Orderly (Worm Semi-SI)

[Obscura]

Br'er Rabbit:

It was not, in fact, a night made for war by stealth. There was a full moon, and in this part of town there were plenty of streetlights, not to mention all the subtle measures Coil's men had taken to avoid being taken by surprise. Light was everywhere, and it looked like a stealthy approach was impossible.

Staying hidden, maybe, possibly even observing without being observed, but actually sneaking in? A private fresh from boot camp could have told you that it was impossible.

Which, in fact, only made it all the easier for Br'er Rabbit to do precisely that.

It simply didn't matter if you were technically within view if the person looking wasn't paying enough attention to notice you, and with Br'er Rabbit's powers somebody had to be paying a lot of attention. Even unpowered, the sentries' ease and assurance in their safety would have been a major advantage in his slipping in unnoticed, with his powers the outcome was past all doubt.

Not a single guard's routine was delayed for even a second as Br'er Rabbit passed them by.


Once inside the base proper, Br'er Rabbit relied upon an entirely different principle of stealth: if you look like you belong and you know what you're doing and where you're going, people are unlikely to stop you.

Thanks to his outfit, he looked like he belonged. His uniform and gas mask didn't match the standard of Coil's mercenaries perfectly, there hadn't been enough time to secure an exact match and have it fitted, but they were close enough that they were unlikely to be questioned. The differences were obvious if an expert paid close attention, but people rarely did, and not all the mercenaries followed the standard particularly well in any case. It was a powerful force of deception in its own right, and his powers only made it all the more effective.

And he did, in fact, know exactly where he was going. He literally had his precise route mapped out right before his eyes, courtesy of Armsmaster and his hacking. The man himself was watching the cameras, ready to warn him of any problems that might arise, and he knew where each and every one of Coil's minions in the base was.

It was definitely a sight better than the intel Br'er Rabbit usually worked from. He was going to get spoiled at this rate, even if Armsmaster still didn't seem to think it was enough.


(The man Br'er Rabbit was a mask for would have killed to have had this level of information before the Erinyes incident. He would have died for it, and gladly at that. Certainly, plenty of others had died for its lack.

But that was hardly Armsmaster's fault, and this wasn't the time to be thinking about it anyway. For the moment, it was better to just be glad he had the Tinker's electronic backup now.)


The most notable thing about the base, aside from the dark purposes it had been put to, was that it was underground, in a structure greatly similar to an Endbringer shelter. Quite possibly it was an unfinished Endbringer shelter, and if it wasn't it was definitely built in imitation of one. That provided it with a number of advantages, including a very limited number of entry points and some truly impressive armoring, but it also came with at least one key weakness: air supply. Even outside of a disaster, a structure like this needed some fairly elaborate systems to keep the air circulating.

And said systems were accessible. They had to be, or they would be impossible to maintain. There were several rooms for that exact purpose, one of them just two hallways down from a certain storage area.

And Armsmaster just so happened to have been told about a gas grenade filled with a certain Tinkertech universally-safe anaesthetic. The scent was apparently distinctive, and Coil's records indicated exactly what it was and where it had been stolen from.

A little further electronic probing had uncovered an entire untapped tank of the stuff, just barely small enough to be moved without issue on a conveniently nearby dolly.

The cells, both interrogation and otherwise, were even hooked up to a separate circulation system, one with a number of separating factors, so that they could be flooded with the gas without letting it into the facility at large. That it also enabled the precise opposite was simply an inevitable quirk of the engineering.

Setting it up took just over half an hour, and it was only that long because Br'er Rabbit was being especially cautious about it. He'd made absolutely sure that the gas would be getting everywhere (except the cells, he'd been careful about that too) before he pulled the metaphorical trigger.


Unfortunately, Coil's troops wore gas masks, and the gas was relatively simple to filter. NewU had designed it as an anaesthetic, not a weapon, after all. Even a surgical mask (if worn properly, by someone of the appropriate size instead of a tiny barely-teenager) was generally adequate protection against it. It was, after all, designed so that a surgery could, if absolutely necessary, be performed by a masked surgeon in a room literally filled with the stuff, although that would hopefully never be put to the test.

Anyone wearing any sort of actual gas mask properly would be unaffected. In all likelihood, that was why Coil had gone out of his way to steal it: any of his own troops on the job and wearing their masks properly would be unaffected.

But more than half of the mercenaries weren't on the job, and not all of the ones that were had their masks on properly, or even at all. They weren't expecting a gas attack in their own HQ, after all. And most of the other employees simply didn't have masks, period.

It wasn't perfect. But, a minute after the gas was released, as Armsmaster reported that seventy-eight percent of the potential enemy combatants had been knocked unconscious without a struggle, Br'er Rabbit thought it was a pretty good start.

 

[WallFlower]

Things Jacqueline can thank NewU for +1

 

[Ferrite]

That's twice that Br'er Rabbit has saved a character in this story. Is he an OC or someone introduced in Ward? Does he simply have a "these are not the droids that you are looking for" Stranger power or something different. When he rescued Lisa, he came out of left field since everything to that point could have been explained away by canon being butterflied.

Since he wasn't a one-time deus ex machina, some detail on him would be nice(initially thought could have been an alt-Browbeat, with the running joke about being forgettable but from his background being mentioned here, definitely not a Ward).

 

[Blacksheep]

I love Br'er Rabbit, absolutely one of my favorites. I am aware I am prejudiced towards liking him cause of his name, but he's just so cool

 

[Obscura]

That's twice that Br'er Rabbit has saved a character in this story. Is he an OC or someone introduced in Ward? Does he simply have a "these are not the droids that you are looking for" Stranger power or something different. When he rescued Lisa, he came out of left field since everything to that point could have been explained away by canon being butterflied.

Since he wasn't a one-time deus ex machina, some detail on him would be nice(initially thought could have been an alt-Browbeat, with the running joke about being forgettable but from his background being mentioned here, definitely not a Ward).

Click to shrink...

Br'er Rabbit is an OC, but he can be (and is) explained by canon being butterflied. It's established in several places that he's an out-of-town Protectorate member, and in slightly fewer but still several places that he was specifically sent to Brockton Bay in response to Emily's request for reinforcements to deal with Coil and the threat he and Merchants were posing to Wards. (Although, admittedly, it does take a few short intuitive leaps in a few places to connect him with the mentioned-but-not-specified reinforcements.) He even had a POV interlude on the rig before the situation he was forced to step in with happened, as well as the one where he actually stepped in, even if both were pretty small. Armsmaster has brought him up several times, although never by name and by his status as reinforcements at the same time.

Br'er Rabbit's power hasn't actually been specified, and, in-universe, isn't entirely understood. From my position as author, I can tell you that it basically works by lowering the amount of "threat" people ascribe to him. When people haven't noticed him, it makes him harder to notice, but when they have noticed him it tends to make them underestimate him. Note how Lung, when he finally noticed Br'er Rabbit, recognised him as "an unremarkable Protectorate Member from out of state" but didn't actually think much of an out of state Protectorate Member whose powers he didn't know showing up from, as far as he knew, out of nowhere. Lung wasn't wrong about his threat assessment that time, admittedly, but it is illustrative. However, only the first part is known to the other heroes in Brockton Bay, and even Br'er Rabbit himself is only aware of the latter on a subconscious level.

Details wise, it's established that he was an emergency responder of some sort before his trigger, which happened during the Erinyes incident, that he was trapped with what was presumably Erinyes at some point during it, that he joined up with the Protectorate because "he was young and stupid and his powers weren't exactly legally compatible with his old job and he'd thought it'd be brave and glorious and make all the bad memories go away, but saving people when they needed it was what he stayed on for. That was what counted," and that he's had a lot of missions and enough of them have gone wrong for him to be very familiar with what it's like, though how many of those were pre-trigger versus post-trigger isn't established. And he's a genuinely good person and hero.

Beyond that, I don't have all that much on him. His civilian name is Benjamin Washington, he's African American and at least partially descended from slaves, the Br'er Rabbit stories are part of his cultural heritage and he loves them very much, and, besides his trauma induced fears from his career, he's also afraid of bats. That's about it.

 

[Lord Sia]

Br'er Rabbit

Click to shrink...

He sounds amazing and I would absolutely read a story about this character. No big, world-shaking shit, just a hero whose power is to go overlooked, using it to save people and take down bad guys. Add in actual family, aware and supportive, friends both inside and outside the force, and we have something great.

 

[Obscura]

Armsmaster:

Everything was going according to plan. Not the best-outcome, everything's coming up roses pie in the sky plan A, but Colin wasn't very far down his list of backups either.

Ideally, the entirety of the opposition would have been downed by the anesthetic, but taking out over two thirds of the fighting troops and all but a scant handful of the non-combat personnel in the base was no small thing. Even beyond the reduced numbers of the opposition, the impact on their morale had been enormous, especially as they had been taken completely by surprise. A not inconsiderable number of the Mercenaries had simply surrendered on the spot, and a larger number had attempted to flee the battlefield entirely, only to find there was no escape to be had.

The PRT troopers were handling the prisoners now, though Triumph had been kept back to assist them if necessary. So far it hadn't been, and it was looking like it wasn't going to be.

Good. Triumph and the troopers were trained for this level of combat, but there was a difference between being trained and being ready, and even then there was always a risk.


Those of the Mercenaries who did attempt to fight were far from doing so at their best. Armsmaster was in their communications systems, listening to their every word. Not that there was much of value being spoken, since with Coil dead there was no centralized leadership or command. And it seemed that anyone who could have taken command had gone down in the initial gas attack.

Their cameras were equally compromised, and Armsmaster had elected to cut them out of that portion of the network entirely. Their every move was being watched, and they saw nothing in return. None of them had realized that they were being observed yet, but even if they had Coil had an entire secondary network of concealed cameras, one the mercenaries didn't seem to be aware of and didn't have the time to root out even if they were.

Stocks of heavy weapons, grenades, and ammunition, had been the attack's first targets, and had been swiftly seized, made inaccessible, or destroyed in the opening moments of the assault itself, either by the strike teams, or by explosives planted by Br'er Rabbit in the confusion.

Even without their heavy weapons, the Mercenaries' assault rifles were dangerous, but they were shaken enough to be easily baited into wasting their suddenly very limited ammunition. Their laser undermounts, which they now had no way of recharging or swapping out the batteries on, were even worse in that regard, being very powerful but unable to be fired more than once at the level most of the mercenaries had set them to once they realized they were facing Brutes without recharging or swapping out components.

And, of course, they were up against a small army of highly experienced and very motivated parahumans. No hero took attacks against the Wards lightly, and Coil had been extremely foolish to kidnap one, let alone two.

The Protectorate took that sort of thing extremely seriously, and it seemed New Wave did too. It had been years since Colin had seen them working together like this, and Laserdream hadn't been involved back then, but they certainly made an effective assault team of their own. Combined with the two only relatively less overwhelmingly powerful Protectorate assault groups taking flanks and mopping up smaller groups they'd swept the majority of the base in short order.


Now, there was only one cluster of the mercenaries left, huddling together behind an improvised strongpoint in an out of the way dead-end corridor. Colin was tempted to rush in and extract a pound of flesh in revenge.

He'd seen the footage of what Coil had ordered done to Sophia Hess, what he was going to do to Jacqueline Colere. (On the secondary camera network, and only on the secondary camera network, interestingly enough. It seemed Coil hadn't wanted his mercenaries to know what he'd done, or at least was disinclined to offer them video proof.) Between his armor, his halberd, his combat-prediction program, and his not-inconsiderable personal skills the odds were good he could do it without the slightest damage to himself.

Instead, he called over Miss Militia, Lady Photon, and Flashbang. A massive burst of light and sound incapacitated half of the mercenaries, and most of the rest were taken down in a hail of lasers and tranquilizer darts as they stumbled out of their cover. Only one made it within reach of Colin's halberd, and he put up precisely no fight whatsoever as Colin pushed him down and removed his mask.

Coordination, consideration, and cooperation were important. He wasn't infallible. Today had more than proved that. Even with the sheer success of the base assault, it was important that he didn't get too assured of his capabilities.


There would be one more sweep of the base before they moved to extract the hostages, just to be safe, but in any meaningful sense it was over.

Everything but the cleanup and the final extraction.

 

[Lord Sia]

Yeah... this is a competent, experienced hero and team leader in his element. Great update!

 

[Obscura]

The alarms going off was, well, alarming. That much was only to be expected. I'm not exactly sure which of those words derives from the other, I'm not even entirely sure they don't both derive from a third thing, but they're definitely closely related both etymologically and definitionally.

Unfortunately, no amount of expectedness in the matter of alarms being alarming could make up for the unexpectedness of the alarms themselves. That's not a great way to put an end to pacing and talking at the same time.

And let me just say, a tendency to fall over when startled is an even worse trait to have than it normally is when you're in a room where it can result in you splashing into a pool of your own vomit and other, worse, fluids.


Of course, nothing of the sort happened. After all, if something like that happened, my self control, already straining to the breaking point, would have snapped entirely. As I was still in control, I must not have fallen face-first into the place where Coil's head would have been if it had still existed as a singular unit.

Ah, the incontestable nobility of reason.


Grotesquely macabre splattering and pure stubborn defensive denialism aside, this was good news, and I knew it. Once I confirmed with Jones that this was the "base under attack" alarm, and not, say, the "the base is on fire, we're all gonna die", "carbon monoxide, we're all gonna die", or "oh lord there's an Endbringer coming, we're all gonna die" alarm, that is.

I did not want to have to try to evacuate a supervillain base with no idea where I was, where the exit was, or what was in between them, much less while it was full of also-evacuating hostiles and all sorts of possible environmental hazards.

Fortunately, that would not be necessary.

This was a rescue.


Coil's troops didn't seem to feel the same way, going by the amount of distant gunfire I could hear, but, and I mean this in the most respectful manner possible, I didn't give a drot about their opinions. Like, I understand that they were human beings and all that with a certain level of inherent worth, but they were also vicious legbreakers working for a child-torturing supervillain. And active shooters, at least the ones I could hear.

So, yeah. Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And good riddance.

Maybe I would have been more sympathetic under better circumstances, but I didn't exactly get "better circumstances", now did I?


I was, I will admit, still pretty worried about the fight. Sure, it was literally every adult hero in town (and an extra) versus a bunch of non-powered individuals, but the non-powered individuals in question had guns, and even most parahumans are ultimately pretty squishy.

As I had rather conclusively proven not so long ago.

I didn't want anybody to die for me.


But there was a major difference between Coil and the heroes, and I'm not referring to their morality. (I don't think I really need to elaborate on the moral differences, do I?)

The heroes actually knew what they were doing in this fight.

I don't mean that Coil was an incompetent combatant. I actually don't know if he could fight or not. He'd certainly never been recorded doing so, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and he may well have been as capable of fighting as he was at avoiding fighting.

But, if so, it wasn't the sort of capability, not the sort of "knowing how to fight", that would have let him get away with not knowing the fight was on in the first place. I'd caught him completely off guard, and he never recovered from the initial blow, if only because I just kept laying into him.

He, quite possibly literally, had no idea whatsoever about what I was going to do until it was too late, and so he essentially had no idea what he was doing. That just wasn't applicable to the heroes, not this time. They knew what they were going into, and they were able to bring the full weight of their powers and their years, or even decades, of combat experience to bear. They had each other's backs, they worked together, and they kept alert.

That was why they'd win, and why they'd do so comprehensively. That was why I didn't have to worry. That and them being the good guys.


Or so I was told. I saw exactly none of that for myself, but the voice on the phone sounded pretty persuasive. I suspect the fact that a significant fraction of them were much more bulletproof than myself helped, and there was probably a lot of leveraging every (legal) advantage they could get involved, but I can't exactly go back and check.

In any case, I do know they pulled it off without losing anybody, so the details aren't really all that important.

Still, the fighting seemed to take an age. It died down and started up again at least twenty times before I lost count, even if each flareup was less intense than the last.

(Which they weren't actually, not quite, but there was a definite downward trend in the level of noise, even as it seemed to get closer.)

It was something of a shock when the latest period of silence wasn't broken by gunfire. Instead, and after a significantly greater pause than what I will refer to as, for lack of a better term, normal, it was broken by voices.

"You sure you should be the one going in, Bossman?"

That was Assault. I recognised both the voice and the insouciance. Despite our complicated history, it was good to hear.

"I am."

I also recognised the sheer level of "done with this nonsense" in Armsmaster's voice, although unlike with Assault it wasn't something I automatically associated with the hero speaking. I did, however, associate it with Assault, so that explained that.

"Wouldn't somebody more personable be better, like say Ha…"

"MIss Militia is occupied. You know how she and the girl have bonded…"

It took me a moment (or, to be honest, several) to realise he meant Sophia. I hadn't known they knew each other all that well, but it made sense to have a female Protectorate member help her out, commonalities and all that, and Miss Militia was by far the senior of the two we had in town.

"Still isn't there anybody else you could have do this?"

Despite the sheer physical impossibility of seeing through thick concrete walls and steel doors, and even the fact that I'd never seen Armsmaster's eyes under the visor, I still got the impression that Assault was being given a very hard look during the ensuing pause.

"This is my responsibility, Assault. I allowed you to accompany me on the assumption that you could remain professional about this, but if you can't…"

There was no further discussion between them. And, after a moment, the door opened.

I'd never found Armsmaster's cold, sleek, futuristic armour style comforting before, not on a personal level. It conveyed power and efficiency, not softness and warmth and hugs. But at that moment, it was more of a relief than just about anything else could have been.

He spoke:

"I'm here kid. It's over. It's all gonna be okay."

And, somehow, I believed him.

 

[WallFlower]

He spoke:

"I'm here kid. It's over. It's all gonna be okay."

And, somehow, I believed him.

Click to shrink...

This feels as if we are going to cut to a shot of everything exploding.

 

[Blacksheep]

This is beautiful The moment the hero arrives, and it's okay.

 

[Ferrite]

Armsmaster simply calling her "kid" at the end kinda makes me feel that Ethan was right in trying to convince Colin to let someone else be the first person she sees after what she's been through.

 

[Kit]

Armsmaster simply calling her "kid" at the end kinda makes me feel that Ethan was right in trying to convince Colin to let someone else be the first person she sees after what she's been through.

Click to shrink...

Ethan, as has been noted, is not the best at dealing with Jacqueline. Colin has built the start of a rapport with her since the abduction, and since they're both pretty heavily ND-coded, there's a bit of solidarity to the vibe too. Jacqueline knows she's a kid, especially compared to the leader of the local Protectorate, and having a Responsible Adult take charge and tell her it's all gonna be okay is basically what she's been asking for.

In other circumstances, with other Wards, especially those who hadn't had such an... unfortunate start to their relationship with Ethan, this would not have been the right play, I agree. But in these circumstances, with this particular Ward, I think Colin made the right play and I bet if asked, later, Jacqueline would agree too.

 

[Lord Sia]

Armsmaster simply calling her "kid" at the end kinda makes me feel that Ethan was right in trying to convince Colin to let someone else be the first person she sees after what she's been through.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, it might just as well be exactly what she needs - Big Daddy Armsmaster promising her that everything's okay, that she'll be fine;

The nightmare is over.

 

[Obscura]

This feels as if we are going to cut to a shot of everything exploding.

Click to shrink...

We are not going to cut to a shot of everything exploding this time.

Armsmaster simply calling her "kid" at the end kinda makes me feel that Ethan was right in trying to convince Colin to let someone else be the first person she sees after what she's been through.

Click to shrink...

Ethan, as has been noted, is not the best at dealing with Jacqueline. Colin has built the start of a rapport with her since the abduction, and since they're both pretty heavily ND-coded, there's a bit of solidarity to the vibe too. Jacqueline knows she's a kid, especially compared to the leader of the local Protectorate, and having a Responsible Adult take charge and tell her it's all gonna be okay is basically what she's been asking for.

In other circumstances, with other Wards, especially those who hadn't had such an... unfortunate start to their relationship with Ethan, this would not have been the right play, I agree. But in these circumstances, with this particular Ward, I think Colin made the right play and I bet if asked, later, Jacqueline would agree too.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, it might just as well be exactly what she needs - Big Daddy Armsmaster promising her that everything's okay, that she'll be fine;

The nightmare is over.

Click to shrink...

Ethan has reasonable concerns about Armsmasters' ability to handle something like this, but I'll note that if Ethan was the one doing it he would absolutely open up with calling the traumatized kid "kid". Because it's the natural, obvious, practically cliche thing to do for a superhero in that situation, and Ethan wouldn't even think about doing otherwise, because as much as he's talented with social situations, he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about them. That's the difference between him and Jacqueline, who thinks about them a lot in a desperate attempt to compensate for her difficulties in the area.

It's not even all that bad a move in general, really. A significant number of teenagers, especially parahuman teenagers, would normally react badly to being called "kid", but I suspect most would much more accepting of being treated like a kid right after being kidnapped, tortured, and taking a human life for the first time. That's the sort of thing that tends to make one much less concerned about standing up for ones adult status, at least right afterwards. (In the long term, trauma responses are much less predictable, but likely to include mistrust.)

I do think it's particularly the right call here, too. I'm not sure Jacqueline knows she's a kid so much as she wants to be a kid, (and safe, and protected,) but she definitely responds extremely well to this sort of treatment and seeks it out, especially under stress. Colin hasn't been there to see it much, but no doubt he's checked out her record. That's the sort of thing he'd do.

 

[Obscura]

I doubt that there are all that many people who can truthfully claim to have bum-rushed Armsmaster and gotten away with it, but I can proudly count myself among their number.

Fewer still can say they've hugged the man (probably). At least in costume, I don't know what he gets up to in his civilian life. For all I know, he just sits at a stall on the Boardwalk all day with a sign advertising free hugs, but he certainly doesn't seem like the hugging type when he's out as a cape.

I don't know how many times somebody has rushed up to him, latched on like a lamprey, and collapsed into a sobbing mess. Probably considerably more than the average person, given how long he's been at our line of work and just how well he's done at it. Such incidents quite possibly account for a significant portion, perhaps even an outright majority, of both of the above figures, but I couldn't give you any hard numbers.

I can, however, confirm that it's happened at least once. Because that's totally what I did.


He took it well, all things considered. Between the hydraulics in his armour and his own not-inconsiderable physical abilities, he was quite capable of giving way exactly enough to prevent the unfortunate consequences of a fourteen year old throwing herself at what, had he remained steadfast, would have been a fairly passable imitation of a steel wall.

Or at least a pillar. He's not exactly what I'd call skinny, and that armour is pretty thick, but he's not that broad. Still, when you're slamming into something at running speed it doesn't make much of a practical difference, even if you haven't had all that much room to accelerate.

It still hurt a fair amount, actually. I just didn't care.

At least I didn't trip and fall into the pooling fluids.

Again.

Once was enough.

Hypothetically speaking, of course. Nothing like that happened. Don't know why I even brought it up.


I tightened my grip as much as I could as Armsmaster gently reassured me that everything would be fine. It might have hurt him, had he been someone else, but he was all muscles and stoic endurance, and wearing enough Tinkertech protection to get thrown through a concrete wall lengthwise and keep on fighting. He'd be fine.

Everything was going to be fine.

Except I didn't need to pretend anymore, so I stopped.

At long last, it was okay for me to not be okay.

And, by all that was sacred, I was going to milk that opportunity.


I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to get another. Sure, there was no reason to expect any further crises, atrocities, or just plain very bad things in the near future, but I'd learned the hard way to expect them anyway, and today would have been enough to undo years of progress unlearning that if I'd even had that much progress in the first place.

Trauma is just like that, you know?


Actually, I don't know if you know or not, but I can assure you that it do, in fact, be like that.

Trauma sucks. Trauma sucks bad.


I don't know how long it took to cry myself out for the moment, but I suspect it was probably longer than it was really advisable to stand around crying in the middle of enemy territory. Certainly longer than it was wise to remain almost completely insensate as well as inconsolable. Anyone could have just picked me up and walked off with me, assuming they were reasonably strong for a moderately athletic adult and somehow managed to prevent Armsmaster from stopping them.

Considering that Armsmaster was not only well past the point of moderately athletic but also wearing powered armour, he was more than physically qualified. And seeing as he was, in fact, Armsmaster, preventing Armsmaster's interference was in all likelihood as simple as deciding not to interfere with himself.

I say this because I was, in fact, being carried away when I finally started noticing my surroundings through my tears. A quick glance at Assault confirmed that Assault was not, in fact, the one carrying me, so by process of elimination I deduced it was Armsmaster.


I'll note that that was absolutely terrible logic, and it easily could have been somebody else, but I was nonetheless entirely correct in my conclusion.

Just goes to show that there's a difference between correct results and correct reasoning, and that you shouldn't assume that just because you have the former you automatically have the latter.

It probably would have been a better demonstration if it actually mattered in the slightest, but here we are. Clearly, we aren't in a perfect world.


It was when we were just leaving the base when I really started gaining awareness. The essence of the air was noticeably altered. Less staleness and steel and more smog and seawater, and the lingering presence of gunfire and sweat and blood was diminished, though still distinctly present even with the mask I hadn't noticed being applied to my face.

Not really the best of scents, Brockton Bay was by no means an air-quality equal of the Swiss Alps, or even Bowater Park, but it sure beat Cell I-26. Even with the chill.

That, I think, was what surprised me most of all. That and the night sky.

The world was crisp and cold and so very, very real at that moment. The moon was ripe and round and bright, and the stars were curiously apparent for such a well-lit urban area. They seemed so close, even though I knew full well just how distant they truly were.

I hadn't looked at them, really looked at them, in months. Not since I'd lingered watching the sun set for the Autumn Equinox with someone I missed very dearly, scant weeks before a dark night between the Fifth and Sixth of October.

I don't know if it was the cold or the darkness or the reminder, but I shivered.

It's a big universe out there. And there's not a lot of it that's inherently hospitable.

That's why we have to make our own goodness.

 

[Blacksheep]

Loved this, such a good scene

 

[Lord Sia]

Such great feels, just what I needed today.

 

[Skychan]

Very nicely done.
Quite evocative of the situation.

 

[Obscura]

Miss Militia had a pair of shears holstered. A gardening set, the kind for houseplants and the like. Or at least they were about that size. They didn't really fit into the holster properly, so they stuck out a bit, so it wasn't hard to work out what they were. That handle shape is pretty distinctive.

It also wasn't hard to figure out why she had the shears. It took me more than a moment, but only because I wasn't exactly at my best.

Shears, well, shears were a lot less alarming than most other things the Blaster could have had. And she had to have something. If what I'd read about her was right, her power absolutely would not let her be unarmed.

Ever.


She would always have a tool of death and destruction on hand, its presence palpable even if not directly acknowledged. At every moment, she would have a weapon on hand, heavy with weight both physical and metaphorical. Something that could be used, was meant to be used, to kill people.

No matter what happened, there would always be that unpleasant reminder.

The world was a harsh and violent place at times, and she had no way to forget that she could be just as vicious. Either on her hip or in her hands, that potential, that sheer wretched blood-red possibility, was always in easy reach.


That probably wasn't the best possible train of thought to be having in the evac vehicle. (Not an ambulance, which probably wasn't the best sign for how the rest of the city was doing, but that a legitimate PRT van was available wasn't the worst sign, either.)

In my defence her holster was right in my face.

And also I was on drugs.

I'm not sure which drugs, exactly, but there definitely were some. Painkillers, definitely, going by the greatly diminished pain and the floaty sensation, and probably some sort of antibiotics as well. My aura should have protected me against any sort of infection, but with a massive burn wound on my face providing a massive breach in my skin-walls and the sheer amount and variety of biological contaminants I'd managed to expose myself to today, I doubt anyone with any medical training would have wanted to count on that.

I certainly wouldn't have, if I had thought about it for a minute.

(I did not, in fact, think about it for a minute, but somebody presumably did. I certainly hope somebody did. The alternative would not speak well of the PRT as an organisation.)

Tranquilisers, at least mild ones, were a possibility, though I don't think I was really hysterical enough to merit them. (Sophia was another matter, and I was pretty sure she had, in fact, been given something of that nature.) Some sort of counteragent to the gas grenade seemed fairly likely. A broad variety of Tinkertech concoctions were technically possible, but most of those weren't exactly safe, and the vast majority required a doctor's sign-off at the very least.

Beyond that, who knows? (Besides the field medic who gave me them. She probably knows. But I don't.)


It was probably more Miss Militia than the drugs that caused me to realise I still had my feet encased in implements of homicide, but I'll admit I can't bring absolute certainty to that statement. In all likelihood it doesn't even really matter. What was important was that my feet were encased in implements of homicide.

I had never before put so much haste into trying to take my boots off.


It turns out that haste, or at least desperate, poorly thought out, rushed haste, isn't actually very helpful for getting one's boots off quickly. In fact, it's downright counterproductive.

The drugs and the trauma and the tiredness didn't exactly help either.

"Let me get that."

It was awkward. Hesitant. Armsmaster clearly didn't know if he should have been offering what he was offering. I wasn't exactly at my best, observation-wise, but even I could tell as much.

But he was offering. And I wasn't exactly having much success myself.

And I trusted him.


I nodded. I trusted him, but I didn't trust myself to speak without it disintegrating into sobbing.

I was going to break into tears again. It was pretty much inevitable.

But I was determined to not do it with a gory reminder of what I'd done on my feet.


It wasn't the loftiest of goals, nor the most noble. But it was doable, and it's important to set yourself achievable goals. Not in the sense of not trying to do the impossible, like, say, fixing a broken world, but you can't make the big stuff your only goals. You need smaller targets, things you can actually get done, so you can do them.

Getting things done helps, particularly in the matter of keeping going towards the big goals.

But to do that you need to set goals you can actually accomplish. Removing my footwear without having a mental breakdown may not have sounded like much of an achievement, especially since I wasn't even removing the boots myself, but it was a doable one.

Just enough to start reclaiming a sense of agency.

It was a small step. But small steps are important.

They're how you build momentum, after all.


Armsmaster, it turned out, was as professional about footwear removal as he was about everything else, but not quite so efficient. It was almost comical, watching him struggle to figure out how to remove the boots. At a guess, he had never actually done it on any foot he wasn't controlling. There could be no perfect coordination of upper and lower limbs towards this task, because the lower limbs in question belonged to somebody who had no more what to do in this situation than he did.

I hadn't needed help with taking off my boots since I was four, in a warm and wonderful little apartment in a city that no longer existed, or five, in a somewhat beaten up little house in a city I had never visited.

It still didn't take very long. Armsmaster may not have known what he was doing when he started, but he hadn't become the best-regarded Tinker on the East Coast for nothing. He figured it out, even if the sheer air of seriousness he put to the extremely mundane task was slightly ludicrous.

Assault was gawking in what I'm going to pretend was awe.

It took less than ten seconds, all told, before he was opening up a pouch on his belt and gently pressing a pair of slippers into my hands.

They were very distinctly Armsmaster branded. Logo and his distinctive shade of blue and his cape name emblazoned on the sides. I suppose that was what he best had access to, and I can't exactly say that if I had a bunch of merchandise themed after me I wouldn't keep some around at all times, but it was still a little funny.

It was a lot easier, putting the slippers on, compared to removing the boots. It helped that slippers are designed precisely for the purpose of being easy to put on or off, but I also wasn't acting in quite the same desperate, dexterity-destroying, rush.

I smiled, just a little, when the job was done. Another little step completed.

And then I broke down sobbing again.

I was safe, and I could cry if I wanted to. And I did, in fact, very much want to.

Nobody tried to stop me. They just supported me through the tears.

 

[Blaflaix]

It was probably more Miss Militia than the drugs that caused me to realise I still had my feet encased in implements of homicide, but I'll admit I can't bring absolute certainty to that statement. In all likelihood it doesn't even really matter. What was important was that my feet were encased in implements of homicide.

Click to shrink...

New idea for when Miss Militia wants to seem less threatening!
Convert her power to boots!

Miss Militia: "Make boots."
Shard: [WTF?]

 

[Doomreaver]

I want to rub Assault's face in the fact that Armsmaster is currently being more effective at comforting the traumatized child. Assault thought Armsmaster couldn't do it, but Armsmaster is proving him wrong.

 

[Obscura]

New idea for when Miss Militia wants to seem less threatening!
Convert her power to boots!

Miss Militia: "Make boots."
Shard: [WTF?]

Click to shrink...

Miss Militia gets stilettoes. She isn't happy with them.

I want to rub Assault's face in the fact that Armsmaster is currently being more effective at comforting the traumatized child. Assault thought Armsmaster couldn't do it, but Armsmaster is proving him wrong.

Click to shrink...

Don't worry to hard about it, Assault is more than capable of rubbing it in himself.

 

[WallFlower]

Never thought about how concealed weapons would interact with Miss militia's power. This means that cane guns might have been an option if she had wanted a completely different kind of branding.

 

[Obscura]

Considering the amount of time I've spent in the building, you'd think I'd have some idea what the entrance of Brockton Bay General Hospital looks like, but you'd be wrong. I haven't the foggiest, at least not beyond what I can guess from the fact that it's a hospital, large, and underfunded.

There's probably a lot of white everywhere, in nice easy to clean materials, and probably some child-friendly posters about significantly less child-friendly but still necessary subjects.

Maybe some pamphlets or something, I don't know.

It's not like I've ever lingered long, or been in the best state of mind to take it in as I've passed through.

Every time, it's been a priority to rush me somewhere, and for good reason. And even with superheroes escorting me this time, I was still much more concerned for my safety and the horrors I'd encountered than the decor.


I don't remember what the shower room looks like either. I haven't gone through that as often, and most of the time I spent within it I was either desperately trying to get clean or experiencing flashbacks and panic attacks. At least I managed to get some of the job done before I needed assistance.

My hair was the worst part. A significant portion, or rather far too many significant portions of it were completely unsalvageable, and the rest was going to need extensive intervention at a later date to make it look like a hairstyle and not like I'd been attacked by a monkey with three pairs of scissors.

At least it was clean.

I was told as much, anyway. It didn't really feel clean, but nothing really felt clean at that moment. I don't really remember what I looked like at the time, but I was assured there was no remaining physical filth left.

They didn't say it like that, obviously, but I knew what they were referring to.


Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know how many shower rooms there are. Probably more than one, but I've only seen the one, and I couldn't tell you where it is, what shape it was, what it was equipped with, what colour it was, or any other such details.

My ward, however, I remember very well indeed. From the not-quite-white walls to the probably-too-low-to-be-a-good-idea-inside-a-room-for-severely-injured-people-but-still-actually-pretty-nice windows, and all the beds in between.

It really isn't the best place, but I've done good work there.

And had some particularly messed-up things happen, the (fortunately long past) Nazi visitation in particular, but it was still somehow reassuring to return after everything that happened in the serpent's lair.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't home. But it was familiar, and it was a considerable improvement.

That would have to be enough. At least for now.


Yes, I am aware that that's become a running theme in my life.

I don't know how to feel about it.

That's also become a running theme.

But so have interesting conversations, so there's that. I don't even mean that in the ancient proverb sense of the word.

Okay, I mostly don't mean that in the ancient proverb sense of the word. Mostly. There have been a few too many like that, but there's been actually nice ones too!

I promise.


"Hey, Amy."

"... Hey, Jacqueline."

"You doing okay?"

"... I feel like I should be asking you that."

"I am very much not okay. But I hope you're doing better?"

Amy's look seemed more fond and exasperated than exhausted and irritated, so I took that as a good sign.

It felt hair-ruffly.


"Fine," she eventually agreed, after I refused to blink at her ensuing staredown. "But first, do I have your permission to heal you?"

She did. For all sorts of reasons, I had exactly zero inclination to kick up any fuss about that. My cooperation was, apparently, appreciated, because she didn't kick up any more fuss either.

Or maybe she just liked me. I was pretty likeable, after all. It's something I try to make a point of. And we did have that whole convoluted secret bonding experience. We were friends. Mutual assured destruction and all.

Whatever it was, I was pulled into something that wasn't a hug, but clearly wanted to be a hug. On impulse, I took it the rest of the way. Just for a moment. Enough to make it clear it was okay, but not enough to force the issue.


"... I'm fine, Jacqueline. Things have been going really well here. You don't need to worry about me."

I looked at her. I wasn't at my best, but she wasn't going to get away with a lie that bad.

Well, I let her get away with it. We were friends, and I wasn't the confrontational type unless I had to be. But I was very much letting her get away with it. So I didn't keep my look on her for too long, but I made sure it happened.

Just enough to let her know I knew what she was doing.

She sighed at me just enough to let me know she did, in fact, know that I knew. We were well accustomed to the ways of I know you know I know by this point. Or at least I was, she might have just been talented. I don't know where Amy Dallon actually came to know I know you know I know, you know?

I hope so. Because I was hopelessly overwhelmed.

Not by the conversation with Amy, just, like, in general. The conversation was fine. I honestly liked the I know you know I know shenanigans, now that there wasn't any real bite behind them. I can't even say I didn't enjoy them a bit the first time.

It's other stuff I have issues with. Like the frankly ludicrous amounts of superpowered criminal incidents in my life.


I was crying again. I don't know if it was the curiously comforting nature of the sigh, the physical pain vanishing, or a combination of both, but I had relaxed.

And, for the foreseeable future, relaxing meant tears. It was a fact of life, and I tried to not let it bother me and not let it control me.


Amy was bothered, but mostly in a "oh my god she's crying" and "what do I do, what do I do" sense.

Not kidding, that's actually what she said. Quietly, over my head in a way I probably wasn't supposed to hear, but she did.

Her concern was touching, even if her experience wasn't quite up to the same level.

Fortunately, we weren't hiding behind closed curtains this time.


With a frankly astonishing level of gentleness for somebody wearing combat gloves, Miss Militia guided my friend's arms open, then, somehow even more softly, around me. Amy must have gone along with it, it simply wouldn't have been possible if she'd been fighting it in the slightest. The motion, maybe, but not the softness. Never that softness.

'It's okay," the senior superhero said. "It's going to be okay."

I put up no more resistance than my colleague-in-healing when leather-covered fingers conveyed me into an optimal weeping position on Amy's shoulder.


Humans convey a surprising amount of information through the eyes, and one of the most important ones relates to smiles. If you've ever wondered why a smile seemed fake, or unnerving, or "plastic", the actual reason probably has nothing to do with the mouth at all.

The eyes move, in a genuine smile, in a way that's much harder to fake than any toothy grin or malevolent smirk. Something I'd learned the hard way, or at least in the hard way's aftermath.

So, when I say the deputy leader of the Protectorate East-North-East smiled at us, despite the lower half of her face being covered in patriotism, I do in fact know what I'm talking about.

And I appreciated it. That and her backing off enough to give us space while still keeping an eye on us.

It seemed she knew what she was doing.

Good to know.