Merry late Christmas and a happy early New Year! I feel so bad for all of the little children who were burned and I love Mei and how "helpful" she is. Little points of light indeed.
Gotta keep up with the little points of light. Otherwise the story just gets completely bleak and depressing, which isn't the goal here. Comedy, unfortunately, just doesn't seem to work too well right at the moment, so fluff it is.
I have decided to add a warning to the start of Arc 28, considering it's darker nature compared to the rest of the fic. Besides this, a summary has been added to the start of 29-1 Inconscionable in a spoiler, covering the events of arc 28 in a relatively prosaic and very non-detailed manner. Said summary is also reproduced below.
The bombs in the park go off, and the place is instantly rendered a disaster area. Jacqueline does what she can, but can't risk using her power obviously because it would likely start a panic.
It becomes clear that the Debut is not the only target, and this is a bombing spree, not a singular incident.
The little girl Jacqueline's aura saved way back in 8-8 appears again, her parents having brought her to see what they assumed was Jacqueline's debut, but she loses them when the bombs go off, and latches on to Jacqueline.
Jacqueline is understandably emotionally affected by everything, and so are all the other characters we see, albeit to somewhat differing levels of ability to cope.
At the boardwalk, Victoria Dallon/Glory Girl noticed a bomb and flew off with it to save the people below, despite realising that it was likely Tinkertech and might be able to hurt her. She successfully protects everybody else from it, but passes out in Tinkertech-induced pain as the rest of the bombs go off.
Additionally, chapter 29-1 Inconscionable will be remaining with Arc 29 permanently, as it doesn't really fall under the warning and is considerably lighter than Arc 28, on par with the rest of Arc 29.
Well, that's assuming she knows Jacqueline was at the debut, and that the debut specifically was bombed. And either way, I'd expect her to desperately try to find out whether Jacqueline is dead or injured, then get all revenge-happy.
All of that assuming that Taylor is free at the moment and is at least mostly okay herself...
Fair warning, two of the interludes in this chapter include the same sort of thing as Arc 28, albeit much less of it, and one is likely to be disturbing to claustrophobes. These are the ones labeled Martin, Lestari, and John, respectively, the fourth-last and third-last interludes and the second-last interlude of the chapter. All these are skippable if needed.
Melati:
The city was burning, and it was Melati's fault. Or at least the fire station burning in front of her was Melati's fault. She was, after all, the one who'd planted the bomb in the fire station. She hadn't wanted to, but there were some people you just didn't say "no" to if you wanted to keep your face intact. And it wasn't like she knew it was a bomb at the time. She'd thought it was drugs, or maybe some kind of bribe, not something that was going to kill people!
Or at least that was what she'd told herself. She had heard the rumors about the "new boss" of the ABB, just like everybody else, and she should have realized what she was being "asked" to do. Maybe she'd been in denial. Maybe she'd just been stupid.
Either way, when she heard the sound of explosions she'd known. She'd rushed to the scene of her crime as fast as her feet could take her, and found it burning.
It was her fault, she'd planted a bomb, and now the fire station was burning, right when the city needed its first responders most.
People were dying, both in the station and out in the city, because of Melati.
She rushed inside, not sure if she was desperate to help or just running away from the guilt. Either way, she found somebody, an unconscious young man in civilian clothing. Maybe off-duty, maybe just a visitor. It didn't matter, she was dragging him out of the building. It wasn't easy, but she had to. She had to.
Hector:
Hector Brown knew he wasn't the bravest of men. He did his best, he really did, but he didn't have the temperament for standing up to violence like the PRT agents did, let alone the actual troopers. His little slip up at the bank Thursday had proved that, when he'd stupidly followed Alice Stone into a hostage situation without any decent precautions. He wasn't a hero, didn't have superpowers and wasn't all that strong, emotionally or physically. Most of the time he was okay with that.
It was, however, rather inconvenient when he was trapped at the scene of bombing because his leg was trapped under debris, and probably broken in at least half a dozen places. If he'd been one of any number of the people he worked with he would know what to do. Unfortunately, he wasn't and he didn't. And given the rather large number of more urgent cases, it'd be a while before anybody came for him.
Or so he thought, until he heard his boss' voice. Emily Piggot wasn't there in person, of course, but Browbeat hadn't learned to keep his phone quiet in the field. Or maybe he was a little hard of hearing at the moment. He'd hardly be the only one. Whichever it was, Hector heard something few outside the PRT would ever hear: Emily Piggot being encouraging and supportive.
And Browbeat crying, and shaking horribly, and speaking so low Hector couldn't make out what he was saying, and the general sounds and screams of the chaos, but that was less inspiring.
"It's okay, kid. Everybody freezes up their first time. Remember that speech? You wrote it, Jackson told me, and I know you can live up to it. I believe in you. Tell me what's going on."
Browbeat did, though it wasn't terribly insightful. Nothing that Hector couldn't have reported himself if he'd had an intact phone. But there was a bit more strength in the kid's voice, and he was trying. That was what counted. That and getting people out of there. (Getting Hector out of there, was what he thought at first, but he was just brave enough to consider that other people needed evac a lot more than he did.)
"Okay. It'll be okay, Browbeat. You need to get people out of there. You probably can't help everybody, so just start with the people you can help, okay? You can do this." came over Browbeat's still unquiet communication device.
"Okay."
And Browbeat came for Hector first. Maybe because he was the first person the Ward laid eyes on. Maybe because his problem was relatively simple. Maybe he even recognized Hector, as unmemorable as the accountant was. Whatever it was, Hector almost told him to turn away, to help somebody who needed it more, but he didn't. He acted calm, and polite, and helpful, and he was very grateful for Browbeat's assistance.
He didn't want to spook the kid. Or maybe he was just glad to get away as fast as possible.
That was something he didn't know. He decided not to look at it too closely.
Besides, this wasn't exactly the time for introspection.
Muriel:
Muriel's hearing wasn't what it used to be back when she was young and spry, but the sound of screaming always managed to get her attention. Something of a necessity for a teacher, or at least a teacher of small children. The screams coming from Willow Park Elementary weren't children's screams, thank god this hadn't happened while class was in session, but Muriel recognized them all the same. She didn't know all of the current crop of teachers, but she knew enough to realize they'd been in one of those Sunday "progress meetings" the new principal had been so keen on in the years before Muriel's retirement.
And, perhaps more pertinently, she realized why they were screaming a few seconds later, when the bombs went off. Forty years of teaching experience kicked in, and Muriel immediately instructed the Bancroft girl to call for help before rushing to assist. The main doors weren't safe, and neither were most of the side entrances, but Muriel knew the school's layout better than anyone. Lily Bancroft was smart enough to know that, and let Muriel take charge with a quick "Yes, Mrs. Priestly".
Somehow, Lily sounded just like she had all those years ago, when she'd still been one of Muriel's students. Like she had at the last school wide emergency Muriel had been on scene for. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that, and all the ones before that whole mess. Half of those times it hadn't even been Lily herself, but whoever it was always sounded the same.
Some things never changed.
Martin (Gore, Bomb Aftermath):
Brockton Bay was a dangerous city, Martin knew. So when he came to visit his uncle he came prepared. Cell phone. Mace. Decoy wallet. Only a small amount of cash in his real wallet, and his credit card left at home. Thorough knowledge of his routes, both in and out, plus a few backups. He was ready for anything.
Anything, that was, besides the lighting store on the other side of the street blowing up out of nowhere. There didn't even seem to be any light or heat, but the raw concussive force made for an awful lot of shrapnel. He would have been dead, or bleeding out, if a massive man hadn't tackled him to the ground and covered him with his now half-shredded body.
Martin would have a lot of thoughts, about a lot of things, when he had time to process. Thoughts like "why did he do that" and "how did he know what was going to happen" and "why didn't he save himself".
At the moment, however, his first thought was "I don't even like uncle Albert that much."
And then there was a lot of screaming
Lestari (Bomb Aftermath):
Lestari was, in all honesty, fairly inexperienced for a firefighter in Brockton Bay. She'd gotten through the academy with (close-to) top grades, gotten hired within a few days of graduation, and she'd been through weeks of work and over a dozen incidents of various grades.
But she'd never been called to a parahuman incident before. And, in all honesty, she hoped she would never be called to one again. Fires were bad enough, but what was left of the Boardwalk was a nightmare beyond anything Lestari had ever seen.
Flesh and bone, warped and twisted beyond what should have been physically possible, let alone something that could actually happen. A colossal hedge of toxic-looking green spikes, slick with blood and gore. A perfectly preserved bubble, air far cleaner than the smoke laced atmosphere of the rest of the scene, with everything and everyone within seeming perfectly untouched by the carnage around them, save for the expressions of panic and the complete and utter lack of movement. A girl, seemingly physically untouched but screeching in so much pain it was hard to bear, muscles straining to tear themselves apart as she was being loaded into a waiting ambulance.
Plus all the fire and debris and broken bodies and panicking shoppers and tourists. The things Lestari could actually do something about, actually had training for. She should be dealing with that, shouldn't she?
There was a hand on her shoulder. Her boss, or at least her team leader.
"I get it, kid. It's hard, every time. Never gets any easier, either. But we've got a job to do."
So she did.
John (Claustrophobia):
John didn't know what happened. One second everything was fine, he'd just crossed the street to check out a rather nice-looking park (by Brockton Bay standards), the next everything was black and he was pressed on all sides, something slimy everywhere, forcing its way into his open mouth and nose. He couldn't see, could hear, couldn't breathe. He struggled, but couldn't find any purchase, and it lasted so long and oh god he was going to die.
Then, miraculously, he found something hard, something solid, and he gripped for his life striving to pull himself up. And failed. He didn't have the strength.
There was a tremendous yanking, and he found himself safe. Filthy, but safe, and there was somebody thumping on his back. He looked up and saw the road maintenance man he'd given maybe a quarter of a second's thought while he was crossing the street. The man was still clutching the shovel with which he'd saved John's life as he gazed at the horrific morass of quicksand where the park John had been checking out used to be. Then he started swearing profusely.
John just collapsed further, and coughed his lungs out.
Neither of them noticed the little sign indicating that the park was reserved for a birthday party, but when the authorities found out they would be secretly relieved John had triggered the overly-sensitive proximity detonator first.
Lakeisha:
"Please wake up."
Lakeisha Henricks barely recognized the sound of her own voice. It was difficult enough to hear it over the omnipresent sound of ticking in the strange hospital room, and what she could hear was barely present, her breath stolen by exhaustion and the bandaging across her chest. But whether Lakeisha recognized Lakeisha's voice wasn't important. What was important was whether Amari recognized her voice. Lakeisha's own difficulty with it was merely a sign that she needed to try harder for Amari.
Amari. Her precious little sibling. Little, stupid, reckless Amari, who'd for once been doing the safe thing and playing quietly in designated area and not drawing attention to themself. Little Amari, who'd been burned almost past the point of recognition. Well past the point of recognition, for anyone who didn't know their features as well as Lakeisha did. Little Amari, who Lakeisha had had to pat out sixteen times. Little Amari, who Lakeisha had had to carry over her shoulder to one of the few Ambulances left. Little Amari, whose vitals had been dropping ever since the man had hooked them up to be measured.
"Please wake up," Lakeisha begged, and she placed her hand on Amari's head to provide them what comfort she could without disturbing the machines keeping them alive.
Amari said nothing, and did not stir.
But when Lakeisha looked up, to check the indicators for the thousandth time, Amari's vitals had levelled out. And slowly, slowly but steadily, they began to rise.
And that would have to be enough.
Racial implications of the word "Thug" and usage in Orderly
Recently, I have been made aware by a post by @your sweetpea <3 in the Pet Peeves in Fanfiction Thread (as well as the following discussion) that, in the US, the word "Thug" and it's derivatives have a long history as a racist dogwhistle, used to denigrate and dehumanise African-Americans.
It then took me longer than it should have to remember to check to see if I had used the word (or it's derivatives) in Orderly, and indeed I had, on eight occasions. Six of said occasions have now been replaced with other words, hopefully ones without issues of their own. The other two usages, both in chapter 23-3 Inharmonious, have been left, as they were specifically meant as describing stereotypes about (urban) African-Americans, and after some consideration I have left them in as simply more appropriate as such than I was aware.
My apologies to @your sweetpea <3 and anyone hurt or offended by my prior usage of this dogwhistle.
I would also like to once again state that I am hardly perfect nor perfectly aware of every issue, racial or otherwise, in my work, and invite you all to point any and all such problematic writing out to me, especially issues with stereotyping, dogwhistles, and other discrimination-related problems with this story, or indeed any of my content.
There were a lot of people coming and going from my little hall of healing. Mostly nurses and patients either incoming or being wheeled out when a theatre became available. Not so many as to cause traffic jams or anything like that, what with the room being arranged for ease of moving beds, but enough that I had to stay on my toes. Beyond that, I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to the ones going in and out, not beyond what I was paying to everybody else.
Until I recognised one of them.
I didn't know Victoria Dallon. Not personally, and not professionally. We were in the same line of work, broadly speaking, but we'd never spoken. Maybe a word or two when she dropped her sister off for my power testing, I honestly don't remember, but nothing more than that. I didn't know her, and she didn't know me.
But I did know her reputation.
She was young, and pretty, and cheerful, all of which made her popular. Even more importantly, she was a solid bulwark of raw strength put to the defence of the public, and the public loved that. Given that she was underage, that didn't exactly say good things about the state of our society, but with the world as it was she was a true inspiration.
She was a champion.
Glory Girl wasn't the best fighter among the city's heroes, that was probably Armsmaster, but she was a solid contender for the position on the strength of her power alone. Her aura really wasn't the selling point mine was, but it was an excellent shock element and even the most unsubtle Master powers had subtle applications. (Even if it was technically rated Shaker.) And the rest of what she could do was even better.
The Alexandria package was extremely well rounded as a powerset, and she had plenty of raw power in all of its aspects. She was fast, not the best flyer around but far faster than any normal human could hope to match. Or even a solid majority of parahumans, including a lot of capes with Mover ratings. She was strong, not only strong enough to lift and throw cars but also sufficiently powerful to just jerk them around like they weighed nothing. And, of course, she was invincible.
Until she wasn't.
Frankly, the sight of her would have been discouraging even if she hadn't been our city's big bright (seemingly) invulnerable rising star. I saw enough of the labelling on the IV bag to know she was on painkillers strong enough to pose serious medical risks in their own right. Going by the eyes, they'd knocked her unconscious. And she was still twitching and convulsing in pain. Judging by the scratches on her exposed flesh and the drying blood all over her fingers, it had been far worse beforehand. I probably shouldn't go into the gory details.
I probably shouldn't have looked at the gory details either, but it's too late to change that now. And, in all honesty, I'd seen worse. For the actual physical damage, it probably didn't even make the top thousand. That she was still in pain after that much painkillers was disturbing, but I'd seen far worse than the amount she currently seemed to be in.
For both, there were at least a dozen worse cases right there in the room with me, and it would have been far more if there weren't a whole lot of similar IVs going around.
But she was supposed to be invincible.
Seeing heroes taken down by villains, or just taken down in general, is rough on morale at the best of times. There aren't that many of us, so each and every cape willing to stand for law and order is important. Then there's the way we're pumped up as resplendent bastions of safety, the means by which we keep society somewhat functional by letting people know they're protected.
Which is all well and good, until said bastions get broken.
Glory Girl was PR gold. Powerful, enthusiastic, and stunningly attractive. And that meant the sense of safety lost would be all the greater. At least until she was back up and caping, anybody who knew about this would be disheartened. It probably wouldn't let up until the bomber was dead or Birdcaged and the "young Alexandria" was fully recovered. And maybe not even then.
So I had to cover this up. Morale is a major factor in recovery, after all, and I didn't need to make these people's days more horrible. The decor and general atmosphere were bad enough, not to mention the intermittent screams and the distant explosions. My little crisis could be pushed to the side for the moment. Like my much, much bigger crises.
Nobody was talking about her yet, and I doubted anybody but the professionals handling her case (and one curious amateur who was technically doing the same) had noticed, but that wouldn't last forever. Unless it would.
Most people aren't good at recognising people who they encounter outside the contexts they expect, but I wasn't going to count on that.
I needed a distraction.
So I ended up "accidentally" blazing some (very loud) music from my phone. After I had gotten to a safe distance, of course. I think I managed not to look too interested in her specifically.
To be clear, the music thing wasn't my first idea, or even my tenth. It was, however, the best of a bad lot. The classic throw a rock and sneak by while the guard investigates trick wasn't going to work, because I didn't have a rock, there was more than one person I needed to distract, the people I needed to distract couldn't move to investigate anyway, and I was, and needed to stay, right in plain view of the vast majority of them.
So that was out.
The other cliche distractions, sex appeal and explosions, were also out, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
That left a bunch of wild and crazy ideas, plus some much more sensible and consequently boring ones. As can perhaps be expected, the music thing I ended up going with was closer to the "sensible and boring" end of the spectrum. After all, most of the others were not only wild and crazy, but also wildly impractical and crazy in a less positive sense of the word.
I didn't even have access to flour, let alone the full swoop of ingredients, utensils, containers, and appliances to make a bunch of pizzas. Or the practice and experience to do it properly, but failure would probably be as distracting as success in that case, if not as good for morale. Either way, it wasn't happening.
I did also consider just ordering a bunch of pizzas, which was somewhat less impractical. But I rather doubted anywhere was delivering, given the current circumstances. Certainly nobody I'd trust to handle food. Even the post office just carries on through rain and snow and dark of night, not massive terrorist attacks. Parahuman or otherwise.
Picking up Mei for a horsey ride was actually my favourite idea, but I wasn't about to pick up a traumatised kid without asking permission, which was something I couldn't do at the moment. Well, unless she could read, which I didn't think most five year olds could, on a tiny screen, which was harder, with no help and an understandably distracted mind. Which was a bit of a tall order even if she could read.
So I went with the music thing.
And, with the volume deliberately set high enough to be very distracting, I managed to legitimately startle myself and fall over before the song even got to "upon our prey we steal".
That probably helped with the distraction, really, but it probably wasn't the best impression to make on the next people to enter the room. Not that that was the biggest problem with the whole thing.
I did also consider just ordering a bunch of pizzas, which was somewhat less impractical. But I rather doubted anywhere was delivering, given the current circumstances. Certainly nobody I'd trust to handle food.
Parahumanly fast pizza delivery service.
5 minutes flat pizza delivery or double your money back, no matter where you are in America*. Call now and order the pizza our Thinker already put into the oven.
We even deliver pizza in all non S threat emergencies. *Unless you are in prison or an area restricted by law.
EDIT: removed a Stutter
Parahumanly fast pizza delivery service.
5 minutes flat pizza delivery or double your money back, no matter where you are in America*. Call now and order the pizza our Thinker already put into the oven.
We even deliver pizza in non all non S threat emergencies. *Unless you are in prison or an area restricted by law.
Unfortunately, there there's only one obvious candidate for a group capable of pulling that off, and Cauldron's mostly uninterested in food delivery. At least this story's version of it.
Might make a good thing in it's own right though, mind if I steal that?
Recently, I have been made aware by a post by @your sweetpea <3 in the Pet Peeves in Fanfiction Thread (as well as the following discussion) that, in the US, the word "Thug" and it's derivatives have a long history as a racist dogwhistle, used to denigrate and dehumanise African-Americans.
Eh, "Jackbooted" thug is pretty closely tied to Nazis, neo or otherwise. I may continue using that variant. It's usage as a dogwhistle for persons of African descent appearst to be mostly an American thing, which is probably why I hadn't heard of it myself.
See, I've never heard it used that way and I'm an American. I think of the word "thug" as filling the same role as "gangster", yet less professional or organized.
See, I've never heard it used that way and I'm an American. I think of the word "thug" as filling the same role as "gangster", yet less professional or organized.
You probably have. We all probably have. But the thing with dogwhistles and the like is that, if you're not aware of them, they aren't obvious. It's not an outright slur, and it doesn't have any direct references to race. Instead, it's used about and gradually associated with African Americans (mostly African American males) in order to reinforce and convey the stereotype about them being criminal, violent, and dumb. Or, in other words, thuggish. It's a cheap and easy way to dismiss them without just saying it's a race thing, even when it's frequently if not quite exclusively racially driven.
I just read through that thread and I definitely see where people are coming from on it being racist. I also agree that it's hard to find a nice, short word for "violent dangerous criminal who walks the streets planning to do crime" though.
As a bunch of people walked in to see me falling over myself while Gilbert and Sullivan rang out, I tried to comfort myself that at least I'd managed a successful distraction. Not much more than that, but that was what I set out to do. Victoria Dallon had been bundled away and placed behind curtains with nary a whisper of her presence. So that part was all well and good.
And, fortunately, this wasn't Winslow. Or any other school. There, my little pratfall would have been met with snickering at a minimum, and probably open mockery. Relatively gentle if it was a good school, less so if it wasn't, and with racial slurs and similarly hard insults thrown into the mix if it was Winslow-grade awful.
Here, there was none of that.
Of course, at Winslow I wasn't saving the lives of any significant portion of my fellow students. Nor was I unable to speak due to burns, though I don't know how many of the people in the room actually knew that. And I hadn't come to Winslow from ground zero of an atrocity, either. Not unless the school itself counted. And, of course, most of the other people in this room weren't teenagers.
So in hindsight I can understand why this audience was a bit more sympathetic. At the time I was expecting more of a "pointing and laughing" type response, but that was just me being uncharitable. And it did work.
So I tried to pretend I hadn't heard the distinctive sound of a shutter closing, or rather an electronic mimicry thereof. It would probably end up on the internet sooner or later, but that was the price of being a cape.
Well, that and the life constantly brimming with potential violence. And the actual violence. And the amount of attention it brought to you from villains. And the trauma you had to go through to become one in the first place.
It was part of the price of being a cape. A pretty small part, all things considered.
Heh. Really, in the end, it was pretty absurd that I was worrying so much about such a small thing while the entire city was under attack. Ha.
I was being amazingly foolish, really. There I was, on the floor of a mass hospital room, with dozens of patients with deathly injuries and illnesses that they were counting on me to treat, everybody looking at me, while a bunch of pseudopirates yelled about how silent they were being. And I was worried about looking silly. It was ridiculous.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
The laughter was slipping through my lips before I realised what was happening. It stung, and more than stung, but somehow that didn't stop me. In hindsight, it really shouldn't have been all that funny, but that didn't stop me either.
Then again, I didn't sound all that mirthful, even to my own ears. Probably stress and trauma and all that not-so-good stuff, plus a mildly funny stimulus to kick things off. What small part of me was still thinking knew people were probably getting worried, but I couldn't help it. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until my stomach hurt and my throat ached and my burns were all torn open or stretched and mishandled enough to be almost as painful as the torn open ones. I couldn't stop, and eventually I couldn't bring myself to want to stop, and my emotions were building and building until I couldn't hold them back in the slightest.
And then I was crying. Sobbing, really. First overlapping with the laughing, then overtaking it entirely. Sobs wracked their way through my unresisting body as tears fell. Breathe choked and failed to get to my lungs, too pressured to shove its way out immediately. Limbs, formerly awkwardly splayed, wrapped themselves around other limbs. And I cried and cried and cried and cried.
I cried because my face was agony. Small wonder, given what I'd just done to it, and what I was still doing, but that only made me feel worse. And saltwater is very painful in wounds, even if it comes from within the wounded person's body. My mask only provided so much protection before it soaked through.
I cried because I was surrounded by pain and suffering. I cried because people were dying, both around me and all around the city. I cried because violence and cruelty would most likely always be part of my life.
I cried because I didn't know what was happening. I cried because I might find out what was happening, and I didn't want to know just as much as I desperately needed to.
I cried because I didn't know why this wretched crime against humanity was happening. I cried because no reason could ever be good enough.
I cried because I was small and weak and vulnerable. I cried because I was hurt and scared. I cried because my mother wasn't there. I don't even know which mother I was missing so badly, they sort of blurred together into one vague motherish impression of comfort and safety at that point, but I cried for her or her or them all the same.
I cried for all the people I'd lost. I cried for mothers and fathers and friends and teachers and so so many more. I cried for kindly old men with slight drinking problems and girls just slightly older and bigger than myself who thought they knew everything and that everything would always go their way. I cried for great big idiots with hearts infinitely bigger than their brains. I cried for tiny smiles that hinted at whole worlds of knowledge, and I cried for the ever understanding person they'd lived upon. I cried for soft hands and warm hugs, never to be had again.
I cried for hundreds of thousands of souls I'd never met, washed away with the land we called home, and for billions more I'd been ripped away from, never to meet again, and for I don't even know how many who were dying violently right at that very moment.
I cried for all the people I'd gained since I found myself in a terribly maintained bathroom stall with far too many thoughts and memories in my fourteen year old head, because I knew, just knew deep in the blackest depths of my soul, that I was going to lose them too. Just like I'd lost everybody else.
I cried because I was, and always would be, at the mercy of harsh and uncaring forces. I cried because the world I lived upon was a nightmarish maelstrom of endless degeneration and murderous brutality. I cried because there was nothing I could do, nothing anybody could do, to make things right.
I cried for all of those reasons, and for no reason at all, and because I was completely and utterly overwhelmed.
And then I got booped on the nose with a stuffed bear in a PRT trooper outfit.
I gotta admit, I really didn't see that one coming.
For a moment I thought that the Boop Bear could have been the work of the other colourfull lesbian cape in the bay, but then I reread 'with'.
So now I'm left on sitting on the edge off my chair for the cliffhanger of who booped with the bear the girl.
Also nice display of a mental meltdown. I should probably binge this fic at some later moment to get the full emotional weight, but I felt something and that is rare for me.
Also nice display of a mental meltdown. I should probably binge this fic at some later moment to get the full emotional weight, but I felt something and that is rare for me.
A/N: We're going back in time a bit here, though this chapter is in chronological order with itself.
Parian:
Sabah was pretty much used to difficult customers by this point. She did, after all, work in both promotions and commissions, both of which had plenty. Business owners and the Boardwalk's financial committee's employees alike tended to have very exact ideas about how a cape should draw attention to their businesses, both out of penny-pinching and sheer pigheadedness legitimate concerns, and the kind of people who were willing and able to pay for a cape to make their clothes generally had some degree of entitlement issues. So most of her customers were at least a little bit difficult. It wasn't an issue she liked dealing with, but it was something she could and did regularly deal with, as much as any of her business could be described as "regular".
Emily Piggot's "request", on the other hand, wasn't what Sabah had expected. Parts of it fit with what she knew about the woman in charge of the PRT: short (extremely short) deadline, demands for extreme toughness of construction (for a stuffed animal, anyway), anemic pay. All that sounded like the brusque lady in charge of Brockton Bay's PRT division.
Ordering a Teddy Bear did not sound like Director Emily Piggot. Even if that Teddy Bear was supposed to be done up like a PRT trooper. Especially since Parian had sold a grand total of three stuffed animals in her cape career, all of them to the wealthy parents of children who'd been particularly enamoured with one of her shows.
Still, Sabah couldn't afford to be too picky with her customers, and Emily Piggot was not a woman to cross lightly. So she did the job as quickly and efficiently as she could manage with what she had on hand, made sure her work was solid, and quietly delivered it to one of the side doors of PRT headquarters. Then she tried to forget about what was probably her weirdest commission yet.
There wasn't any more paid work to be done at the moment, but Sabah was sure she could find something to keep herself busy.
Martin Sands:
Low level employees saw and heard a lot more than most of the people above them realized. Especially the ones who handled getting things where they needed to be: playing an "inventory management specialist" was Martin Sands' preferred guise for a reason. Of course it helped that any security checks run on him through Watchdog or any of the PRT's higher-ups and security apparatuses would indicate that "Theodore Rosenberg" was a normal and trustworthy citizen of Brockton Bay, complete with just enough parking tickets and the like to not be too perfect.
But yes, you could learn a lot about an organization, and what was changing in it, by its requisition forms. It wasn't the fastest way, but just about every "subtle" attempt to influence the PRT would generate changes in behavior and the patterns of requests, and a lot of the things people tried to hide could be found in the things they requisitioned.
Of course, the cover job did come with the downside of being an actual job, which meant "Theodore" had to spend a lot of time tracking things down and filling requests and physically fetching and maintaining the various thingamabobs and doo-dads that kept the PRT functioning, but he usually didn't mind. He was good at it, and it gave him plenty of time to think. Mostly about his real work, but still.
And sometimes there were the special requests, the ones that indicated something was up. LIke the one he was handling now. Being told to pick up a delivery at one of the side doors of a PRT Headquarters was nothing new. Having it be one of the human sized doors was a little more unusual, but it still happened fairly frequently. Mostly with food, but there were other things. Being told to then take it straight to the director's office after security had checked it, and to pick up a few more items from the gift shop stockroom to accompany it, was flat out weird.
Though not as weird as finding out the "package" was a rather adorable stuffed animal, or that it had been made and delivered by the city's one and only Rogue. Theodore hadn't known Parian sold stuff, and even Martin hadn't known she sold her stuffed animals. And the other stuff seemed rather unusual too.
Why Regional Director Emily Piggot, a full grown, and indeed rather large, seasoned PRT veteran on a restricted diet, needed a set of children's pajamas, a cape-made teddy bear, and some of the finest candy the PRT sold wasn't any of Theodore Rosenberg's business.
Martin Sands, on the other hand, was already looking into it.
Emily Piggot:
Yep. That was a stuffed bear alright. PRT style armor and all. It didn't quite look like the model she'd tasked Requisitions to retrieve, but it was cute and soft, and it seemed to be sturdy enough. It'd do. The pajamas and the candy looked fine, too. Emily had almost ten minutes to spare, for once, and everything was going according to plan. The wrapping paper and box had already been brought up, and she had a spare bow from Assault's latest futile attempt to bribe her into ignoring his screwups. All she needed now was a note.
Right. Emily was pretty sure she knew how to do that.
Sophia:
The little bear in plushy PRT armor was adorable. Sophia wanted to poke it. (And squeeze it, and hug it. She may have been a teenager, but she'd missed a few of her years and was perfectly entitled to cutesy desires.)
Sophia had had a bear like that, once. She didn't know what happened to him. Shadow Stalker had probably burned him or drenched him in blood until he fell apart or left him on somebody's window with a knife in his neck or something. Sophia missed that bear.
She missed a lot of things, really.
She'd looked into replacing him, but they didn't make them any more. They'd been discontinued even before Sophia had disappeared.
But yes, the bear was adorable. It was bigger than Sophia's, and a different colour, and a lot better taken care of, but otherwise it was the same. She thought. It had been a while, and she hadn't had a good eye for detail back then. Still didn't, really, but she was working on it.
It was great.
Though Sophia still probably shouldn't have been invading Jacqueline's privacy to look at it, even if it was cute. And even if Jacqueline had left the door to her room open. And even if it was right there on top of the dresser, looking straight at Sophia.
But it was adorable. And Sophia hadn't been able to look at it for very long last night, because Jacqueline was covering it, being rather adorable herself, and because Sophia didn't want to say anything in case the other girl thought she was being teased.
Maybe she could look for just a few more minutes.
Alice Stone:
Alice was very, very busy. There was an official city-wide emergency, massive amounts of coordination and analysis needed to be done, and half the Agents and analysts were home for the weekend. There was a lot she needed to do.
Nonetheless, she still took the time to update her (theoretically temporary) charges with what was going on, where she was, who she was with, and a copy of the standard plan for this sort of situation. And she made it clear they could contact her if they needed her.
One of them wasn't answering, but Alice was already putting out what feelers she could for her.
Alice Stone had far, far too many responsibilities, but she took them seriously.
Sophia:
Sophia needed to hurry. Jacqueline was at the hospital, probably hurt a lot worse than Stone had implied. (Adults always did that, always downplayed how bad things were. Sophia understood why, these days, but that didn't stop her from trying to see past it.) And it wasn't like Sophia was any use here.
There was a "city-wide state of emergency" on, so she couldn't just go in her civilian clothes. Her training outfit and a standard courtesy mask would have to do. She rushed down to her room and got changed as quickly as she could (a lot slower than Shadow Stalker could have managed, but she tried not to think about that), then rushed right back up the hall.
She stopped for a second, outside of Jacqueline's room. She'd seemed pretty attached to that bear last night. Before she could talk herself out of it, Sophia stepped into the room and grabbed the bear.
Then she was off.
Mei:
The clock-lady was crying. That wasn't good. The clock-lady was nice, and nice people shouldn't cry. Mei had seen a lot of nice people crying lately, but she still didn't like it.
The nurse-ladies and the Alice-lady had put the clock-lady to bed, but she was still crying. Mei didn't know what to do. She tried hugging the clock-lady, but she was still crying.
This was really bad.
Mommy would have known what to do, but Mommy was sleeping and Mei wasn't supposed to wake her up because she was hurt and needed to sleep. So Mei was stuck. She kept hugging the clock-lady, but it wasn't working.
Then another lady came up to the bed. Mei didn't recognize the new-lady, but she knew a teddy-bear when she saw one, and there was one in the new-lady's hand.
And teddy-bears always made Mei feel better. Especially when Mommy did the nose thing. That was something Mei could do!
..... I love this story, but if this is how far you go for Bakuda's bombings, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle when you get to the rest of worm. Just, Mei at the end was both adorably cute, and heartbreakingly sad at the same time, and I can't handle it.
..... I love this story, but if this is how far you go for Bakuda's bombings, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle when you get to the rest of worm. Just, Mei at the end was both adorably cute, and heartbreakingly sad at the same time, and I can't handle it.
We're off the stations of the canon, now. I kept the Bank Robbery kinda the same for exploration purposes, and Bakuda going on a bombing spree was inevitable as soon as Lung wasn't around to stop her even if this one is earlier and with different motives and targets, but the rest of the big things won't be happening the way they did in canon, if at all.
There will be no Echidna arc. No Gold Morning, either, though I do have plans regarding Scion.
What's left for the big arcs? The end of the Coil issue, and my endgame plan, for sure. Those could fit pretty closely together, in-universe wise, both with each other and the bombing spree, or they can wait a while. I've also thought about an Endbringer battle (probably not in Brockton Bay), and a Slaughterhouse Nine encounter (definitely not in Brockton Bay), though I'm not sure if they'd actually be worth it, effort wise. Probably not. I also want to do something with the Empire, that was a major failing of the original Worm, though I'm not sure how to do that.
Regardless of how it goes, I do plan to have chapters to soften the blow, though to be honest most of them are more like this than anything. Next Arc may or may not be better for you, depending on how you feel about Amy Dallon.
We're off the stations of the canon, now. I kept the Bank Robbery kinda the same for exploration purposes, and Bakuda going on a bombing spree was inevitable as soon as Lung wasn't around to stop her even if this one is earlier and with different motives and targets, but the rest of the big things won't be happening the way they did in canon, if at all.
There will be no Echidna arc. No Gold Morning, either, though I do have plans regarding Scion.
What's left for the big arcs? The end of the Coil issue, and my endgame plan, for sure. Those could fit pretty closely together, in-universe wise, both with each other and the bombing spree, or they can wait a while. I've also thought about an Endbringer battle (probably not in Brockton Bay), and a Slaughterhouse Nine encounter (definitely not in Brockton Bay), though I'm not sure if they'd actually be worth it, effort wise. Probably not. I also want to do something with the Empire, that was a major failing of the original Worm, though I'm not sure how to do that.
Regardless of how it goes, I do plan to have chapters to soften the blow, though to be honest most of them are more like this than anything. Next Arc may or may not be better for you, depending on how you feel about Amy Dallon.
Listen, I was just afraid you were still planning on having the endbringer, slaughterhouse Nine double whammy of canon that is just so much bad stuff one after another. It would've been a bit much, if you ended up portraying those events like what is happening here.
I want to be clear, I really like what you are doing here, and how you've consistently tried to portray a human, empathetic view of this world and the people that are sometimes forgotten. Quite honestly, you do an amazing job as an author, portraying these events.
I just want to make sure that this doesn't end up being a misery train in the later chapters that I can't handle. Poor Mei is breaking my heart already, and I can't imagine her losing even more.
Quite honestly, I'm excited to see what you do with this story, and if Jacqueline's powers end up having any secondary effects. It feels like there has been a consistent undertone that Jacqueline feels like the world is wrong, and I can't wait to see how that may pay off in the future.
Also, please do something with the nazi's. Give them some kind of comeuppance. I think we all agree that nothing really interesting was done with them in the source material and I trust you way more to do a good job with their comeuppance.
