Orderly (Worm Semi-SI)

[Obscura]

Vista:

Arranging a sleepover wasn't supposed to be difficult. Especially not when all the attendees were already in the building they'd be sleepovering in and weren't about to leave. And there were only two other attendees. Admittedly, Vista had never done it before, but she was a superhero. She'd fought Nazis, Supervillains and Nazi Supervillains, as well as more ordinary crooks. It should have been a piece of cake.

Instead, it was a big emotionally and logistically complicated mess.


They'd discussed who to invite, and the result was okay, Vista supposed. She wasn't entirely happy about Sophia coming, but it would have been hard to exclude her since she'd been sleeping at headquarters ever since she'd gotten out of Master/Stranger screening. The boys all being unavailable was a mixed blessing, and Vespiary apparently being grounded sucked. Vista had been looking forward to properly meeting the girl; she'd helped take on Lung!

But that was okay. Vista could meet her later, and making a good impression on Jacqueline was important too.


They'd discussed their materiel needs: all of which were already on hand in the common room. They'd handled parental permission, at least for Jacqueline: Vista stayed at headquarters all the time (metaphorically) and Sophia stayed at headquarters all the time (literally, though she did seem to use the rest of the building).

Vista had some ideas for how to pass the time, even if they hadn't actually talked about it. She'd spent her own time since that discussion well, talking with Agent Stone and then practicing with her powers at the powers range. And all was well, logistically speaking. They had everything Vista thought they'd need.


At least until a sinking realisation struck: what she didn't have was either of the other girls' phone numbers, a place to meet, or a time things would start. That was something of a problem. And they hadn't figured out who'd be inviting Sophia, either. Had Jacqueline even met her? Vista didn't see when she could have, not properly. Right, Vista needed to find them and sort things out.

Vista's ability to sense people, despite having its uses, wasn't a practical answer. While her Manton limitation prevented her from warping space occupied by living beings, and indirectly allowed her to sense their presence, location, and size to some extent as a result, it didn't differentiate beyond that. And there were dozens of people in PRT headquarters at all times. It just wasn't workable.

Instead, she took the simple expedient of going straight to the training gym. As expected, Sophia was there, training. The old Sophia and the new one weren't all that different, not in that regard.

Though the old one had been a lot better at it. Better than Vista, if only by the advantage of a more developed body, and even that had sometimes felt like an excuse on Vista's part. The new one, not so much.

They seemed to share the same drive, that same urge to not be weak as the old Sophia had so scathingly put it. It was obvious in the way they put a hundred and ten percent into their training, as Coach Newman at school would have put it.

The difference was that the new one had no idea what she was doing. Well, that and her awareness that she had no idea what she was doing, with its consequent willingness to actually listen to the trooper who was instructing her. The old Sophia would have never done that. But the old Sophia wouldn't have left half a dozen openings Vista could have used to bring her down instantly in the course of a few seconds. Or any.

But figuring how to subdue her teammate violently wasn't what Vista had come to the training gym to do. Inviting said teammate to a sleepover was.

At least the new Sophia didn't have the confidence to be a complete jerk to everybody she met, nor the same unjustified feeling of superiority over Vista. That was a plus. Vista had no desire to be insulted for something as simple as basic socialization.

Like how the old Sophia had done so many times, until Vista had stopped asking. Or like how Vista had done with her silence, only a few days before. To this Sophia.

That was also something of a problem.


Vista considered just leaving a note, but that was the coward's way out. And pretty likely to be missed, anyway. There was a certain hesitation before she stepped forward, but Vista hadn't become a superhero by halting at the first sign of danger.

"Uh, hi?", probably wasn't the best opener, Vista would admit. At least New Sophia didn't comment on it. The old Sophia would have made some scathing remark, Vista was sure, and that would have hurt more than Vista really wanted to admit.

Though the new version's obvious nervousness wasn't much better in that regard. Instead of feeling bullied, Vista felt like a bully. She could barely even hear New Sophia's answering "hi". Nothing for it but to keep going.

"We're having a sleepover."

"We are?"

New Sophia looked so confused, but also kind of excited. That was good? Despite the misunderstanding?

"Jacqueline and I are. Not you."

And that was bad. Sophia looked stricken. And she started to apologise, just to make Vista feel worse.


Vista let her finish. It was better than interrupting her, if only just. The lesser of two evils. Being evil at all wasn't something Vista enjoyed, but she'd left herself with no other options.

She was already kicking herself for not leaving herself any other options.


Eventually she got to explain what she actually meant, that she was actually trying to invite New Sophia, not just exclude her to be mean.

"I'm sorry, I'm not explaining this very well. Jacqueline and I are having a sleepover, and we want you to know you can come."

And all was well.

Or at least less horribly awkward. Somewhat.


Sophia was told to go down to headquarters once she was done training, and Vista would go find Jacqueline.


And now Vista had to find Jacqueline. She'd looked everywhere. Maybe not literally, but everywhere a Ward might be. The training gym. The power range. Headquarters, including the common room, the console, and the private rooms. The other testing and training areas. She'd considered checking the meeting rooms, but Jacqueline had sworn off those that very day. The bathrooms, as embarrassing as that was. The roof, with its fairly decent view of the city. Jacqueline was in none of those places.

And Vista had no idea where she might be.

So she just kept searching. She was starting to think using her power to find Jacqueline wasn't such a bad idea after all, since Jacqueline was probably a lot shorter than most of the people in the building, when she almost ran into Agent Stone.

Thankfully, Vista's years as a superhero had left her with good reflexes, so there was no collision to speak of. And the agent was quite willing to share what she knew. Apparently, the last she'd heard of Jacqueline she was in the Archives, the Archivist having called Stone's office to make sure Jacqueline was who she said she was. That had been several hours ago, but it was at least a place to start.

Well, once she'd learned where the Archives actually were, they were a place to start. And Jacqueline was…


Still there. Reading a bunch of old dusty reports.

Weird.

Well, Vista had found her. Now she just needed to actually go and do sleepover stuff. Even if she didn't really trust New Sophia. Even if she felt guilty about not trusting New Sophia, and even if she felt guilty about how she'd treated New Sophia. Even if New Sophia obviously wasn't comfortable with her. Even if Jacqueline was ridiculously goody-goody and might be an alien trying and not quite succeeding at pretending to be human. Like, a friendly and kinda funny alien, but still very different psychologically. The kind you'd expect to see eating a hamburger upside down, like on that one cartoon Vista had seen when she was a kid. Or maybe a robot, like that other cartoon Vista had seen when she was a kid. Vista wasn't sure.

Vista's stomach growled, just a little.

Even if she was hungry. She just had to do it.


Was that Night's profile at the top of the pile shoved away from Jacqueline? Why? Night was nobody a new Ward should be messing with, and as far as Vista knew she hadn't been seen in almost a year.

Ugh. Jacqueline was really weird.

 

[Obscura]

Author's Note: Fair warning, this chapter includes a lot of discussion of Nazis. A *lot*. I had quite a bit written, and it feels like something Jacqueline would get stuck in on. It's all suitably Jacquelineish in presentation, and there *is* speculation and stuff that's not in canon, but it's not a happy Jacqueline and the new stuff isn't going to be absolutely necessary to understand whats going on. If you must, you can skip this one without missing a whole lot of the plot.

---

Of course Kaiser was hardly the be-all end-all of the Nazi supervillain menace. Their biggest claim to power was the fact that they were the largest cape group around, after all, and that's not something one can claim with just one parahuman. Not in Brockton Bay. With so many villains in one gang, they had an undeniable numbers advantage.

Though, really, they were more like a bunch of little gangs, each mostly self-sufficient, all sworn to a common cause and overlord. For a fascist organisation, the Empire was surprisingly feudal.

Then again, the original Nazis were pretty much the same way, only with more infighting and fancy titles. All those little organisations and cliques fighting for dominance and authority. Not exactly a bundle of reeds/sticks being stronger together. I guess we can add (even more) hypocrisy to the list of Nazi sins, but frankly compared to the rest of the list it feels kinda anemic.


Kaiser himself was (currently) most closely associated with "the twins", Fenja and Menja. In some ways the names were apt. After all, the mythological Fenja and Menja, like the parahuman Fenja and Menja, were giantesses who could assume regular human proportions and were most known for their service to a king. Or king-wannabe, in Kaiser's case, but that didn't hurt the metaphor much. The cape versions also started small and grew big, rather than the other way around, and explicitly got tougher as they grew, but those are minor quibbles at best.

Though there are some less minor quibbles about how the mythological Fenja and Menja were enslaved by said king, either prophesied or were directly involved in his death, and are considered a symbol of female friendship and closeness, sometimes of the sapphic variety. Not in modern Brockton Bay, of course, not with the awful modern versions running around, but elsewhere in the world and before their appearance.

I'd say somebody was trying to tell us something, but the two had served as Kaiser's bodyguards for a while now, and they'd had plenty of opportunities to turn on him or just run away in that time. It was probably just the old Nazi habit of appropriating any symbolism that caught their fancy without regard for it's actual meaning, like the swastika, neo-Nazi odinism, or the knight in shining armour schtick Kaiser and Allfather adopted.


Besides his bodyguards, Kaiser also had his lieutenants, the capes who ran parts of the Empire in his name.

The most infamous of that already infamous group called himself 'Hookwolf'. The daring called him Knifepuppy, or just a monster, depending on how much of a sense of humour they had about it. Me, I called him a tonne of vicious murder and sharps stuffed into a vaguely canid-shaped bag.

Well, probably not a bag, but I really doubted it was a coincidence that a Nazi who changed into hooks and the like would look wolfish, what with the old wolf hook symbolism the Nazis appropriated. The name definitely wasn't.

Also suspicious was the fact that a man who served a family whose powers all boiled down to "making blades appear" would have a power that made blades appear. Admittedly, Hookwolf made them appear from inside his body, where there was a layer of metal just under his skin, and then form into a wolflike shape with flesh in the middle, but all the others had unique manifestation methods too. Kaiser grew them out of existing metal, Allfather close to his hands or back, and Iron Rain in midair, to plummet down with the force of gravity.

Hookwolf had never been acknowledged as a family member by any of them, and the latter two had been dead (or mysteriously disappeared and probably dead in Allfather's case) before he came onto the scene, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't related.

I wouldn't put it past Allfather or Kaiser to father an illegitimate child and never acknowledge them. Don't mistake that for feeling sorry for Hookwolf though, he's barely more restrained a mass murderer than Iron Rain was. His front of the Empire's the most violent, the one they sent in to tear apart weaker opposition and make a bloody intimidating mess doing so. Not always literally, but disturbingly often it was in fact literally.

They're also involved in dogfighting and other blood sports.

Hookwolf's section of the Empire wasn't the largest, but it was the most savage and openly violent. Besides himself, the Empire member with the largest direct bodycount since Iron Rain's well deserved death, the capes in that section were Cricket and Stormtiger.


Cricket did something with ultrasonics, sound at a frequency too high to hear, at least for normal humans. The details weren't entirely clear, but she apparently had echolocation, giving her a Thinker rating, and they also apparently messed with the inner ear and threw off one's sense of balance, giving her a Master rating. Neither effect was particularly powerful, but combined they meant she had excellent combat awareness while undermining her enemies', on top of already being a very dangerous melee combatant even without powers.

She may or may not have had enhanced reflexes due to her power, but either way they were very, very good.

In short, she was a low-level cape in terms of raw power, but she used what she had very well and combined it with non-parahuman skills, making her very dangerous up close and personal.

She was also mute, something which the original generation Nazis would have taken very poorly to, but hypocrisy enableth a multitude of sins. The Empire was much like their twisted inspiration in that regard.


Stormtiger was apparently an aerokinetic. Which would have been more helpful if I knew what an aerokinetic was, but I looked it up. Apparently it meant he was able to control air. Or possibly some specific gas within the atmosphere, but effectively it was the air. Either way, he was mostly known for gathering up a whole bunch of gas into tight "claws" and then either slashing people with them or throwing them. Then he'd release his power and the too-dense gas would expand, causing an explosion.

He could also fly with wind control, but not with the ease of a natural flyer. And most likely some other tricks, but the PRT didn't seem to know what those were.

It probably wasn't a coincidence that Cricket was the translation of the name of a Nazi light tank series, the Grille, while Stormtiger was an anglicization of Sturmtiger, the informal name for a different Nazi tank, but I'm really not sure what to take from that.

Probably not a good rabbit hole to fall down.

Then again, neither was researching Nazis in general.

Nah, even if it wasn't actually any more unhealthy than what I was already doing, it was significantly less productive, so avoid that. Well, I decided to avoid that. If you want to look into it I won't stop you, though I will advise against it.


For something less obscure, the symbolism of Purity's name was upfront and direct, like a sledgehammer crushing the skull of some unfortunate minority member. An unsubtle declaration of genocidal intent. And, unfortunately, Purity was also extremely powerful as a cape.

A classic case of flying artillery, her "light" had enough raw power and firing rate to make her one of the most dangerous Blasters short of Legend himself. Actually, she was probably more dangerous, if only because Legend had the flexibility and morals to take people alive instead of leaving nothing but smoking craters and shreds of what was once human flesh.

Purity's flight wasn't particularly impressive in comparison to her Blaster ability, but it did let her stay back and pump her enemies full of light while they couldn't hit back. Or those whomst she deemed her enemies, anyway. And "not particularly impressive" is relative, especially combined with "in comparison". It still made her far faster and (effectively) more agile than any baseline human, or even the vast majority of capes. Not much compared to the likes of the really good Movers, but very few people combined her level of mobility with anywhere near as much firepower as she possessed. None of New Wave and only a few of the local Protectorate could match her in either, and nobody in town could match her in the latter except Lung when he'd fought Leviathan all those years ago.


Purity had been less independent than her fellow lieutenants, but her cape subordinates had been no less dangerous than herself. Fog summoned poisonous gas that he was himself immune to, in a rather disturbing holocaust parallel. The gas also blocked vision, which was actually the most dangerous part if one had the means to endure the toxin. That was because of his partner, Night.

Nobody knew what Night turned into when nobody was looking at her, but whatever it was she was extremely lethal in that form, as many had learned to their sorrow. Or, rather, to the sorrow of those who cared about them.

Her flash-bang habit didn't help with that. Well, didn't help anybody else, I imagine she was quite pleased with it. Plus she healed completely whenever she changed, in either direction, making her extremely difficult to keep incapacitated. A nasty combination all round, especially when working with Fog.

Neither of them had been seen in town in almost a year, but minor capes had come back to the Empire after longer absences. Currently, they were doing their Nazi murder schtick in and around Boston, though they'd been quiet about it. Kind of like the discreet (and very illegal) policy of "disappearing" political prisoners in occupied nations to Nazi Germany they'd been named after. If I hadn't been reading an actual PRT file, I wouldn't have found out. Purity had been more unpredictable and prone to acting on her own since then, though not any less murder happy as far as I could tell.


Krieg's group was the quietest, and in my opinion the most vital. It was certainly the largest.

Krieg himself was some sort of telekinetic, with a dozen theories about how his powers worked in the file I was reading alone. One of the few things that was clear was that it worked better the closer to him one got, and another was that he was very, very good at using it to protect himself. Which had led to his Brute rating, a rarity for telekinetics, but then telekinetics were a rarity in and of themselves, along with a less surprising (and lower) Shaker rating.

He was definitely a capable combat cape, one with a proven track record, but he wasn't as impressive as Hookwolf, Purity, or Kaiser. That wasn't what made his group the most important. Nor was Alabaster, an unusual Brute with no especial toughness but who returned to "perfectly well, thank you very much" every few seconds, nor Crusader, the other Nazi knight in shining armour.


In all honesty, I found Crusader's name surprisingly apt, despite how a number of rather loud people find it to be the most offensive example of Nazi symbolism stealing the Empire ever pulled. I guess the idea of "all of Christendom" getting together to storm off someplace and force everybody there to convert at swordpoint sounds more appealing when you're part of said "all of Christendom" and don't particularly care about anybody else's right to religious freedom.

Then again, the Empire really wasn't all that compatible with Christianity, even the extremist sort that might actually look at the atrocities of the Crusades and approve, what with the drinking, drug use, and blood sports. Despite similar views on "the gays", foreigners, and social issues, there were some fairly fundamental differences.

Anyway, Crusader was a projection-type Master. He made "ghosts" that sometimes interacted with matter and sometimes didn't. They could move him around (enough for a sort of flight and a Mover rating) and stab people, but also pass through walls and the like, and they couldn't be hurt by anything normal. They also dressed exactly like him, chainmail, spear, and all. But neither his power nor Alabaster's nor Krieg's were a big part of what made Krieg's group the most important.

Oh, all three were solid mid-level capes, if a little more tilted towards defence over offence in the case of the first two. But the real reason why Krieg's group was the most important was that they did things the other cape cabals within the Empire didn't.


Kaiser's group provided leadership and the core of their PR effort, as well as combat. They were the beating ideological heart of the great frankensteinian construct of hate, cruelty, and violence that was the Empire.

Hookwolf's group mostly provided sharp blades and swift violence. Sure, their blood sports provided some income, and they provided a platform for the usual drug selling, but most of their contribution to their wretched cause was in spilt blood and terrified victims.

Which did have a number of uses, I'll admit, barbaric though it might be. Fear is, after all, an immensely useful tool for both sides of the hero/villain divide. Just not a remotely pleasant or moral one, not the way Hookwolf's bunch used it.

Purity pretty much just fought other capes and caused massive amounts of collateral damage. She was the type to deliberately lure a raging dragon away from Empire territory and into an area mostly inhabited by minorities, like the callous blackguard she is, but that was about the extent of her strategic thinking. Night and Fog had been subtler about the murder, and with less property damage, but they pretty much just fought capes and "disappeared" people.

Krieg supervised all the human trafficking, drug selling, exploitation of prostitutes and prostitution, gun running and white collar crime that made the Empire its cash. Well, he supervised his own lieutenants who in turn supervised all those things. It was Krieg's part of the Empire that did all the horrible crimes that actually made significant amounts of money, is my point. And that was hardly all of it.


His other three cape subordinates were Victor, Othala, and Rune. In terms of power utility, the three most valuable villains in the Empire. At least in my opinion.

Victor was a Thinker. Sort of. Well, he was definitely a Thinker, but there was more to it. People have skills, right? Well, Victor stole those. Through all sorts of vectors, apparently, including simple proximity. Victims recover eventually unless Victor deliberately makes sure they don't, something that doesn't seem to be easy for him, but in the short term it can be devastating. Worse, though, was the fact that Victor kept those skills indefinitely. He can't go beyond human limits, but he's very, very good at a lot of things, to a degree even most specialists in their fields can't match.

In combat he usually acts as a sniper, and he's about as deadly as you'd expect of a world-class expert in that field. That doesn't come up often though, for whatever reason. Maybe he's too valuable to risk, especially since he's as vulnerable as anybody else if somebody does get a hit on him unless Othala's around. Maybe they just don't want to risk the bad PR snipers have.

He also apparently contributes significantly to the Empire's accounting practices, and he's their primary hacker and technical security expert. Not the only one by any means, not in any of those areas, but the best, and the best by a very large degree.

Though it's never been proven, the PRT suspected, and I agreed, that he probably did most of the espionage, counterespionage, and assasination his Nazi masters required, or at least provided the metaphorical tip of the spear.

Given the sheer similarities of their powersets and appearances, I suspect he's probably related to Über somehow, but if that's the case I very much doubt he'd admit to it. Über was a joke, after all, even if he was probably playing that up to cover for the fact that he was really almost as bad as his Nazi younger brother. Or whatever their relationship is.


Othala's the other healer in town. It's Panacea, Othala, and now yours truly. Unlike the two of us wonderfully heroic examples of the noblest profession available to parahumans (in my oh-so-unbiased opinion), Othala used her powers for evil. Nazi evil, to be specific. Very much unlike us in that respect.

Though, like us, she was apparently a teenage girl. Older than we two to be sure, though not as far above Panacea as she was above me, but it was still a weird coincidence. If it was a coincidence. Maybe it was a conspiracy, in which case Patron was pretty much the only place to turn. But probably not.

Regardless of whether it was coincidence, fate, destiny, or conspiracy, Othala was certainly more dangerous than Panacea or myself, if in a weird way.

Othala was a Trump, a parahuman whose powers related to powers themselves.

Specifically, she was one of the rare few parahumans who could give powers to others, though like all such Trumps the ones she granted were strictly temporary. She could render others invincible, super-fast, super-strong, flight-capable, or pyrokinetic, but the two minutes, max, that the powers lasted was a rather serious limiting factor, as was the fact that she couldn't empower herself or even multiple other people at a time.

It was her ability to grant regeneration that made her so valuable. It required an act of will on both ends, so the patient needed to be conscious and aware of the situation, it frequently required multiple applications, could only be done on one person at a time, and most likely didn't work on diseases and the like at all, but it was still one of the best healing-others type powers in the world.

If she didn't live in the same city as Panacea, and now myself, she'd basically have no competition and blow everybody else out of the water in terms of putting people back on the front lines quickly. As it was, she was still able to have the Empire keep up with the heroes in that regard.

Her work wasn't as direct or obviously horrific as Hookwolf's massacres, but Othala very likely did more to dig the Empire's cancerous influence deeper into the city's flesh than Hookwolf's entire branch, and she definitely made it far harder to cut out.


Rune was also a teenage girl, one who was somewhere between Vista's age and Panacea's. I'd question where the Empire got the nerve to recruit so young, but my history lessons did include the Hitler Youth. Those were an all-boys club, both in the sense that all boys were forced into it and that no girls were allowed, (not that the girls got off any better), and the neo-Nazis use of female combatants was grossly against original generation Nazi sexism and anti-feminism, but apparently even bigoted reactionary supervillains have to concede to practicality somewhere. And there was the exceptionalism factor to consider.

Not that not being completely backward and wrong-headed in that one area made things any better, mind.

Anyway, Rune inscribed runes on things. She could do so with just a touch, though the PRT suspected that actual carved in runes made her power last longer. Once something had a rune on it, she could move it telekinetically at a pretty fair clip, whether that something was the size of a baseball or the size of a garbage truck, and whether it was as dense as styrofoam or concrete. The exact same pretty fair clip, to be clear, though she could do slower when she wanted to, or even just leave things floating in the air. A speed that was harmless with a baseball was extremely deadly with a chunk of sidewalk larger than her head, and the latter was still well below her limit. And that pretty fair clip that was her maximum was enough that it was very much not harmless with a baseball. A rather dangerous ability, all told, though it was noted that she had no defence game to match her impressive offence, not beyond blocking with runed items, and seemingly a limited number of active runes at a time. And she hadn't been seen using her offence to its full, lethal, potential.

More importantly, her power let her move large numbers of capes around very quickly, with fewer vulnerabilities than (normal) vehicles and at essentially no notice. Making her very valuable for rapid response indeed. She wasn't as quick to respond as Oni Lee, and she was nowhere near as dangerous despite her seemingly more impressive power, but with her came as many as four other Nazi supervillains, with more on the way.

So yeah, Krieg's subgrouping of the Empire was the most important. That didn't make Krieg himself the most important though. With Kaiser and Hookwolf, they both had cults of personality that meant their sections of the Empire would likely collapse without them, quite possibly the entire thing in Kaiser's case, and no clear successors. Unfortunately, that kind of swift downfall would get a lot of people hurt in the crossfire. Meanwhile, Purity was really the core of what her group did, and even if she still had subordinates it was basically built around her raw firepower. There probably wouldn't be the same consequences to her downfall, except for the part where taking down capes of her level is extremely dangerous and liable to lead to massive amounts of collateral damage.

Krieg, on the other hand, had a clear, if unofficial, successor in Victor, one who would quite possibly do a better job, and most of his part of the organisation didn't really need middle management except as a convenience thing. If Krieg went down, it wouldn't really hurt the Empire more than losing any other cape. Taking out the leadership wasn't the way to go.


In my opinion, if one wanted to bring down the Empire with as little collateral damage as possible, taking out Victor, Othala and Rune would be the place to start, though if you wanted to minimise the other gangs' ability to take advantage you'd leave Rune in place. Coincide it all with a media blitz, hurting their PR as much as possible, then start putting on the pressure. Gradually wear them down, preferably with as few dramatic incidents as possible.

Build up police forces and heroes. Limit their income, access to weapons, and information networks. Take the remaining capes one at a time, when they're actively out and fighting, ideally making it look like their own fault. Prevent breakouts, and do transport in such a way that there's nobody uninvolved around, then make sure anybody who tries goes on the next transport.

Of course the PRT had no way of doing that first step safely, and didn't have the budget for most of the rest. For the moment, that little plan of mine was nothing but a pleasant fantasy.


"Jacqueline? We're supposed to be having a sleepover!"

Ah. Right. That. I'd forgotten about that. I was having a sleepover with Vista.

"Have you eaten yet?"

I had not. Nor had I drank anything since lunch. That was rather unhealthy. I frowned.

Vista sighed. "It's okay. I haven't either. I was too busy looking for you. I'll order some pizza, does that sound good to you?"

I nodded.

"Right, let's go!"

I followed the cheerful-acting thirteen year old out of the room dutifully.

If she was going to put in that much effort towards being nice to me, the least I could do was play along.

 

[Corundrom]

*whistles innocently while I shuffle closer and closer to where the thread mark goes* I'll be taki-oh damn, someone else got to it first

 

[Obscura]

*whistles innocently while I shuffle closer and closer to where the thread mark goes* I'll be taki-oh damn, someone else got to it first

Click to shrink...

Thanks for pointing that out, and be sure to stop by security on your way out of the thread.

 

[Obscura]

For several reasons, I let Vista lead the way on our little journey. It would help her confidence, and show my confidence in her ability. A little deference, even on such a small matter as this, would help her feel respected. Something I knew she had difficulties with, difficulties I had no desire to add to.

And not just because disrespecting somebody that powerful without compelling reason is something of a fool's errand. Or even just the fact that I'd quite likely have to work with her for as long as we both remained alive. Which might not be very long, but I was trying not to dwell on that.

Trying, not succeeding, but I was trying not to dwell on that either.

I had decided, or perhaps realised is the better term, that, despite the very valid reasons why keeping a thirteen year old out of parahuman combat as much as possible was a good idea, her own feelings were no less valid. I wouldn't be supporting putting her into actual danger without significant cause, but showing respect as much as I could and quietly discouraging and avoiding demeaning behaviour were things I could do with a clear conscience.

And you know me, I try to help where I can. So that was a good reason to let her take the lead.


On a more practical level, she knew where we were going and I very much did not. Not beyond "down", anyway, and that just wasn't a practical navigation method in a building as confusing as PRT Headquarters.

Simply jumping out a window and letting gravity do the guiding wasn't going to work, since our destination was underground. And while I probably wouldn't die instantly doing so so close to the ground, and my powers would probably keep me from bleeding out or anything, I had no interest in testing that theory.

So I let my teammate take the lead.

Physically, at least. In terms of conversation, well…

"So, uh, whatcha been reading about?"

"The local genocidal maniacs. "

That.


As one can probably imagine, what I said was more than a little bit emotionally charged, and I don't just mean the wording. I don't regret saying it, even the way I did (the description was, after all, largely accurate), but my timing probably could have been better.

At least it wasn't in public. I didn't need to give said genocidal maniacs any more reasons to kill me than my existence and good works. Being popular while trans, lesbian, and black was enough. Frankly, stirring them to even more violence via direct provocation was a classic "very bad idea", one that would probably get a lot of people killed.

So, no calling them out in anything like a direct or impolite fashion where I might be heard, no matter how much they deserved it.

And while badmouthing them to my fellow teammates hopefully wasn't a problem per se, it wasn't exactly happy cheery sleepover time material.

Well, Doctor Maina did suggest I talk about relevant work stuff as an opener for any explaining I needed to do for my behaviour. Or wait for her to ask questions, preferably, but the situation was what it was. If it had been on purpose, that probably would have been better, but I could live with this.

Not like I, or anybody I knew about, could turn back time. As far as I knew. Seriously, wouldn't that be way better than Clockblocker's time-stopping creepiness?

Of course, if I could do that I'd probably want to do bigger things, like warning about Endbringer attacks before they happened. Or arranging for the Slaughterhouse Nine to never form. Or just stopping the weirdness that has occurred since Scion's arrival entirely. Not sure how I'd do the last one, but it'd be nice.


Anyway, Vista looked very concerned at that. She also stopped briefly and looked at my face and hands, but that's a different meaning of the word "looked". It wasn't hard to guess what she was thinking, and to her credit she mostly looked worried for me as and after she did so. In that first sense of the word again, if that wasn't clear.

After that, she was happy to share what she knew. Or at least entirely willing. There was a touch too much edge to her voice to call it "happy" per se. It was still pretty helpful.

Most of her encounters with the Empire had been with the rank and file, so to speak, not with capes. Most likely, most of mine would be too, according to her. I think she was coming at it from more of a patrolling and law enforcing based perspective, but she wasn't really wrong.

If an unauthorised (or "unauthorised") attack on me came, it would most likely be from non capes. There were a few Empire capes with discipline issues and that kind of bloodthirst and/or fanaticism, namely Hookwolf, his tank-named minions, and Alabaster, but there were a lot more stupid fanatical and/or bloodthirsty non-capes.

Partially because non-capes outnumbered capes by a vast degree and partially because stupid people are easier to draw into making bad life decisions, like joining a gang. And, of course, fanatical people were the Empire's easiest source of new recruits to shove into the subgangs under Krieg or (if they were bloodthirsty and reckless enough) Hookwolf. It was like any other terrorist organisation that way.

So yeah, lots of potential rulebreakers among the non capes. Plus if I just randomly stumbled across something Empire-related odds were a cape wouldn't be there. And, in either the unauthorised attack or the random accident scenario there would probably be a bunch of non-capes even if there was a cape or four involved.

So it only made sense to learn about them too, and I nodded when Vista said that was the best place to start. And only partially because I had neglected that part before.

Look, there's a lot of Nazi stuff to cover in this town. Seriously, like a ridiculous amount, even without considering the stuff that's probably strictly historical. The summaries alone.

Yeah, it's bad.


Anyway, Nazis are apparently pack animals. Not in the "carry stuff for you" sort of way, unfortunately, unless you mean them carrying your wallet away after beating you to a pulp. Usually not literally. Pack hunters. Like wolves, but more violent and way more willing to attack outside needing sustenance or defending hunting grounds or the like. Plus they're racist, homophobic, transphobic, and just generally bigoted, which I don't think wolves are.

I don't really know a whole lot about wolves.

With Nazis, at least the local variety, there'd be about five to eight in a group. Two or three experienced members and some less experienced ones. Most would have knives, some would have bludgeons, and a (un)fair number would have both. The experienced members would also have handguns.

They'd pick off lone individuals or pairs who wandered into their territory or into alleys and the like in unclaimed and undefended parts of the city. Two or three would carry out the actual shakedown (if the targets were the "acceptable" kind of demographic), or vicious beating (if they weren't), while the rest kept watch for interference or heavier resistance than expected.

Few of them were formally trained, but the ones with handguns would know how to use them, and the leaders would be fairly experienced brawlers. Or pit fighters and brawlers, if the group was from Hookwolf's bunch.

Hookwolf's groups were generally towards the smaller end, but they tended to have better melee weapons and to actually have some idea how to use them, plus an increased willingness to go for the kill. And all of them would likely have some experience in the pits.

Usually, neither Hookwolf's groups nor the rest of them would deliberately kill their victims, if only to avoid drawing too much heat down on them. They'd only do so for especially hated targets, like Bad Boyz, Merchants, or trans people, or if the victim fought back enough to actually pose some danger to them. Not necessarily a lot of danger, nor anything to make such a response remotely proportionate, but these were neo-Nazis, not decent people.


And that was about where we were when we got to headquarters. Vista pushed a button, a bunch of coloured lights started flashing, and we waited for the "mask alarm" period that was apparently a thing to pass by.

Then it would be time. Into the breach.

Unlike at Winslow, there was not an actual breach. Just to be clear.

 

[Kit]

I don't really know a whole lot about wolves.

Click to shrink...

That's okay, neither do most people who think they do know a lot about wolves!

I have had to explain why the 'alpha wolf' thing is wrong so many times...

 

[Obscura]

The waiting period was kinda boring, but it was over pretty quickly. The doors opened in a manner kinda reminiscent of the sliding sheets of the metal, and then…

Sophia!

She exists!

And was there!

You know, that really seems less surprising and exciting in hindsight. The exciting thing can probably be explained by how nothing ever really seems as exciting in hindsight as it does at the time, but the truth is that I just really shouldn't have been surprised. She was supposed to be at our little sojourn, after all.

Also, she lived here. That didn't exactly say good things about her home life, but I wasn't about to pry just yet. I'd find out when she was ready. Or when circumstances conspired to reveal it against her will. It said a lot about my psyche and recent events that the latter felt like it was probably going to happen well before the former. But Sophia was in front of me, and that was nice.

And she smiled when she saw me!

That was good. The nervous look at Vista was less good, but I'd take what I could get. It had been something of a rough day. Couple of days. Week and a bit. Existence. Whatever amount of time you want to use. It sure felt longer than strict chronology would imply.


My point is, I was perilously close to just running out of willingness to deal with any further nonsense. I certainly wasn't up to going looking. Maybe in the morning. I bounce back fast.

Of course, a lot of people bounce back fast right up til they can't bounce back any more…


Anyway, Sophia was happy to see me. That's the important bit. That and hugs. Hugs are always important. Always. My target even initiated, if a bit hesitantly. She opened up her arms in that "I want a hug" sort of way, and I decided to answer appropriately.

So I ran in and executed what the internet has informed me is called a "Cuddlebug Manoeuvre", named in memoriam of that most huggable of heroes, Cuddlebug, and her regular execution of what would come to be called the Manoeuvre on her teammates in the New York Protectorate. As well as anybody else who looked to be up for it.

May your soul find welcome wherever it wanders, Cuddlebug. There aren't a whole lot of bright spots on Earth Bet, never enough places where hope and kindness prevail, and you kicked off so many of them. This world is a darker place for your loss.

I really wish I could have met you.

Excuse me for a moment.


Alright, I'm back. I think I'm mostly okay now. It's just that she did so much, so selflessly, and what happened, and there's so much wrong here and…

And this is text. You can't see the gap in time anyway. Silly me.

Imagine the inner portion of a wrist gently striking a forehead here, please, then we can move on.


Sophia was a very enthusiastic hugger. Not a very skilled one perhaps, and she may have hugged just a touch too hard, but it's like any other skill: it takes practice if you want to be really good at it. Not like I was all that much better.

Whatever. We were good enough for us, and that was what counted.

Well, that and Vista's little freakout at the sight. That was probably something I should deal with, huh?

Seriously, she actually tripped and fell over, despite having been standing still when it happened. Don't ask me how it happened: I honestly have no idea. Under the circumstances it seemed impolite to ask, and it would require getting a word in edgewise. And I felt that if I could do that it would probably be better to use said edgewise word to answer some of her questions.


At first those questions were mostly a flurry of "What?"s, and "How?"s, accompanied by splutters and a few swear words. My first instinct was to answer "Hugs" and something like "You just put your arms around somebody and squeeze lightly", but I had just enough of my social graces remaining to me to realise she wouldn't find those answers helpful. Instead I reluctantly disentangled and waited for Vista to calm down enough to ask her questions in enough detail that I'd be able to figure out some good answers.

Or at least ones that weren't entirely terrible. It had been a very long day.


Naturally, when Vista did recover, her first question was aimed entirely at Sophia:

"Wait, since when are you nice?!"

And, you know, at first that just seemed incredibly mean spirited. Inexplicably so, given the effort she'd been putting in to being nice to me. Then I realised that her tone was incredulous rather than mocking per se. And, given how my one encounter with Sophia under Coil's influence had gone, it was kinda understandable that a girl who'd been on a team with that warped version of her for months would have a hard time believing she'd be the huggy type. I kinda just thought of them as two (very) different people, but that'd probably be harder for somebody who had an actual history with the evil version.

Of course, no amount of understandability was going to change the fact that the question was an extremely hurtful one. To Vista's credit, she seemed to realise it, and had clamped her hands over her mouth by the time Sophia managed to mumble that she'd always been nice.

The unspoken sentiment being that the Mastered version wasn't her. Which, you know, fair. I certainly didn't see a whole lot of similarities, and the doctrine that Mastering victims aren't responsible for their actions while Mastered exists for a reason.

There was going to be a very awkward silence, I could tell. It'd put a pall over the proceedings, maybe even ruin them entirely. I couldn't let that happen. So I did what I do best, and started rambling:

"Sophia and I met at lunch today. She was sitting alone, and she obviously had some heavy things on her mind. I know what that's like, so…"

 

[WallFlower]

Cuddlebug

Click to shrink...

Now I have the urge to see if some other fanfic has updated since I last read it.

Seriously, she actually tripped and fell over, despite having been standing still when it happened.

Click to shrink...

Always watch out near carpets or uneven floors, you never know when those fold suddenly starts moving. Must be worse for someone that can move space.

I blame something that has been moving just under normal spacial carpeting.

 

[Obscura]

Now I have the urge to see if some other fanfic has updated since I last read it.

Click to shrink...

This Cuddlebug's actually from a different source: she was the main character of one of the first ideas I had for what would ultimately become Orderly. It never even got to the draft stage, since I googled Cuddlebug and Worm together and stumbled upon Snuggles the Symbiote and I couldn't come up with any other good names, but her legacy lives on in the sheer hugginess and fluff levels I provide from time to time.

My Cuddlebug was very much a pure cuteness and hugs type character, without Jacqueline's humour, trauma, or any real character depth, but she did have her charm. And that version of the story may have been basically pure fluff and fix-fic without acknowledging just how bad a lot of stuff really is, or with any idea how to execute it properly, but I like to think I've kept it's good bits and Cuddlebug was definitely a major influence on Jacqueline. So I decided to have a grown-up version of her show up in the story.

And if Wildbow can have previous version's protagonists show up in minor roles in his story I can do the same for mine.

 

[Obscura]

Emily:

"And then they just sat down and had lunch together. I'm told it was nice." Emem Maina finished, after telling the most wholesome story Emily Piggot had heard in years. That the most wholesome still involved massive amounts of trauma and a supervillain said a lot about the kind of listening Emily's work involved, but that was hardly the most pressing issue.


"So Jacqueline sympathized with and comforted a fellow Ward, right after learning a fairly major gang knew her civilian ID and was likely aiming to harm her, and her specifically, on top of her entirely justified concerns about Coil and the Empire.

"And then, after that, one of our nurses stole Jacqueline's ID, presumably for nefarious purposes. A nurse she had previously entrusted with confidential medical matters."

Maina nodded.

"I think I should do something nice for her."

Maina looked like she wanted to nod again, but she couldn't be directly involved. There were limits on how personally involved a psychiatrist could get. Or a director for that matter, but Emily had a lot more wriggle room than the doctor did. It was alright. Emily already had an idea.

So she moved on. "I realise it's a bit early for proper diagnoses, but any thoughts?"

The doctor stopped to think for a moment. Good, Emily didn't need glib answers, she needed well thought and considered ones.


"Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder is pretty much certain, given events. I'm seeing a lot of hypervigilance in particular."

Emily nodded. That was very common among capes, and for those who didn't have it it was usually only a question of if they'd survive long enough to get it. Or they were just better at hiding it. That wasn't uncommon. Willingness to accept treatment was a lot rarer than PTSD itself, but it didn't look like it was going to be an issue for Jacqueline.

(Emily was carefully ignoring her own case, of course. It was always easier to hope others would take good care of themselves than to do so oneself.)

"I'm also seeing abandonment issues and a certain amount of latching on behaviour. Including the Heberts, I think. If it all works out well there I'm not expecting any major issues, but we'll need to keep a careful eye on things."

"And with you" was not said, but Emily hadn't gotten to be a PRT director by being deaf to these things. She'd be careful and supportive. As much as she could be, anyway.


"She's very obviously touch starved and she seems to be seeking out affection as much as possible."

Emily nodded. Stone had told her as much and if the girl had been living entirely alone for months it wasn't exactly a surprise.

"Last for now, I also suspect some level of Pervasive Development Disorder. Jacqueline's school reports mention some hyperfocusing and a few other signs. Nobody put the pieces together, but from what I've heard that's not exactly surprising: nobody was looking."
Winslow was a trash heap, and whatever other local schools Jacqueline had gone to apparently weren't all that much better. Not exactly news. Not in Brockton Bay.

"She doesn't exactly show poor social skills, but according to her she's been studying and striving for years to catch up, and it still takes a deliberate effort for her to figure out what other people are thinking or how she should behave. She's already stress-slipped at least once today that she noticed after the fact."

Emily had noticed a few moments like that herself, but hadn't considered them any of her business. The kid was respectful and was trying her best, that was what mattered. But now that it had been brought up, she did see a connection.


"So like Armsmaster then."

"Now, Emily, you know there's no diagnosis there."

Because the man would never agree to stop working long enough for somebody to form one, and Protectorate regulations didn't require him to for a long standing issue that hadn't caused him to behave unprofessionally.

Insensitively, yes, but not in an unprofessional manner. Way too professionally, even when it wasn't a good idea, sometimes, but not unprofessionally.

"But like the rumors you hear about Armsmaster, yes, only Jacqueline's dealing with it the old fashioned way instead of with Tinkertech."

Well, that was fine. Jacqueline was good enough for the PR department and it didn't seem to stop her integrating. If her skill was earned rather than natural, that only made it more admirable. Though Emily would have to try and limit her stress and…

That was a problem, wasn't it.


Emily asked about Jacqueline's stress levels, fully expecting an unpleasant answer.

"Far higher than would be even remotely healthy for a mature woman, let alone a traumatized fourteen year old. I'd suggest getting the Merchants and Coil off the board as quickly as possible. Maybe transfer her, but that's going to be difficult at best with the Hebert situation."

Get Coil and the Merchants off the board as quickly as possible. What did Emem Maina think Emily was trying to do?

At least she'd finally been promised parahuman reinforcements, even if the Directors who'd offered had mentioned they were going against policy by doing so. A policy that didn't officially exist, but one Emily had long suspected was in place. Only one thing for it.


"Do what you can, and I'll do what I can."

Emily could hardly afford to do less for the girl who was finally going to get her enough resources to do her job. And if she was actually fond of Jacqueline Colere, well, that was alright with her.

"Now, how is Sophia doing? It sounds like her lunch at least went well..."


Taylor/Vespiary:

Trouble was afoot. Dread forces plotted dread deeds in the shadows of the dockyards, hidden from human eyes. Unheard by human ears. But nowhere in the city was free of bugs, least of all the rotten and abandoned places the Merchants called home. Vespiary's main body could not go there, her mammalian eyes and ears would not see or hear into those places, but her minions knew no such limitations.

Of course that was rather academic at the moment, since her control only stretched for around three blocks, nowhere near enough to hunt down the people who'd threatened Jacqueline without leaving home. Which Taylor wasn't allowed to do, since she was grounded.

If Jacqueline had been in danger at the moment, that wouldn't have stopped Vespiary. Nothing would have stopped Vespiary. But Jacqueline was at PRT headquarters, by far the safest place in the city, so Taylor decided, with some difficulty, to do the responsible thing.

Even if she hated it. Even if she wouldn't have gotten caught. Even if Dad was out dragging Alan Barnes home. (And wasn't that taking a lot longer than it really should have?) Even if part of her was champing at the bit to take the fight to anyone who had the gall to harm an innocent little girl.

Even then, Taylor was going to stay home and be grounded. Or Dad and Jacqueline would be disappointed in her.

She couldn't have that.


Brandish:

"Bye Mom, I'm heading out!"

To meet Dean again, no doubt, given how much effort she'd put into dressing up. Vicky really wasn't as subtle as she thought she was, but that was normal for a girl her age. Carol, meanwhile, was drinking, as was normal for a woman of hers, and mulling over past slights and plots against her, which was slightly less so.

Specifically, she was thinking about Emily Piggot and her little meeting scheme. And how she'd played right into the PRT director's hands, despite both Sarah and Neil's warnings.


The invitation had been suspicious enough by itself. New Wave didn't exactly trust the PRT, and as far as Emily Piggot went the feeling was more than mutual. A full on meeting? Out of the blue? Something was up. That the director had specifically asked Sarah to "bring (her) sister along" was a clear indicator that she had some scheme in mind.

And she had. It was obvious in hindsight. It just wasn't what Carol had thought it was. The little, supposedly Master-countering girl (Jilliannah? Carol had known a Jilliannah once. Something silly like that) had felt like an obvious trap, and Carol had been determined to pull away the curtain and reveal the truth. Maybe she had been a little harsh about it, but she needed to find out what was really going on!

Except that the girl had been entirely genuine. It had taken Carol days to realise it, but after Panacea had been called in to check the girl's work as a healer of all things, one who was obviously a fan of Panacea, (Carol had been a superhero long enough to know a closet fangirl when she heard about one, even if Panacea hadn't noticed) it had all clicked. Piggot hadn't been attacking New Wave, or trying to subvert it. Not directly, anyway.

She'd been trying to deny them a resource. She'd found somebody who was interested in joining, their first potential new blood in years, and set Brandish up to find her suspicious, knowing exactly how she'd react.

It had been cold. It had been callous. And it had worked. If Sarah was to be trusted (and Brandish couldn't bring herself to even imagine a world where she wasn't), the girl was terrified of Carol, and she had only herself to blame. Emily Piggot might have set her up, but she hadn't made Carol do anything.

The PRT Director had even been so kind as to tell Sarah that Jilliannah was interested. Carol's sister had just wanted the meeting to be natural. Probably Piggot's idea, but Sarah sure seemed to think it was her own. Well, it had been natural, alright. Carol had been herself, her worst self, and that had been enough to sink the whole thing.


Thus the drinking. Though that really wasn't working so well any more. Her work was starting to suffer, so she was cutting back. Definitely. After this glass, she was going to stop. She really needed to do something. Make some progress. Put somebody away. Make a big arrest. Start a cape fight.

Something.


Vicky:

"Now, obviously, there's a lot I can't tell you…"

In hindsight, Vicky was kinda regretting asking her boyfriend about the new healer in town. Sure, Dean was probably the best person to ask, being both a Ward and an Empath, and sure, it'd be nice if the pressure on Amy to heal let up a bit, but she wasn't expecting Dean to look so stressed all of a sudden, despite his best efforts to hide it. She'd just been looking to have a nice night out with a good looking boy.

But Vicky liked to think she was mature enough to handle this sort of thing if she had to, and now was her chance to prove it.


"Then tell me what you can," sounded more like an order than Vicky had really intended, but it was too late to take it back. She'd do better in the future. She carefully ignored all the times she'd told herself that before. She meant it this time. Dean's sigh similarly passed unremarked.

"It's been, well, I hesitate to say 'strange', but it has been. It's probably not her fault, by all indications she's a perfectly nice person, but I just have no idea what's going on inside her head."

That was rather hard to believe. In Vicky's experience, Dean always knew what people were feeling and almost always had some idea what they were thinking. The former was literally his power (or at least a major part of it), even if he'd admitted the latter was partially guesswork.

"You have no idea? You're an Empath!"

Fortunately, Vicky had learned to shout without shouting. It was an important skill when you had as much passion as Vicky did, especially when your boyfriend was a secret superhero, along with half his friends.

"Her power's weird."

That was something of a tangent.

"Aren't they all? Except mine. Mine's awesome."

"…"

Okay then. Not the time for jokes, it seemed, going by the look on his face. There was an awkward pause before Dean continued:

"Weirder than usual" he said, sounding worryingly emotionless. Then he carried on, almost as if nothing was wrong.

"Her Aura blocks my power. Not the physical beams, but all the emotional stuff. Whenever I look at it, all I see is brass. Bright, shiny, brass getting everywhere and blocking out all the feelings. And not helping with everything else, either. It's rather unnerving"

That sucked, and she told him so. He smiled, just a little, at that. Then Vicky remembered how the girl had ignored her the one time they'd met.

"Is she immune to my Aura too?"

"Yeah. Can't tell you how we found that one out, but her Aura totally blocks out yours."

That explained that. Not that people not reacting to Vicky was entirely unprecedented, but it was rather unusual for a first exposure. Even if she'd just written it off as trauma the first time, it wasn't exactly a normal reaction. That just left how to deal with his concerns.


"Okay, I can see why you find somebody who negates your power unnerving", Vicky eventually settled on saying, then responded to his skeptical "You don't?" with a "Nah. I don't rely on my Aura much."

Continuing skepticism was politely ignored.


"It's not just that," he eventually admitted, "she came in last Thursday after apparently realising she had powers in the aftermath of an assault. Less than an hour after, and most of that time was apparently spent travelling or gathering evidence. Calmly and patiently explained the whole thing, with as much proof as she could get her hands on."

That soon? Vicky wasn't exactly an expert on Trigger Events, but even Amy, with her complete disinterest in psychology, would have known that wasn't normal. At all.

Trigger Events were, by definition, traumatic. Even for second generation capes like Vicky, they weren't the sort of thing one could make sound decisions in the days after, let alone less than an hour later. Even if the girl trusted the PRT enough to go straight to them with their powers, not likely in this town, especially being black, she shouldn't have been rational enough to gather evidence or be "calm and patient" about anything.

Yeah, that was weird.


"Then there was the whole 'tortellini heaven' incident. I don't know what was up with that."

Neither did Vicky, though she suspected she was missing a lot of context.


"Breakfast Monday, she was talking about Endbringer bunkers with one of the consultants when Dennis suddenly introduced himself with one of his classic terrible wisecracks. She panicked and ran. Don't get me wrong, it was a [jerk] move on Dennis' part, but it wasn't that bad.

"I eventually found her hiding in a closet, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. All the while, all I could see from her was brass. Not that it didn't come in handy, the search would have been harder if her aura didn't pass through walls, but a part of me still thinks she must have been faking."

That was weirder, especially given the nonchalant response to an apparent trigger event. Sure, Dennis could be a bit much, and Vicky could see how his costume could be considered kinda creepy, but that was a massive overreaction. Past trauma, or something more?


"And of course, the whole Open Cape thing."

Wait, what.

"What!"

"She wanted to join up with you guys. Told me all about it after the Tortellini Heaven thing. Why she thought being Open was a good idea with her skin tone in this town is beyond me, but she did."

"What. What happened?"

"I don't know. There was a meeting, after we got her out of the closet. Most of the New Wave adults were there. I don't know what the meeting was about, but the preliminaries were a mess. Some guy from CPS turned out to be spying for the Empire, some argument about a 'classic mimely figure', and your mother was talking very quietly with the girl. Not that I could hear what was being said, and the aura was up enough to prevent me from reading Brandish's emotions. Next I hear about it, she's joined the Wards."

"What."

Dean looked just as confused as Vicky felt. "I don't know what to tell you.

"Let's…

"Let's just put this aside for now, okay? Enjoy the evening."


That sounded nice. Vicky would need to talk with some people, starting with Mom and Amy, but for the moment she shrugged off the mantle of Glory Girl. Dean shrugged off the twin mantles of Gallant, knightley Ward, and Dean Stansfield, the son of one of the richest men in the city.

And, just for a while, they weren't anybody special. Just two teenagers on a rooftop, looking over the city.


Vista:

"Wait, since when are you nice?!"

Vista could not believe she just said that. Sophia had been Mastered, and Vista was a huge jerk, being incredulous at the idea that the actual her might be affectionate. Sophia, the real Sophia, had apparently always been nice. Vista thought Sophia might be a bit biased in that assessment, but she didn't really have room to talk, now did she?

And there was Jacqueline, the suspected robot alien, who had apparently seen Sophia crying and immediately gone in and handled it perfectly, her rather human self-doubt aside, if Sophia's own account of things was to be trusted. And now everything between them was sunshine and rainbows, while Vista was going and screwing everything up. Lovely.

And really, did Jacqueline think she was being subtle with the hand on shoulder thing she was doing? Cause even if she'd been really slow and hadn't said anything about it it was still quite obviously there, on Sophia's shoulder. Vista was really starting to feel like a third wheel. One that kept accidentally shoving needles into one of the other two, like some sort of sabotage device.


Vista decided that maybe she needed to work on her metaphors a little more. Away from the apparent new best friends. Yes, that sounded like a good idea.

"Group hug?"

Or maybe not. Maybe it'd be nice. Those two seemed to like it. Vista could always escape if she had to.

Probably. Sophia, the real Sophia, definitely couldn't stop her, and Jacqueline didn't seem the sort to try.

---

Author's Note: Gotta admit, this is a big chapter with a lot of different characters, and I'm worried about how well I've handled them. Let me know what you think.

 

[Blaflaix]

If Jacqueline had been in danger at the moment, that wouldn't have stopped Vespiary. Nothing would have stopped Vespiary.

Click to shrink...

Not walls, not gangs, not rules, and definitely not common sense!

 

[Blacksheep]

What did Jacqueline do that wasn't socially right? Everything seemed good to me

 

[Obscura]

What did Jacqueline do that wasn't socially right? Everything seemed good to me

Click to shrink...

Well, with Gallant at least it's not really her fault, and even he's kinda aware of that, if in a different way than those of us on this side of the fourth wall. Dean's gotten used to his power, which lets him see what people are feeling in a very literal way, and Jacqueline's power just straight up negates that within her aura range, leaving nothing but polished brass. Dean, who usually knows exactly what everybody is feeling, is just flat out missing that when it comes to Jacqueline. Which is uncomfortable both because he has a hard time figuring it out based on the normal cues after having grown accustomed to that crutch and because other people's emotions don't feel entirely real to him if he can't see them. Rather like dealing with a person with Flat Affect.

Adding to that, Dean's missing a lot of information that would make Jacqueline's actions make more sense. He knows that Jacqueline discovered she had powers after the Bathroom Incident, but he doesn't have all the details of that and he's assuming that was her Trigger Event, which makes her subsequent calm and rational behaviour seem incredibly bizarre. He's unfamilar with Jacqueline's more deadpan, "never explain the joke" style of humour, and can't read Jacqueline at all, so her "Tortellini Heaven" joke was taken seriously, especially since Dean thought she was a fresh trigger. And he doesn't find Dennis intimidating at all, nor does he know about Jacqueline's time-stop phobia, so her panicking at Clockblocker's stupid joke seems weird.

Then there's smaller things, like the hair braiding at the Wards meeting.

All in all, Jacqueline is, to him, impossible to read, says bizarre things with apparent seriousness, and behaves very unpredictably. Small wonder he's uncomfortable with her.

 

[Blacksheep]

I meant in terms of pervasive development disorder, it feels like I missed a step. Your explanation for Dean is appreciated

 

[Obscura]

I meant in terms of pervasive development disorder, it feels like I missed a step. Your explanation for Dean is appreciated

Click to shrink...

Well, under normal circumstances Jacqueline doesn't do social stuff wrong, but that's because she's put in a lot of study and effort to get it right. The reader sees her getting stuff right most of the time, but also the sheer amount of attention she's paying to pull that off. She's also got some fairly non-standard perspectives on social issues and behaviours. To be honest though, I wasn't specifically writing for any diagnosis, and it's probably just leaked through from my own case.

If you meant the "She's already stress-slipped at least once today that she noticed after the fact." thing, that's referring to this:

"Vehicles.

"Oh, sorry Vista. A sleepover sounds nice.

"Squealer's vehicles?"

Yes, that was all me, and, yes, it was as tonally dissonant as it sounded.

Click to shrink...

Mostly, that little slip up and others like it are the result of Jacqueline's self-control slipping, and with it her ability to think through what she's doing before she does it. She is under a lot of stress, after all.

 

[Blacksheep]

Honestly the level of thought and care she puts into actions struck me as reasonable for someone who tries hard to be thoughtful like Jacqueline does, and the distonal moment also struck me as normal. Though that might be my own awkwardness talking XD

 

[Obscura]

So Sophia thought I was way better than I actually was, Vista was spitting out apologies like they were going out of style (they were, but they always were), and I was trying to make us all one big happy family, or at least friends and teammates. Pretty much what was to be expected from that story.

You know, I'm still not sure what possessed me to call for a group hug. Maybe it was my continual need for affection overpowering me. Plausible enough. Maybe I subconsciously detected that something was wrong and decided to fix it in the least subtle possible way. Sounds like me. Maybe I decided Sophia needed a hug and didn't want to leave Vista out, or vice versa. That does seem like something I'd do. Or maybe I was tired and stressed and not thinking entirely clearly.

Well, I was definitely tired and stressed and not thinking entirely clearly, I'm just not sure how much that affected my decision making with the whole group hug thing. Probably not an insignificant amount.


Somehow, they actually ended up going for it. My best guess is that Sophia was as affection starved as I was and Vista felt too guilty to refuse. I'll just count myself fortunate that I didn't get the bewildered looks and polite denials that would have been a more typical response to someone suggesting a group hug out of blue amidst people who'd met for the first time literally the day before. One where none of the members had known each other more than a week to boot, and that was being generous.

The group hug was nice. A little awkward, since I seemed to be the only one to know what to do with my arms, but nice. There was effort put into it. Of course, my standards may have been a bit low that day.

It was nice. Let's leave it there.

Now to do stuff.


"Okay, what do we do now?"

Look, I didn't say I knew what stuff. Fortunately, Vista did. The next stuff was food. Pizza, to be specific, unless there were objections. There were not, or if there were they went unvoiced. Probably the former, not a whole lot of people really dislike pizza as a category. I knew I didn't, and Vista wouldn't have suggested it if she did. That did leave Sophia, but she looked fine with the idea.

Squabbling over toppings was fortuitously averted through the simple expedient of ordering one pizza per person. There was also to be garlic bread. And soda. The wonders of not having to be all that economical.

Sure beats living in a school and scavenging what one can from the cafeteria and vending machines. Or even being a refugee with a single parent struggling to find work. Pizza is nicer when you don't have to worry about the cost.

Vista's idea, and she was the one doing the ordering, since she was privy to the "arrangement" that let a pizza joint deliver to our super secret superhero lair. Not that it was all that secret. It turned out that they literally did tours, albeit on a strict and clearly forecast schedule. That was probably good PR, help make it clear that the PRT isn't stealing away children and hiding them from the world.


Yes, that is something they've been accused of. They're a big government agency with multiple affiliated groups composed of people who keep their real names and appearances secret, on top of a mandate that requires a lot of secrecy. They even need to dabble in counter-espionage and deal with superhuman, basically supernatural abilities and technology on a daily basis. There's not a whole lot they haven't been accused of by somebody. Most such accusations aren't even remotely credible of course, but the child soldiers stuff isn't even entirely wrong.

Especially in Brockton Bay, where keeping kids safe is hard at the best of times.

Yeah. Best to keep on top of that, both in terms of public perception and in terms of preventing actual child-soldiery.

Not that we can actually prevent it, even within the city. The best we can do is avoid engaging in that vile practice. You see, we're not the only armed group in the city.

Rune and Othala are both teenagers, as are a lot of the Empire rank and file, more of the Bad Boyz are actual boys than anybody's really comfortable with and the Merchants have basically no standards whatsoever. Most of the lesser forces do the same, cape or not. Even Faultline's crew has like three teenagers, and I think Labyrinth might be even younger.

The only villain groups in the city not openly deploying the underage were Coil's organisation (whose public facing was entirely composed of ex-military mercenaries), and Über and Leet, who only acted like dumb teenagers. Except for Faultline's bunch, none of them had any of the regulations and restraints that kept the Wards mostly not being child soldiers, and even Faultline's version was just keeping them away from the worst of what she did.

There's a lot of corruption of minors going on in this town, mostly but by no means exclusively with violence, murder, and drugs. And under-21s buying alcohol, a lot of under-21s buying alcohol, but that's not really on the same level. Usually, anyway.

Even more atrocities to add to the list.

It's a very long list by this point. Yeah, there are reasons why people don't like supervillains.


Anyway, Vista got our requests and conveyed them to her shady pizza contacts. I like to imagine there's a whole pizza-based underworld, not meant for innocent eyes like mine.

Yes, I'm aware that I've seen some deeply messed up things. It's my imagination and my eyes can be innocent there if I want them to.

And while we're at it, the greatest pizzaiolos command vast armies of lesser chefs, fighting continual resource wars over the richest veins of pepperoni and tastiest sauce tomatoes while building convoluted criminal networks in the restaurateur and reviewer classes and hatching wacky sitcom hijinks type schemes to steal each other's recipes. All fought against by that most gallant of law enforcement agencies: the Pizza Police, enraged by their counterfeit olive-oil selling and usage of inferior salt.

Sure sounds a lot better than the criminal underworld we've got here in Brockton Bay, right?


Given the time frame my highest-rated teammate gave us, Vista's crooked calzone-esque construct constructor cuisinier contacts and their devious double-dealing delivery dudes apparently worked fast.

Of course, I didn't say that. What I said was "Huh. Your crooked calzone-esque construct constructor cuisinier contacts and their devious double-dealing delivery dudes work fast."

I don't just apply past tense all willy-nilly. I realise I may have been giving that impression while conveying some of my previous unintentional slips into speaking, but it's just not the case.


"Okay, fine, I may have been just a little bit dramatic with the 'arrangement' thing. Can you let it go?"

Whoops. Time to start explaining.

"Sorry. I was thinking about the pizza underworld."

And those were definitely some "what in the world" faces. More explaining!

"Just imagine it. A legendary reviewer, Agostino Fausti, gathers a ragtag bunch of misfits from a dozen different walks of life on behalf of the secretive billionaire, Mistress X. Their mission: to steal the final recipe of Ifa Okonkwo, pizzaiolo extraordinaire, from the underground vault and warrior mimes of his envious would-be rival, Settimio Messana, and restore it to its rightful place.

"But can so many people from such different backgrounds learn to work together before it's too late? Can they overcome the might of Mimery? Can their mysterious employer truly be trusted? Is a fake award show really an effective distraction? What about the rumour of a ravenous Pizza-devouring Wereocelot stalking the nearby town?

"Find out next time on Examining The Pizza Underworld!"

Strangely enough, my teammates did not seem any less confused. Note to self: don't expound when tired unless the people you're with are very understanding.

 

[Anon500]

"Just imagine it. A legendary reviewer, Agostino Fausti, gathers a ragtag bunch of misfits from a dozen different walks of life on behalf of the secretive billionaire, Mistress X. Their mission: to steal the final recipe of Ifa Okonkwo, pizzaiolo extraordinaire, from the underground vault and warrior mimes of his envious would-be rival, Settimio Messana, and restore it to its rightful place.

"But can so many people from such different backgrounds learn to work together before it's too late? Can they overcome the might of Mimery? Can their mysterious employer truly be trusted? Is a fake award show really an effective distraction? What about the rumour of a ravenous Pizza-devouring Wereocelot stalking the nearby town?

"Find out next time on Examining The Pizza Underworld!"

Strangely enough, my teammates did not seem any less confused. Note to self: don't expound when tired unless the people you're with are very understanding.

Click to shrink...

The pain of describing the plot of a good anime or cartoon. So much Pain...

but also hilarious for us readers. I do think you do a great (and funny) job of portraying how wild Jacqueline's imagination can be. Honestly, its a nice bit of levity to inject into a dark setting like worm.

 

[Obscura]

The pain of describing the plot of a good anime or cartoon. So much Pain...

but also hilarious for us readers. I do think you do a great (and funny) job of portraying how wild Jacqueline's imagination can be. Honestly, its a nice bit of levity to inject into a dark setting like worm.

Click to shrink...

Worm gets incredibly depressing if you take it entirely seriously all the time, so I'm trying to avoid that. On the one hand this is supposed to be a story that addresses a lot of the less in-your-face horror, tragedies, and especially stresses of the setting and insert fics in general with some measure of respect, so I can't just go full crackfic, but if I went full-in on the awfulness it'd be an awful read. It's a delicate balancing act.

I'm not sure if my mood whiplash heavy approach is really the best answer, but people seem to like it and I'm glad for that.

 

[Obscura]

Look, it had been a very long day and I was more than a little out of it. Trust me when I say that my judgement really wasn't up to snuff at the moment. That and the panic were probably why I was backing away, ready to bolt at the slightest condemnation after my little faux pas.

Yeah, I'm not especially proud of that part. Or the crying. Or the spluttering. Or any of it, really.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who was actually proud of an emotional breakdown. Not their own, anyway. Ones they caused are another matter, and I have met Speakeasy, for a certain value of "I". And some of the other particularly unpleasant people I've met have probably been the same way. But that's not really relevant.

What was relevant was the whole stupid mess.

Stupid meetings. Stupid Billy Ewart. Stupid Merchants. Stupid pickpocketing nurses. Stupid CPS. Stupid moles, with their betrayal and stuff. Stupid bigot terrorists. Stupid Nazi Supervillains. Stupid Leggy Joe. Stupid Skidmark. Stupid Mush. Stupid Squealer. Stupid Tinkertech vehicles. Stupid waking up at a stupid hour in the morning. Stupid Taylor and her stupid self-esteem isssues. Stupid terror worming it's stupid way into my stupid brain every stupid hour of this stupid day. Stupid social difficulties. Stupid me.

So there was just a stupid, stupid, stupid little girl ranting about all of the above. While crying her eyes out, spluttering her words and generally being a collapsing, incoherent mess.

Yeah. I'm not proud of that either.

Jacqueline be not proud.


What is wrong with this city? No, what's wrong with this entire stupid world!? Seriously, it's messed up.

And now I'm reverting to cold understatement again. Great. Just great.

You know, the thing that triggered the whole collapse wasn't even that bad. Sure the whole "pizza underworld" thing was kinda dumb, and sure it definitely sounded kinda (really) weird, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Not even in the top five worst things of the day, let alone the whole messed up situation.

It was just that my whole entire blasted scheme for actually doing anything about anything relied on people liking me. It was the core of everything I was doing, and I'd put so much effort into it and I'd screwed it up. And when I tried to fix it, to get myself somewhere vaguely on a good path I'd screwed that up too. Nobody was listening and everybody hated me and I needed to explain but I couldn't and it was a huge mess and everything was horrible and awful and scary and I need to explain and make things be okay and-


Ahem.

It was somewhat of a sore spot. And I was already under a lot of stress. The straw that broke the camel's back, if only because it had been driven between the vertebrae. Now the beast was screaming in agony, hoping not to be left behind by the rest of the train, uncertain if it would ever recover even if they dragged it along, most likely to die under the unforgiving desert sun, shattered and alone.

…

Well, that was morbid. I'm gonna try and get back on track. Again. What a mess. Shall I?

Heh. Like I have a choice in the matter. If I don't want the nails again, I'll keep going, and the nails hurt. They hurt so much. It shouldn't be possible for things that don't exist to hurt that much, but they do. Yeah, I'mma keep going, if that's alright with you. Or even if it isn't. Not like I'm forcing you to read this, and avoiding the nails is worth it.

Stupid compromised morality. Stupid guilt. Stupid Patron. Stupid Everything.


Hugs.

They exist.

And were there.

Maybe that's less surprising in hindsight. I had teammates right there, after all. They weren't about to just leave me to drown in my own lousy feelings. This wasn't Winslow, after all. This was the Wards, a heroic organisation, and thus one composed primarily of people with some respect for basic human kindness. Including, as it turned out, both the others attending our little sleepover.

Good to know.

Now I'll note that I'm not entirely clear on what happened, exactly. After all, sobbing emotional breakdowns aren't exactly great for one's situational awareness. And being obvious about what one's doing isn't great for helping with breakdowns of any sort.

So I don't actually know how they managed to get me into a gentle hug without me noticing. Maybe Vista used her space warping to silently reduce the distance between us. Maybe Sophia used her shadow thing to get into position. Maybe either or both of them used Wards stealth training for the job.

That's a thing, by the way. One useful for both safely escaping and getting into a position to end fights quickly with as little collateral damage and risk as possible, in that order or not. What I don't know is if they actually used it.

And maybe I was just that wrapped up in my misery and panic and need to explain. Could go either way, really. Or both. Maybe they did something really clever and awesome and impressive and completely unnecessary because I wouldn't have noticed anyway. That sounds like the kind of tactically impressive pointlessness I've come to expect from this city, only with less bloodshed.

They were heroes, after all. That involves a certain level of dedication to minimising harm.

Stopping it entirely would be better, of course, but that's not really a realistic possibility even in a sane world, let alone here.


Anyway, when I finally started to emerge from my little highly charged emotional moment, I found myself hugged. Gently and hesitantly, so as not to startle me, but hugged all the same. That was nice.

Now, going by the worried expressions on their faces, I just needed to have a serious talk about my feelings and provide some explanations. That was fine.

Yep, definitely fine. Nothing to see here, move along.

Yeah, right.

A/N: Nothing to do with this chapter in particular, but I'm afraid I'll need to go back to updating once a week after this arc is done. There should be one more Wednesday update to finish of this arc, but that'll be it for now. Sorry.

 

[WallFlower]

You know, the thing that triggered the whole collapse wasn't even that bad. Sure the whole "pizza underworld" thing was kinda dumb, and sure it definitely sounded kinda (really) weird, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Not even in the top five worst things of the day, let alone the whole messed up situation.

Click to shrink...

No matter how light a bit of straw is, if you load it on an already overburdened Camel it might break it's back.
This also might be a sign that some unconscious part of her feels safe with the other two girls. I can't talk about the levels of stress Jacqueline is experiencing, but letting some the pressure flow out in a safe environment can prevent worse later.

 

[Blacksheep]

Oh wow I feel that so much. Poor Jacqueline, it's been an awful day. She needs rest and cuddles

 

[Skychan]

Well I've just found this story, and so am no where near caught up yet but I wanted to just drop a quick line and let you know how very much I'm enjoying it. It's pretty fantastic so far, and after the hints dropped at their first meeting I'm really curious how her relationship with Amy is going to go. Especially as I've just reached the bank robbery and have no idea how it's all going to shake out yet!

 

[Obscura]

Sorry for the late replies. It was only as I was checking on this before starting the update process that I realised I hadn't answered them like I meant to.

No matter how light a bit of straw is, if you load it on an already overburdened Camel it might break it's back.
This also might be a sign that some unconscious part of her feels safe with the other two girls. I can't talk about the levels of stress Jacqueline is experiencing, but letting some the pressure flow out in a safe environment can prevent worse later.

Click to shrink...

Hence the whole overextended metaphor, though people usually take better care of other people than they do Camels. Or any other pack animals, for that matter. Letting some of the pressure out in a safe environment is standard technique for Jacqueline, yes.

Oh wow I feel that so much. Poor Jacqueline, it's been an awful day. She needs rest and cuddles

Click to shrink...

Very much agreed. To all three.

Well I've just found this story, and so am no where near caught up yet but I wanted to just drop a quick line and let you know how very much I'm enjoying it. It's pretty fantastic so far, and after the hints dropped at their first meeting I'm really curious how her relationship with Amy is going to go. Especially as I've just reached the bank robbery and have no idea how it's all going to shake out yet!

Click to shrink...

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, and I promise I'll have more Amy in the future. It should indeed be interesting.

 

[Obscura]

"Sorrows come not as single spies, but in battalions."

"Huh?"

Right, semi-obscure Shakespearean quotations probably weren't the way to go here. Technically it was a misquotation, since the original Claudius line doesn't have an "as" in it, but that didn't exactly make things better, now did it?

Well, it was probably more comprehensible to modern audiences that way, but it wasn't a big improvement, and it did interfere with recognisability. It wasn't the most recognisable line anyway. Not the least recognisable either, but it was no "Alas, poor Yorick".

Obviously, that wasn't the first thing said. There were a lot of reassurances, platitudes, "it's alright"s and so on and so forth before I was asked if I was okay to explain things and I responded with that little (apparent) non sequitur. I'm just not bothering to cover them. Deal with it.

They were very nice and reassuring and existed and that's all you need to know. So there. Stuck out tongue.

Oh, and we were all sitting down now, on a couch and a non-exceptional cushy chair. I mean, it was alright, but it wasn't gonna make the rankings. The couch, on the other hand, was awesome, and that's where I was. Vista was on the chair, looking serious and concerned. Sophia was beside me, discreetly holding my hand, letting me know she was there. I wondered what was going through their heads.

Probably problem prevention preparations. It wouldn't do for another breakdown to happen. I myself was thinking along vaguely similar lines, even while I was blaring out semi-relevant quotes apropos of nothing.


You know, I didn't even mean to say the spies/battalions thing. It just popped into my head, and was immediately spoken out loud because I'm a dummy who can't do words correctly. But I couldn't exactly unsay it, now could I?

Naturally, that led to having to explain even more things than I already needed to explain. And I already needed to explain a lot.


"Basically, it means that there are a lot of stressors on me right now."

And, going by Sophia's slightly tilted head, I needed to explain again. At least it was still easier than explaining my poor inner monologue control.

"Things that cause stress."

Nods. From Vista as well as Sophia, interestingly enough. Not sure what that implied, really. Anyway, more explaining!

Joy.


"The Merchants know my civilian identity. I've already been kidnapped by them once this week, I'd very much prefer if there wasn't a second time, but I honestly doubt that'll happen for any lack of trying on their part."

Blinking.

"There's a lot of them, at least compared to how many of me there are, and even if they're not that good they're a lot more dangerous than I am. Squealer's Tinkertech doesn't feel like anything to laugh about, and the lot of them have basically no moral standards, so I have to assume they'll stop at nothing. If that guy had decided to just jab me with that syringe instead of taking me out of sight first, there's no telling what would have happened. I doubt it would have worked out well for him, but that's not exactly comforting. Not when there's a whole bunch more Merchants and most of them are more addled.

"I know some people consider them a joke of a gang, but they're scary, and they're after me. And that's somehow not the worst of it."


Vista nodded sagely.

"Coil."

"We probably shouldn't talk about that."

Both for security reasons, and because our third sleepover mate didn't exactly look happy about the subject coming up. I'd say she was downright uncomfortable, unless she'd bitten into a lemon recently.

The squeeze on my hand when I said that did help confirm that. As did having the basic empathy to know that she'd obviously find the subject an unpleasant one.

Even more unpleasant than everybody else in the know found it, that is. Anyway, I was pretty sure Vista understood.

And even if she didn't, I was pretty sure she should be asking a responsible adult instead of a deeply stressed out teammate. Maybe Alice Stone, or Doctor Maina. I'd say the director, but that's probably a last resort sort of thing. She kinda has enough on her plate.

And by "kinda has enough on her plate" I mean she has a job that'd probably give me a heart attack from sheer stress and overwork within a week if somebody managed to make me fill in for her. Even if my total lack of many of the required skills somehow didn't cause a crisis.


"The Empire is definitely gonna want me dead. They've got thirteen capes. Thirteen. Plus stars know how many unpowered gangers, way better PR that should be possible for literal Nazis, all sorts of weapons, and I don't even know what else.

"I don't know if Kathmean was working for them or somebody else, or even just her own weird thing, but none of the options are pleasant. At all.

"It's scary and mean and rude and I don't want these things to keep happening and happening and happening but I can't do anything to stop it and it's so much and…"


That was the point where they apparently realised that letting me rant undisturbed wasn't calming me down. Quite the opposite, really, though it only really got obvious near the end there. Then it was really obvious, and I don't think even I could have missed it if it wasn't coming from me.

As it was, I was totally oblivious. Not exactly an unusual state of being for me, but not one I'm all that fond of either. There were reasons beyond the practical why both past mes had put so much effort into the whole "socialisation" thing. I didn't realise until I found myself surprise hugged. Again. Not so much with the stealth this time, but more the suddenness. Of course, my hugger was right next to me, so she didn't have much ground to cover.

Apparently she, too, had studied the Cuddlebug manoeuvre.


Vista just coughed and suggested we play videogames. Given, well, given everything, I agreed to her obvious distraction attempt. Then I thanked them both for being so understanding.

Vista very obviously didn't feel she'd been understanding enough, but I appreciated the effort anyway. Very much so.


Naturally, my new Shaker Nine friend's effort was just getting into her stride explaining the various options available to us (all nine of them), and the differences between the two different official Protectorate licensed games when the Pizza arrived.

I'm not sure where the sound of growling came from, but it definitely precluded just letting it sit for a while. Eh, c'est la vie. There are definitely worse problems.