not to do it, even if she was as squeamish as Kid Win whenever I used them. If my level of swearing could upset you, you were going to hate meeting any member of the merchants. "Toggle, don't even try and be sorry. Just put your legs in front of each other, like you've known how to do for the last twelve sorry years of your life, and walk. Or Run. I'd like to get back to the running, you know? Do our jobs and not walk around feeling sorry for ourselves."
I could feel her flinch a bit, through my hand on her back, but she nodded, and started running again. I actually watched her running, and snorted in derision.
"Okay, jesus, stop. Did anyone ever actually teach you how to run, at like, school or shit?"
Toggle stopped and immediately slumped over, panting again. I flickered into shadow again, standing in front of her.
"No, seriously, kid, do you not know how to run?" I put my hand to my mask, putting pressure on it in a poor substitute for actually rubbing my forehead. Jesus, Browbeat, if you're going to be such a bitch due to leading us, perhaps actually lead us. My mind flickered back to last weeks patrol with him, and his exaggerated gait. Right. Maybe he didn't know how to run, and just cheated.
"Uh, I, yeah? Lift you knees high, head forwards, long-"
"Not sprinting, moron. Running. Distance. Did it never occur to you to like, actually look up what our fucking job mostly consists of? Beyond the bloody pageantry."
"It's… It's… This is important," Toggle said, tilting her head up to look at me through her spandex mask. God, I was glad I didn't have to wear one of those.
"It's fucking stupid. This is basically just entirely faff." I gestured at one of the houses nearby, which had a front lawn larger than my entire plot. "There's less crimes committed in this entire area every year than occur in the Trainyard or Little Asia in two weeks. We're here to show that the PRT cares to all the rich fucks who could make our life difficult if they thought they were being neglected. Can't risk actually having our wards fight crime, that might make them too much like…" I trailed off, realising I was talking to Toggle, who would probably make something of it if I was too honest. "Oh, it doesn't fucking matter, we're here anyway. Now start running, you've had enough time to catch your breath." She clearly hadn't, still breathing fairly hard, but she wasn't panting, meaning that as long as she didn't do something stupid she'd probably be fine.
Toggle started running, and I rolled my eyes behind my mask. The entire wards team was going to just turn into a wholesale shambles once I left. Well, maybe not. Vista was doing better than she had been a while ago, learning to not act like a weak idiot. Heroes had to be strong, because what's the point of a weak hero? You've got to be able to actually do something, put the scum in jail, show the idiots what strength means.
"Stop looking at your feet, you're not fucking three, you know how to run. Higher. Higher." I was jogging alongside her, an almost casual pace for me. My cover at Winslow had always had a fair amount of truth behind it - I was the best long-distance runner in the school, even among the males, and didn't that fucking annoy the hyper-masculine skinheads. Hell, sometimes they even got annoyed enough to try to make an issue of it, although that was annoyingly less common than it had been. That was always fun. The ABB idiots never risked that sort of thing - well, not against those who weren't E88 chucklefucks - meaning it was my only chance for stress relief. And it wasn't like they could run to the teachers, because who'd believe a load of racist almost-dropouts that one black girl had started and won a fight with four boys.
"Alright, that's good. Shoulders back, now. You're not trying to fall forwards, stand up straight. Straight. It's not that fucking hard. There you are. Now, stop lifting your knees so much. You're not a marching band. And stop pushing off so hard with your back foot, it means you hit the ground with the other foot too hard. You wanna be like, fucking smooth. Shouldn't feel any difference between them. Good. Just keep doing that."
Toggle was following my instructions without complaint, which was a refreshing change from last time I'd patrolled with her, and she'd bloody whined the entire time. So fucking what if she'd only triggered in November? Most fourteen-year-olds would give a fucking arm to be allowed to stay up until midnight. I looked back down at her, as I leapt onto the nearby rooftops again, as she kept up a decent pace again. She'd activated her power, I saw, shadowy echoes of herself flickering around her, fading into non-existence as they spread further and further away. I knew from her whining in the common room that she couldn't keep it activated for too long without getting headaches. Fucking complaining about headaches, when I got a headache practically every time she opened her mouth.
The next major turning was coming up, and I stopped on top of a roof until she reached the corner. According to the plan, we were to continue straight on, but I waved Toggle over to the right hand turning. She didn't know this area of the city well, and by moving down it we'd get to see a few of the more interesting parts of downtown, instead of this insipid land of identical houses and rich fucks.
Sure, it'd drag the distance Toggle had to run a mile or two more, but you don't get better at running without running.
Plus, she deserved it for making us stop. It was a Saturday tomorrow, she didn't need to get regular sleep.
After that it was just another long stretch of nothing, fucking nothing happening as it had been for the last month and change. This city was waiting for something, I could feel it. My own independent patrols, keeping my neighbourhood clean - because the PRT couldn't even be bothered to send regular patrols around where one of their oh-so-precious wards actually fucking lived - hadn't picked up many people, which was odd. There was… a tension in the air, I was sure. Not many could feel it, I was pretty sure the idiot play-acting hero behind me couldn't tell it until it was obvious, but I was sure that Armsmaster or Piggot had noticed. They were both fucking assholes, but they did their fucking jobs, and there was something to that. They knew what was up in the city, and were waiting for the shoe to drop.
As I was debating extending the patrol ever longer, just to see if the kid was worth anything in an actual fight, a red flash caught my attention, a burst of light in a circle appearing above the buildings a couple of blocks to my left. Twenty-first and King, I thought. A small upscale commercial centre. Had a couple of jewellery stores, where Parian made her fucking dresses - god, imagine being so worthless you use your power to doll up idiots with too much money - and a few other items. Definitely a target for someone to do a smash and grab or something like that.
Flitting back to Toggle, I landed next to her, and grabbed her by her arm, spinning her around.
"This way, there's some shit going down a couple blocks over. Follow me, alright?"
I shadowed again, the air streaming through me as it turned my previously meagre push against the road into something notable when compared to my much-reduced mass. It was one of the tricks I'd learned ages ago, right at the start of my career, back before I was a ward. It was only last spring I'd realised what it implied. If I was still pushing off, part of me was still at least real enough to interact with matter, and not just pass through it as I usually did.
I still hadn't managed to get that down pat, but partial transformation was proving to be a great bonus, especially when I got in their faces.
"Console, this is Toggle. Stalker and I engaging suspected activity, at, uh, our location?"
I changed into shadow, spun around, and saw Toggle pressing her earbud in to turn the mike on. Hmph. Well, Console could complain about our GPS sensors being off route later.
Turning the corner of one block in a feat of impossible physics, my momentum shot forwards as Toggle panted away fifty meters behind. It was a long straight now, and I could vaguely see a green figure another two or three blocks away. There were a few flashes of orange light around them, and I solidified to flick my electrical vision on. It wouldn't be fun spending most of tomorrow waiting for Panacea to treat internal electrical burns.
As I sprinted forward, unhooking Armsmaster's baton and flicking it to its full size, I could see more of what was happening. A dozen knives were floating around the new girl. Revert or something like that. I looked up, and saw the bitch floating there, her smug head floating over the battlefield, even as the kid cleaved two of those knives in two. Those swords were clearly nothing to fuck with.
My crossbow bolts phased through the cat's mask, two of the three hitting their mark, but a few seconds after the head faded from existence. Not hitting home then, she'd be out by now.
I felt something tugging on my cloak, and flashed into shadow, the knives passing harmlessly through me, before I reformed. My baton smashed onto the knives, pushing them further away for me. I jumped up, flickering into shadow to gain height and slow my fall.
Cheshire's power was perhaps the least understood of the Calaveras, that annoying power allowing her to duplicate herself and flick body parts between real or not. Or, at least that was the current suspicion. Fuck, I was going to be grilled for more details after this, wasn't I? Waste more of my fucking time - if I knew something, I'd bloody well tell them. Well, probably.
Her head was nowhere to be seen, and as I floated I saw Revert dancing around six, seven, eight knives, each one parried and blocked by her two swords.
Toggle hesitated, at the edge of the fight, a few meters away. I reformed, dropping faster, and flickering back into shadow at the end to absorb the impact. As I stepped forwards to try to take two of the knives away from her, her two swords glow.
Red ripples from the ground. And then a hail of swords fall from the sky, spearing each and every one of the knives, as well as smashing down two of those smirking heads into the ground. Each one somehow missed me. There was a pause, for a few seconds, and I breathed heavily, readjusting my grip on my crossbow and baton. Looking at her grinning mask, I itched to switch and put some proper bolts in the bitch's face, but Toggle was here.
As I reached out to touch one of the swords, it wavered, and they all vanished, Cheshire as well. I looked around, until my eyes locked on Toggle.
And the gun pointed at her face.
"Oh, fuck… me. What, can't I just do a smash and grab without being
outnumbered? How the fuck do I keep being outnumbered, there's like two dozen of you heroes. Anyway, just like, gimme a minute here and I won't blow out… whoever the fuck this is. Kid."
The smirking face that faded in as she spoke was in the right place.
Guns. I could deal with guns. Heck, Toggle was wearing the stripped-down plates from Gallant's pre-protectorate armour, she could take a shot. But not to her head. I risked a glance away from Toggle, where the other hero stood there. Motionless. Her mask was as blank as paper. Nothing coming from there, I think. What could I-
"FUCK OFF!"
I snapped my eyes back, and saw Toggle smashing the floating head into the ground, where it cracked, before she booted it, kicking it into a nearby house. The gun went off, but Toggle flickered and was fine.
Oh, right. Her power. Her weird, flickery power. Damn, I didn't think the kid had it in her.
The mask on the floor rose up, before it split in two, revealing a woman's face. It was painted black, probably to disguise her more, and her hair pinned close beneath a wig cap. Blood, grey in the lighting, poured from what was obviously a broken nose.
"Fub-- fub. Fuck All of this."
"Says the woman in blackface." I rejoined. She formed a hand from nothing, and flipped me off, even as the rest of her faded to nothing, before fading that away in turn.
"Holy shit, Toggle. That, that was pretty good."
She turned to look at me, her head turning slowly from the piece of mask.
"No kidding?"
"Toggle. Toggle, it's me. Since when have I ever opposed smashing villain's faces in?" I said, wryly. She chuckled, weakly. I nodded at her, before walking over to the hero, who was fiddling with her swords.
"So, uh, Revert -"
"It's Revamp." She said, looking up at me. I loved being tall. I could never take Battery's whining seriously because she was always just shouting into my boobs, and that is just funny.
"So, Revamp, how did you find that bitch?"
She tilted her head slightly, before straightening her neck. "She was in that Jewellery store, over there," pointing at one which I could now see had bent shutters. "I.. think she might have gotten away with some. I don't know her powers, beyond the Lewis Caroll reference."
Blah. English. God, I had a project on that on Monday, with Hebert. Hopefully, given that nerd probably read more than half the class combined, I'd get a decent grade for once. "Huh. Neat. You want to stand around, I'm sure one of the 'adults' will arrive. Get you to spend some time writing up a statement."
"I'm allowed to leave?" She said, tone muffled by her mask. Why didn't she have a hole for her mouth? That was weird. Basically everyone had holes for their mouths. Made it easier to breathe.
"You
should stay around, but if you're going to leave, well, I ain't going to stop you."
She tilted her head again, in a way I thought I recognised. The shorter woman flicked one of her… cat ears. Fuck that was weird. Was she a Case 53? … Dammit, that was more paperwork, if one of the Protectorate brought it up. "I'll stay, I think. Help you out how I can. What is it Chevalier said? 'Heroism is mostly waiting and paperwork?'."
Did he? Huh. I shrugged, and let the conversation drift to a half, yawning beneath my mask. Might not have captured the bitch, but I doubt she'd find some good treatment for that broken nose. And that, that made me smile. Perhaps patrolling with Toggle might not be such a pain after all.
AN: And it's her! The woman of many a wormfic hate! The legendary....
Toggle. She's a canon character, you know.
Anyway, much thanks to my long suffering Beta,
@NemoMarx. She's cool.
