Raccoon Knight (OC)
- Thread starter bee.exe
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- worm original character
Awesome chapter. While others much about with the rules of society Raccoon Knight is prepared. For an adult costume I imagine it would be like a apocalyptic knight armor.
ok so the setting is Scooby Doo/DC and the mc is someone who cleans up after the Scooby Villains until something happens and now they have to use the tech from the Scooby Villains in the world of dc. He breaks down the villains tech and uses it for himself.
- Location
- Australian
chapter one comment I can't send to work out how to comment on certain chapters with it quoted whole chapter.
i am assuming that her power don't count stuff if hasn't been chucked out or don't have her think of it like a filter on what to use even if poor seems Easier to buy crappy cheap candy then try for random chance of finding some same with the batteries comment at end of chapter when thinking of getting new charge her power shows her how to find out how much power in them not how to recharge or make own ones or something
i am assuming that her power don't count stuff if hasn't been chucked out or don't have her think of it like a filter on what to use even if poor seems Easier to buy crappy cheap candy then try for random chance of finding some same with the batteries comment at end of chapter when thinking of getting new charge her power shows her how to find out how much power in them not how to recharge or make own ones or something
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You'll find out more on the specifics of her power later. The jist of it is that it needs to be have been thrown away and considered 'trash' by Meadow herself. She can buy smaller things for a while to get herself established, but eventually her power will get tired of that and stop working.
2.3
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2.3
The internet was a never-ending expanse of strangers being awful to each other.
Parahumans Online, or PHO as it was commonly called, featured a thread titled: Raccoon Knight, New Ward - Discussion Thread.
It linked back to a former thread that was speaking about me before I joined the Wards. That thread only had a few comments. I was an unknown before my Wards debut.
Admittedly, my introduction didn't go great. Not through any fault of my own, but through people chalking their opinions as facts.
Only half a page into the new thread, there was a picture of me eating the sandwich. The mouth-guard of my helmet was raised up enough to show the lower half of my face. There was also a picture of me running away after the fact.
According to commenters, they came out to see the new hero, get pictures, or maybe even a signature. Then, as the public noticed Aegis and Vista, they started to crowd around to talk to us. A new hero was exciting. Except, I wasn't there. Instead, they found me rummaging through the trash, eating a sandwich they saw me take out of that bin.
A picture of Vista with a weird half-smile, half-frown on her face came next, titled 'Vista hates new Ward?!' Which wasn't true. Vista was kind to me.
You needed an account to be able to reply, which took longer than I'm willing to admit to create. Figuring out what an 'email' was the hardest part. The PRT had issued me basic necessities for functioning in this digital age I was thrust into, including an email. After figuring that out, it was simple. There was a 'Reply' option to the messages. Constructing a bulk message to tell them all at once that it was a misunderstanding was faster than replying individually.
'Hi peepul of Brokton Bay.' I started.
'Peepul' was definitely wrong. I consulted my desk dictionary; "People". Why was it not pronounced 'pee-o-pull'? 'Hi people of Brokton Bay'. I revised it.
'my name is meadow' No, can't use real name, dumb. Delete.
'My name is raccoon knight. vista is very nice to me. she is kind and smells like lilacs. I was surch.' Backspace. 'serch.' Backspace. 'searching.' Got it. 'for tinkur items. my speshulty-' I sounded the word out. Heather told me that was the best way to spell words sometimes. 'is recycling. I need to use trash to make cool sci fi devices! like coco and kiki. the sandwich was fine and yummy. ham and cheese. - raccoon knight, patent no longer pending!'
It ended up reading:
'Hi people of brokton bay.
My name is raccoon knight. vista is very nice to me. she is kind and smells like lilacs. I was searching for tinkur items. my speshulty is recycling. I need to use trash to make cool sci fi devices! like coco and kiki. the sandwich was fine and yummy ham and cheese.
-raccoon knight, patent no longer pending.'
Perfect. I clicked 'post' and got ready for breakfast with Victoria.
It was a warm day so I wore a blue dress (with pockets, of course), with a little bag that slung over my shoulders. The bag was a plush toy attached to a string, a cartoon rabbit or something, that had a zip in its head to let you store stuff inside. I put my money, house keys, phone, pepper spray (courtesy of Heather), and beef jerky into it.
Victoria said it was 'her treat', which sounded like she was going to buy dessert. I'd never had dessert after breakfast. Maybe it was a rich person thing? I bought money to buy the breakfast part. I wasn't sure how much breakfast cost after only ever buying small things from corner stores.
Before having powers, I would find bottles and cans, and then sell them, then use that money to buy packets of noodles to eat. Noodles were a dry, long lasting food, like beef jerky. It was in case my mom forgot to buy food again and there weren't even crackers I could find at the back of the cupboard. The noodles hurt my mouth with their pointy edges, but were otherwise okay.
Warm tarmac on my feet gave me new life. Walking around barefoot was a newer pleasure. Back at the docks, it would have given me glass cuts on my feet. Heather's house was in a nicer area and even had a back garden! Grass feels great under your feet when you're not worried about it having needles in.
With vigorous moisturiser application, and finding a softer shaving method, my legs were no longer spotty. A gentle breeze kept them cool even as the day was hot. I understood the appeal of shaving legs better after rubbing them against a ton of surfaces. Smooth against soft was a pleasant feeling.
Victoria was waiting on a bench. Her bright blonde hair waved gently in the breeze. She was wearing shorts made of that scratchy material jeans were made from, and a fancy looking shirt with frills. She was wearing shoes, unlike me.
A man walked up to her. They spoke for a bit and she wrote on a piece of paper he offered her before handing it back. He thanked her and left. Huh? Was she a spy? That's awesome.
Do I call her Victoria or Glory Girl?
"Hi, Victoria Girl. Um, Glory Girl. Uh, Victoria," I stumbled over my words. She gave me a brilliant smile.
"Hello. Do you want an autograph?" She had a warrior's voice. It was strong, confident, but still gentle. She could command armies.
"Oh, um, no thank you. I don't know what that is. Just regular food is fine." I smiled back.
"You're Meadow!" She exclaimed, hopping up off the bench. She towered over me.
"Yes?"
"Sorry! I didn't recognise you. I like your hair," she said.
I touched my braid, which was draped over my shoulder. "Thank you. It's because my hair is damaged, so it's in a braid."
Victoria looked confused. "Well, do you want to find somewhere to eat and chat? What do you feel like?"
What did normal people eat for breakfast? I usually ate whatever I could find.
People on TV always ate sausage, eggs, bacon, waffles, and pancakes. I'd had some of those before during early morning rounds of scavenging.
"I don't really know any shops around here. Maybe you pick?"
"Yeah, makes sense. I can do that." Glory Girl looked around at the shops behind me. "There's a café I like that serves breakfast. Let's go there."
I followed along, lost for words. Glory Girl turned to me, occasionally opening her mouth before shutting it again. I could tell she wanted to fill the silence. She glanced down at my feet.
"Why aren't you wearing shoes? Did they not buy you shoes?" Her voice fluctuated in pitch.
"Um. I wanted to... and there was. I liked the grass. Warm, um," I muttered. My brain couldn't think straight. I wanted to tell her that not wearing shoes today was a choice. The warm ground and the soft grass were nice. I just couldn't formulate it right. My heart was pounding in my chest.
She must have noticed something because she stepped back. The overwhelming pressure lessened a little.
"Shit. Sorry. Hey, it's okay," she said in a gentle tone. She inched closer to me. "It's alright. No one's blaming you. Let's go buy you shoes, okay?"
I shook my head. "I'm okay." I took a deep breath. "I'm okay. We can get breakfast."
Glory Girl looked at me with pitying eyes. I couldn't stomach it, even from her. I looked at the ground instead. "I don't want you to get hurt," she said. Hurt from what?
"I won't." There wasn't anything to hurt me.
"I'm not sure they'll let you into the café without shoes," she said.
"Why?"
"Hygiene reasons." She hummed in thought. "Got it!" She snapped her fingers. "How about flip-flops?"
I glanced at her face. No longer pitying. "What're flip-flops?"
…
Flip-flops were great!
They were shoes with no top, just a bottom and a strap. Flip-flop was a perfect name for them, since that's the sound they made. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. It was very pleasant. The base of them got warm in the sun like the ground, and I got the cool breeze washing over my feet still, but with none of the sharp rocks digging into my soles. Best of both worlds!
"Glory Girl, thank you! These are cool!" I said. We were walking towards the café after visiting a store that sold beach things. Lots of plastic shovels and buckets, and floatation devices shaped like flamingos, as well as flip-flops.
"Call me Victoria, but I'm glad you like them," Victoria said.
"Okay, Victoria!" I was on a first name basis with Glory Girl! "Wait! Oh no!" I exclaimed.
Victoria's eyes went wide. "What is it?" She asked.
"I'm so sorry. I hope no one heard me saying your cape name," I whispered to her. She laughed out loud. It was a pretty laugh, and a startling one. Why was she laughing?
"Don't worry. New Wave doesn't have secret identities. Everyone knows who I am." Her smile was brighter than the sun behind her. She was framed by the ocean, early morning sunlight enhancing the glow she already had. My stomach fluttered.
"That's, that's good. I didn't know that." My heart was racing, but I wasn't afraid? It felt like how I felt around Carlos sometimes. He didn't mind walking around shirtless. He often visited me after a shower, and would grin in a way that made my heart squeeze.
I had no fucking clue what it meant.
Originally I'd figured it was just nerves, then I thought it might be battle instincts. But he'd never fought me, and I didn't want to fight him, so I dismissed it.
We arrived at the café. It looked like Miss Piggot's office more than a place that served food. The only things that showed what it did was the kitchen visible through a cut out portion of the wall and the menu hanging behind the counter. All the tables were harsh squares. At least the chairs looked comfortable. Padded red material lined the hard wood benches.
"Let's grab a booth," Victoria said, leading me to a nook at the far end of the room. It was smaller than the other sectioned off portions, only big enough for about three people rather than five like the others.
We sat on opposite sides of the hard square table and Victoria picked up a plastic thing with pictures of food on it. I took one too. At the top it said: 'Menu'. Oh, that made sense. It showed off what food the place sold.
I ordered pancakes and sausages. Victoria ordered something called 'iced tea' so I got a glass as well. We waited around for our food in silence after ordering. Victoria was typing to someone on her phone.
Food that was made by someone good at cooking was still a new experience for me. Each bite was pleasant, no bugs, no bite marks, no unexpected little pebbles hiding inside. A world of flavour that wasn't accidental. Mom had made meals in the past, when she was in an 'up' mood and not high. They always sucked. She liked to burn things.
Calling her 'mom' felt wrong now. I don't think I knew her actual name. Honey? That's what her boyfriends-of-the-week always called her. Asking Armsmaster or Miss Militia what my own mom's name was too embarrassing.
Victoria sipped at her ice tea, eyes locked on me. "So," she placed the cup down, the ice clattering inside, "Meadow. Back at Arcadia, why'd you run from me?" She asked.
Why did I run? My brain wasn't thinking right then. I was terrified that she caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to. People liked to yell and scream at me when they found me in dumpsters in the past. I thought she was going to be like that. She wanted to tell the teachers about me.
"I thought I was in trouble. I was really scared. It doesn't excuse me for throwing the containment glue at you, though. I'm really sorry, Victoria," I said.
She shook her head. "You only hit my leg. It was no biggie. People saw from the window and I was unstuck after an hour. It took forever to loosen it from the ground. Never got the boot back though." she laughed.
"Sugar unsticks it. I'm sorry about your boot," I said, staring at my plate like my eyes could burn a hole in it.
"Nah. Don't worry. No need to apologise. I wasn't trying to get you in trouble. I just wanted to help. I thought you were a homeless girl until I saw your helmet. Then, I thought you were a homeless cape girl. It didn't make much difference in my eyes. I'm glad you've joined the Wards, even if we didn't get to speak," she said in a gentle voice. "They wouldn't let me see you. Kept saying you were 'too busy to talk to me.'"
"I was busy. That wasn't wrong. There was so much paperwork," I sighed. "No one told me you wanted to see me. Except for Dean. I thought you'd be angry at me."
"I'm dating Dean. He told me you had a lot of anxiety when he mentioned meeting me. I didn't want to push, but I did want to talk to you. I thought breakfast might help with that. Did it?"
"Yes, it did," I said. I fished through my rabbit pouch thing and took out a handful of dollar coins putting them on the table to count. "Um, how much did what I got cost?"
"It says on the menu," she tapped the numbers next to the items, "right there. Like I said, though, my treat. Put your money away." She shoved the coins back towards me.
"Oh. I thought that meant you were buying dessert. I've never had dessert with breakfast before."
Victoria laughed. I felt compelled to laugh along for some reason. It came out as more of a nervous chuckle.
"It means I'm paying for it. I could go for ice cream, if you wanted?" She asked.
"Okay. I like bubblegum," I told her. She smiled at me.
"Interesting choice." She stood up from the booth and went to pay at the counter. I finished off my ice tea before she returned. As I stood up, she hooked an arm through mine. It was like holding hands but with the elbow crook instead. The contact was a little startling. . "C'mon. Let's go get some ice cream," Victoria said, still smiling at me.
We walked, arm-in-arm, out down the Boardwalk. Warm sunlight coated my skin. Heather had slathered me in sunscreen before leaving the house. It was a foul smelling paste that was supposed to stop your skin from being burnt.
I could create a skin-like substance that would act as a solar panel, allowing me to charge batteries throughout the day while in civilian life. I could also add flame retardant properties to it.
Victoria spoke about her favourite shops as we passed by the many that lined the Boardwalk. I nodded along, completely unable to add to the conversation in any meaningful way. Seagulls squawked overhead. The smell of the sea was pleasant.
We found a cart selling ice cream. A man with leathery, wrinkled skin was operating it. Victoria bought strawberry and bought me a bubblegum cone.
Pleasant. That's the best way to describe it. Cold ice cream felt good on such a nice day. Nicer than eating it at home from a bowl. Victoria's arms were strong, muscly, against my own. She swapped sides to my right after I told her I was left-handed.
"It's a weekend. You'd think I'd get more time to myself," Victoria complained out loud as we finished off our ice cream. She looked at me, unhooking our arms. I missed the contact already. "I've got to cut this short. Sorry, Meadow." She smiled a pained smile.
"That's alright. I had a good time," I smiled back, but with no pain.
"Good. If you want, we could patrol together sometime?"
We could do that? "Fuck yeah!" I half shouted, before remembering we were in public. Indoor voice. Well, outdoor voice but quiet.
"Woah, cool, okay. Very enthusiastic. You have today off, right?" I nodded. "Okay, then tomorrow?"
"I'm on duty tomorrow. Patrol with Gallant." I said.
"I'll talk to him to get me on that patrol." She pulled me into an unexpected hug. "See you, Meadow!" Victoria said before flying off into the sky. I was still too dazed from the hug to process the flying part.
The rest of the morning was spent scavenging around the Boardwalk. The enforcers didn't spare me a second glance now. I looked like I belonged.
I found a fancy electronics store. It sold higher scale devices than I'd ever seen. Their trash was uninteresting. I expected to find a broken TV or something. Just lots of empty boxes. A few of those, stripped apart, made a hand-fan. The day was getting hotter, and it was nice to have some relief from it.
The next store over was the beach store, the one that sold lots of plastic devices that had no purpose outside of the beach. Their trash was much more interesting. Lots of broken knick-knacks.
A broken handle half of a shovel made for an excellent lever. I wished that I had bought a bigger bag. Can never go wrong with more pockets. I retrieved a cardboard box from the electronics store and filled it with as much as it would hold. Which was a lot, considering it was all broken pieces of plastic and wood.
Partway through my collecting, a suit wearing man wielding a baton came skulking into the alleyway.
"Oi. Clear off," he yelled. Enforcer, fuck. I grabbed my box of parts and sprinted away. "Stop!" He yelled.
He wanted me to stop now? He just told me to leave!
I didn't stop. I did learn that flip-flops were not great for running. Darting up a small hill that divided the back of a store from the street above it, I stumbled over the top, my box flying out of my hands. Rolling instead of falling flat onto my face let me pull my flip-flops from my feet and stuff them into the rabbit pouch. Totally on purpose.
But the burly man reached me before I could scoop up the box and run. He grabbed my arm in a death grip.
"Got you!" I squirmed, trying to break free. "Stop squirming!" He yelled into my face. I flinched. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Coco and Fufu were left back at the PRT. My skinny arms provided no defence from a man three times my size.
He grabbed his walkie-talkie with his other hand and started speaking into it. My rabbit was unzipped from the flip-flops. I grabbed the pepper spray can from inside with my free arm. After a quick calculation, I angled it so it would shoot under his sunglasses. I clenched my eyes closed and fired.
The man yelled in surprise, stepping backwards and letting me go. His step took him to the edge of the hill and I watched him tumble down just as my eyes opened. With no time to waste, I grabbed the box and bolted.
Running barefoot in a city, even the clean parts, wasn't an amazing idea. I understood why Victoria wanted me to have shoes. Small stones dug into my feet as my pounding steps carried me away from the danger. People gave me odd looks as I passed them by. No one stopped me.
Even when each breath caused me physical pain, I didn't stop. I ran all the way home. Enforcers weren't someone you wanted to be caught by. They delivered their lessons with broken bones and bloody noses. I ran into Heather's back garden to avoid being seen from the front.
I slumped against the wall, sliding down the white panelling that made up the outside of the house. Each slat bumped against my spine as I slid down. It wasn't nice. I didn't care.
I buried my face in my hands and cried. He was going to hurt me, and I was powerless to stop him. I needed protection. Something I could wear in civilian clothes without it being seen. Or, maybe, body enhancements? A power like Aegis' would be useful. He told me it nullified pain, as well as letting him adapt to almost anything.
That would be my next project.
Something small, concealable, was what I needed now. It also had to be non-lethal. As scary as enforcers were, they were still people. I wouldn't kill.
It took a while to calm down and go inside. My new toys met my new floor, and formed the basis of a hoard worthy of a dragon. Eventually, at least. Dream big.
…
I was allowed into the PRT building whenever I wanted. It stored my costume, as well as housed my Tinker lab, and even kept a room just for me. Decorating it was still filed under 'TBD'. There was a secret back entrance that allowed you to go inside without being seen by the public, even in civvies.
I greeted the PRT agents stationed outside before heading inside. They were nice people, but they rotated shifts so I didn't get to know them that well.
I knocked on the door of Armsmaster's workshop.
"Come in," he said from inside. The door slid open, silent as a whisper.
Armsmaster's workshop was part office, part workshop. Kind of like the café Victoria took me to. Parts of it looked like it belonged in a skyscraper office fit for a seventies businessman. The other half looked like it was a mechanics garage.
Armsmaster had his helmet off. He had dark-brown hair, shaved down. He looked like a fairly generic person. Not unattractive, just similar to other adult men I'd seen. I wasn't sure how to gauge the attractiveness of a person older than me. He spun around in his chair, the swivelling office kind.
"Raccoon Knight," he smiled, "what can I do for you?" He gently tossed the screwdriver he was holding down on the desk.
"I was wondering if I could have one of Shadow Stalker's tranquilliser bolts?"
"I don't mind," he said, reaching over to open a drawer. Inside was a satchel with several bolts inside. "But why not ask Shadow Stalker herself?" He fished one out of the hooks that held it to the satchel and handed it over to me.
"She's… She likes her stuff. I don't think she would have said yes," I said. Sophia was the type of person who liked solitude. The other Wards didn't talk to her, and she didn't talk to them. I hadn't yet tried myself, since she was either out on patrol or not at the Ward's HQ.
"That's true," he said, shrugging. "Is that all?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Thank you, Armsmaster." It was strange calling him that when he wasn't in costume. He'd never told me his name.
He smiled at me.
...
Invisible Tinker lights greeted me as I flipped the switch. I still hadn't figured out where they were. I flipped the sign on my door to 'No Disturbing'. It locked and displayed a red tab outside on the handle. Protectorate members could override the lock with their fingerprints.
I cleared a space on my workbench and grabbed a few components. My wire had arrived already, which was nice. No time for it right now.
Once the process had started, I couldn't go back. I had to set up every single piece ahead of time, triple-checking to make sure every part was there before starting.
The tranquilliser dart was simple. My power wouldn't let me use it for anything, but with a shove, it did tell me how it functioned, letting me get ideas on how to make something similar. A simple plunging system that was activated by the sudden stop in momentum from firing it. Not quite what I needed. The liquid inside was a concoction I was unfamiliar with.
My computer monitor flared to life. It was always on, just sleeping.
"1 New Email," the screen read.
From: Armsmaster2517@private-PRT.gov
To: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
Subject: Tranquilliser Darts
Hello Raccoon Knight,
I've included the schematics for the tranquilliser dart, as well the liquid inside. You're authorised only to use the liquid in its current structure. Any changes will need to be approved by the Tinker board, as usual.
Signed, Armsmaster.
2 attachments.
Neat. Learning his confusing-but efficient-syntax took about half an hour.
Scanning through the schematics helped a lot. The dart was what I expected–nothing special–but the tranquilliser was more impressive. It had adaptive components to not kill anyone whose body weight didn't match the dosage. The dosage was relatively low, not enough to harm anyone. It was a sacrifice to not kill normals, but meant brutes needed several shots rather than just one.
I sat back and let my power flow. Finding a perfect solution, like Armsmaster had, wasn't in my wheelhouse right now. I didn't have a chemistry set, let alone chemicals. I could make tranquillisers that were intended for animals, and could put down a human. They'd need to be made in several different doses to not overload someone's system. It also didn't bypass allergic reactions like Armsmaster's darts did.
The more I thought about it, the more impressive it became. My power hummed and hawed trying to figure out how he did it. Ultimately, it required materials I either didn't have access to yet, or would probably ever. By the end, my power and I were both sulking.
Why couldn't it be easy? Maybe I can use the liquid from this bolt?
I hadn't expected my power to actually consider it. There was a long pause before it gave me a resolute 'No'. Okay.
Then what if I found a dart that had missed?
Grudging acceptance. Shadow Stalker wasn't one to miss, or to leave a bolt lying around, though.
Back to the drawing board. Tranquilliser design was out the window. What other less-than-lethal methods existed?
Maybe something like Coco was now capable of? A piston of sorts to enhance my punches. I'd still need to learn to fight, but it could catch someone off-guard.
Nah, too cumbersome and too time consuming to learn how to fight.
Wards were required to learn martial arts in addition to general fitness. Dancing around with lawyers due to my living situation had delayed my start somewhat. I would learn to fight eventually, but by then the piston punch wouldn't be as useful. A lightweight device was still my best option.
Some kind of spray? A gas?
A liquid version of my stink powder made the most sense. It would need to be able to keep for a long time, preferably with no leaking. Fishing through my hoard netted me with a miscellaneous pill capsule. Perfect.
I split the pill in two, letting the dust from inside fall onto a plastic film sheet.
Could be useful for something, even if I didn't know what it was.
The PRT food hall had agreed to give me waste food but only on request. We weren't on a first name basis quite yet, but the staff were pleasant to talk to. I left with a bag full of scraps from breakfast.
Mulching them down into a version of the stink paste was easy. Bash, bash, bash with my fists. Then drain the liquid from the mulched food through a cheesecloth into the pill capsule, before putting the two halves back together.
Next up: the spraying device. Just a simple thing that worked similar to a water gun. Pump action, without the pump action part, just the spraying when pressure is routed through it.
A tiny device, smaller than my finger. I hooked the pill inside the ammo slot. The pipe that shot the liquid was split in two, when the front half folded up it would pressurise the back chamber with the pill, as well as split the cap off the pill to release the liquid in a spray. It would activate through a hand sign; my thumb pressed against the middle joint on the bottom of my middle finger.
Before the last steps, I needed one last material. One the PRT didn't have, but that could be found outside after just a little wandering…
It only took checking three alleyways to find the last ingredient.
Which led me to the hard part. Surgery.
I grabbed some healing paste, running it around the base of the middle finger on my right hand. I prodded at the tip of the finger until it felt numb enough. Electrical burn scars across my pointer and thumb had faded well. My healing paste was worth every coin. If only it could heal the memories.
As part of my tool-kit, I was given these cruel looking scissors. Closer to shears. They were meant for cutting leather. I placed my middle finger between the blades and took a deep breath.
Cutting off your finger took a lot of force. It also hurt like fuck, even through the numbness. I squeezed the blades, biting back tears. After gruelling minutes, my finger was snipped off. It plopped down onto the workbench.
I cried out before muffling it with my hand. Fucking shit. I could only imagine the pain without the paste. I rubbed some of the paste against the wound, clotting the bleeding.
Still work to be done though. My finger went into a vice, nail pointing to the ceiling and I snipped it again, just past the last joint. It fell onto the floor. Damn it.
I picked it up, placing it back into the vice, this time with the nail down. Using a screwdriver I dug out the flesh a little to make some room. I did the same for the bottom half of the finger, making a lot more room. Installing the spraying device was the easy part. The cap of the finger would be the part that folded up.
Cutting a circle in the middle joint of the finger gave me room for a button. The skin was left behind. If it was over the top of the button the whole thing would look more natural.
After fifteen minutes the device was installed and ready to go.
Before sewing the cap of the finger back onto the bottom half, the cut nerves needed to be reconnected. My trip outside had granted me a rat carcass. Sorry my furry little friend. I apologised, before skinning it, and digging into the flesh to find its muscles. The rat's muscle sinew was used to reattach the nerves and muscles of my finger cap back to the bottom half. Then, a few stitches later, I had a complete finger again.
A few days of healing paste and the cuts would seal back together, good as new. Until then adhesive bandages would disguise it as a simple injury.
Reattaching the nerves from the finger to the hand was less trial and error than the first time.
I used a little glue to stick the bone back together. Sewing it back onto my hand was harder due to the weird angles needed to sew around the other fingers. There were also remnants of the healing paste that kept clotting up my needles. It wasn't easy.
Excruciating–both in patience and pain–minutes passed, but I managed it. It was a messy job. Sewing flesh was different from sewing the cloth for my gambeson.
Heather had given me cute finger bandages with little raccoons on them. After covering my finger in the paste, I wrapped them around my finger to disguise the cuts. To help keep it steady, a few small twigs acted as splints, kept secure with tape. Heather wouldn't be home for a while, letting me keep the splint on during the day, which should be enough to make sure it was fully secure. I could take it off before dinner tonight.
To avoid suspicion from the door guards, I stuck my hands into my dress pockets. No one noticed anything odd. Good.
Back at home I checked on the replies to my PHO post:
'can't even spell lmao'
'Raccoon Knight, you're just a knock-off Mouse Protector.'
'Guys, be nice. She's clearly retarded.'
'homeless trash. Go fight lung and do us all a favour'
'Vista's probably creeped out by you. Leave her alone!'
I stared at the words. I didn't know they made AI capable of emulating my mother.
Real clever, 'LegendisLEGEND27' comparing me to a skunk. Real fucking clever. Very imaginative responses. I had to look up a few of the words to understand it all better. I felt worse with every post.
Usually, I'd cry. Someone comes up to me and says mean words? I cry. An easy response. It made sense. It helped. But it was hard to parse it when it was words on a screen. I was angry, upset, and sad. I wanted to scream, to cry, and to break something.
My chair bounced off the wall with a crash. It didn't help.
I kicked my desk. It didn't help.
I threw my alarm clock at the wall. It exploded into a thousand pieces. It didn't help.
Tears forced their way out of me. I slumped down onto the floor, resting against my bed and cried.
I just wanted to be a hero.
The internet was a never-ending expanse of strangers being awful to each other.
Parahumans Online, or PHO as it was commonly called, featured a thread titled: Raccoon Knight, New Ward - Discussion Thread.
It linked back to a former thread that was speaking about me before I joined the Wards. That thread only had a few comments. I was an unknown before my Wards debut.
Admittedly, my introduction didn't go great. Not through any fault of my own, but through people chalking their opinions as facts.
Only half a page into the new thread, there was a picture of me eating the sandwich. The mouth-guard of my helmet was raised up enough to show the lower half of my face. There was also a picture of me running away after the fact.
According to commenters, they came out to see the new hero, get pictures, or maybe even a signature. Then, as the public noticed Aegis and Vista, they started to crowd around to talk to us. A new hero was exciting. Except, I wasn't there. Instead, they found me rummaging through the trash, eating a sandwich they saw me take out of that bin.
A picture of Vista with a weird half-smile, half-frown on her face came next, titled 'Vista hates new Ward?!' Which wasn't true. Vista was kind to me.
You needed an account to be able to reply, which took longer than I'm willing to admit to create. Figuring out what an 'email' was the hardest part. The PRT had issued me basic necessities for functioning in this digital age I was thrust into, including an email. After figuring that out, it was simple. There was a 'Reply' option to the messages. Constructing a bulk message to tell them all at once that it was a misunderstanding was faster than replying individually.
'Hi peepul of Brokton Bay.' I started.
'Peepul' was definitely wrong. I consulted my desk dictionary; "People". Why was it not pronounced 'pee-o-pull'? 'Hi people of Brokton Bay'. I revised it.
'my name is meadow' No, can't use real name, dumb. Delete.
'My name is raccoon knight. vista is very nice to me. she is kind and smells like lilacs. I was surch.' Backspace. 'serch.' Backspace. 'searching.' Got it. 'for tinkur items. my speshulty-' I sounded the word out. Heather told me that was the best way to spell words sometimes. 'is recycling. I need to use trash to make cool sci fi devices! like coco and kiki. the sandwich was fine and yummy. ham and cheese. - raccoon knight, patent no longer pending!'
It ended up reading:
'Hi people of brokton bay.
My name is raccoon knight. vista is very nice to me. she is kind and smells like lilacs. I was searching for tinkur items. my speshulty is recycling. I need to use trash to make cool sci fi devices! like coco and kiki. the sandwich was fine and yummy ham and cheese.
-raccoon knight, patent no longer pending.'
Perfect. I clicked 'post' and got ready for breakfast with Victoria.
It was a warm day so I wore a blue dress (with pockets, of course), with a little bag that slung over my shoulders. The bag was a plush toy attached to a string, a cartoon rabbit or something, that had a zip in its head to let you store stuff inside. I put my money, house keys, phone, pepper spray (courtesy of Heather), and beef jerky into it.
Victoria said it was 'her treat', which sounded like she was going to buy dessert. I'd never had dessert after breakfast. Maybe it was a rich person thing? I bought money to buy the breakfast part. I wasn't sure how much breakfast cost after only ever buying small things from corner stores.
Before having powers, I would find bottles and cans, and then sell them, then use that money to buy packets of noodles to eat. Noodles were a dry, long lasting food, like beef jerky. It was in case my mom forgot to buy food again and there weren't even crackers I could find at the back of the cupboard. The noodles hurt my mouth with their pointy edges, but were otherwise okay.
Warm tarmac on my feet gave me new life. Walking around barefoot was a newer pleasure. Back at the docks, it would have given me glass cuts on my feet. Heather's house was in a nicer area and even had a back garden! Grass feels great under your feet when you're not worried about it having needles in.
With vigorous moisturiser application, and finding a softer shaving method, my legs were no longer spotty. A gentle breeze kept them cool even as the day was hot. I understood the appeal of shaving legs better after rubbing them against a ton of surfaces. Smooth against soft was a pleasant feeling.
Victoria was waiting on a bench. Her bright blonde hair waved gently in the breeze. She was wearing shorts made of that scratchy material jeans were made from, and a fancy looking shirt with frills. She was wearing shoes, unlike me.
A man walked up to her. They spoke for a bit and she wrote on a piece of paper he offered her before handing it back. He thanked her and left. Huh? Was she a spy? That's awesome.
Do I call her Victoria or Glory Girl?
"Hi, Victoria Girl. Um, Glory Girl. Uh, Victoria," I stumbled over my words. She gave me a brilliant smile.
"Hello. Do you want an autograph?" She had a warrior's voice. It was strong, confident, but still gentle. She could command armies.
"Oh, um, no thank you. I don't know what that is. Just regular food is fine." I smiled back.
"You're Meadow!" She exclaimed, hopping up off the bench. She towered over me.
"Yes?"
"Sorry! I didn't recognise you. I like your hair," she said.
I touched my braid, which was draped over my shoulder. "Thank you. It's because my hair is damaged, so it's in a braid."
Victoria looked confused. "Well, do you want to find somewhere to eat and chat? What do you feel like?"
What did normal people eat for breakfast? I usually ate whatever I could find.
People on TV always ate sausage, eggs, bacon, waffles, and pancakes. I'd had some of those before during early morning rounds of scavenging.
"I don't really know any shops around here. Maybe you pick?"
"Yeah, makes sense. I can do that." Glory Girl looked around at the shops behind me. "There's a café I like that serves breakfast. Let's go there."
I followed along, lost for words. Glory Girl turned to me, occasionally opening her mouth before shutting it again. I could tell she wanted to fill the silence. She glanced down at my feet.
"Why aren't you wearing shoes? Did they not buy you shoes?" Her voice fluctuated in pitch.
"Um. I wanted to... and there was. I liked the grass. Warm, um," I muttered. My brain couldn't think straight. I wanted to tell her that not wearing shoes today was a choice. The warm ground and the soft grass were nice. I just couldn't formulate it right. My heart was pounding in my chest.
She must have noticed something because she stepped back. The overwhelming pressure lessened a little.
"Shit. Sorry. Hey, it's okay," she said in a gentle tone. She inched closer to me. "It's alright. No one's blaming you. Let's go buy you shoes, okay?"
I shook my head. "I'm okay." I took a deep breath. "I'm okay. We can get breakfast."
Glory Girl looked at me with pitying eyes. I couldn't stomach it, even from her. I looked at the ground instead. "I don't want you to get hurt," she said. Hurt from what?
"I won't." There wasn't anything to hurt me.
"I'm not sure they'll let you into the café without shoes," she said.
"Why?"
"Hygiene reasons." She hummed in thought. "Got it!" She snapped her fingers. "How about flip-flops?"
I glanced at her face. No longer pitying. "What're flip-flops?"
…
Flip-flops were great!
They were shoes with no top, just a bottom and a strap. Flip-flop was a perfect name for them, since that's the sound they made. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. It was very pleasant. The base of them got warm in the sun like the ground, and I got the cool breeze washing over my feet still, but with none of the sharp rocks digging into my soles. Best of both worlds!
"Glory Girl, thank you! These are cool!" I said. We were walking towards the café after visiting a store that sold beach things. Lots of plastic shovels and buckets, and floatation devices shaped like flamingos, as well as flip-flops.
"Call me Victoria, but I'm glad you like them," Victoria said.
"Okay, Victoria!" I was on a first name basis with Glory Girl! "Wait! Oh no!" I exclaimed.
Victoria's eyes went wide. "What is it?" She asked.
"I'm so sorry. I hope no one heard me saying your cape name," I whispered to her. She laughed out loud. It was a pretty laugh, and a startling one. Why was she laughing?
"Don't worry. New Wave doesn't have secret identities. Everyone knows who I am." Her smile was brighter than the sun behind her. She was framed by the ocean, early morning sunlight enhancing the glow she already had. My stomach fluttered.
"That's, that's good. I didn't know that." My heart was racing, but I wasn't afraid? It felt like how I felt around Carlos sometimes. He didn't mind walking around shirtless. He often visited me after a shower, and would grin in a way that made my heart squeeze.
I had no fucking clue what it meant.
Originally I'd figured it was just nerves, then I thought it might be battle instincts. But he'd never fought me, and I didn't want to fight him, so I dismissed it.
We arrived at the café. It looked like Miss Piggot's office more than a place that served food. The only things that showed what it did was the kitchen visible through a cut out portion of the wall and the menu hanging behind the counter. All the tables were harsh squares. At least the chairs looked comfortable. Padded red material lined the hard wood benches.
"Let's grab a booth," Victoria said, leading me to a nook at the far end of the room. It was smaller than the other sectioned off portions, only big enough for about three people rather than five like the others.
We sat on opposite sides of the hard square table and Victoria picked up a plastic thing with pictures of food on it. I took one too. At the top it said: 'Menu'. Oh, that made sense. It showed off what food the place sold.
I ordered pancakes and sausages. Victoria ordered something called 'iced tea' so I got a glass as well. We waited around for our food in silence after ordering. Victoria was typing to someone on her phone.
Food that was made by someone good at cooking was still a new experience for me. Each bite was pleasant, no bugs, no bite marks, no unexpected little pebbles hiding inside. A world of flavour that wasn't accidental. Mom had made meals in the past, when she was in an 'up' mood and not high. They always sucked. She liked to burn things.
Calling her 'mom' felt wrong now. I don't think I knew her actual name. Honey? That's what her boyfriends-of-the-week always called her. Asking Armsmaster or Miss Militia what my own mom's name was too embarrassing.
Victoria sipped at her ice tea, eyes locked on me. "So," she placed the cup down, the ice clattering inside, "Meadow. Back at Arcadia, why'd you run from me?" She asked.
Why did I run? My brain wasn't thinking right then. I was terrified that she caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to. People liked to yell and scream at me when they found me in dumpsters in the past. I thought she was going to be like that. She wanted to tell the teachers about me.
"I thought I was in trouble. I was really scared. It doesn't excuse me for throwing the containment glue at you, though. I'm really sorry, Victoria," I said.
She shook her head. "You only hit my leg. It was no biggie. People saw from the window and I was unstuck after an hour. It took forever to loosen it from the ground. Never got the boot back though." she laughed.
"Sugar unsticks it. I'm sorry about your boot," I said, staring at my plate like my eyes could burn a hole in it.
"Nah. Don't worry. No need to apologise. I wasn't trying to get you in trouble. I just wanted to help. I thought you were a homeless girl until I saw your helmet. Then, I thought you were a homeless cape girl. It didn't make much difference in my eyes. I'm glad you've joined the Wards, even if we didn't get to speak," she said in a gentle voice. "They wouldn't let me see you. Kept saying you were 'too busy to talk to me.'"
"I was busy. That wasn't wrong. There was so much paperwork," I sighed. "No one told me you wanted to see me. Except for Dean. I thought you'd be angry at me."
"I'm dating Dean. He told me you had a lot of anxiety when he mentioned meeting me. I didn't want to push, but I did want to talk to you. I thought breakfast might help with that. Did it?"
"Yes, it did," I said. I fished through my rabbit pouch thing and took out a handful of dollar coins putting them on the table to count. "Um, how much did what I got cost?"
"It says on the menu," she tapped the numbers next to the items, "right there. Like I said, though, my treat. Put your money away." She shoved the coins back towards me.
"Oh. I thought that meant you were buying dessert. I've never had dessert with breakfast before."
Victoria laughed. I felt compelled to laugh along for some reason. It came out as more of a nervous chuckle.
"It means I'm paying for it. I could go for ice cream, if you wanted?" She asked.
"Okay. I like bubblegum," I told her. She smiled at me.
"Interesting choice." She stood up from the booth and went to pay at the counter. I finished off my ice tea before she returned. As I stood up, she hooked an arm through mine. It was like holding hands but with the elbow crook instead. The contact was a little startling. . "C'mon. Let's go get some ice cream," Victoria said, still smiling at me.
We walked, arm-in-arm, out down the Boardwalk. Warm sunlight coated my skin. Heather had slathered me in sunscreen before leaving the house. It was a foul smelling paste that was supposed to stop your skin from being burnt.
I could create a skin-like substance that would act as a solar panel, allowing me to charge batteries throughout the day while in civilian life. I could also add flame retardant properties to it.
Victoria spoke about her favourite shops as we passed by the many that lined the Boardwalk. I nodded along, completely unable to add to the conversation in any meaningful way. Seagulls squawked overhead. The smell of the sea was pleasant.
We found a cart selling ice cream. A man with leathery, wrinkled skin was operating it. Victoria bought strawberry and bought me a bubblegum cone.
Pleasant. That's the best way to describe it. Cold ice cream felt good on such a nice day. Nicer than eating it at home from a bowl. Victoria's arms were strong, muscly, against my own. She swapped sides to my right after I told her I was left-handed.
"It's a weekend. You'd think I'd get more time to myself," Victoria complained out loud as we finished off our ice cream. She looked at me, unhooking our arms. I missed the contact already. "I've got to cut this short. Sorry, Meadow." She smiled a pained smile.
"That's alright. I had a good time," I smiled back, but with no pain.
"Good. If you want, we could patrol together sometime?"
We could do that? "Fuck yeah!" I half shouted, before remembering we were in public. Indoor voice. Well, outdoor voice but quiet.
"Woah, cool, okay. Very enthusiastic. You have today off, right?" I nodded. "Okay, then tomorrow?"
"I'm on duty tomorrow. Patrol with Gallant." I said.
"I'll talk to him to get me on that patrol." She pulled me into an unexpected hug. "See you, Meadow!" Victoria said before flying off into the sky. I was still too dazed from the hug to process the flying part.
The rest of the morning was spent scavenging around the Boardwalk. The enforcers didn't spare me a second glance now. I looked like I belonged.
I found a fancy electronics store. It sold higher scale devices than I'd ever seen. Their trash was uninteresting. I expected to find a broken TV or something. Just lots of empty boxes. A few of those, stripped apart, made a hand-fan. The day was getting hotter, and it was nice to have some relief from it.
The next store over was the beach store, the one that sold lots of plastic devices that had no purpose outside of the beach. Their trash was much more interesting. Lots of broken knick-knacks.
A broken handle half of a shovel made for an excellent lever. I wished that I had bought a bigger bag. Can never go wrong with more pockets. I retrieved a cardboard box from the electronics store and filled it with as much as it would hold. Which was a lot, considering it was all broken pieces of plastic and wood.
Partway through my collecting, a suit wearing man wielding a baton came skulking into the alleyway.
"Oi. Clear off," he yelled. Enforcer, fuck. I grabbed my box of parts and sprinted away. "Stop!" He yelled.
He wanted me to stop now? He just told me to leave!
I didn't stop. I did learn that flip-flops were not great for running. Darting up a small hill that divided the back of a store from the street above it, I stumbled over the top, my box flying out of my hands. Rolling instead of falling flat onto my face let me pull my flip-flops from my feet and stuff them into the rabbit pouch. Totally on purpose.
But the burly man reached me before I could scoop up the box and run. He grabbed my arm in a death grip.
"Got you!" I squirmed, trying to break free. "Stop squirming!" He yelled into my face. I flinched. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Coco and Fufu were left back at the PRT. My skinny arms provided no defence from a man three times my size.
He grabbed his walkie-talkie with his other hand and started speaking into it. My rabbit was unzipped from the flip-flops. I grabbed the pepper spray can from inside with my free arm. After a quick calculation, I angled it so it would shoot under his sunglasses. I clenched my eyes closed and fired.
The man yelled in surprise, stepping backwards and letting me go. His step took him to the edge of the hill and I watched him tumble down just as my eyes opened. With no time to waste, I grabbed the box and bolted.
Running barefoot in a city, even the clean parts, wasn't an amazing idea. I understood why Victoria wanted me to have shoes. Small stones dug into my feet as my pounding steps carried me away from the danger. People gave me odd looks as I passed them by. No one stopped me.
Even when each breath caused me physical pain, I didn't stop. I ran all the way home. Enforcers weren't someone you wanted to be caught by. They delivered their lessons with broken bones and bloody noses. I ran into Heather's back garden to avoid being seen from the front.
I slumped against the wall, sliding down the white panelling that made up the outside of the house. Each slat bumped against my spine as I slid down. It wasn't nice. I didn't care.
I buried my face in my hands and cried. He was going to hurt me, and I was powerless to stop him. I needed protection. Something I could wear in civilian clothes without it being seen. Or, maybe, body enhancements? A power like Aegis' would be useful. He told me it nullified pain, as well as letting him adapt to almost anything.
That would be my next project.
Something small, concealable, was what I needed now. It also had to be non-lethal. As scary as enforcers were, they were still people. I wouldn't kill.
It took a while to calm down and go inside. My new toys met my new floor, and formed the basis of a hoard worthy of a dragon. Eventually, at least. Dream big.
…
I was allowed into the PRT building whenever I wanted. It stored my costume, as well as housed my Tinker lab, and even kept a room just for me. Decorating it was still filed under 'TBD'. There was a secret back entrance that allowed you to go inside without being seen by the public, even in civvies.
I greeted the PRT agents stationed outside before heading inside. They were nice people, but they rotated shifts so I didn't get to know them that well.
I knocked on the door of Armsmaster's workshop.
"Come in," he said from inside. The door slid open, silent as a whisper.
Armsmaster's workshop was part office, part workshop. Kind of like the café Victoria took me to. Parts of it looked like it belonged in a skyscraper office fit for a seventies businessman. The other half looked like it was a mechanics garage.
Armsmaster had his helmet off. He had dark-brown hair, shaved down. He looked like a fairly generic person. Not unattractive, just similar to other adult men I'd seen. I wasn't sure how to gauge the attractiveness of a person older than me. He spun around in his chair, the swivelling office kind.
"Raccoon Knight," he smiled, "what can I do for you?" He gently tossed the screwdriver he was holding down on the desk.
"I was wondering if I could have one of Shadow Stalker's tranquilliser bolts?"
"I don't mind," he said, reaching over to open a drawer. Inside was a satchel with several bolts inside. "But why not ask Shadow Stalker herself?" He fished one out of the hooks that held it to the satchel and handed it over to me.
"She's… She likes her stuff. I don't think she would have said yes," I said. Sophia was the type of person who liked solitude. The other Wards didn't talk to her, and she didn't talk to them. I hadn't yet tried myself, since she was either out on patrol or not at the Ward's HQ.
"That's true," he said, shrugging. "Is that all?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Thank you, Armsmaster." It was strange calling him that when he wasn't in costume. He'd never told me his name.
He smiled at me.
...
Invisible Tinker lights greeted me as I flipped the switch. I still hadn't figured out where they were. I flipped the sign on my door to 'No Disturbing'. It locked and displayed a red tab outside on the handle. Protectorate members could override the lock with their fingerprints.
I cleared a space on my workbench and grabbed a few components. My wire had arrived already, which was nice. No time for it right now.
Once the process had started, I couldn't go back. I had to set up every single piece ahead of time, triple-checking to make sure every part was there before starting.
The tranquilliser dart was simple. My power wouldn't let me use it for anything, but with a shove, it did tell me how it functioned, letting me get ideas on how to make something similar. A simple plunging system that was activated by the sudden stop in momentum from firing it. Not quite what I needed. The liquid inside was a concoction I was unfamiliar with.
My computer monitor flared to life. It was always on, just sleeping.
"1 New Email," the screen read.
From: Armsmaster2517@private-PRT.gov
To: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
Subject: Tranquilliser Darts
Hello Raccoon Knight,
I've included the schematics for the tranquilliser dart, as well the liquid inside. You're authorised only to use the liquid in its current structure. Any changes will need to be approved by the Tinker board, as usual.
Signed, Armsmaster.
2 attachments.
Neat. Learning his confusing-but efficient-syntax took about half an hour.
Scanning through the schematics helped a lot. The dart was what I expected–nothing special–but the tranquilliser was more impressive. It had adaptive components to not kill anyone whose body weight didn't match the dosage. The dosage was relatively low, not enough to harm anyone. It was a sacrifice to not kill normals, but meant brutes needed several shots rather than just one.
I sat back and let my power flow. Finding a perfect solution, like Armsmaster had, wasn't in my wheelhouse right now. I didn't have a chemistry set, let alone chemicals. I could make tranquillisers that were intended for animals, and could put down a human. They'd need to be made in several different doses to not overload someone's system. It also didn't bypass allergic reactions like Armsmaster's darts did.
The more I thought about it, the more impressive it became. My power hummed and hawed trying to figure out how he did it. Ultimately, it required materials I either didn't have access to yet, or would probably ever. By the end, my power and I were both sulking.
Why couldn't it be easy? Maybe I can use the liquid from this bolt?
I hadn't expected my power to actually consider it. There was a long pause before it gave me a resolute 'No'. Okay.
Then what if I found a dart that had missed?
Grudging acceptance. Shadow Stalker wasn't one to miss, or to leave a bolt lying around, though.
Back to the drawing board. Tranquilliser design was out the window. What other less-than-lethal methods existed?
Maybe something like Coco was now capable of? A piston of sorts to enhance my punches. I'd still need to learn to fight, but it could catch someone off-guard.
Nah, too cumbersome and too time consuming to learn how to fight.
Wards were required to learn martial arts in addition to general fitness. Dancing around with lawyers due to my living situation had delayed my start somewhat. I would learn to fight eventually, but by then the piston punch wouldn't be as useful. A lightweight device was still my best option.
Some kind of spray? A gas?
A liquid version of my stink powder made the most sense. It would need to be able to keep for a long time, preferably with no leaking. Fishing through my hoard netted me with a miscellaneous pill capsule. Perfect.
I split the pill in two, letting the dust from inside fall onto a plastic film sheet.
Could be useful for something, even if I didn't know what it was.
The PRT food hall had agreed to give me waste food but only on request. We weren't on a first name basis quite yet, but the staff were pleasant to talk to. I left with a bag full of scraps from breakfast.
Mulching them down into a version of the stink paste was easy. Bash, bash, bash with my fists. Then drain the liquid from the mulched food through a cheesecloth into the pill capsule, before putting the two halves back together.
Next up: the spraying device. Just a simple thing that worked similar to a water gun. Pump action, without the pump action part, just the spraying when pressure is routed through it.
A tiny device, smaller than my finger. I hooked the pill inside the ammo slot. The pipe that shot the liquid was split in two, when the front half folded up it would pressurise the back chamber with the pill, as well as split the cap off the pill to release the liquid in a spray. It would activate through a hand sign; my thumb pressed against the middle joint on the bottom of my middle finger.
Before the last steps, I needed one last material. One the PRT didn't have, but that could be found outside after just a little wandering…
It only took checking three alleyways to find the last ingredient.
Which led me to the hard part. Surgery.
I grabbed some healing paste, running it around the base of the middle finger on my right hand. I prodded at the tip of the finger until it felt numb enough. Electrical burn scars across my pointer and thumb had faded well. My healing paste was worth every coin. If only it could heal the memories.
As part of my tool-kit, I was given these cruel looking scissors. Closer to shears. They were meant for cutting leather. I placed my middle finger between the blades and took a deep breath.
Cutting off your finger took a lot of force. It also hurt like fuck, even through the numbness. I squeezed the blades, biting back tears. After gruelling minutes, my finger was snipped off. It plopped down onto the workbench.
I cried out before muffling it with my hand. Fucking shit. I could only imagine the pain without the paste. I rubbed some of the paste against the wound, clotting the bleeding.
Still work to be done though. My finger went into a vice, nail pointing to the ceiling and I snipped it again, just past the last joint. It fell onto the floor. Damn it.
I picked it up, placing it back into the vice, this time with the nail down. Using a screwdriver I dug out the flesh a little to make some room. I did the same for the bottom half of the finger, making a lot more room. Installing the spraying device was the easy part. The cap of the finger would be the part that folded up.
Cutting a circle in the middle joint of the finger gave me room for a button. The skin was left behind. If it was over the top of the button the whole thing would look more natural.
After fifteen minutes the device was installed and ready to go.
Before sewing the cap of the finger back onto the bottom half, the cut nerves needed to be reconnected. My trip outside had granted me a rat carcass. Sorry my furry little friend. I apologised, before skinning it, and digging into the flesh to find its muscles. The rat's muscle sinew was used to reattach the nerves and muscles of my finger cap back to the bottom half. Then, a few stitches later, I had a complete finger again.
A few days of healing paste and the cuts would seal back together, good as new. Until then adhesive bandages would disguise it as a simple injury.
Reattaching the nerves from the finger to the hand was less trial and error than the first time.
I used a little glue to stick the bone back together. Sewing it back onto my hand was harder due to the weird angles needed to sew around the other fingers. There were also remnants of the healing paste that kept clotting up my needles. It wasn't easy.
Excruciating–both in patience and pain–minutes passed, but I managed it. It was a messy job. Sewing flesh was different from sewing the cloth for my gambeson.
Heather had given me cute finger bandages with little raccoons on them. After covering my finger in the paste, I wrapped them around my finger to disguise the cuts. To help keep it steady, a few small twigs acted as splints, kept secure with tape. Heather wouldn't be home for a while, letting me keep the splint on during the day, which should be enough to make sure it was fully secure. I could take it off before dinner tonight.
To avoid suspicion from the door guards, I stuck my hands into my dress pockets. No one noticed anything odd. Good.
Back at home I checked on the replies to my PHO post:
'can't even spell lmao'
'Raccoon Knight, you're just a knock-off Mouse Protector.'
'Guys, be nice. She's clearly retarded.'
'homeless trash. Go fight lung and do us all a favour'
'Vista's probably creeped out by you. Leave her alone!'
I stared at the words. I didn't know they made AI capable of emulating my mother.
Real clever, 'LegendisLEGEND27' comparing me to a skunk. Real fucking clever. Very imaginative responses. I had to look up a few of the words to understand it all better. I felt worse with every post.
Usually, I'd cry. Someone comes up to me and says mean words? I cry. An easy response. It made sense. It helped. But it was hard to parse it when it was words on a screen. I was angry, upset, and sad. I wanted to scream, to cry, and to break something.
My chair bounced off the wall with a crash. It didn't help.
I kicked my desk. It didn't help.
I threw my alarm clock at the wall. It exploded into a thousand pieces. It didn't help.
Tears forced their way out of me. I slumped down onto the floor, resting against my bed and cried.
I just wanted to be a hero.
Thanks to Red Wolf for proofreading this for me. It's helped immensly.
Last edited:
- Location
- the Literature Club
Yeah, that's fucking it. I'm learning how to shoot a shotgun at someone via TCP/IP.
- Location
- Australian
I had seen that let me guess the prt will say it a thinker power when it is her power being picky
2.4
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2.4
The head of PR looked like a corpse. An incredibly sweaty corpse named Michael. For a corpse, he made some good points. Don't engage with people online. Don't meet unfamiliar capes out of costume without parental permission.
And most importantly; My phone needed to be on at ALL times, no matter what.
I had to wear my earpiece to make sure I was notified even when it was set to 'Do Not Disturb'. Since I didn't check my phone, I missed when Heather had tried to warn me to not go back on to PHO after posting my, in Michael's words, "Reputation damaging embarrassment of a message".
Images of Victoria having breakfast with me were everywhere. Posts speculating who I was were deleted "faster than a bird can say cuckoo". Michael had an interesting way with words.
Michael thanked me for giving him work that wasn't related to Shadow Stalker or Clockblocker. Then he laughed, before telling me he wasn't serious and that I shouldn't try to get in more trouble. I didn't plan on it.
Victoria was receiving her own punishments for potentially breaching my secret identity. Meeting me in such a public place, not offering me the option to meet in costume first, and Dean handing out my private PRT phone number were all massive 'no-no's' according to Michael. Secret identities were important. After he explained why it was so bad, I agreed.
Dean had received an earful from Piggot herself, who was much better with her words than Michael. Soldiers, like dockworkers, knew a lot of colourful language. Why did people call swearing 'colourful' language? Not that Ms Piggot swore. She didn't need to.
Heather also grounded me for a week. Originally it was a day for every shard my alarm clock was now in, but that was three months worth of days. Grounding means only being allowed out to go to the PRT for work. At all other times I had to stay home, preferably studying, and my computer access was revoked.
It was unusually nice for something that was supposed to be a punishment. No more closet time for me.
Heather even got me a big book on mythical creatures to pass the time and I was enjoying it immensely. Being grounded was pretty fun.
Each one flickered ideas into my head. Armsmaster suggested recording my Tinker thoughts so I wouldn't forget them like I used to. He gave me a recorder he was no longer using. It was a bulky little thing that used cassette tapes. Heather bought me a huge box full of them on discount. I even got new Tinker material from the broken ones.
My patrol schedule changed dramatically, due to Gallant and Glory Girl's actions.
Clockblocker tried to go on patrol with me, stating that he was someone I was comfortable around.
Piggot said, "Good idea, Clockblocker. Someone comfortable is an excellent idea. Kid Win, go with her." I didn't mind. Chris wasn't as goofy as Dennis, but he could talk and talk and talk about Tinker things. Carlos was more mature, Team Leader. He joined us on patrol to keep me in line.
Actually patrolling, even with people I'd grown comfortable with, was a different thing.
Aegis, like Heather, kept a keen eye out for trouble. Even his stance subtly changed as we officially started the patrol. A scary reminder that danger was potentially around every corner.
Kid Win initiated conversation by telling me about his alternator cannon, and just kind of never stopped talking. Normal conversations left me feeling like a fish out of water. In Tinker conversations I was a Hydra. Removing myself from panicked thoughts of dealing with the public was a bonus.
"I can use it against A-Class threats, maybe even S-Class. Each piece would teleport in independently to construct it wherever I need," he continued. "Do you wanna check over the parts later on, just to double check it? Second opinion, and all."
"Sure, I'd love to!"
He looked away from me for a moment. Not being able to see people's faces sucked.
You can't see my face. Thoughts of an LED screen attached to my helmet to display my current emotions danced through my head.
I slid the microphone part of my new recording device into my helmet and recorded the idea. Handy.
Kid Win glanced my way but didn't interrupt, too busy interacting with the public.
Aegis and Kid Win greeted people like pros as they fawned over the passing heroes. Just simple hellos, but polite and courteous. Even stopping to sign stuff, or take pictures before moving on. They barely stopped for each one. I hope one day I can have signed so many things that it becomes a skill.
Something across the road caught my attention.
Cars were having to swerve around a car broken down on the side of the road. A man, reminiscent of Mr Tennant, stood over the engine looking annoyed. His balding head glistened with sweat in the sunlight. Jogging over I gave him a friendly wave.
"Hey! I can help, if you need it. Raccoon Knight, Tinker Extraordinaire."
He blinked at me with big droopy eyes. "That'd be great. She just conked out on me randomly. You know much about engines?"
I twirled my wrench around my finger. Keeping my tools alongside my ammo pouches seemed a good idea at the time. And I was right! "Yep. I'll have this done in no time flat. You can even time me if you want." His engine was sputtering light smoke from a chimney looking part.
My power didn't bother telling me the names of what I was fixing. Tighten this bolt here. Fix that doohickey. Tap that gizmo three times. Child's play.
"Should be good. Try her out," I said.
He leant into the driver's side window and turned the keys. The engine rumbled to life, staying steady. Back from the dead! I was a Necrotechnomancer after all.
"Thank you so much, young lady!" He smiled at me.
"All in a day's work." I patted the roof of the car. "You should clear out, though. Traffic is being disrupted." He nodded and left after I stepped aside.
Aegis' hand on my shoulder startled me. "Good work. Next time, you need to inform me if you're going to run off, though. Don't need you getting in any more trouble," he said in his mature tone. When he was trying to 'leader' you he would make his voice a bit deeper and speak like he was a wizened monk. It was pleasant on my ears, despite the condescension.
That was a new word I'd learned with all the extra time for studying.
"Sorry. Won't happen again." I gave him an earnest smile before remembering I was wearing my helmet. Another point towards the LED screen.
We continued our patrol. Patrols-despite my initial grievances-did serve a practical function: Exercise. Running around often left me winded and or with stitches.
"How long do we-" I was interrupted by the screaming of children.
We were passing by a school. A handful of children just leaving spotted us and walked over. They crowded around Aegis and Kid Win, asking for autographs, and begging their parents to take their picture.
A girl, around six or seven, approached me. She had her blonde hair tied into a braid, like my own. She smiled an unapologetic smile.
"You look cool! Are you a superhero?" Her voice was raspy, like she had been yelling a ton the day before. I knelt down to be closer to eye level. My tail clattered a little as it settled onto the floor.
"Yep. My superhero name is Raccoon Knight. What's your name?" I fished through memories of reading the public relations book. I only read it two days ago but there was so much legal jargon I could barely remember the words.
"Jessica. But my superhero name is 'Sparkle Blast'!" She punched the air, mimicking shooting blasts into the sky. An accompanying 'pow' was added to each one.
"Woah! That's so cool! I had no idea I had the honour of being in the great presence of the legendary superhero, Sparkle Blast!" I bowed my head down. "You honour me, my lady. Point me to whoever troubles you and I shall deal with them!" Heather gave me a book about knights from England (a fictional island near Europe) who kill aliens looking to invade earth. The knights all spoke funny; using lots of formal speech, and weird made-up words, like 'thy'.
"Um. I don't have any enemies. Yet," Jessica said.
"No matter. Here," I handed her a business card. Heather suggested I make some so people could learn who I was. After making about fifty she told me I didn't have to make them by hand. "Call me if you're ever in trouble, or need an enemy vanquished." The card was simple, just my name, PRT phone number, and my logo.
She took the card from my hand and then hugged me. I patted her back, unsure if I should return the hug. PR guidelines stated that contact should only be made with civilians if given permission or if they're in an unresponsive state and it's safe to move them. I wasn't sure if someone initiating a hug counted as permission.
Once she hugged her fill she waved goodbye to me and joined her parents. Children were being dragged away from Aegis and Kid Win. Lots of "We've got to go home, come on." from annoyed parents. No one else approached me.
After the boys were freed from the children's clutches, we carried on.
"Well handled, Knight," Aegis said. I gave him a slight nod. Well handled. I handled it well. Good work, me.
"Children are so damn sticky," Kid said, wiping down his armour with a wet wipe.
"Remember that kid that wiped snot on you?"
"Ugh. Don't remind me," Kid Win groaned. "At least I didn't scream like Stalker did when that kid wiped yoghurt on her leg."
Aegis laughed, "Piggot yelled at her for hours. Cathartic, since she spent the day before telling Vista she was useless."
Before Kid could say more he was interrupted by our comms flaring to life.
"Alarm tripped at Green Grove Pharmaceuticals on Harbour Road, about three blocks away from you. Check it out? Over." Vista said over our earpieces.
"On our way. Over," Aegis responded. He swapped from his light, joking mode to practised soldier instantly. The effects were quieter, but still noticeable on Kid Win. I tried my best to imitate their learned calm. Cool, collected, that's what I needed to be.
The alarm wasn't loud, but could be heard as we ran closer. We stopped about thirty feet away from the store. Elel scanned the area. The pharmacy was placed on the corner of the road, taking up two buildings worth of space. Every other building was storefronts. A road ran behind the building into a parking lot. Glass covered the pavement, and the inside of the pharmacy, where it had been caved in.
Five figures showed up on Elel's heat scan. One was floating in the air but seemed to still be walking around like normal. A short man? Another looked like a woman taller than me, currently making scooping motions. The rest were on the floor, covering their heads.
"Five people. One big, floating, maybe a man. The other is a normal looking woman, who seems to be helping. Three people cowering around on the floor. Over," I informed the boys using our communicators.
Aegis nodded before flying off to the roof opposite the store. Kid Win held a finger up his visor, flicking a little dial between settings.
"Mush, I believe. Not sure who the woman is, either a non-powered Merchant or Squealer. No Skidmark sited." Aegis said, returning to us. "Requesting permission to engage. Over."
Seconds passed before Vista said, "Permission granted. Focus on rescuing civilians rather than capturing or fighting. Do not engage the unknown woman without confirming her power first. Over."
Aegis outlined a quick plan. Kid Win and I headed to the back of the building. He stayed back, levelling his spark pistol towards the door. I ducked closer to the door, just off the side. Coco hummed in my hands, raring to go.
The door exploded open; a woman surrounded by swirling debris spilled out of it. A duffel bag blocked the direct path to her side. I swung Coco in an arc instead, right into her stomach. Whatever caused the debris to swirl around her also caused Coco to be pulled along.
Her power's grip wasn't stronger than my own muscle, and I finished the swing, albeit dampened. Coco wasn't reliant on brute force. Even a gentle touch would do the trick. Swirly woman made a cute noise like a mouse before a giant mound of trash slammed into her.
Copious amounts of heaven spilled from the door frame, carrying swirly woman along with it. Bolts like firecrackers popped against the side of the trash heap giant. An arm formed, scooping up the swirly woman who complained at the motion. The giant reformed into the shape of a man, the bolts doing nothing to him.
Aegis slammed into its chest, scattering debris across the parking lot. I used Fufu to fire stink pellets into the heap as Aegis backed off to regain momentum. A man's face appeared, pink-skinned and thin. I adjusted my aim to hit him in the face. He flinched at the hits but didn't seem to care about the smell that should be strong enough to make a dragon faint.
Another hit scattered trash around us. A licence plate barely missed my head. Kid Win swapped tactics, flying up on his hoverboard to rain kinetic rounds from above using a different gun.
"I'm good now! Put me down you big lug!" The woman slammed her fist into the trash heap man. He dropped her to the ground. She wasn't graceful.
Kid Win focused his fire on her. His bullets were usable by her power, as they joined the swarm that was building around her. I loosed shots with Fufu, which also joined it. No idea why I thought that would work.
Trash Guy's fist collided with Aegis mid flight. Aegis' body tumbled back through the door they had exited from. Sparks exploded against Swirly Girl. She ducked behind her friend for cover.
"That's what you get for messing with me!" Trash Guy gloated, ignoring the spark shots. I unhooked my frisbola and threw it while they were distracted. Swirly Girl's current position put her right next to his leg, which was the perfect place for the bola to wind around.
Practising my throw for hours paid off as it wound around his leg, ensnaring the woman along with it. "Yes!" I jumped for joy.
A giant fist slammed into me while I was in mid air. Tumbling head over heels was getting tiring.
Metal scraped against concrete as I slid across the parking lot. While recovering from my tumble, I saw Aegis rip off the entire arm of the man. Kid Win swapped back to kinetic rounds, and seemed to be trying to sever the leg Swirly Girl was tied to. It wasn't effective.
My armour was covered in scrape marks, but otherwise fine. Nothing that wouldn't buff out.
Trash Man was flailing around, trying to both hit Aegis and run away. Aegis threw the arm aside to continue his battering ram routine. Each hit left a dent, and scattered more trash. My current weapons weren't useful; fortunately for me, this man acted like a yard sale. I scooped up bits and pieces from the parking lot, slotting them together while running closer to the fight.
I just needed to set up a good hit for Coco. He was human underneath all that. Aegis pummelled the man once more. A trash-hand grabbed him before he could retreat.
Concrete cracked as Aegis slammed into the ground. Again, and again he was hefted up, then back down. Tossed around like a kid who hated their teddy bear. Kid Win tried his best to aim for the man's body, but Trash made for an effective shield.
I pulled a wire attached to my new device. It coughed into life. I threw it as hard as my weak little arms could manage. My new device rolled in front of Trash Man, who glanced towards it.
A mighty 'whoomp' sounded as air exploded from my grenade. Trash scattered from the man's form, littering us all in a rain of its glory. Dazed, the pink skinned man stared at nothing with large, shocked eyes.
Coco's cold metal met his flesh. His scrawny body tensed up. I saw his pot belly roll up as he dry heaved. My hit caused him to stumble away. Before I could move to pry Aegis free from his grip, the hero was thrown across the tops of the buildings. Trash Man fell to his knees, making noises like a cat throwing up.
I stepped around to give Coco a better angle. As I speared her towards him, I activated the piston mechanism. Trash reformed around his body to stop Coco's empowered punch. It engulfed her, pulling her deeper into his form. I grabbed her with both hands, pulling with all my might. My heels scraped across the ground as I was dragged along with her.
Coco slipped from my grasp, breaking down as she joined the Trash Man's form.
"No!" I yelled.
The man stood to his full height, readying to punch me. Sparks exploded against his head, causing him to stumble. I punched him in the stomach. Vomit splattered against my armour.
Swirly Girl tackled me from behind before I could go for a follow up swing. I heard Kid Win's bolts being fired, hopefully they were hitting. Noises like rain splattered against my helmet as we rolled.
I had been trained to break free of grabs. Just wish I remembered how it went. Three days of training didn't make me an expert. My elbow met flesh as I tried to wriggle from her grip. The hail storm intensified over the course of a second. We kept rolling. Plate armour did wonders to stop scrapes.
As our roll lost momentum, I found myself facing the sky, the woman beneath me. Debris swirled around me, pelting against my armour. It only travelled in one direction, so turning my head the opposite way protected my helmet. At the speed they were going, they'd crack my lenses.
Prying at her fingers didn't help. She had incredible grip strength. I grabbed her wrists, digging the clawed tips of my gauntlets into her flesh. She screamed, momentarily losing her grip enough for me to pry her hands clean. I rolled off, keeping a tight hold on her wrist.
Once free I pulled her arm to flip her over, and held it down behind her back. She was skinny, like me, but was older and taller. Before I could grab her other arm she started to shove me off. I pulled a marshmallow containment grenade from my pouch and slapped it against her wrist. With her bucking I was thrown away.
It swelled to the size of a beach ball within seconds, sticking her hand to the back of her shirt. She spun around, craning her neck to see it.
"What the fuck!" Swirly Girl yelled. Pushing all of my body into a lunge, I tried to tackle her. She ran to the side, and my momentum carried me right into the pharmacy wall.
Bashing your head against bricks–even with a foam padded helmet–fucking hurt. A foot slammed into my ribs. That part didn't hurt me at least. Swirly Girl cursed, grabbing ahold of her foot with her free hand before losing her balance and falling onto her butt.
I threw another marshmallow grenade at her. My aim was off, hitting her face instead of her arm. Oh well, it was breathable. She rolled to the side, her yelling muffled by the foam. Sticky marshmallow goop connected with the ground and stopped her movement.
"Silent, you have the right. Remain it. Court of law. Lawyer. If you want?" That wasn't what I meant to say.
A car alarm blared out. I blinked, trying to parse what I was seeing. The monstrous form had crushed a car beneath it as it bounded away. Two flying figures chased after it. Weren't there people inside?
I stumbled inside to find no civilians. Right, Aegis did his job. His side of the plan got the villains away from the civilians and drove them out the back door. My heat vision let me inform Kid Win if something went wrong.
Swirly Girl was writhing, trying to move, but kept getting more marshmallow stuck to things.
"Vista. Cutie. Awesome girl Vista. I have arrested Swirly Girl. You're my favourite. Cool," I informed Vista over the radio. Zip ties (finally remembered to pack some) met Swirly Girl's remaining wrist.
"What?" Vista said over comms.
"Hey, breathing? One finger for yes," I said to Swirly Girl.
She raised her middle finger towards me. Okay, good, still breathing.
Aegis landed next to me. "I'll take it from here, Knight. You need to see the paramedics," he commanded.
"Silly. I have healing magic." I flicked healing paste coated fingers at him. It splattered against his armour. He placed a hand over my arm.
"Come on." His voice was gentle as he led me around the building. After placing me in front of a paramedic, he went back to Swirly Girl.
The paramedic was a young woman in the medic version of a PRT uniform. She guided me into the back of a PRT ambulance with soft words and gently cooing. I struggled to pay attention to her words. They slipped over my brain like butter.
Hitting your head wasn't great. It leads to things like concussions. Medicine made my head feel fuzzy, but better. The paramedic said it was only a mild concussion. Which was still bad, just less bad than as bad as it could have been. The initial confusion was the worst of it.
Piggot took the time to visit me in the recovery room. How nice of her.
"Raccoon Knight. Our conversations have been brief so far. I'd like to keep it that way."
I nodded to show I was listening.
"I'm glad you agree. Aegis informed me that you did good work today. Interacting with the public in a healthier manner than your initial introduction, as well as making an arrest practically solo. Normally, I'm not one to praise people for simply doing their job; but it is a marked improvement of your first day out. Keep it up," she said. I nodded.
"Now, the reason I'm here is to tell you I'm docking your pay. Not only did you use an unknown Tinker device without proper sanction; you also did unlicensed repairs to a civilian's car. Neither of which are acceptable behaviour," Her voice didn't change tone from her first words but they felt more stern.
"What's wrong with fixing someone's car? And I needed the air grenade to reveal Trash Man's body."
"You are not a licensed mechanic. And all Tinker devices need to be approved before use in the field, no matter what. Just because your power works on the fly, doesn't mean you should use it on the fly."
"But-"
"No buts. This isn't a discussion. Your pay is being docked. I wish you a speedy recovery." She turned and exited the room before I could argue further.
Maybe my brain was still hazy, because I didn't understand that one bit. I helped that man get to wherever he needed to be. Without me he'd still be stuck out there, waiting for someone to come fix his car. Or he'd call a mechanic. But that meant having to pay!
The air grenade was the only reason Coco or Kid Win could hit Trash Man.
Coco… She had been consumed by the giant. Tears streamed down my face. I lost my best friend. Dead and buried inside a gross goblin looking man's mulchy body.
Grieving didn't feel like enough.
April came before the doctors cleared me to go back into the field, with bed rest taking up most of my days. Heather surprised me with a laptop. A gift for my first official arrest, she said, and to give me something to do while stuck in bed.
I avoided PHO like the plague.
There was plenty more to see than stupid people being stupid. Like stupid people being stupid but on video.
Wikipedia held a treasure trove of information. Live streaming functioned like the news did; a recording broadcast with a slight delay. I had no idea the news was live until reading that handy article.
After searching for: "cool tinker devices video", I found a website full of videos from a Californian Tinker called 'Smith & Welding'. He made pistols, and rifles that could do really neat things. One of them fired bouncy bullets that kept bouncing for a day after he left. They were less-than-lethal but left welts. The website acted as an archive for Smith. Usually he would live stream the videos and then they'd be deleted forever. Someone took it upon themselves to save them instead.
Smith wore a cowboy themed costume. When his long coat flipped open you could see all of his guns lining his body. By my count there were close to sixty. Plus three extra rifles on the outside of his coat.
He was a villain, or at least trying to be. His acts of crime involved rushing into places, shooting his cool guns, grabbing an item, and vanishing. A few days later the item would be returned to where he got it from. He was in it for the thrill, not caring about the material wealth. It was just a game to him.
People sometimes were hurt. Those ones weren't fun to watch. Usually he yelled goofy catchphrases in a fake Texan accent. At least, TenGallonMan53 said it was fake.
Being inspired by a villain probably wasn't the best, but I did come up with new ideas by watching him. Fufu deserved a treat, and the firing mechanisms that didn't use gunpowder were neat.
Being back in my lab felt like coming home. It had been kept clean in my absence.
Three ideas were at the front of my brain. Fufu came first.
She received a new firing mechanism that used air propulsion rather than pressurised air. Her trigger now activated a bellows, which fed air into a circle before feeding it into the pipe. It caused her firing rate to suffer by milliseconds. A fair trade for unlimited firing.
My belt couldn't hold all of my tools. I had to be selective when travelling.
I fashioned together a rotating handle. The heads of each tool would be held in a reserve container. With the press of a button the head of the tool would retract, and be replaced by the next one in line. The former tool would fold back inside, shoving out the next tool to the rotating part. It let me carry around all my hand-held tools in one handy little device.
A wrench, three different screwdrivers, a hammer, a pair of pliers, and scissors. It had space for a few more tools. Prying away the heads without my power's assistance took brain power, and copious amounts of Wikipedia.
A text appeared on my phone.
Victoria: i'm sorry for getting you in trouble
Victoria: I should have asked first before asking you to come in civvies
Victoria: don't blame dean. i forced him to give me your number
Raccoon Knight: im not mad
Raccoon Knight: PR told me it was dumb and i shudnt have done it
Raccoon Knight: i liked eating ice cream with you
Victoria: 😀 we can get more when my mom stops yelling at me
Raccoon Knight: ok
The phone clattered onto the counter. Her siren song was too strong. It was even capable of travelling digitally.
I pressed my face into my hands. Victoria meant well. Making me talk with Michael wasn't part of her plan. Talking with her left me feeling queasy. Or maybe that was the remnants of my concussion.
Glory Girl was a siren. A creature of the sea that lured sailors to their deaths with a song so alluring they couldn't help but crash their ship into the rocks.
She sang her siren song and I crashed.
I flicked between the different tools on my multi-tool. It was enjoyable listening to its clicks and clacks as it swapped between them.
Maybe Coco's successor could do something similar. Armsmaster's halberd's level of versatility would be nice. I sketched out a bigger version of my multi-tool. Including different heads. A spear head was an obvious addition. Something nausea inducing…
My power shoved back when I tried to think of another version of Coco's vertigo ability. What gives? A feeling of wrongness filled me as I tried to push further. Alright then. Be that way.
No nausea. How about a nozzle head that fired bursts of air? Ideas flowed through me.
I set to work.
Dede, the Fractal.
A fractal was a shape that repeated itself inside of itself, forever. Infinity. Each piece of a fractal contained infinitely more fractal. I watched hours of videos just zooming in on different fractals. They mesmerised me through the fog of my medicine.
Dede sported five different heads, with space to add more. Armsmaster would be proud of how much I managed to store in such a tiny space. Each part folded in on itself, and then folded in some more. Of course, I had to use one of Armsmaster's highly efficient batteries to power her. It wouldn't be right not to.
His concept, his battery.
A spear, with a syringe system to deliver things if I ever came up with something to deliver.
A hammer with shock absorbers to stop my hands feeling it.
A nozzle capable of blasting high-velocity air. Her counterweight held the vacuum that powered the air blasts. In a pinch she could also suck in air. The blasts should feel like getting punched by a grown man.
An axe, to break through doors. Like a firefighter.
Last but not least; a pogo stick, powered by a similar piston design to Coco. Foldout footholds were positioned near the top of the shaft. Testing it out in the training room let me get some serious air. I sailed around ten feet into the air.
Landing sucked. I lined up plenty of training mats beforehand to cushion my fall.
To counter this, I added shock absorbers (like the hammer) to my armour's shoes. Adding them to my helmet as well was an obvious choice.
Approval for use in the field could not come faster.
During my absence, we received a new hero.
Meeting him required social energy. An energy less spent than my physical energy.
His name was Browbeat. Formerly an independent with a decent arrest record. Much better than my time as an independent. Everyone else had introduced themselves, and mostly unmasked. Sophia chose to remain masked. I had to remember to only call her Shadow Stalker around him. Why did she unmask to me but not him?
I knocked on his door at the Ward base.
"Come in," he said. His voice was gruff but not in a raspy way.
Browbeat stood waiting for me, his costume still on. Dark blue, diamond print covered spandex was an interesting choice. His mask only left holes for his eyes; a big crystal adorned his forehead.
"Hello. I'm Meadow. Raccoon Knight. I was on sick leave due to a concussion. Thought I should introduce myself." I wasn't wearing my own costume, just regular clothes. "You don't need to unmask to me, if you don't want to," I assured him.
He took his mask off. Like everyone else around here, he was handsome. Boy-next-door handsome more than model handsome but what difference did it make? I smiled at him.
"Uh, Dillan. Browbeat. You're a Tinker, yeah?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Well, I'm still unpacking," he gestured to the room around him.
"Right, right. I'll leave you to it. My lab is always open if you wanna talk, I don't stay in my room much. I can also make you some cool gadgets if you want. Tell me your power, sometime."
"Alright. Will do," he gestured to the door in a way that clearly meant 'Leave me alone.'
I left.
Social things weren't either of our graces. I did want to get to know him better. I'll ask him what he likes next time we talk.
Back home I looked up how to make friends.
The head of PR looked like a corpse. An incredibly sweaty corpse named Michael. For a corpse, he made some good points. Don't engage with people online. Don't meet unfamiliar capes out of costume without parental permission.
And most importantly; My phone needed to be on at ALL times, no matter what.
I had to wear my earpiece to make sure I was notified even when it was set to 'Do Not Disturb'. Since I didn't check my phone, I missed when Heather had tried to warn me to not go back on to PHO after posting my, in Michael's words, "Reputation damaging embarrassment of a message".
Images of Victoria having breakfast with me were everywhere. Posts speculating who I was were deleted "faster than a bird can say cuckoo". Michael had an interesting way with words.
Michael thanked me for giving him work that wasn't related to Shadow Stalker or Clockblocker. Then he laughed, before telling me he wasn't serious and that I shouldn't try to get in more trouble. I didn't plan on it.
Victoria was receiving her own punishments for potentially breaching my secret identity. Meeting me in such a public place, not offering me the option to meet in costume first, and Dean handing out my private PRT phone number were all massive 'no-no's' according to Michael. Secret identities were important. After he explained why it was so bad, I agreed.
Dean had received an earful from Piggot herself, who was much better with her words than Michael. Soldiers, like dockworkers, knew a lot of colourful language. Why did people call swearing 'colourful' language? Not that Ms Piggot swore. She didn't need to.
Heather also grounded me for a week. Originally it was a day for every shard my alarm clock was now in, but that was three months worth of days. Grounding means only being allowed out to go to the PRT for work. At all other times I had to stay home, preferably studying, and my computer access was revoked.
It was unusually nice for something that was supposed to be a punishment. No more closet time for me.
Heather even got me a big book on mythical creatures to pass the time and I was enjoying it immensely. Being grounded was pretty fun.
Each one flickered ideas into my head. Armsmaster suggested recording my Tinker thoughts so I wouldn't forget them like I used to. He gave me a recorder he was no longer using. It was a bulky little thing that used cassette tapes. Heather bought me a huge box full of them on discount. I even got new Tinker material from the broken ones.
My patrol schedule changed dramatically, due to Gallant and Glory Girl's actions.
Clockblocker tried to go on patrol with me, stating that he was someone I was comfortable around.
Piggot said, "Good idea, Clockblocker. Someone comfortable is an excellent idea. Kid Win, go with her." I didn't mind. Chris wasn't as goofy as Dennis, but he could talk and talk and talk about Tinker things. Carlos was more mature, Team Leader. He joined us on patrol to keep me in line.
Actually patrolling, even with people I'd grown comfortable with, was a different thing.
Aegis, like Heather, kept a keen eye out for trouble. Even his stance subtly changed as we officially started the patrol. A scary reminder that danger was potentially around every corner.
Kid Win initiated conversation by telling me about his alternator cannon, and just kind of never stopped talking. Normal conversations left me feeling like a fish out of water. In Tinker conversations I was a Hydra. Removing myself from panicked thoughts of dealing with the public was a bonus.
"I can use it against A-Class threats, maybe even S-Class. Each piece would teleport in independently to construct it wherever I need," he continued. "Do you wanna check over the parts later on, just to double check it? Second opinion, and all."
"Sure, I'd love to!"
He looked away from me for a moment. Not being able to see people's faces sucked.
You can't see my face. Thoughts of an LED screen attached to my helmet to display my current emotions danced through my head.
I slid the microphone part of my new recording device into my helmet and recorded the idea. Handy.
Kid Win glanced my way but didn't interrupt, too busy interacting with the public.
Aegis and Kid Win greeted people like pros as they fawned over the passing heroes. Just simple hellos, but polite and courteous. Even stopping to sign stuff, or take pictures before moving on. They barely stopped for each one. I hope one day I can have signed so many things that it becomes a skill.
Something across the road caught my attention.
Cars were having to swerve around a car broken down on the side of the road. A man, reminiscent of Mr Tennant, stood over the engine looking annoyed. His balding head glistened with sweat in the sunlight. Jogging over I gave him a friendly wave.
"Hey! I can help, if you need it. Raccoon Knight, Tinker Extraordinaire."
He blinked at me with big droopy eyes. "That'd be great. She just conked out on me randomly. You know much about engines?"
I twirled my wrench around my finger. Keeping my tools alongside my ammo pouches seemed a good idea at the time. And I was right! "Yep. I'll have this done in no time flat. You can even time me if you want." His engine was sputtering light smoke from a chimney looking part.
My power didn't bother telling me the names of what I was fixing. Tighten this bolt here. Fix that doohickey. Tap that gizmo three times. Child's play.
"Should be good. Try her out," I said.
He leant into the driver's side window and turned the keys. The engine rumbled to life, staying steady. Back from the dead! I was a Necrotechnomancer after all.
"Thank you so much, young lady!" He smiled at me.
"All in a day's work." I patted the roof of the car. "You should clear out, though. Traffic is being disrupted." He nodded and left after I stepped aside.
Aegis' hand on my shoulder startled me. "Good work. Next time, you need to inform me if you're going to run off, though. Don't need you getting in any more trouble," he said in his mature tone. When he was trying to 'leader' you he would make his voice a bit deeper and speak like he was a wizened monk. It was pleasant on my ears, despite the condescension.
That was a new word I'd learned with all the extra time for studying.
"Sorry. Won't happen again." I gave him an earnest smile before remembering I was wearing my helmet. Another point towards the LED screen.
We continued our patrol. Patrols-despite my initial grievances-did serve a practical function: Exercise. Running around often left me winded and or with stitches.
"How long do we-" I was interrupted by the screaming of children.
We were passing by a school. A handful of children just leaving spotted us and walked over. They crowded around Aegis and Kid Win, asking for autographs, and begging their parents to take their picture.
A girl, around six or seven, approached me. She had her blonde hair tied into a braid, like my own. She smiled an unapologetic smile.
"You look cool! Are you a superhero?" Her voice was raspy, like she had been yelling a ton the day before. I knelt down to be closer to eye level. My tail clattered a little as it settled onto the floor.
"Yep. My superhero name is Raccoon Knight. What's your name?" I fished through memories of reading the public relations book. I only read it two days ago but there was so much legal jargon I could barely remember the words.
"Jessica. But my superhero name is 'Sparkle Blast'!" She punched the air, mimicking shooting blasts into the sky. An accompanying 'pow' was added to each one.
"Woah! That's so cool! I had no idea I had the honour of being in the great presence of the legendary superhero, Sparkle Blast!" I bowed my head down. "You honour me, my lady. Point me to whoever troubles you and I shall deal with them!" Heather gave me a book about knights from England (a fictional island near Europe) who kill aliens looking to invade earth. The knights all spoke funny; using lots of formal speech, and weird made-up words, like 'thy'.
"Um. I don't have any enemies. Yet," Jessica said.
"No matter. Here," I handed her a business card. Heather suggested I make some so people could learn who I was. After making about fifty she told me I didn't have to make them by hand. "Call me if you're ever in trouble, or need an enemy vanquished." The card was simple, just my name, PRT phone number, and my logo.
She took the card from my hand and then hugged me. I patted her back, unsure if I should return the hug. PR guidelines stated that contact should only be made with civilians if given permission or if they're in an unresponsive state and it's safe to move them. I wasn't sure if someone initiating a hug counted as permission.
Once she hugged her fill she waved goodbye to me and joined her parents. Children were being dragged away from Aegis and Kid Win. Lots of "We've got to go home, come on." from annoyed parents. No one else approached me.
After the boys were freed from the children's clutches, we carried on.
"Well handled, Knight," Aegis said. I gave him a slight nod. Well handled. I handled it well. Good work, me.
"Children are so damn sticky," Kid said, wiping down his armour with a wet wipe.
"Remember that kid that wiped snot on you?"
"Ugh. Don't remind me," Kid Win groaned. "At least I didn't scream like Stalker did when that kid wiped yoghurt on her leg."
Aegis laughed, "Piggot yelled at her for hours. Cathartic, since she spent the day before telling Vista she was useless."
Before Kid could say more he was interrupted by our comms flaring to life.
"Alarm tripped at Green Grove Pharmaceuticals on Harbour Road, about three blocks away from you. Check it out? Over." Vista said over our earpieces.
"On our way. Over," Aegis responded. He swapped from his light, joking mode to practised soldier instantly. The effects were quieter, but still noticeable on Kid Win. I tried my best to imitate their learned calm. Cool, collected, that's what I needed to be.
The alarm wasn't loud, but could be heard as we ran closer. We stopped about thirty feet away from the store. Elel scanned the area. The pharmacy was placed on the corner of the road, taking up two buildings worth of space. Every other building was storefronts. A road ran behind the building into a parking lot. Glass covered the pavement, and the inside of the pharmacy, where it had been caved in.
Five figures showed up on Elel's heat scan. One was floating in the air but seemed to still be walking around like normal. A short man? Another looked like a woman taller than me, currently making scooping motions. The rest were on the floor, covering their heads.
"Five people. One big, floating, maybe a man. The other is a normal looking woman, who seems to be helping. Three people cowering around on the floor. Over," I informed the boys using our communicators.
Aegis nodded before flying off to the roof opposite the store. Kid Win held a finger up his visor, flicking a little dial between settings.
"Mush, I believe. Not sure who the woman is, either a non-powered Merchant or Squealer. No Skidmark sited." Aegis said, returning to us. "Requesting permission to engage. Over."
Seconds passed before Vista said, "Permission granted. Focus on rescuing civilians rather than capturing or fighting. Do not engage the unknown woman without confirming her power first. Over."
Aegis outlined a quick plan. Kid Win and I headed to the back of the building. He stayed back, levelling his spark pistol towards the door. I ducked closer to the door, just off the side. Coco hummed in my hands, raring to go.
The door exploded open; a woman surrounded by swirling debris spilled out of it. A duffel bag blocked the direct path to her side. I swung Coco in an arc instead, right into her stomach. Whatever caused the debris to swirl around her also caused Coco to be pulled along.
Her power's grip wasn't stronger than my own muscle, and I finished the swing, albeit dampened. Coco wasn't reliant on brute force. Even a gentle touch would do the trick. Swirly woman made a cute noise like a mouse before a giant mound of trash slammed into her.
Copious amounts of heaven spilled from the door frame, carrying swirly woman along with it. Bolts like firecrackers popped against the side of the trash heap giant. An arm formed, scooping up the swirly woman who complained at the motion. The giant reformed into the shape of a man, the bolts doing nothing to him.
Aegis slammed into its chest, scattering debris across the parking lot. I used Fufu to fire stink pellets into the heap as Aegis backed off to regain momentum. A man's face appeared, pink-skinned and thin. I adjusted my aim to hit him in the face. He flinched at the hits but didn't seem to care about the smell that should be strong enough to make a dragon faint.
Another hit scattered trash around us. A licence plate barely missed my head. Kid Win swapped tactics, flying up on his hoverboard to rain kinetic rounds from above using a different gun.
"I'm good now! Put me down you big lug!" The woman slammed her fist into the trash heap man. He dropped her to the ground. She wasn't graceful.
Kid Win focused his fire on her. His bullets were usable by her power, as they joined the swarm that was building around her. I loosed shots with Fufu, which also joined it. No idea why I thought that would work.
Trash Guy's fist collided with Aegis mid flight. Aegis' body tumbled back through the door they had exited from. Sparks exploded against Swirly Girl. She ducked behind her friend for cover.
"That's what you get for messing with me!" Trash Guy gloated, ignoring the spark shots. I unhooked my frisbola and threw it while they were distracted. Swirly Girl's current position put her right next to his leg, which was the perfect place for the bola to wind around.
Practising my throw for hours paid off as it wound around his leg, ensnaring the woman along with it. "Yes!" I jumped for joy.
A giant fist slammed into me while I was in mid air. Tumbling head over heels was getting tiring.
Metal scraped against concrete as I slid across the parking lot. While recovering from my tumble, I saw Aegis rip off the entire arm of the man. Kid Win swapped back to kinetic rounds, and seemed to be trying to sever the leg Swirly Girl was tied to. It wasn't effective.
My armour was covered in scrape marks, but otherwise fine. Nothing that wouldn't buff out.
Trash Man was flailing around, trying to both hit Aegis and run away. Aegis threw the arm aside to continue his battering ram routine. Each hit left a dent, and scattered more trash. My current weapons weren't useful; fortunately for me, this man acted like a yard sale. I scooped up bits and pieces from the parking lot, slotting them together while running closer to the fight.
I just needed to set up a good hit for Coco. He was human underneath all that. Aegis pummelled the man once more. A trash-hand grabbed him before he could retreat.
Concrete cracked as Aegis slammed into the ground. Again, and again he was hefted up, then back down. Tossed around like a kid who hated their teddy bear. Kid Win tried his best to aim for the man's body, but Trash made for an effective shield.
I pulled a wire attached to my new device. It coughed into life. I threw it as hard as my weak little arms could manage. My new device rolled in front of Trash Man, who glanced towards it.
A mighty 'whoomp' sounded as air exploded from my grenade. Trash scattered from the man's form, littering us all in a rain of its glory. Dazed, the pink skinned man stared at nothing with large, shocked eyes.
Coco's cold metal met his flesh. His scrawny body tensed up. I saw his pot belly roll up as he dry heaved. My hit caused him to stumble away. Before I could move to pry Aegis free from his grip, the hero was thrown across the tops of the buildings. Trash Man fell to his knees, making noises like a cat throwing up.
I stepped around to give Coco a better angle. As I speared her towards him, I activated the piston mechanism. Trash reformed around his body to stop Coco's empowered punch. It engulfed her, pulling her deeper into his form. I grabbed her with both hands, pulling with all my might. My heels scraped across the ground as I was dragged along with her.
Coco slipped from my grasp, breaking down as she joined the Trash Man's form.
"No!" I yelled.
The man stood to his full height, readying to punch me. Sparks exploded against his head, causing him to stumble. I punched him in the stomach. Vomit splattered against my armour.
Swirly Girl tackled me from behind before I could go for a follow up swing. I heard Kid Win's bolts being fired, hopefully they were hitting. Noises like rain splattered against my helmet as we rolled.
I had been trained to break free of grabs. Just wish I remembered how it went. Three days of training didn't make me an expert. My elbow met flesh as I tried to wriggle from her grip. The hail storm intensified over the course of a second. We kept rolling. Plate armour did wonders to stop scrapes.
As our roll lost momentum, I found myself facing the sky, the woman beneath me. Debris swirled around me, pelting against my armour. It only travelled in one direction, so turning my head the opposite way protected my helmet. At the speed they were going, they'd crack my lenses.
Prying at her fingers didn't help. She had incredible grip strength. I grabbed her wrists, digging the clawed tips of my gauntlets into her flesh. She screamed, momentarily losing her grip enough for me to pry her hands clean. I rolled off, keeping a tight hold on her wrist.
Once free I pulled her arm to flip her over, and held it down behind her back. She was skinny, like me, but was older and taller. Before I could grab her other arm she started to shove me off. I pulled a marshmallow containment grenade from my pouch and slapped it against her wrist. With her bucking I was thrown away.
It swelled to the size of a beach ball within seconds, sticking her hand to the back of her shirt. She spun around, craning her neck to see it.
"What the fuck!" Swirly Girl yelled. Pushing all of my body into a lunge, I tried to tackle her. She ran to the side, and my momentum carried me right into the pharmacy wall.
Bashing your head against bricks–even with a foam padded helmet–fucking hurt. A foot slammed into my ribs. That part didn't hurt me at least. Swirly Girl cursed, grabbing ahold of her foot with her free hand before losing her balance and falling onto her butt.
I threw another marshmallow grenade at her. My aim was off, hitting her face instead of her arm. Oh well, it was breathable. She rolled to the side, her yelling muffled by the foam. Sticky marshmallow goop connected with the ground and stopped her movement.
"Silent, you have the right. Remain it. Court of law. Lawyer. If you want?" That wasn't what I meant to say.
A car alarm blared out. I blinked, trying to parse what I was seeing. The monstrous form had crushed a car beneath it as it bounded away. Two flying figures chased after it. Weren't there people inside?
I stumbled inside to find no civilians. Right, Aegis did his job. His side of the plan got the villains away from the civilians and drove them out the back door. My heat vision let me inform Kid Win if something went wrong.
Swirly Girl was writhing, trying to move, but kept getting more marshmallow stuck to things.
"Vista. Cutie. Awesome girl Vista. I have arrested Swirly Girl. You're my favourite. Cool," I informed Vista over the radio. Zip ties (finally remembered to pack some) met Swirly Girl's remaining wrist.
"What?" Vista said over comms.
"Hey, breathing? One finger for yes," I said to Swirly Girl.
She raised her middle finger towards me. Okay, good, still breathing.
Aegis landed next to me. "I'll take it from here, Knight. You need to see the paramedics," he commanded.
"Silly. I have healing magic." I flicked healing paste coated fingers at him. It splattered against his armour. He placed a hand over my arm.
"Come on." His voice was gentle as he led me around the building. After placing me in front of a paramedic, he went back to Swirly Girl.
The paramedic was a young woman in the medic version of a PRT uniform. She guided me into the back of a PRT ambulance with soft words and gently cooing. I struggled to pay attention to her words. They slipped over my brain like butter.
...
Hitting your head wasn't great. It leads to things like concussions. Medicine made my head feel fuzzy, but better. The paramedic said it was only a mild concussion. Which was still bad, just less bad than as bad as it could have been. The initial confusion was the worst of it.
Piggot took the time to visit me in the recovery room. How nice of her.
"Raccoon Knight. Our conversations have been brief so far. I'd like to keep it that way."
I nodded to show I was listening.
"I'm glad you agree. Aegis informed me that you did good work today. Interacting with the public in a healthier manner than your initial introduction, as well as making an arrest practically solo. Normally, I'm not one to praise people for simply doing their job; but it is a marked improvement of your first day out. Keep it up," she said. I nodded.
"Now, the reason I'm here is to tell you I'm docking your pay. Not only did you use an unknown Tinker device without proper sanction; you also did unlicensed repairs to a civilian's car. Neither of which are acceptable behaviour," Her voice didn't change tone from her first words but they felt more stern.
"What's wrong with fixing someone's car? And I needed the air grenade to reveal Trash Man's body."
"You are not a licensed mechanic. And all Tinker devices need to be approved before use in the field, no matter what. Just because your power works on the fly, doesn't mean you should use it on the fly."
"But-"
"No buts. This isn't a discussion. Your pay is being docked. I wish you a speedy recovery." She turned and exited the room before I could argue further.
Maybe my brain was still hazy, because I didn't understand that one bit. I helped that man get to wherever he needed to be. Without me he'd still be stuck out there, waiting for someone to come fix his car. Or he'd call a mechanic. But that meant having to pay!
The air grenade was the only reason Coco or Kid Win could hit Trash Man.
Coco… She had been consumed by the giant. Tears streamed down my face. I lost my best friend. Dead and buried inside a gross goblin looking man's mulchy body.
Grieving didn't feel like enough.
...
April came before the doctors cleared me to go back into the field, with bed rest taking up most of my days. Heather surprised me with a laptop. A gift for my first official arrest, she said, and to give me something to do while stuck in bed.
I avoided PHO like the plague.
There was plenty more to see than stupid people being stupid. Like stupid people being stupid but on video.
Wikipedia held a treasure trove of information. Live streaming functioned like the news did; a recording broadcast with a slight delay. I had no idea the news was live until reading that handy article.
After searching for: "cool tinker devices video", I found a website full of videos from a Californian Tinker called 'Smith & Welding'. He made pistols, and rifles that could do really neat things. One of them fired bouncy bullets that kept bouncing for a day after he left. They were less-than-lethal but left welts. The website acted as an archive for Smith. Usually he would live stream the videos and then they'd be deleted forever. Someone took it upon themselves to save them instead.
Smith wore a cowboy themed costume. When his long coat flipped open you could see all of his guns lining his body. By my count there were close to sixty. Plus three extra rifles on the outside of his coat.
He was a villain, or at least trying to be. His acts of crime involved rushing into places, shooting his cool guns, grabbing an item, and vanishing. A few days later the item would be returned to where he got it from. He was in it for the thrill, not caring about the material wealth. It was just a game to him.
People sometimes were hurt. Those ones weren't fun to watch. Usually he yelled goofy catchphrases in a fake Texan accent. At least, TenGallonMan53 said it was fake.
Being inspired by a villain probably wasn't the best, but I did come up with new ideas by watching him. Fufu deserved a treat, and the firing mechanisms that didn't use gunpowder were neat.
Being back in my lab felt like coming home. It had been kept clean in my absence.
Three ideas were at the front of my brain. Fufu came first.
She received a new firing mechanism that used air propulsion rather than pressurised air. Her trigger now activated a bellows, which fed air into a circle before feeding it into the pipe. It caused her firing rate to suffer by milliseconds. A fair trade for unlimited firing.
My belt couldn't hold all of my tools. I had to be selective when travelling.
I fashioned together a rotating handle. The heads of each tool would be held in a reserve container. With the press of a button the head of the tool would retract, and be replaced by the next one in line. The former tool would fold back inside, shoving out the next tool to the rotating part. It let me carry around all my hand-held tools in one handy little device.
A wrench, three different screwdrivers, a hammer, a pair of pliers, and scissors. It had space for a few more tools. Prying away the heads without my power's assistance took brain power, and copious amounts of Wikipedia.
A text appeared on my phone.
Victoria: i'm sorry for getting you in trouble
Victoria: I should have asked first before asking you to come in civvies
Victoria: don't blame dean. i forced him to give me your number
Raccoon Knight: im not mad
Raccoon Knight: PR told me it was dumb and i shudnt have done it
Raccoon Knight: i liked eating ice cream with you
Victoria: 😀 we can get more when my mom stops yelling at me
Raccoon Knight: ok
The phone clattered onto the counter. Her siren song was too strong. It was even capable of travelling digitally.
I pressed my face into my hands. Victoria meant well. Making me talk with Michael wasn't part of her plan. Talking with her left me feeling queasy. Or maybe that was the remnants of my concussion.
Glory Girl was a siren. A creature of the sea that lured sailors to their deaths with a song so alluring they couldn't help but crash their ship into the rocks.
She sang her siren song and I crashed.
I flicked between the different tools on my multi-tool. It was enjoyable listening to its clicks and clacks as it swapped between them.
Maybe Coco's successor could do something similar. Armsmaster's halberd's level of versatility would be nice. I sketched out a bigger version of my multi-tool. Including different heads. A spear head was an obvious addition. Something nausea inducing…
My power shoved back when I tried to think of another version of Coco's vertigo ability. What gives? A feeling of wrongness filled me as I tried to push further. Alright then. Be that way.
No nausea. How about a nozzle head that fired bursts of air? Ideas flowed through me.
I set to work.
...
Dede, the Fractal.
A fractal was a shape that repeated itself inside of itself, forever. Infinity. Each piece of a fractal contained infinitely more fractal. I watched hours of videos just zooming in on different fractals. They mesmerised me through the fog of my medicine.
Dede sported five different heads, with space to add more. Armsmaster would be proud of how much I managed to store in such a tiny space. Each part folded in on itself, and then folded in some more. Of course, I had to use one of Armsmaster's highly efficient batteries to power her. It wouldn't be right not to.
His concept, his battery.
A spear, with a syringe system to deliver things if I ever came up with something to deliver.
A hammer with shock absorbers to stop my hands feeling it.
A nozzle capable of blasting high-velocity air. Her counterweight held the vacuum that powered the air blasts. In a pinch she could also suck in air. The blasts should feel like getting punched by a grown man.
An axe, to break through doors. Like a firefighter.
Last but not least; a pogo stick, powered by a similar piston design to Coco. Foldout footholds were positioned near the top of the shaft. Testing it out in the training room let me get some serious air. I sailed around ten feet into the air.
Landing sucked. I lined up plenty of training mats beforehand to cushion my fall.
To counter this, I added shock absorbers (like the hammer) to my armour's shoes. Adding them to my helmet as well was an obvious choice.
Approval for use in the field could not come faster.
...
During my absence, we received a new hero.
Meeting him required social energy. An energy less spent than my physical energy.
His name was Browbeat. Formerly an independent with a decent arrest record. Much better than my time as an independent. Everyone else had introduced themselves, and mostly unmasked. Sophia chose to remain masked. I had to remember to only call her Shadow Stalker around him. Why did she unmask to me but not him?
I knocked on his door at the Ward base.
"Come in," he said. His voice was gruff but not in a raspy way.
Browbeat stood waiting for me, his costume still on. Dark blue, diamond print covered spandex was an interesting choice. His mask only left holes for his eyes; a big crystal adorned his forehead.
"Hello. I'm Meadow. Raccoon Knight. I was on sick leave due to a concussion. Thought I should introduce myself." I wasn't wearing my own costume, just regular clothes. "You don't need to unmask to me, if you don't want to," I assured him.
He took his mask off. Like everyone else around here, he was handsome. Boy-next-door handsome more than model handsome but what difference did it make? I smiled at him.
"Uh, Dillan. Browbeat. You're a Tinker, yeah?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Well, I'm still unpacking," he gestured to the room around him.
"Right, right. I'll leave you to it. My lab is always open if you wanna talk, I don't stay in my room much. I can also make you some cool gadgets if you want. Tell me your power, sometime."
"Alright. Will do," he gestured to the door in a way that clearly meant 'Leave me alone.'
I left.
Social things weren't either of our graces. I did want to get to know him better. I'll ask him what he likes next time we talk.
Back home I looked up how to make friends.
Thanks again to Red Wolf for proofreading.
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2.5
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Exercise consumed my daily routine. Alongside combat training, weapon training, and general fitness training, I was expected to run on a treadmill almost every day. Increasing the time I ran with each passing day. Walking on patrols didn't make the time go lower, much to my annoyance. Even on the days I had no exercise, I was required to do stretches.
I thanked whatever star my power fell from for giving me a light-weight alloy to make my armour from. Running around in steel full-plate wasn't impossible. Knights did it all the time. Even with their fantasy magic, they still had human bodies. Unlike me, knights were trained soldiers with a lot more muscle mass.
An advanced protein could be created to expedite muscle growth and provide all calories needed per day.
I would miss food too much with that idea.
An advanced protein could be created to expedite muscle growth and provide no calories.
That worked better. The formula in my head would encourage muscle growth but still take time.
An alternate, faster idea would be to deliberately tear my muscles and then use my healing paste to let them form back faster. Problem is, my healing paste would need to be placed on the muscles. Not logistical.
Exercising so much made me eat more. I didn't mind. Food is delicious.
Combat training with Heather came with a plus and a minus. The plus was that, alongside being useful, it was incredibly fun.
The minus was that 'going easy' did not exist in Heather's dictionary. Even on patrol days I was worked to the bone.
She trained new Wards in hand-to-hand combat. Despite being my foster mom, I wasn't an exception. Training for hours was doable. I could manage. Going home after a long-day of training, patrols, and social interactions just to have Heather's face remind me of the turmoil wasn't fun.
Being grabbed by Whirlygig–I was so close to her name–proved how useful the techniques could be. Being useful didn't stop my arms and legs from feeling like noodles afterwards.
On the other hand was weapons training with Miss Militia. It trumped all other forms of exercise as my favourite. Rigorous exercise could be fun if you cared more about the subject matter.
Hannah (Miss Militia's secret identity!) could summon almost any weapon in existence. A green-black blur would zip around her body and transform from sword to gun to crossbow. Seeing them in real life beat seeing them in books by a mile.
I convinced her to swap between a bunch of different weapons for a while. I got to see a falchion, a dagger, a spear, and a big german sword I forgot the name of.
She put a stop to it after those brief glimpses. Instead, she promised to use them during the sparring. It was obviously a motivation tactic. It worked.
Each day my arms, already sore from hand-to-hand, protested. They were overruled.
She focused on the spear for the majority of our training. Coco (Rest In Peace) was close to a spear in design, and Dede was no different.
Dede's approval process had been fast tracked to accommodate for the lack of a 'main' weapon. A day after I made her, she was approved for use in the field.
Front flipping off a pogo stick took a lot of practice. Miss Militia kindly informed me of the impracticality of using it in a combat scenario, and proposed I focus on using it only for transportation. Additional safety measures were needed before I could use the pogo head in the field anyway, so I relented.
Dede couldn't be disarmed due to the metal wires that connected her to me. They ran into compartments on the back of my shoulderpads, one for each shoulder. Any of my weapon devices could slot into grips on my palms to connect to the metal wires.
Much to my dismay, we stuck to foam weapons for our training. Even if they looked realistic and were fun to whack against people, I wanted to use real weapons to get used to the weight.
After being taught the basics of hand-to-hand and weapons, I was allowed to live practice using a partner. Vista volunteered. She, like Heather, did not hold back.
We were equal in reach, but her strength beat my own by a lot. Vista had been a hero for a while and took her training seriously.
Each blow came with both a physical and a mental lesson. She'd hit me, which would build muscle memory for dodging in the future, and then tell me how to adjust to fix it. Something was off about a twelve-year-old being able to fight this well. Me learning to fight also felt off.
Fighting was important. Heroes needed to fight to rescue people from villains. There wasn't an issue in understanding why I needed to learn to fight. I was fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds should be spending time with their friends, and worrying over dating, makeup, and school. At least according to a magazine Vicky had recommended I read.
"Vista," I asked her after our sparring was over. She hummed in response. "Why'd you become a hero?"
I hadn't expected the question to stump her. She mulled it over for a good while. "I wanted to help people who can't help themselves," she finally answered. Vista gave me a mock salute. "Gotta go wash up. Have fun with Browbeat."
It was a noble reason. I became a hero to help people, too. I wanted to help those who didn't receive help from the world around them. What most would consider the dregs of society.
I went over to watch Browbeat sparring. Fighting him was off the table. Even without his biokinesis he would slam me to the ground with no effort. Watching him fight became something of an unofficial lesson. He was a Brute, and watching him fight might give me ideas on how to overcome other Brutes.
Browbeat received his own instructor. A beefy man named Sergey.
Browbeat inflated. Which wasn't scientifically accurate to how his power worked but it was the best word for it. He had a fine level of control over his body, often using it to pack on muscle mass and add armour plating.
Sergey wasn't a slouch when it came to fighting, and certainly wasn't lacking muscle mass himself. Browbeat, even without using his Telekinesis, just didn't go down. Each hit was shrugged off like he was a brick wall.
I didn't think it made for interesting training, but Sergey seemed pleased.
Their fights involved a lot of meaty sounding punches against Browbeat's power enhanced flesh. Sergey told him it was to 'Get him used to being hit,' which would apparently happen a lot as a Brute. A Brute was someone who could get hit a lot, which didn't seem like a fun power to have. At least they got to punch holes in things.
He didn't get much of a chance to punch back. Sergey was only human, and Browbeat's fists would probably turn him to mulch. All of Browbeat's hits were to a training dummy that would bounce around wildly after each punch. Sergey existed to teach him the physical moves and grapples. And also apparently to punch him a lot.
I approached him after he'd finished his training. "Hey, Dillan," I said. He nodded to me, wiping sweat from himself with a towel. His muscle mass deflated as we spoke.
Could he modify Tinker assets put inside of his body? I could add an extra organ that produced graphene for use in his shielding.
"I, uh, was wondering if you wanted to go get some food?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Alright. I have a patrol soon."
"Great! We can just use the PRT cafeteria, not too far." He shrugged again and stood up. I wasn't sure if the shrug meant 'Yes, the cafeteria sounds okay.' or 'I guess it's better than nothing.'
I accepted my victory and led him there.
It wasn't great food but it was filling. We ate in relative silence. He didn't seem to care enough to breach it.
"So, I was wondering… why'd you become a hero?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"It was something that let me use my powers," he answered right away.
"You became a hero just to use your powers?"
"Yeah," he shrugged.
"You can't be a hero for the sake of it."
"Why not?"
Why not? Why not?! Why… not? Could you be a hero for the sake of it? "You… most people become one to help people. A hero helps people, and you need to want to do that. Right?"
"A lot of people become heroes for fame. Not everyone is so altruistic," he said, giving me a level stare. "Helping people is never for the sake of it. Even if it's at the back of their mind, people help others for recognition, praise, money, you name it."
I'll look up 'all-true-is-tick' later.
"I help people for the sake of helping them," I said.
"No you don't. You might not realise it, but no one's motivations are that simple. Maybe you do it to get away from your life? Maybe it's so people will take you seriously? I don't know, I'm not you. People don't do things for the sake of doing them, there's always a reason." His voice was steady. He wasn't yelling or arguing. He was as matter-of-fact as discussing the weather.
The sky is blue. People aren't true heroes.
I shook my head. "No. I don't agree. Back of the brain desires don't mean anything if the result is helping someone. Even if some people only do it for fame, at least they're still helping people."
"What if they're not?"
"Huh?"
"What if they only help people when it's recorded? What if they don't care outside of the camera? There's plenty of heroes who end up in jail," Dillan said. He shoved a forkful of mash into his mouth. "What about those people?"
"A bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch, though, right?" Not that there wasn't anything wrong with eating bad apples. A bruised spot was perfectly edible.
"I'll concede that. A person is accountable for themselves, and themselves alone." He nodded in thought.
"That's not true, either. People are responsible for others all the time. Like parents." My mom was responsible for me, even if she messed it up.
"If you had a kid, and that kid decided to murder someone despite you raising them right, is that your fault?" Dillan asked after a moment.
I wasn't entirely sure how to answer that. "I don't know. Maybe I could have done more?"
He shook his head. "Nope. You did everything you could."
"I didn't do enough if she killed someone. I could have done things differently, raised her differently."
"You're stuck on 'what ifs'." Wasn't this whole thing a 'what if' scenario? "She's done it and there's no turning back time. Are you responsible? Or at some point is she responsible for her own actions?"
I wasn't sure. If she did it despite me raising her as best as I could, then there must have been some outside factor. People don't kill for the sake of killing. There's a motivation behind it. Like Dillan thinks there is to being a hero!
I slapped the table. Cutlery bounced in response. "You just said heroes save people because there's some back of the brain idea that's motivating them. Killing someone is the same thing. People have a reason to kill, just like they do being a hero."
"Sure. Let's say she just wanted to kill because she thought it'd be fun. But that doesn't answer my question. Is she responsible for her own actions?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean she can't be helped. There's something motivating her, even if it's just because she thinks it's fun. There's always a way to help her realise her mistake, to make her apologise." I realised people were staring at us, and then realised why. I was speaking way too loudly. I apologised to the PRT agents who were eating and returned to an indoor voice.
Dillan smirked at me. "Apologising won't bring back the person she killed."
"No. It won't. But if she's served her time and realised her mistake, then she should be allowed back into society."
"And what if that leads to her killing again?"
"Then… maybe someone wasn't a good enough hero for her. Maybe the prison system didn't work for her, didn't get her the right help. Some of them are like that." My dad had always said that prison was a place to rot and not a place of rehabilitation. He'd served time and come out worse than he was going in. He was wrong about a lot of things, though.
"Would you stop her?"
"What?"
"If you found her trying to kill again, after she left prison. Would you be willing to stop her?"
"Of course. I'd arrest her if she was trying to kill someone."
"Would you be willing to take her life to save that person?"
"I," wasn't sure. What kind of question was that? "Killing is wrong."
"Sure, but she won't stop unless you kill her. She wants to kill that person, and if she can't, she'll kill you," he pointed at me with his fork.
"There's always a way to detain her. I have my devices."
"Second generation capes trigger easier. What if she isn't so easy to take down? Like… Lung?"
"Armsmaster is making a sedative for Lung. He'll take him in without killing him. I could do the same."
Dillan shrugged. "Fair enough. I could say she's immune but that feels like petty recess bullshit." He gathered up his tray and utensils.
"Would you? Kill, I mean. To save someone?"
"No. I don't want that on my conscience," he said, shrugging again. Dillan walked off, heading out to patrol.
I stared at my mash potatoes. What was my back of the brain desire? I wanted to help an individual. Helping an idea of someone was nice, but not what I truly wanted to do. Seeing someone face-to-face, safe and sound because of me was the reason I became a hero. Tina kept her things and wasn't hurt, because of me.
What if Tina was a supervillain? If I saved her and she went on to kill a dozen people, am I in the wrong? Do intentions matter more than the results? It's hard to judge people on intentions since they're internal. Even with powers, reading minds wasn't possible. At least according to Victoria.
My brain hurts.
I spent the rest of the day researching it. There was an interesting article called 'The Trolley Problem'. A thought experiment that says five people are on one track of a train, and one person is on the other. I have access to a switch that can divert the train from the track that has five people, to the track that has one person. What would I do?
My marshmallow containment grenades act as a dampener. I would throw a bunch of them in front of the train and stop it. I'd need a bigger source of them. The fifteen I had left wouldn't be enough, and I only carried five at a time on me.
What would I do without them, then? I would… Do… I don't know. This was hard to think about.
Was it right to take a life to save others? Did a hero's intentions matter more than their results? Could someone be a hero if they were just seeking fame?
I grumbled in frustration. Too many questions flooded my brain. I'd think about it on patrol.
Dennis greeted me at my lab's door. He'd managed to weasel his way onto my patrol schedule for today. He'd traded favours with Aegis to get him to swap.
"Yo, Meadow. Grab Coco and let's go beat up some bad guys!" He grinned at me before hiding his face behind his mask.
My eyes grew wet with unwanted tears. "I… Um… I can't." I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fight back the tears.
"Woah, what's wrong?" Dennis laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. The touch forced the tears out of me.
"I can't… She's… She died," I sobbed.
"Died?" His speech was monotone.
"Coco. She died to Mush."
"Jeez, I thought it was something serious." Dennis let go of my shoulder. "Don't worry me like that."
"What? It is serious! She's gone and not coming back. I can't even make her a sister." I couldn't believe what he was saying.
"Losing your stuff sucks, but it's not worth crying over. And it isn't 'dead', it's a baseball bat," his tone was cruel, condescending.
"She was important to me. And… And now she's gone. She died and you're being cruel."
Dennis moved his head like he did when he rolled his eyes. "It's trash you literally pulled from a dumpster. Real people are dying. Real people are getting hurt. Get over yourself." Dennis stormed off. My sobs stopped me from saying more anyway.
What did I do? He cared about me before. Why did he not care now?
I fled to the bathroom to clean myself up. Puffy eyes greeted me in the mirror. My face was round, soft. A familiar scar lined my chin. Heather said it gave me an edge, something distinct. I was just glad my helmet hid it.
I stared at myself in the empty bathroom, longing for my reflection to give me the answers I wanted.
She didn't know either.
Patrol was awkward. Having questions on what it meant to be a hero running through my head didn't help either.
Clockblocker refused to talk to me. Kid Win tried to initiate conversation but I didn't have the energy to try. He could clearly tell something happened between us, but didn't push. We instead patrolled in silence, only breaking it with check-ins through the comms.
I fiddled with the new additions to my armour. Using my pogo stick required additional safety measures. Even with them I still needed to wait for the approval process. I checked the pressure gauge in my sunglasses UI. Airbags were at normal pressure. Same as the last fifteen times I'd checked.
Nozzles attached to multiple points of my armour all read clean. With a specific eye gesture they would 'breathe' in and inflate the emergency floatation device hidden beneath my back armour panel. It was made from an inflatable pool, and would inflate like a lung, letting it act like a parachute or allowing me to float in water.
I was looking forward to bouncing around like a tiger. Eye gestures were what Armsmaster used to activate his devices. Elel already tracked my eye movements for aiming purposes, so it was a no-brainer.
Our patrol route took us through Empire territory. Crime was less likely here. Not because the Empire did less crime, but because their flavour of crime often involved shady business deals rather than peddling drugs. They still peddled drugs, just in the poorer neighbourhoods. Like my old one.
Tattooed men tried to sell me weeds a year ago. I told them you can get weeds anywhere, and they were idiots, which caused them to chase me off.
Our patrol wasn't interesting, making the silence all the more intense.
According to the PRT guidelines, boring patrols would pass faster if conversation existed. It recommended that even if you didn't personally like your patrol partner, you should engage them in light conversation to not have your brain drift. There were even guidelines to the healthy amount of conversation and safe topics.
"How about that weather, huh?" I breached the silence with a PRT approved safe topic.
"What?" Kid Win said.
"The weather. How about it?" I wasn't sure what I was asking about. The weather was fine, light clouds, okay temperature.
"What're you? Fifty?" Clockblocker laughed. It wasn't a friendly laugh.
"You feeling okay, Knight? You can call in if you're ill," Kid said.
"I'm okay. Just making conversation."
"Oh god. Did you read the patrol manual?" Dennis groaned. I nodded. "Just talk to us like a normal person, not a robot."
"Sorry…" I wasn't sorry. Why should I be sorry to someone who was mean to me less than an hour ago?
"Whatever." Dennis moved his head in his eye roll way. Kid glanced between us before returning his attention forward.
Why did he have to say all that to me? I thought he cared about me.
Our friendship didn't mend by the time the patrol was over.
It didn't mend by the next morning either.
Exercise took my mind off things. Running on a treadmill with no outside stimulation made my brain drift, which meant daydreaming instead of thinking about what a jerk he'd been.
My new tethers could be used as weapons in a pinch. Should Dede detach, I could swing them around like whips. Probably best to not hit non-Brutes with them.
A new idea slipped into my brain, inspired by the treadmill and the mafia movie we watched last night. Electric shock knuckle dusters. Batteries could be loaded in like a shotgun. A nice addition to my gauntlet. I recorded it on my recording device, which now had plenty of stickers on it.
Once my run was over, my brain–the betrayer–drifted back to Dennis. I still had no answers. Adults know things. Maybe Heather would know what to do?
Before our usual lesson began, I decided to ask her, "Have you ever had a fight with a friend?"
She looked at me as she slid the training mat over. "A few times, yeah. Eli and I fought all the time. Why? You had an argument with one of the Wards?"
"Yeah, with Clockblocker. He said I was stupid for mourning Coco. That real people died so I couldn't mourn over her."
Heather walked over to me. "Clock might not understand your point of view. To him, she's just an object. To you, she meant the world. He might not get how important things are to you."
"Exactly, I-"
"But." Heather interrupted me. "Try to think about how he feels. He might have seen people getting hurt a lot as a hero. He might even have people close to him that have been hurt or died. To him, you mourning what he views as an inanimate object is an overreaction."
"No, I get that. He told me as much. I know why he feels like he does, but she was important to me. Why can't he get that?"
"Listen. He doesn't view Coco the same way you do," she leant down a little to add to the condescension. I knew that he didn't view Coco the same way. I wasn't stupid. He even spelled it out to me. She was trash and not human, so she was less important. "He thinks that-"
"I know that." I tried to stress the word. "I know all of that. Stop repeating it like I'm too stupid to understand." Heather stared at me, mouth agape. "I'm not stupid. I understand that he doesn't think she's real. That isn't the point! She was important to me! He's supposed to be my friend. He should care about it because he cares about me."
Heather closed her mouth. "He should, yes." She looked at me with a sad expression. "Clock should have considered your feelings, just as you should have considered his." It wasn't really an answer. Maybe adults didn't know things.
I shrugged. "Okay. Thanks, Heather." She frowned at me but moved on to her lesson.
I slumped down in my lab's computer chair. Spinning helped my brain think.
Dennis didn't like me mourning Coco. Maybe he lost someone close to him. Maybe not. Did it matter if he was being a jerk to me over it? Would having an excuse justify his reaction?
Probably. Having a bad day is an excuse for being mean. Not that it's justified, but it only happened once. The rest of our relationship had been nice. He was a friend. I think. Maybe tomorrow we'll be okay. Time heals all wounds.
That was a dumb saying. Time couldn't regrow limbs. Tinkertech could, though. Maybe if I made him a Tinker device he'd like me again. I jotted down a few ideas for later.
An email flared my screen into life.
From: Mouse_Protector@hotmail.com
To: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
Subject: Mentorship AHOY!
Hey there Raccoon Knight!
This is the big cheese! Most call me Mouse Protector. I finally tricked piggy into whitelisting me on your email for a professional, official on the books, meeting. WINK.
I wanna meet up and talk shop (not Tinker shop I'd never keep up) tomorrow night! Piggy said your usual patrol can be replaced with going with me if you wanna.
I promise snacks, puns, and a heckin good time. I'll show you the ropes of heroing and teach you trade secrets even Legend doesn't know! Whaddya say? Get back to me ASAP or you'll be fined a million dollars.
MOUSE PROTECTOR, THE BEST HERO
P.S. You should get a personal email and a business email so people don't have to fight the hog lady to contact you
I blinked at my screen. With everything that happened since joining the Wards, I had completely forgotten that she wanted to meet up. I remember not even caring that much when Glenn brought it up. I was too tired, and apparently stupid. Mouse Protector had to be one of the coolest heroes in existence!
My swivel chair made clicking noises as I bounced on it. I get to meet Mouse Protector! How could I say no?
From: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
To: Mouse_Protector@hotmail.com
Subject: YES
YES I WOULD LOVE TO
Her costume resembled mine. The helmet with animal ears being the most obvious example. Instead of traditional armour, she wore modern armour similar to PRT agents. A shield was laid across her back. Large, circular, more of a dome than most shields I'd seen in my knight book. A sword, a real life actual sword rested against her leg in a scabbard.
A belt hung from her waist, and two more were wrapped around her gloves. All three had pouches of varying sizes.
She wasn't that much taller than me. Still taller, though. Waves washed behind her, lapping against the shore. Her pose oozed confidence and a cool collected calm as she leant against the railing between the street and the ocean. Even passing cars didn't catch her attention as she stared over the water.
She glanced my way as I approached. A psychic sense of people? I gave her a wave to rival the ocean.
"Hey there, kid. Glad you could make it," Mouse Protector greeted me. Her voice was chipper, upbeat.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!" I said, and honestly meant it. Right now, there wasn't anyone I wanted to be around more. Mouse Protector had never rivalled my love for Vista, or my interest in Miss Militia as a hero. Little could. Even my Tinker interest in Kid Win and Armsmaster wasn't close. I respected them as heroes, but I would commit crimes if Vista asked me to.
Mouse Protector easily slotted into third place. Now second place due to Miss Militia hitting me with a stick for the past four days.
Her mouth was protected by a guard, but I saw her eyes smile like Miss Militia did. I guess she trained me in noticing that, as well as how to dodge a spear.
"Excellent! Well, I wanna pour a whole ton of knowledge on you throughout the night, so how about we walk and talk. Anywhere you like to patrol, or want me to pick?"
"Um, I usually go where I'm told. Tonight would have been a Boardwalk patrol." I shuddered a little at the memory of my last one.
"Bah, those are just PR patrols in disguise," she swatted a hand through the air. "How about we go somewhere with some zest, a little spice?"
"Sure," I shrugged, "I don't really mind."
"Don't worry, kid. I'll make a hero out of you yet." She slapped me on the shoulder and began to walk. I followed along.
Mouse Protector had a lot to tell me. As we drifted closer and closer to the North End, she kept talking and talking. I didn't mind, it was useful advice.
Such as using baby powder to stop chafing around the joints. Or sticking enough change for a payphone to some gum, which you could stick to the inside of your shoulder pads.
"You could use a Tic-Tac box and some tape or glue instead of gum. That way you don't need gum every time," I told her as the idea came to me. It wasn't even a Tinker idea.
She swung an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. She smelt flowery.
"See, kid, this is what I'm talking about. You're a bright young mind and we gotta unlock that, let you loose. Those PRT stuffs wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them. Go, shoot, gimme another," she pulled on my shoulders to make me face her. Her brown eyes bore into mine.
"Uh… Um… I had the idea to make a metal-eating acid self-replicating to get rid of the Boat Graveyard."
"Woah, kid!" I flinched. Self-replication shouldn't be done. Self-replication shouldn't be- "That's a grand idea! Look at you go. Now, we won't be doing that tonight. Maybe in the future, though, yeah?" I blinked at her. She thought it was a good idea?
"Yeah… Yeah! Okay," I said, still stunned.
Mouse Protector nodded her head in the direction we were walking. "Let's keep going." The smile in her eyes was obvious.
We carried on. She believed in me, in my ideas. It was nice.
We peeked over the edge of the building. Three ABB members were chatting, one of them scooping bags of drugs out of his backpack and into another.
I'm running rings around you! Just like my ringed tails! Nope. Dumb.
Mouse Protector picked a pebble off the gravel roof, no bigger than a flea. She dropped it down, ducking away from the edge while pulling me back too.
There wasn't even a noise. The men carried on their conversation as if nothing happened. She gave me a thumbs up before disappearing. A startled yell cried out from down below.
I leapt down from the roof. Falling was exhilarating. My stomach churned as the air rushed past me. Dede hit the ground first, compressing her springs. I angled her to launch me towards the now starting fight.
"Cheesed to meet you, villains!" Mouse Protector yelled as she wrestled a gun free from one of their hands. The one shovelling drugs bolted as Mouse Protector threw his friend over her shoulder in a move that would make Heather proud.
I overshot my pogo stick jump, fortunately launching me right into his path. I twisted in the air to angle my feet towards the ground. Sparks flew as I skidded across the concrete. Grabby guy stared at me, wide-eyed.
Looks like you got trashed? No, that doesn't make sense.
Mouse Protector grappled the one without the gun, using her sword–still in its scabbard–as a hold. I flicked Dede to the next head; the air cannon.
A mighty 'whoomp' of air knocked the wind from the unsuspecting drug dealer. He stumbled back, clutching his stomach. Pained hazel eyes stared at me, accusing.
"RACCOON PUN!" I yelled before throwing a marshmallow containment grenade at his hands. It caught and inflated before he had time to move them away from his stomach. He fell over backwards while trying to free his hands.
He yelled something in a language I didn't know. I ran over to help Mouse Protector. The guy she had in her sword grapple was now face down on the ground and zip-tied. She stood up straight, dusting her tunic down with her hands. Easily the coolest hero.
"Wait here, kid. Call the PRT, make sure you say we're parahumans." She kicked the dealer's gun over to me. "Don't touch that either, but keep it away from them. Be back shortly!" She vanished from sight.
I looked around the empty street, squinting to see better in the gloom. Her power worked based on touch. Touching something lets her 'tag' it. Whatever she had tagged could be teleported to at will. From a small bit of gravel to an asian drug dealer.
I zip-tied the legs of the two dealers for good measure. They could have potentially overwhelmed me if they tried. After my work was done, I called the police.
Mouse Protector would be fine on her own. I hoped.
As Mouse Protector returned, I finished up my conversation with the nice PRT lady. Her name was Deborah and she thought I was 'just swell'. Whatever that meant. Civilians knew about me, which was a strange feeling. Deborah's kids kept asking for a Raccoon Knight figurine, I told her they'd be coming soon.
Mouse Protector spoke to me after I wrapped up the call, "Good work, kid." She clapped me on the shoulder. "Though, your punnery needs work."
"Ah… I panicked. I kept trying to think of puns but in the moment I couldn't think of anything good."
"Fucking losers! Let us go!" One of the men squirmed under his constraints. It was the one Mouse Protector had to hunt down.
"Shut yer trap," Mouse Protector said, kicking his foot. He spat at her feet. She squatted down to be closer to eye level. He stared down his nose at her, despite her being higher up. "Think you're tough, big man?"
"I'm gonna fucking kill you the moment they let me out."
Mouse Protector wobbled her hand at him in a 'so-so' gesture. "I've heard better. Good luck with that."
She stood back up and walked us a little further away from where they were resting. "First official hero lesson. Ignore all the baby powder stuff, this is the real meat and bones. You can't let what people say get to you. That low-life shouldn't scare you one bit. But more importantly, no one, and I mean no one, gets to insult you. Not even yourself. You gotta learn to be the bigger person, even when it hurts."
"I don't know if I can be." I said, avoiding her gaze. People were mean to me a lot. Crying helped, but the sting remained.
"I know, kid. They used to hurt me, too. But it's just words, and that person leaves, goes home and doesn't think about it. So why should you?"
She explained it like it was so simple. Could it be that simple? "How do you not think about it?"
"A classic case of sticky thoughts." She tapped a gloved finger against my helmet. "You gotta learn to make those thoughts sliding thoughts, not sticky ones. It ain't easy, don't get me wrong, but you're a quick learner so far. I believe in you, kid." She gave me a thumbs up and turned to check on our prisoners.
Sticky thoughts. That… made sense, actually. Mean things need to be slippy thoughts. I think I could do that, eventually.
As the police car arrived Mouse Protector whispered to me, "Lesson number two. The fuzz are just doing their job, same as us. Make sure your relationship with them is good and it'll help in the future."
A male officer, bigger in both width and height than anyone currently here, and a female officer who was half his size–which was still tall–approached. Mouse Protector acted like they were old friends, happily chatting with them, cracking jokes. I was pretty sure they'd never met.
We both gave our statements on what happened. Mouse Protector said I was waiting on the ground, which was a lie. I adjusted my story to account for that. The officers thanked us and went on their way.
Mouse Protector slung an arm over my shoulder. "Good work, Raccoon Knight. You took down that guy in no time flat." I shrugged her arm off me, stepping around to face her.
"I don't know how I feel about lying to the cops. Or about using something that wasn't approved in the field. Miss Piggot docked my pay for using something unapproved before. And lying is wrong."
Mouse Protector stared at me for a second. "Alright. Lying is wrong. But you told me, remember, you didn't wanna use your pogo stick. What did I do?" She pointed a finger to me.
"You told me I should anyway. That I made it so it was my right to use it."
"Exactly." She flicked her finger like she was shooting it. "You know it's safe, you made it in a way to be safe, yeah?"
"It has stabilisers to stop me falling off easily. And I practised it a little during training already."
Mouse Protector nodded. "You know it works. Your power hasn't failed so far, yeah?"
"Not... Not really, no. One time I did fail to think of the logistics of setting up a forge. I didn't think about the smoke, but the forge would have worked fine."
"So, why start to doubt it just because some stuffed shirts aren't clever enough to see it?"
"I don't want to get in trouble."
"That's why I lied to the cops. A little white lie that doesn't change anything, other than getting you in trouble. If I told them the truth then the PRT would learn about it, and you'd get in trouble for saving people." She shook her head. "But my reasons don't matter. If you don't want me to do that again, you just say so. I should have ran it by you first but I thought you might say no. I wanted you to see how cool the things you make are."
Bouncing from a twenty foot drop had been fun. It let me catch up to the runner, something I wasn't sure I could have done on foot. I could see why she did what she did but it still hurt. Another adult who lied to me so I would do what they wanted.
"I don't like people lying to me," I said.
"Shoot. I did it again." Mouse Protector cursed, kicking a rock. Did what again?
"I'm sorry, Knight. The PRT just ticks me off, and I let old grudges pollute our relationship. I promised myself I wouldn't do this again and here I am. That was shitty of me, and I'm so sorry," she backed off a little.
"You want me gone? I'm gone. You want me to buy you a triple chocolate fudge ice cream sundae and it's yours. This wasn't how I meant for this to go. I just got caught up in it all."
I looked at her. Something about the way she was speaking and the look in her eyes made me feel like she was telling the truth. This wasn't what she meant to happen.
"I, um, I like bubblegum ice cream."
I thanked whatever star my power fell from for giving me a light-weight alloy to make my armour from. Running around in steel full-plate wasn't impossible. Knights did it all the time. Even with their fantasy magic, they still had human bodies. Unlike me, knights were trained soldiers with a lot more muscle mass.
An advanced protein could be created to expedite muscle growth and provide all calories needed per day.
I would miss food too much with that idea.
An advanced protein could be created to expedite muscle growth and provide no calories.
That worked better. The formula in my head would encourage muscle growth but still take time.
An alternate, faster idea would be to deliberately tear my muscles and then use my healing paste to let them form back faster. Problem is, my healing paste would need to be placed on the muscles. Not logistical.
Exercising so much made me eat more. I didn't mind. Food is delicious.
Combat training with Heather came with a plus and a minus. The plus was that, alongside being useful, it was incredibly fun.
The minus was that 'going easy' did not exist in Heather's dictionary. Even on patrol days I was worked to the bone.
She trained new Wards in hand-to-hand combat. Despite being my foster mom, I wasn't an exception. Training for hours was doable. I could manage. Going home after a long-day of training, patrols, and social interactions just to have Heather's face remind me of the turmoil wasn't fun.
Being grabbed by Whirlygig–I was so close to her name–proved how useful the techniques could be. Being useful didn't stop my arms and legs from feeling like noodles afterwards.
On the other hand was weapons training with Miss Militia. It trumped all other forms of exercise as my favourite. Rigorous exercise could be fun if you cared more about the subject matter.
Hannah (Miss Militia's secret identity!) could summon almost any weapon in existence. A green-black blur would zip around her body and transform from sword to gun to crossbow. Seeing them in real life beat seeing them in books by a mile.
I convinced her to swap between a bunch of different weapons for a while. I got to see a falchion, a dagger, a spear, and a big german sword I forgot the name of.
She put a stop to it after those brief glimpses. Instead, she promised to use them during the sparring. It was obviously a motivation tactic. It worked.
Each day my arms, already sore from hand-to-hand, protested. They were overruled.
She focused on the spear for the majority of our training. Coco (Rest In Peace) was close to a spear in design, and Dede was no different.
Dede's approval process had been fast tracked to accommodate for the lack of a 'main' weapon. A day after I made her, she was approved for use in the field.
Front flipping off a pogo stick took a lot of practice. Miss Militia kindly informed me of the impracticality of using it in a combat scenario, and proposed I focus on using it only for transportation. Additional safety measures were needed before I could use the pogo head in the field anyway, so I relented.
Dede couldn't be disarmed due to the metal wires that connected her to me. They ran into compartments on the back of my shoulderpads, one for each shoulder. Any of my weapon devices could slot into grips on my palms to connect to the metal wires.
Much to my dismay, we stuck to foam weapons for our training. Even if they looked realistic and were fun to whack against people, I wanted to use real weapons to get used to the weight.
After being taught the basics of hand-to-hand and weapons, I was allowed to live practice using a partner. Vista volunteered. She, like Heather, did not hold back.
We were equal in reach, but her strength beat my own by a lot. Vista had been a hero for a while and took her training seriously.
Each blow came with both a physical and a mental lesson. She'd hit me, which would build muscle memory for dodging in the future, and then tell me how to adjust to fix it. Something was off about a twelve-year-old being able to fight this well. Me learning to fight also felt off.
Fighting was important. Heroes needed to fight to rescue people from villains. There wasn't an issue in understanding why I needed to learn to fight. I was fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds should be spending time with their friends, and worrying over dating, makeup, and school. At least according to a magazine Vicky had recommended I read.
"Vista," I asked her after our sparring was over. She hummed in response. "Why'd you become a hero?"
I hadn't expected the question to stump her. She mulled it over for a good while. "I wanted to help people who can't help themselves," she finally answered. Vista gave me a mock salute. "Gotta go wash up. Have fun with Browbeat."
It was a noble reason. I became a hero to help people, too. I wanted to help those who didn't receive help from the world around them. What most would consider the dregs of society.
I went over to watch Browbeat sparring. Fighting him was off the table. Even without his biokinesis he would slam me to the ground with no effort. Watching him fight became something of an unofficial lesson. He was a Brute, and watching him fight might give me ideas on how to overcome other Brutes.
Browbeat received his own instructor. A beefy man named Sergey.
Browbeat inflated. Which wasn't scientifically accurate to how his power worked but it was the best word for it. He had a fine level of control over his body, often using it to pack on muscle mass and add armour plating.
Sergey wasn't a slouch when it came to fighting, and certainly wasn't lacking muscle mass himself. Browbeat, even without using his Telekinesis, just didn't go down. Each hit was shrugged off like he was a brick wall.
I didn't think it made for interesting training, but Sergey seemed pleased.
Their fights involved a lot of meaty sounding punches against Browbeat's power enhanced flesh. Sergey told him it was to 'Get him used to being hit,' which would apparently happen a lot as a Brute. A Brute was someone who could get hit a lot, which didn't seem like a fun power to have. At least they got to punch holes in things.
He didn't get much of a chance to punch back. Sergey was only human, and Browbeat's fists would probably turn him to mulch. All of Browbeat's hits were to a training dummy that would bounce around wildly after each punch. Sergey existed to teach him the physical moves and grapples. And also apparently to punch him a lot.
I approached him after he'd finished his training. "Hey, Dillan," I said. He nodded to me, wiping sweat from himself with a towel. His muscle mass deflated as we spoke.
Could he modify Tinker assets put inside of his body? I could add an extra organ that produced graphene for use in his shielding.
"I, uh, was wondering if you wanted to go get some food?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Alright. I have a patrol soon."
"Great! We can just use the PRT cafeteria, not too far." He shrugged again and stood up. I wasn't sure if the shrug meant 'Yes, the cafeteria sounds okay.' or 'I guess it's better than nothing.'
I accepted my victory and led him there.
It wasn't great food but it was filling. We ate in relative silence. He didn't seem to care enough to breach it.
"So, I was wondering… why'd you become a hero?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"It was something that let me use my powers," he answered right away.
"You became a hero just to use your powers?"
"Yeah," he shrugged.
"You can't be a hero for the sake of it."
"Why not?"
Why not? Why not?! Why… not? Could you be a hero for the sake of it? "You… most people become one to help people. A hero helps people, and you need to want to do that. Right?"
"A lot of people become heroes for fame. Not everyone is so altruistic," he said, giving me a level stare. "Helping people is never for the sake of it. Even if it's at the back of their mind, people help others for recognition, praise, money, you name it."
I'll look up 'all-true-is-tick' later.
"I help people for the sake of helping them," I said.
"No you don't. You might not realise it, but no one's motivations are that simple. Maybe you do it to get away from your life? Maybe it's so people will take you seriously? I don't know, I'm not you. People don't do things for the sake of doing them, there's always a reason." His voice was steady. He wasn't yelling or arguing. He was as matter-of-fact as discussing the weather.
The sky is blue. People aren't true heroes.
I shook my head. "No. I don't agree. Back of the brain desires don't mean anything if the result is helping someone. Even if some people only do it for fame, at least they're still helping people."
"What if they're not?"
"Huh?"
"What if they only help people when it's recorded? What if they don't care outside of the camera? There's plenty of heroes who end up in jail," Dillan said. He shoved a forkful of mash into his mouth. "What about those people?"
"A bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch, though, right?" Not that there wasn't anything wrong with eating bad apples. A bruised spot was perfectly edible.
"I'll concede that. A person is accountable for themselves, and themselves alone." He nodded in thought.
"That's not true, either. People are responsible for others all the time. Like parents." My mom was responsible for me, even if she messed it up.
"If you had a kid, and that kid decided to murder someone despite you raising them right, is that your fault?" Dillan asked after a moment.
I wasn't entirely sure how to answer that. "I don't know. Maybe I could have done more?"
He shook his head. "Nope. You did everything you could."
"I didn't do enough if she killed someone. I could have done things differently, raised her differently."
"You're stuck on 'what ifs'." Wasn't this whole thing a 'what if' scenario? "She's done it and there's no turning back time. Are you responsible? Or at some point is she responsible for her own actions?"
I wasn't sure. If she did it despite me raising her as best as I could, then there must have been some outside factor. People don't kill for the sake of killing. There's a motivation behind it. Like Dillan thinks there is to being a hero!
I slapped the table. Cutlery bounced in response. "You just said heroes save people because there's some back of the brain idea that's motivating them. Killing someone is the same thing. People have a reason to kill, just like they do being a hero."
"Sure. Let's say she just wanted to kill because she thought it'd be fun. But that doesn't answer my question. Is she responsible for her own actions?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean she can't be helped. There's something motivating her, even if it's just because she thinks it's fun. There's always a way to help her realise her mistake, to make her apologise." I realised people were staring at us, and then realised why. I was speaking way too loudly. I apologised to the PRT agents who were eating and returned to an indoor voice.
Dillan smirked at me. "Apologising won't bring back the person she killed."
"No. It won't. But if she's served her time and realised her mistake, then she should be allowed back into society."
"And what if that leads to her killing again?"
"Then… maybe someone wasn't a good enough hero for her. Maybe the prison system didn't work for her, didn't get her the right help. Some of them are like that." My dad had always said that prison was a place to rot and not a place of rehabilitation. He'd served time and come out worse than he was going in. He was wrong about a lot of things, though.
"Would you stop her?"
"What?"
"If you found her trying to kill again, after she left prison. Would you be willing to stop her?"
"Of course. I'd arrest her if she was trying to kill someone."
"Would you be willing to take her life to save that person?"
"I," wasn't sure. What kind of question was that? "Killing is wrong."
"Sure, but she won't stop unless you kill her. She wants to kill that person, and if she can't, she'll kill you," he pointed at me with his fork.
"There's always a way to detain her. I have my devices."
"Second generation capes trigger easier. What if she isn't so easy to take down? Like… Lung?"
"Armsmaster is making a sedative for Lung. He'll take him in without killing him. I could do the same."
Dillan shrugged. "Fair enough. I could say she's immune but that feels like petty recess bullshit." He gathered up his tray and utensils.
"Would you? Kill, I mean. To save someone?"
"No. I don't want that on my conscience," he said, shrugging again. Dillan walked off, heading out to patrol.
I stared at my mash potatoes. What was my back of the brain desire? I wanted to help an individual. Helping an idea of someone was nice, but not what I truly wanted to do. Seeing someone face-to-face, safe and sound because of me was the reason I became a hero. Tina kept her things and wasn't hurt, because of me.
What if Tina was a supervillain? If I saved her and she went on to kill a dozen people, am I in the wrong? Do intentions matter more than the results? It's hard to judge people on intentions since they're internal. Even with powers, reading minds wasn't possible. At least according to Victoria.
My brain hurts.
I spent the rest of the day researching it. There was an interesting article called 'The Trolley Problem'. A thought experiment that says five people are on one track of a train, and one person is on the other. I have access to a switch that can divert the train from the track that has five people, to the track that has one person. What would I do?
My marshmallow containment grenades act as a dampener. I would throw a bunch of them in front of the train and stop it. I'd need a bigger source of them. The fifteen I had left wouldn't be enough, and I only carried five at a time on me.
What would I do without them, then? I would… Do… I don't know. This was hard to think about.
Was it right to take a life to save others? Did a hero's intentions matter more than their results? Could someone be a hero if they were just seeking fame?
I grumbled in frustration. Too many questions flooded my brain. I'd think about it on patrol.
Dennis greeted me at my lab's door. He'd managed to weasel his way onto my patrol schedule for today. He'd traded favours with Aegis to get him to swap.
"Yo, Meadow. Grab Coco and let's go beat up some bad guys!" He grinned at me before hiding his face behind his mask.
My eyes grew wet with unwanted tears. "I… Um… I can't." I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fight back the tears.
"Woah, what's wrong?" Dennis laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. The touch forced the tears out of me.
"I can't… She's… She died," I sobbed.
"Died?" His speech was monotone.
"Coco. She died to Mush."
"Jeez, I thought it was something serious." Dennis let go of my shoulder. "Don't worry me like that."
"What? It is serious! She's gone and not coming back. I can't even make her a sister." I couldn't believe what he was saying.
"Losing your stuff sucks, but it's not worth crying over. And it isn't 'dead', it's a baseball bat," his tone was cruel, condescending.
"She was important to me. And… And now she's gone. She died and you're being cruel."
Dennis moved his head like he did when he rolled his eyes. "It's trash you literally pulled from a dumpster. Real people are dying. Real people are getting hurt. Get over yourself." Dennis stormed off. My sobs stopped me from saying more anyway.
What did I do? He cared about me before. Why did he not care now?
I fled to the bathroom to clean myself up. Puffy eyes greeted me in the mirror. My face was round, soft. A familiar scar lined my chin. Heather said it gave me an edge, something distinct. I was just glad my helmet hid it.
I stared at myself in the empty bathroom, longing for my reflection to give me the answers I wanted.
She didn't know either.
...
Patrol was awkward. Having questions on what it meant to be a hero running through my head didn't help either.
Clockblocker refused to talk to me. Kid Win tried to initiate conversation but I didn't have the energy to try. He could clearly tell something happened between us, but didn't push. We instead patrolled in silence, only breaking it with check-ins through the comms.
I fiddled with the new additions to my armour. Using my pogo stick required additional safety measures. Even with them I still needed to wait for the approval process. I checked the pressure gauge in my sunglasses UI. Airbags were at normal pressure. Same as the last fifteen times I'd checked.
Nozzles attached to multiple points of my armour all read clean. With a specific eye gesture they would 'breathe' in and inflate the emergency floatation device hidden beneath my back armour panel. It was made from an inflatable pool, and would inflate like a lung, letting it act like a parachute or allowing me to float in water.
I was looking forward to bouncing around like a tiger. Eye gestures were what Armsmaster used to activate his devices. Elel already tracked my eye movements for aiming purposes, so it was a no-brainer.
Our patrol route took us through Empire territory. Crime was less likely here. Not because the Empire did less crime, but because their flavour of crime often involved shady business deals rather than peddling drugs. They still peddled drugs, just in the poorer neighbourhoods. Like my old one.
Tattooed men tried to sell me weeds a year ago. I told them you can get weeds anywhere, and they were idiots, which caused them to chase me off.
Our patrol wasn't interesting, making the silence all the more intense.
According to the PRT guidelines, boring patrols would pass faster if conversation existed. It recommended that even if you didn't personally like your patrol partner, you should engage them in light conversation to not have your brain drift. There were even guidelines to the healthy amount of conversation and safe topics.
"How about that weather, huh?" I breached the silence with a PRT approved safe topic.
"What?" Kid Win said.
"The weather. How about it?" I wasn't sure what I was asking about. The weather was fine, light clouds, okay temperature.
"What're you? Fifty?" Clockblocker laughed. It wasn't a friendly laugh.
"You feeling okay, Knight? You can call in if you're ill," Kid said.
"I'm okay. Just making conversation."
"Oh god. Did you read the patrol manual?" Dennis groaned. I nodded. "Just talk to us like a normal person, not a robot."
"Sorry…" I wasn't sorry. Why should I be sorry to someone who was mean to me less than an hour ago?
"Whatever." Dennis moved his head in his eye roll way. Kid glanced between us before returning his attention forward.
Why did he have to say all that to me? I thought he cared about me.
Our friendship didn't mend by the time the patrol was over.
It didn't mend by the next morning either.
Exercise took my mind off things. Running on a treadmill with no outside stimulation made my brain drift, which meant daydreaming instead of thinking about what a jerk he'd been.
My new tethers could be used as weapons in a pinch. Should Dede detach, I could swing them around like whips. Probably best to not hit non-Brutes with them.
A new idea slipped into my brain, inspired by the treadmill and the mafia movie we watched last night. Electric shock knuckle dusters. Batteries could be loaded in like a shotgun. A nice addition to my gauntlet. I recorded it on my recording device, which now had plenty of stickers on it.
Once my run was over, my brain–the betrayer–drifted back to Dennis. I still had no answers. Adults know things. Maybe Heather would know what to do?
Before our usual lesson began, I decided to ask her, "Have you ever had a fight with a friend?"
She looked at me as she slid the training mat over. "A few times, yeah. Eli and I fought all the time. Why? You had an argument with one of the Wards?"
"Yeah, with Clockblocker. He said I was stupid for mourning Coco. That real people died so I couldn't mourn over her."
Heather walked over to me. "Clock might not understand your point of view. To him, she's just an object. To you, she meant the world. He might not get how important things are to you."
"Exactly, I-"
"But." Heather interrupted me. "Try to think about how he feels. He might have seen people getting hurt a lot as a hero. He might even have people close to him that have been hurt or died. To him, you mourning what he views as an inanimate object is an overreaction."
"No, I get that. He told me as much. I know why he feels like he does, but she was important to me. Why can't he get that?"
"Listen. He doesn't view Coco the same way you do," she leant down a little to add to the condescension. I knew that he didn't view Coco the same way. I wasn't stupid. He even spelled it out to me. She was trash and not human, so she was less important. "He thinks that-"
"I know that." I tried to stress the word. "I know all of that. Stop repeating it like I'm too stupid to understand." Heather stared at me, mouth agape. "I'm not stupid. I understand that he doesn't think she's real. That isn't the point! She was important to me! He's supposed to be my friend. He should care about it because he cares about me."
Heather closed her mouth. "He should, yes." She looked at me with a sad expression. "Clock should have considered your feelings, just as you should have considered his." It wasn't really an answer. Maybe adults didn't know things.
I shrugged. "Okay. Thanks, Heather." She frowned at me but moved on to her lesson.
I slumped down in my lab's computer chair. Spinning helped my brain think.
Dennis didn't like me mourning Coco. Maybe he lost someone close to him. Maybe not. Did it matter if he was being a jerk to me over it? Would having an excuse justify his reaction?
Probably. Having a bad day is an excuse for being mean. Not that it's justified, but it only happened once. The rest of our relationship had been nice. He was a friend. I think. Maybe tomorrow we'll be okay. Time heals all wounds.
That was a dumb saying. Time couldn't regrow limbs. Tinkertech could, though. Maybe if I made him a Tinker device he'd like me again. I jotted down a few ideas for later.
An email flared my screen into life.
From: Mouse_Protector@hotmail.com
To: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
Subject: Mentorship AHOY!
Hey there Raccoon Knight!
This is the big cheese! Most call me Mouse Protector. I finally tricked piggy into whitelisting me on your email for a professional, official on the books, meeting. WINK.
I wanna meet up and talk shop (not Tinker shop I'd never keep up) tomorrow night! Piggy said your usual patrol can be replaced with going with me if you wanna.
I promise snacks, puns, and a heckin good time. I'll show you the ropes of heroing and teach you trade secrets even Legend doesn't know! Whaddya say? Get back to me ASAP or you'll be fined a million dollars.
MOUSE PROTECTOR, THE BEST HERO
P.S. You should get a personal email and a business email so people don't have to fight the hog lady to contact you
I blinked at my screen. With everything that happened since joining the Wards, I had completely forgotten that she wanted to meet up. I remember not even caring that much when Glenn brought it up. I was too tired, and apparently stupid. Mouse Protector had to be one of the coolest heroes in existence!
My swivel chair made clicking noises as I bounced on it. I get to meet Mouse Protector! How could I say no?
From: RaccoonKnight9589@private-PRT.gov
To: Mouse_Protector@hotmail.com
Subject: YES
YES I WOULD LOVE TO
...
Her costume resembled mine. The helmet with animal ears being the most obvious example. Instead of traditional armour, she wore modern armour similar to PRT agents. A shield was laid across her back. Large, circular, more of a dome than most shields I'd seen in my knight book. A sword, a real life actual sword rested against her leg in a scabbard.
A belt hung from her waist, and two more were wrapped around her gloves. All three had pouches of varying sizes.
She wasn't that much taller than me. Still taller, though. Waves washed behind her, lapping against the shore. Her pose oozed confidence and a cool collected calm as she leant against the railing between the street and the ocean. Even passing cars didn't catch her attention as she stared over the water.
She glanced my way as I approached. A psychic sense of people? I gave her a wave to rival the ocean.
"Hey there, kid. Glad you could make it," Mouse Protector greeted me. Her voice was chipper, upbeat.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!" I said, and honestly meant it. Right now, there wasn't anyone I wanted to be around more. Mouse Protector had never rivalled my love for Vista, or my interest in Miss Militia as a hero. Little could. Even my Tinker interest in Kid Win and Armsmaster wasn't close. I respected them as heroes, but I would commit crimes if Vista asked me to.
Mouse Protector easily slotted into third place. Now second place due to Miss Militia hitting me with a stick for the past four days.
Her mouth was protected by a guard, but I saw her eyes smile like Miss Militia did. I guess she trained me in noticing that, as well as how to dodge a spear.
"Excellent! Well, I wanna pour a whole ton of knowledge on you throughout the night, so how about we walk and talk. Anywhere you like to patrol, or want me to pick?"
"Um, I usually go where I'm told. Tonight would have been a Boardwalk patrol." I shuddered a little at the memory of my last one.
"Bah, those are just PR patrols in disguise," she swatted a hand through the air. "How about we go somewhere with some zest, a little spice?"
"Sure," I shrugged, "I don't really mind."
"Don't worry, kid. I'll make a hero out of you yet." She slapped me on the shoulder and began to walk. I followed along.
Mouse Protector had a lot to tell me. As we drifted closer and closer to the North End, she kept talking and talking. I didn't mind, it was useful advice.
Such as using baby powder to stop chafing around the joints. Or sticking enough change for a payphone to some gum, which you could stick to the inside of your shoulder pads.
"You could use a Tic-Tac box and some tape or glue instead of gum. That way you don't need gum every time," I told her as the idea came to me. It wasn't even a Tinker idea.
She swung an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. She smelt flowery.
"See, kid, this is what I'm talking about. You're a bright young mind and we gotta unlock that, let you loose. Those PRT stuffs wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them. Go, shoot, gimme another," she pulled on my shoulders to make me face her. Her brown eyes bore into mine.
"Uh… Um… I had the idea to make a metal-eating acid self-replicating to get rid of the Boat Graveyard."
"Woah, kid!" I flinched. Self-replication shouldn't be done. Self-replication shouldn't be- "That's a grand idea! Look at you go. Now, we won't be doing that tonight. Maybe in the future, though, yeah?" I blinked at her. She thought it was a good idea?
"Yeah… Yeah! Okay," I said, still stunned.
Mouse Protector nodded her head in the direction we were walking. "Let's keep going." The smile in her eyes was obvious.
We carried on. She believed in me, in my ideas. It was nice.
...
We peeked over the edge of the building. Three ABB members were chatting, one of them scooping bags of drugs out of his backpack and into another.
I'm running rings around you! Just like my ringed tails! Nope. Dumb.
Mouse Protector picked a pebble off the gravel roof, no bigger than a flea. She dropped it down, ducking away from the edge while pulling me back too.
There wasn't even a noise. The men carried on their conversation as if nothing happened. She gave me a thumbs up before disappearing. A startled yell cried out from down below.
I leapt down from the roof. Falling was exhilarating. My stomach churned as the air rushed past me. Dede hit the ground first, compressing her springs. I angled her to launch me towards the now starting fight.
"Cheesed to meet you, villains!" Mouse Protector yelled as she wrestled a gun free from one of their hands. The one shovelling drugs bolted as Mouse Protector threw his friend over her shoulder in a move that would make Heather proud.
I overshot my pogo stick jump, fortunately launching me right into his path. I twisted in the air to angle my feet towards the ground. Sparks flew as I skidded across the concrete. Grabby guy stared at me, wide-eyed.
Looks like you got trashed? No, that doesn't make sense.
Mouse Protector grappled the one without the gun, using her sword–still in its scabbard–as a hold. I flicked Dede to the next head; the air cannon.
A mighty 'whoomp' of air knocked the wind from the unsuspecting drug dealer. He stumbled back, clutching his stomach. Pained hazel eyes stared at me, accusing.
"RACCOON PUN!" I yelled before throwing a marshmallow containment grenade at his hands. It caught and inflated before he had time to move them away from his stomach. He fell over backwards while trying to free his hands.
He yelled something in a language I didn't know. I ran over to help Mouse Protector. The guy she had in her sword grapple was now face down on the ground and zip-tied. She stood up straight, dusting her tunic down with her hands. Easily the coolest hero.
"Wait here, kid. Call the PRT, make sure you say we're parahumans." She kicked the dealer's gun over to me. "Don't touch that either, but keep it away from them. Be back shortly!" She vanished from sight.
I looked around the empty street, squinting to see better in the gloom. Her power worked based on touch. Touching something lets her 'tag' it. Whatever she had tagged could be teleported to at will. From a small bit of gravel to an asian drug dealer.
I zip-tied the legs of the two dealers for good measure. They could have potentially overwhelmed me if they tried. After my work was done, I called the police.
Mouse Protector would be fine on her own. I hoped.
As Mouse Protector returned, I finished up my conversation with the nice PRT lady. Her name was Deborah and she thought I was 'just swell'. Whatever that meant. Civilians knew about me, which was a strange feeling. Deborah's kids kept asking for a Raccoon Knight figurine, I told her they'd be coming soon.
Mouse Protector spoke to me after I wrapped up the call, "Good work, kid." She clapped me on the shoulder. "Though, your punnery needs work."
"Ah… I panicked. I kept trying to think of puns but in the moment I couldn't think of anything good."
"Fucking losers! Let us go!" One of the men squirmed under his constraints. It was the one Mouse Protector had to hunt down.
"Shut yer trap," Mouse Protector said, kicking his foot. He spat at her feet. She squatted down to be closer to eye level. He stared down his nose at her, despite her being higher up. "Think you're tough, big man?"
"I'm gonna fucking kill you the moment they let me out."
Mouse Protector wobbled her hand at him in a 'so-so' gesture. "I've heard better. Good luck with that."
She stood back up and walked us a little further away from where they were resting. "First official hero lesson. Ignore all the baby powder stuff, this is the real meat and bones. You can't let what people say get to you. That low-life shouldn't scare you one bit. But more importantly, no one, and I mean no one, gets to insult you. Not even yourself. You gotta learn to be the bigger person, even when it hurts."
"I don't know if I can be." I said, avoiding her gaze. People were mean to me a lot. Crying helped, but the sting remained.
"I know, kid. They used to hurt me, too. But it's just words, and that person leaves, goes home and doesn't think about it. So why should you?"
She explained it like it was so simple. Could it be that simple? "How do you not think about it?"
"A classic case of sticky thoughts." She tapped a gloved finger against my helmet. "You gotta learn to make those thoughts sliding thoughts, not sticky ones. It ain't easy, don't get me wrong, but you're a quick learner so far. I believe in you, kid." She gave me a thumbs up and turned to check on our prisoners.
Sticky thoughts. That… made sense, actually. Mean things need to be slippy thoughts. I think I could do that, eventually.
As the police car arrived Mouse Protector whispered to me, "Lesson number two. The fuzz are just doing their job, same as us. Make sure your relationship with them is good and it'll help in the future."
A male officer, bigger in both width and height than anyone currently here, and a female officer who was half his size–which was still tall–approached. Mouse Protector acted like they were old friends, happily chatting with them, cracking jokes. I was pretty sure they'd never met.
We both gave our statements on what happened. Mouse Protector said I was waiting on the ground, which was a lie. I adjusted my story to account for that. The officers thanked us and went on their way.
Mouse Protector slung an arm over my shoulder. "Good work, Raccoon Knight. You took down that guy in no time flat." I shrugged her arm off me, stepping around to face her.
"I don't know how I feel about lying to the cops. Or about using something that wasn't approved in the field. Miss Piggot docked my pay for using something unapproved before. And lying is wrong."
Mouse Protector stared at me for a second. "Alright. Lying is wrong. But you told me, remember, you didn't wanna use your pogo stick. What did I do?" She pointed a finger to me.
"You told me I should anyway. That I made it so it was my right to use it."
"Exactly." She flicked her finger like she was shooting it. "You know it's safe, you made it in a way to be safe, yeah?"
"It has stabilisers to stop me falling off easily. And I practised it a little during training already."
Mouse Protector nodded. "You know it works. Your power hasn't failed so far, yeah?"
"Not... Not really, no. One time I did fail to think of the logistics of setting up a forge. I didn't think about the smoke, but the forge would have worked fine."
"So, why start to doubt it just because some stuffed shirts aren't clever enough to see it?"
"I don't want to get in trouble."
"That's why I lied to the cops. A little white lie that doesn't change anything, other than getting you in trouble. If I told them the truth then the PRT would learn about it, and you'd get in trouble for saving people." She shook her head. "But my reasons don't matter. If you don't want me to do that again, you just say so. I should have ran it by you first but I thought you might say no. I wanted you to see how cool the things you make are."
Bouncing from a twenty foot drop had been fun. It let me catch up to the runner, something I wasn't sure I could have done on foot. I could see why she did what she did but it still hurt. Another adult who lied to me so I would do what they wanted.
"I don't like people lying to me," I said.
"Shoot. I did it again." Mouse Protector cursed, kicking a rock. Did what again?
"I'm sorry, Knight. The PRT just ticks me off, and I let old grudges pollute our relationship. I promised myself I wouldn't do this again and here I am. That was shitty of me, and I'm so sorry," she backed off a little.
"You want me gone? I'm gone. You want me to buy you a triple chocolate fudge ice cream sundae and it's yours. This wasn't how I meant for this to go. I just got caught up in it all."
I looked at her. Something about the way she was speaking and the look in her eyes made me feel like she was telling the truth. This wasn't what she meant to happen.
"I, um, I like bubblegum ice cream."
Thanks to everyone in the Cauldron discord who proofread this chapter!
I hope my interpretation of Mouse Protector is interesting, or at least fun.
I hope my interpretation of Mouse Protector is interesting, or at least fun.
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2.6
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ice cream must have been a gift from the stars. I designated an ice cream cone shaped constellation in its honour.
One of my first memories was seeing the stars out in the countryside, sitting beside my mom and dad. There were so many of them I could hardly believe it. City lights drowned out the stars and most people didn't ever realise it. My friends at school didn't believe me when I told them there were more than the handful you could see in Brockton Bay.
Recently I learnt that each star is a sun like ours. They have planets orbiting them, and those planets have moons orbiting them. Thinking back on all the stars I saw back then, and imagining each of them with planets, was mind-boggling. So much could be out there.
Only Earth was occupied with life in our own solar system. But even if just a tenth of the stars had planets with life, that was still an insane number of species out there.
An idea for a 'star scope' came to my brain. It could ignore the light pollution of the city and allow you to view the stars. A pleasant idea if there was ever any time.
Inventing new things for combat took priority. Which was sad to think about. Heroes had to fight. It was a fact of life. You needed to be strong enough to fight for what you believed in.
At least there were moments like this. Just eating ice cream by the ocean with a new friend.
Mouse Protector and I had decided to sit on the beach in the dark. Having to lift our masks up to eat meant we could see each other or be seen. At least lifting my mouth-guard still left my eyes covered. Mouse Protector didn't have that luxury. I avoided staring too hard at her face.
"Mouse Protector," I breached the silence, "why'd you become a hero?"
She wiped her mouth on her sleeve before talking, "Back in school, forever ago now, there was a girl who was being bullied by a group of girls. They'd say awful crap to her day in and day out. No one bothered to help her, it was subtle enough to not be noticed. But I could tell it was getting to her, as much as she put on a brave face. I wasn't strong enough to help her."
She stopped to stare out towards the PHQ. Its domed shield glowed like a second moon. Further light pollution to drown out the stars.
"Anyway, one day I triggered, and I ended up joining the Wards right when they got started. Inaugural Ward, one of the first."
"Wow, really?"
"Yep." She slapped a fist against her chest. "Easily the best one too."
Even in the dim reflected light her smirk was bright.
"So I spent some time doing the hero thing. Beating up bad guys, rescuing people, saving the day. Helping people made me realise I could help her. Fighting is more than just physical, there's a verbal aspect to it, and that's what those girls were using.
"So, that's what I did. When those girls came knocking again, I prodded back. Bullies have expectations. They see themselves as higher up on the social hierarchy than their victims, and they don't want that challenged. So, naturally, when I fought back, they escalated. Their words became meaner, they started to pull meaner pranks, and their final mistake was trying to fight her."
"They tried to hit her?" I asked.
"Yep, and they got what they deserved. No one starts a fight with the Queen Cheese and gets away easy."
"Wait, did they try to hit her, or did they try to hit you?"
"One and the same, kid."
"You… Oh, I get it. You saved yourself." I pointed my cone towards her, ice cream dribbled down my hands.
"Careful there." Mouse Protector handed me a tissue from one of her pouches. I licked my hand clean before wiping it down.
"But yeah, I got self confidence from being a hero. I learnt to fight back, and so I did. I never wanted to get physical with those girls, but it worked. They stopped bothering me after that. Well, sorta. They told everyone I was a dyke and that I would beat people up for looking at them funny. Teachers believed it too, since they never saw the bullying."
"I'm sorry that happened." The Wards got an anti-bullying talk when they joined. Signs to notice if someone is being bullied, that they need help. The specific insults used, though, were unfamiliar. "What's a dyke?" I asked.
Mouse Protector snorted out a laugh. "It's a mean word for a lesbian. You know what that is?" I shook my head. "It means a girl who likes girls instead of boys. Y'know, in a romantic way. Sometimes they're just called gay."
"Oh. I knew about being gay. Are you a lesbian?"
"Nah. They were just yelling stuff at me. You meet a lot of different people as a hero. At first I didn't get it, the whole being gay thing. I'm not too big to admit that I was wrong. Ain't nothing wrong with different lifestyles, Knight. So long as they don't hurt anyone, understand?"
"I understand. People can be cruel. I don't want to be a person who spreads more of that."
Mouse Protector slapped a hand against my back. "Now that's a good kid. People are people at the end of the day. As heroes, we gotta be the ones who stand up against bigots and the cruel. Some people can't defend themselves. Brockton Bay is a shithole and definitely needs our help more than anywhere."
Brockton Bay was my home. I'd never known anywhere else. It was hard to imagine somewhere that didn't look like this, work like this, have the same people as this. What did a 'fixed' city look like?
"I don't really know how to help. Getting rid of villains doesn't fix people's homes. It doesn't fix their car that was broken in the process of defeating the villain." I stared at the sand, counting the shells. I'd done the exact same thing I hated. Hookwolf may have been captured, but I'd destroyed things to do it. Could I call myself a hero?
"Well, it's a good thing you're a Tinker then, huh?" Mouse Protector stood up, dusting sand from her backside. She offered a hand to help me up to my feet. "You and me, Knight. We'll clear up the streets, and you'll fix whatever we break along the way. In fact, fix whatever's broken altogether."
"I can't. Piggot already docked my pay for fixing a man's car engine. She'll yell at me again, she'll yell at you too."
"Bah. Piggy can't dock your pay if she doesn't know it happened."
"Lying is wrong."
"I know, kid. But listen, it's the same as before. You know your Tinker devices work, they're safe. You know you can fix things too, right?" I nodded once. My devices were safe. Kid Win's often failed him, and Armsmaster required fine tuning over weeks to make his work. But mine were special, safe. "Exactly. You have a gift, one that can help people. And what would Piggy do if you told her?"
"Yell at me."
"Yell at you! She doesn't get it, she won't ever get it. It's her job to hold you back, and I'm sure her reasons are good, but it's not what the people need. You're a hero, through and through, and rules are just gonna hold you back."
"I don't like lying. I do like helping people. It's the reason I became a hero. I wanted to help others. One of the most heroic things I've done was just fixing sinks in a place full of homeless people. I'm proud of doing it, but now I can't do that anymore." I squeezed the cheeks of my helmet in both hands, the foam squished up against my face from the force. "I don't know…"
"There's no easy answer. Lying is wrong, you're right in that regard. But in this scenario, lying helps people. How about this, we go out there, and we hunt down bad guys and if we come across something broken, you fix it. Then, when you go back to the PRT, you can blame me, if you want to, for pressuring you into it. They won't blame you, they see you as a kid."
I rolled a shell beneath my boot. Getting Mouse Protector in trouble didn't sound heroic either. The PRT would stop me patrolling with her in the future.
But what she was offering sounded exactly like what I wanted. Repaying her by throwing her under the bus wasn't right. Instead, I'd help her, but if the guilt became too much, I'd own up to it and take my punishment.
"Okay. Let's go help people."
Finding crime didn't become easier with an older hero. Mouse Protector was experienced, but not with Brockton Bay. She knew what was around here, who operated where, but didn't have the fine tuned grasp on the criminal world she did back home.
Her technique involved heavy use of her power, and took place over the duration of days.
First, she'd find some gang members and tag one of them. Then, she'd let that one go and arrest the others. She'd wait around for a bit before teleporting to the one she let run. Hopefully they'd lead her back to someone higher up, and then she can go to someone even higher up than that.
It only worked a few times before people started catching on, but by that time, she had a decent idea of what places the gangs liked to pick. She wanted to employ a similar tactic in Brockton Bay, but she'd do it when not patrolling with me. Teleporting around would leave me alone. While she trusted me to handle myself, she also didn't want to leave me alone.
"I had this issue before," I said a few hours into patrol, "finding crime in progress is hard. Police scanners are great, but you gotta learn all the codes, and without the Wards it was hard to do. I know more of them now, but they're mostly used for console duty."
"Teleporting lets me avoid all that. Covering a lot of distance lets you find crime easier. I'd throw rocks between buildings to travel faster, throw them into shady looking buildings to check them out, or just tag random shady people and see where they go throughout the night."
"I wish I could do that."
Localised space warping can mimic teleportation. Holy shit. I already had all the pieces in my hoard for the perfect recipe to mimic Vista's power and even create 'waypoints' that would allow me to warp long-distance across the city.
Mouse Protector had stopped about ten feet in front of me, and was staring back. "You coming, kid?"
"I just figured out how to make Vista's power."
Mouse Protector's eyes went wide. She walked back over to me. "Woah, kid. You realise what that means?" I shook my head, still processing the potential of it, "It means that this patrol is kaput, useless. You make that gizmo and we can cover more ground than we could ever dream of covering tonight."
She placed both hands on my shoulders. "Sorry we didn't get to do too much tonight, but I think it makes sense to stop here. Make that immediately. Boys in the lab will probably approve it so fast it'll make your head spin. But even if they don't, you can use it when we're out on our own. Got it?"
"Uh, yeah, I got it."
"Good. Now, I'll walk you back to the PRT, but I gotta go do some other stuff so I won't follow you in. I trust you'll be alright to cover what we did tonight?" There was a certain emphasis on the words that reminded me I needed to lie.
I gulped down the lump in my throat. Lying was wrong, but getting in trouble for helping people didn't make sense. Mouse Protector was right. It was a white lie, something necessary.
"Yes. I'll cover it."
Mimicking Vista's power required a level of fine-tuning I hadn't needed to do yet. All of my other devices worked out of the box. Spatial warping technology liked to go wrong.
My initial test twisted away my screwdriver into nothingness. It never came back.
Heather taught me a neat trick when we were getting to know each other. You stretched out your hands, with your thumbs touching, and then closed one eye. You'd stare at the thumb on the same side as your closed eye and move the other thumb away from it. A short distance away, the top of your thumb would vanish from view.
Eyes had blind spots and your brain filled in the gaps all the time.
Spatial warping was like that. It required very specific commands to function how you expected. If you moved your eyes even a little, the blind spot moved too. It did give me the idea to incorporate something similar into the spatial warping. I just needed to get it working first.
On my fourth attempt, I managed to make the device create temporary holes in the walls. A useful feature, but not what I was aiming for. I kept the settings around for future use.
On my seventh attempt, I successfully pinched space together. With a step, I could travel from one end of my lab to the other. Unfortunately, that device rivalled a car engine in size.
Armsmaster's speciality was shrinking devices down. His power didn't enjoy interacting with mine, though. He struggled to understand my creations until I explained them to him, which was hard since I struggled to remember certain parts when repeating what my power told me.
Kid Win, on the other hand, could understand my devices perfectly, and even found himself copying some of their designs using better materials. Recently he'd been ripping apart his hoverboard and making it so each piece fit back in like a puzzle. The end result was exactly the same as the start, but parts could be swapped out in the future. Kind of like Fufu's firing mechanism.
He seemed happy, even if it didn't make much sense to me. It did mean that he was too distracted to help me with my problem.
By my fifteenth attempt, I'd created something in a more manageable size, but it lacked versatility. With only three settings available maximum. Tweaking those three settings took effort and time, not something I could do in the field. The internal components could be shifted to change those settings, but it required tools and referring to a schematic I'd made.
But she did her job. With a button press, I could mark a location, then if I marked another, it would attempt to squeeze that space together. You had to be quick to step over the boundary due to it consuming a lot of battery life when held. Pinching space was actually pretty cheap, holding it pinched wasn't.
Overall, I could cover around five hundred feet with one pinch. A respectable distance. She still had a considerable bulk and didn't fit comfortably in most places.
My final solution was to break her down into components. Each one would then slot together up my right arm. Letting me use my left hand for fighting, and right hand for teleporting.
Her other two settings involved putting a hole in whatever she was pointed to, and another that could make a quick distance between myself and someone in front of me.
Getting used to the extra bulk on my arm took a while, but I was proud of my creation:
Aiai, the Free.
Wolf Escapes Going To Birdcage, the headline read.
I felt numb. He escaped the transport van, and it wasn't the first time. Three escapes. Why didn't they up the security after the first time?
Alabaster escaped as well, barely a footnote in the article.
My room was silent. Only the ticking of the clock and the hum of my computer kept me company. Emptiness filled me. I had believed that hurting those people's days had been worth it because Hookwolf, at least, was arrested.
None of it mattered. Ruining those people's days, hurting their livelihood. All of it for nothing.
There was no justification anymore. No making amends in my brain. That was no longer a bittersweet accomplishment, just bitter.
I needed to fix things. There wasn't anything I could do to change the past, but I could make up for it by helping others.
"I want to get whatever it is I need to start fixing things," I told Heather later, during breakfast.
"This again? I'll see what I can do to help. You'd need a licence for each thing. Plumbing, electricity, mechanics." She counted off on her fingers. "It's not just one thing, and it'll take time."
"How long? I'm in a hurry."
"Possibly years, Meadow. Even if you did them all at once, it's not as simple as signing a piece of paper. There are exams, and studying. Using your power would be fine, but it'll take time to prove you can do it."
"I don't have that kind of time!" I slapped a hand on the table. "I have to do this right now."
"Calm down. Deep breath. Okay?"
"What? I'm completely calm! I need to do this. I have to fix things!"
"Meadow. Indoor voice. There isn't anything I can do about it. These things take time." She grabbed a towel to clean up the milk that had escaped her cereal bowl. When had she spilled?
That's when I realised I had been yelling. I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just need this."
"Why do you need it?"
"I need to… help. I need to help people, to fix things. Everything's gone wrong and I just want to make it right."
Heather gave me a pitying look. Always that damned pity. "You heard, then?"
"You knew about it? How long have you known about it?"
"Meadow, calm down. It's only been a few days. I didn't expect the news to post it so soon, or for you to read it."
"You knew for days? How could you do this to me? I had to find out by a news article and not from you. You're supposed to tell me these things!"
"I know, Meadow, I know. I just didn't know how you'd react, and wanted to tell you in a safe environment. I've just been so busy, I'm not used to this, to being a mom."
"You're not my mom!" Heather looked as if I smacked her. I regretted the words instantly. My words stuck in my throat and I couldn't even apologise.
She sighed. "No. I'm not. But I'm your legal guardian and it's my duty to take care of you. I was going to tell you, eventually. Now, go to your room. You're grounded."
"But-"
"No. You don't get to argue. Your room. Now." She pointed to it as if I didn't know the direction. "And you better have your English work done before dinner."
"Fine!" I kicked the chair before stomping off. Making noise felt good. I slammed my door for extra measure.
Safety. That's what this place should have provided me. A space of my own, with my own things. It was empty. The start of my hoard was hidden under my bed, away from prying eyes. There has to be more, more things, more comfort.
I ripped open my drawers, throwing my clothes across the barren floor. I poured the waste basket across it too. A good start. Heather rarely checked on me when I was grounded. Preferring to let me stew in my own brain.
A one-story house meant sneaking out was easy. I'd never had to before, but I always planned escape routes. Heather headed off to work a little while later, leaving me alone in the house. She'd return at noon, which gave me plenty of time to work with.
Our neighbours worked at similar hours. None of them really knew me. I'd spoken to our next-door neighbour once but never saw her again.
Garbage day was tomorrow, so every can was filled to the brim. Sneaking around was second nature now. People yelled if they caught you taking the things they'd thrown away, which made no sense to me.
Now, it was all mine.
Comfort exuded from my now filled room. Not a single gap to see the floor through.
Reorganising the trash into appropriate piles filled me with a feeling long forgotten. Packing trash into plastic containers in my lab never scratched the same itch. An urge so primal it hurts to fight it.
This was living. All pieces of me, each one special. Even my bed shared in the love with my 'comfy' pile of trash. There was no comfort quite like it. The bed was comfortable on its own–much better than my old bed–but now, it was worthy of royalty.
I flopped down into my chair (now enhanced with a pillow I found), and started my studies.
Heather ungrounded me once I showed her my completed work. It was some of my best yet, and there was an obvious answer as to why. She avoided talking to me too much, not even saying a word during dinner.
It felt lonely, but there were always the Wards to talk to.
Everyone was in high spirits since Armsmaster captured Lung. He'd used a similar tranquilliser design to what he made for Shadow Stalker, though much more potent. Despite his accomplishment, Lung didn't seem like he'd live.
Some villains were fighting Lung before Armsmaster arrived. His regeneration stopped when he was tranquilised. Armsmaster was blamed for it. He took down the head of a gang and was being investigated for it. There were whisperings of him potentially being fired.
Finding time to talk to him was impossible. Dennis still refused to even say a single word to me. At least there was still Vista.
Over the next few days she became a frequent patrol partner, along with anyone who could keep up. Patrolling with warping technology was definitely easier.
Mouse Protector sent me pictures of her arrests on occasion, as well as check-in texts.
My patrols were lame in comparison, even with teleportation. At least talking with Vista was fun. She knew a lot of things, and a lot of hero techniques. Talking about anything other than being a hero made her clam up, though.
Our patrols still required us to stick to a certain path, and that path usually involved keeping us in safer areas. Shadow Stalker liked to bend the rules and wander off, which at least let us catch criminals occasionally.
But I couldn't be seen going along willingly, it had to always be pretending to stop her.
Mouse Protector was right–they were holding us back. Shadow Stalker knew how to find crime and was willing to take the punishment to stop it. She was yelled at by Piggot more than anyone else. There was an injustice in that. She was a hero, helping others, and doing a better job than the rest of us.
When we were alone in the locker room after a long patrol, I decided to ask her, "Sophia. Why'd you become a hero?"
She fixed me a steely gaze. Vista told me that it was best to show confidence around her, as she respected it more. I stared back, not breaking eye contact.
"This city is filled with filth." She practically spat the word. "I needed to clean it up." She shrugged the strap of her bag further up her shoulder before walking away. I hadn't expected an answer. Sophia wasn't usually one for conversation.
She would do better on her own. The Wards held her back, gave her rules. Even if she broke them frequently, they still restrained her. Like they restrained me.
Why did they do that? People don't do things for no reason. If they restrain us, what does it accomplish? It keeps us… safe. Miss Militia told me that we weren't child soldiers, that we were learning to fight in a safer environment than the Protectorate faced every day. When we were of age to join them, we'd be more ready.
I could help now, though. Not every hero had that luxury, but I could make things that helped indirectly.
So I made my self-replicating agent. My marshmallow healing paste would be the only public version. Piggot received my 'only' batch, with a promise that I would make no more. The remainder of the batch was already back home, hidden away.
Lying was wrong… sometimes.
All the money from my marshmallow healing starter would go into a fund I could access on two conditions: I either become eighteen and graduate, or I leave the Wards.
Despite my recent realisations, I didn't plan to leave the Wards. That was a big decision I couldn't make from a one-sided argument.
Mouse Protector's words made sense. They explained things, but they weren't the whole picture.
There were more people I needed to hear from, more people I needed to understand.
"Armsmaster, why'd you become a hero?" I asked after he let me in his workshop.
"The world is chaotic. I'm a hero because I want to fight that chaos," he said, not even taking his eyes away from what he was working on.
"If the world stopped being chaotic, would you stop being a hero?"
He exhaled a laugh. "I don't believe that's possible. There'll always be someone making chaos."
"So no matter what, you'll try to help? To be a hero?"
"Of course, Knight. As heroes it's our duty to protect and serve. After you join us in the Protectorate, you'll do the same." He finally turned to look at me. A soft smile sat on his face, as if he was an old person reminiscing about the good old days.
"You took out Lung. And you're being punished for it."
His smile dropped. "Nothing that will damage me. His condition wasn't the greatest, but… It's okay. I'll be fine. Besides, no use crying over spilt milk."
Did that mean he didn't care if Lung died? Maybe I was reading that wrong, this was Armsmaster afterall. He was a hero, a respected one.
He pulled himself out of his chair and gestured to his door without a word. I stared at him for a second before leaving. Armsmaster didn't follow me out.
Home. Safe and sound. At least in body. My brain still pondered questions that didn't have answers. What did it mean to be a hero? Lying was wrong, but only sometimes? Were my friends actually friends?
Dennis hadn't spoken to me in a while. Vista began texting me after we started patrolling together more. She was professional, even in this short format. It felt more like talking to an adult than talking to someone younger than me. I wanted to have fun with her, go somewhere.
An arcade. That's where Dennis wanted to take me. I'd still never been. Maybe I could take Vista there? I sent her a text. It was past ten now, and she never replied past eight.
Vista: Sounds fun. We can organise it tomorrow.
My phone blipped almost instantly with a reply. That wasn't what I expected. We exchanged a few texts to say okay, and goodnight.
I stared at my ceiling. Not a single star. Maybe I could convince Heather to buy me some with all my new money. For some reason, I wasn't excited. Going out with Vista sounded fun in my brain, and I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't excited.
A gift. That's what friends did. They gave each other gifts. I scavenged through my things, trying to find just the right pieces.
Jewellery was often given as a gift. I crafted a necklace using bottle glass that I shaped with a lighter. It resembled a window, stretched out to form a cube. Easily my best work, mostly because I'd never made anything else like this.
I tucked it away into a little box. Getting rid of some of my hoard was worth it for friendship. Besides, it would still be a part of me, just worn by a friend.
A disgusting cockroach crawled across my pillow. All these new friends meant more potential enemies. Insect repellant in healthy doses was what this room needed. At the windows, by the skirting boards, and a layer across my hoard.
Not wanting to risk an awful insect crawling across me, I kicked the pillow out of the way to reveal my subsonic insect repellant. I activated her inaudible screeching and immediately felt safer. She slept beneath my pillow every night and had since I made her.
Whispered midnight secrets no one else would ever know. Long walks tucked beneath my hair on cloudless days, rainy ones, and more. She was my closest friend.
One of my first memories was seeing the stars out in the countryside, sitting beside my mom and dad. There were so many of them I could hardly believe it. City lights drowned out the stars and most people didn't ever realise it. My friends at school didn't believe me when I told them there were more than the handful you could see in Brockton Bay.
Recently I learnt that each star is a sun like ours. They have planets orbiting them, and those planets have moons orbiting them. Thinking back on all the stars I saw back then, and imagining each of them with planets, was mind-boggling. So much could be out there.
Only Earth was occupied with life in our own solar system. But even if just a tenth of the stars had planets with life, that was still an insane number of species out there.
An idea for a 'star scope' came to my brain. It could ignore the light pollution of the city and allow you to view the stars. A pleasant idea if there was ever any time.
Inventing new things for combat took priority. Which was sad to think about. Heroes had to fight. It was a fact of life. You needed to be strong enough to fight for what you believed in.
At least there were moments like this. Just eating ice cream by the ocean with a new friend.
Mouse Protector and I had decided to sit on the beach in the dark. Having to lift our masks up to eat meant we could see each other or be seen. At least lifting my mouth-guard still left my eyes covered. Mouse Protector didn't have that luxury. I avoided staring too hard at her face.
"Mouse Protector," I breached the silence, "why'd you become a hero?"
She wiped her mouth on her sleeve before talking, "Back in school, forever ago now, there was a girl who was being bullied by a group of girls. They'd say awful crap to her day in and day out. No one bothered to help her, it was subtle enough to not be noticed. But I could tell it was getting to her, as much as she put on a brave face. I wasn't strong enough to help her."
She stopped to stare out towards the PHQ. Its domed shield glowed like a second moon. Further light pollution to drown out the stars.
"Anyway, one day I triggered, and I ended up joining the Wards right when they got started. Inaugural Ward, one of the first."
"Wow, really?"
"Yep." She slapped a fist against her chest. "Easily the best one too."
Even in the dim reflected light her smirk was bright.
"So I spent some time doing the hero thing. Beating up bad guys, rescuing people, saving the day. Helping people made me realise I could help her. Fighting is more than just physical, there's a verbal aspect to it, and that's what those girls were using.
"So, that's what I did. When those girls came knocking again, I prodded back. Bullies have expectations. They see themselves as higher up on the social hierarchy than their victims, and they don't want that challenged. So, naturally, when I fought back, they escalated. Their words became meaner, they started to pull meaner pranks, and their final mistake was trying to fight her."
"They tried to hit her?" I asked.
"Yep, and they got what they deserved. No one starts a fight with the Queen Cheese and gets away easy."
"Wait, did they try to hit her, or did they try to hit you?"
"One and the same, kid."
"You… Oh, I get it. You saved yourself." I pointed my cone towards her, ice cream dribbled down my hands.
"Careful there." Mouse Protector handed me a tissue from one of her pouches. I licked my hand clean before wiping it down.
"But yeah, I got self confidence from being a hero. I learnt to fight back, and so I did. I never wanted to get physical with those girls, but it worked. They stopped bothering me after that. Well, sorta. They told everyone I was a dyke and that I would beat people up for looking at them funny. Teachers believed it too, since they never saw the bullying."
"I'm sorry that happened." The Wards got an anti-bullying talk when they joined. Signs to notice if someone is being bullied, that they need help. The specific insults used, though, were unfamiliar. "What's a dyke?" I asked.
Mouse Protector snorted out a laugh. "It's a mean word for a lesbian. You know what that is?" I shook my head. "It means a girl who likes girls instead of boys. Y'know, in a romantic way. Sometimes they're just called gay."
"Oh. I knew about being gay. Are you a lesbian?"
"Nah. They were just yelling stuff at me. You meet a lot of different people as a hero. At first I didn't get it, the whole being gay thing. I'm not too big to admit that I was wrong. Ain't nothing wrong with different lifestyles, Knight. So long as they don't hurt anyone, understand?"
"I understand. People can be cruel. I don't want to be a person who spreads more of that."
Mouse Protector slapped a hand against my back. "Now that's a good kid. People are people at the end of the day. As heroes, we gotta be the ones who stand up against bigots and the cruel. Some people can't defend themselves. Brockton Bay is a shithole and definitely needs our help more than anywhere."
Brockton Bay was my home. I'd never known anywhere else. It was hard to imagine somewhere that didn't look like this, work like this, have the same people as this. What did a 'fixed' city look like?
"I don't really know how to help. Getting rid of villains doesn't fix people's homes. It doesn't fix their car that was broken in the process of defeating the villain." I stared at the sand, counting the shells. I'd done the exact same thing I hated. Hookwolf may have been captured, but I'd destroyed things to do it. Could I call myself a hero?
"Well, it's a good thing you're a Tinker then, huh?" Mouse Protector stood up, dusting sand from her backside. She offered a hand to help me up to my feet. "You and me, Knight. We'll clear up the streets, and you'll fix whatever we break along the way. In fact, fix whatever's broken altogether."
"I can't. Piggot already docked my pay for fixing a man's car engine. She'll yell at me again, she'll yell at you too."
"Bah. Piggy can't dock your pay if she doesn't know it happened."
"Lying is wrong."
"I know, kid. But listen, it's the same as before. You know your Tinker devices work, they're safe. You know you can fix things too, right?" I nodded once. My devices were safe. Kid Win's often failed him, and Armsmaster required fine tuning over weeks to make his work. But mine were special, safe. "Exactly. You have a gift, one that can help people. And what would Piggy do if you told her?"
"Yell at me."
"Yell at you! She doesn't get it, she won't ever get it. It's her job to hold you back, and I'm sure her reasons are good, but it's not what the people need. You're a hero, through and through, and rules are just gonna hold you back."
"I don't like lying. I do like helping people. It's the reason I became a hero. I wanted to help others. One of the most heroic things I've done was just fixing sinks in a place full of homeless people. I'm proud of doing it, but now I can't do that anymore." I squeezed the cheeks of my helmet in both hands, the foam squished up against my face from the force. "I don't know…"
"There's no easy answer. Lying is wrong, you're right in that regard. But in this scenario, lying helps people. How about this, we go out there, and we hunt down bad guys and if we come across something broken, you fix it. Then, when you go back to the PRT, you can blame me, if you want to, for pressuring you into it. They won't blame you, they see you as a kid."
I rolled a shell beneath my boot. Getting Mouse Protector in trouble didn't sound heroic either. The PRT would stop me patrolling with her in the future.
But what she was offering sounded exactly like what I wanted. Repaying her by throwing her under the bus wasn't right. Instead, I'd help her, but if the guilt became too much, I'd own up to it and take my punishment.
"Okay. Let's go help people."
...
Finding crime didn't become easier with an older hero. Mouse Protector was experienced, but not with Brockton Bay. She knew what was around here, who operated where, but didn't have the fine tuned grasp on the criminal world she did back home.
Her technique involved heavy use of her power, and took place over the duration of days.
First, she'd find some gang members and tag one of them. Then, she'd let that one go and arrest the others. She'd wait around for a bit before teleporting to the one she let run. Hopefully they'd lead her back to someone higher up, and then she can go to someone even higher up than that.
It only worked a few times before people started catching on, but by that time, she had a decent idea of what places the gangs liked to pick. She wanted to employ a similar tactic in Brockton Bay, but she'd do it when not patrolling with me. Teleporting around would leave me alone. While she trusted me to handle myself, she also didn't want to leave me alone.
"I had this issue before," I said a few hours into patrol, "finding crime in progress is hard. Police scanners are great, but you gotta learn all the codes, and without the Wards it was hard to do. I know more of them now, but they're mostly used for console duty."
"Teleporting lets me avoid all that. Covering a lot of distance lets you find crime easier. I'd throw rocks between buildings to travel faster, throw them into shady looking buildings to check them out, or just tag random shady people and see where they go throughout the night."
"I wish I could do that."
Localised space warping can mimic teleportation. Holy shit. I already had all the pieces in my hoard for the perfect recipe to mimic Vista's power and even create 'waypoints' that would allow me to warp long-distance across the city.
Mouse Protector had stopped about ten feet in front of me, and was staring back. "You coming, kid?"
"I just figured out how to make Vista's power."
Mouse Protector's eyes went wide. She walked back over to me. "Woah, kid. You realise what that means?" I shook my head, still processing the potential of it, "It means that this patrol is kaput, useless. You make that gizmo and we can cover more ground than we could ever dream of covering tonight."
She placed both hands on my shoulders. "Sorry we didn't get to do too much tonight, but I think it makes sense to stop here. Make that immediately. Boys in the lab will probably approve it so fast it'll make your head spin. But even if they don't, you can use it when we're out on our own. Got it?"
"Uh, yeah, I got it."
"Good. Now, I'll walk you back to the PRT, but I gotta go do some other stuff so I won't follow you in. I trust you'll be alright to cover what we did tonight?" There was a certain emphasis on the words that reminded me I needed to lie.
I gulped down the lump in my throat. Lying was wrong, but getting in trouble for helping people didn't make sense. Mouse Protector was right. It was a white lie, something necessary.
"Yes. I'll cover it."
Mimicking Vista's power required a level of fine-tuning I hadn't needed to do yet. All of my other devices worked out of the box. Spatial warping technology liked to go wrong.
My initial test twisted away my screwdriver into nothingness. It never came back.
Heather taught me a neat trick when we were getting to know each other. You stretched out your hands, with your thumbs touching, and then closed one eye. You'd stare at the thumb on the same side as your closed eye and move the other thumb away from it. A short distance away, the top of your thumb would vanish from view.
Eyes had blind spots and your brain filled in the gaps all the time.
Spatial warping was like that. It required very specific commands to function how you expected. If you moved your eyes even a little, the blind spot moved too. It did give me the idea to incorporate something similar into the spatial warping. I just needed to get it working first.
On my fourth attempt, I managed to make the device create temporary holes in the walls. A useful feature, but not what I was aiming for. I kept the settings around for future use.
On my seventh attempt, I successfully pinched space together. With a step, I could travel from one end of my lab to the other. Unfortunately, that device rivalled a car engine in size.
Armsmaster's speciality was shrinking devices down. His power didn't enjoy interacting with mine, though. He struggled to understand my creations until I explained them to him, which was hard since I struggled to remember certain parts when repeating what my power told me.
Kid Win, on the other hand, could understand my devices perfectly, and even found himself copying some of their designs using better materials. Recently he'd been ripping apart his hoverboard and making it so each piece fit back in like a puzzle. The end result was exactly the same as the start, but parts could be swapped out in the future. Kind of like Fufu's firing mechanism.
He seemed happy, even if it didn't make much sense to me. It did mean that he was too distracted to help me with my problem.
By my fifteenth attempt, I'd created something in a more manageable size, but it lacked versatility. With only three settings available maximum. Tweaking those three settings took effort and time, not something I could do in the field. The internal components could be shifted to change those settings, but it required tools and referring to a schematic I'd made.
But she did her job. With a button press, I could mark a location, then if I marked another, it would attempt to squeeze that space together. You had to be quick to step over the boundary due to it consuming a lot of battery life when held. Pinching space was actually pretty cheap, holding it pinched wasn't.
Overall, I could cover around five hundred feet with one pinch. A respectable distance. She still had a considerable bulk and didn't fit comfortably in most places.
My final solution was to break her down into components. Each one would then slot together up my right arm. Letting me use my left hand for fighting, and right hand for teleporting.
Her other two settings involved putting a hole in whatever she was pointed to, and another that could make a quick distance between myself and someone in front of me.
Getting used to the extra bulk on my arm took a while, but I was proud of my creation:
Aiai, the Free.
Wolf Escapes Going To Birdcage, the headline read.
I felt numb. He escaped the transport van, and it wasn't the first time. Three escapes. Why didn't they up the security after the first time?
Alabaster escaped as well, barely a footnote in the article.
My room was silent. Only the ticking of the clock and the hum of my computer kept me company. Emptiness filled me. I had believed that hurting those people's days had been worth it because Hookwolf, at least, was arrested.
None of it mattered. Ruining those people's days, hurting their livelihood. All of it for nothing.
There was no justification anymore. No making amends in my brain. That was no longer a bittersweet accomplishment, just bitter.
I needed to fix things. There wasn't anything I could do to change the past, but I could make up for it by helping others.
"I want to get whatever it is I need to start fixing things," I told Heather later, during breakfast.
"This again? I'll see what I can do to help. You'd need a licence for each thing. Plumbing, electricity, mechanics." She counted off on her fingers. "It's not just one thing, and it'll take time."
"How long? I'm in a hurry."
"Possibly years, Meadow. Even if you did them all at once, it's not as simple as signing a piece of paper. There are exams, and studying. Using your power would be fine, but it'll take time to prove you can do it."
"I don't have that kind of time!" I slapped a hand on the table. "I have to do this right now."
"Calm down. Deep breath. Okay?"
"What? I'm completely calm! I need to do this. I have to fix things!"
"Meadow. Indoor voice. There isn't anything I can do about it. These things take time." She grabbed a towel to clean up the milk that had escaped her cereal bowl. When had she spilled?
That's when I realised I had been yelling. I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just need this."
"Why do you need it?"
"I need to… help. I need to help people, to fix things. Everything's gone wrong and I just want to make it right."
Heather gave me a pitying look. Always that damned pity. "You heard, then?"
"You knew about it? How long have you known about it?"
"Meadow, calm down. It's only been a few days. I didn't expect the news to post it so soon, or for you to read it."
"You knew for days? How could you do this to me? I had to find out by a news article and not from you. You're supposed to tell me these things!"
"I know, Meadow, I know. I just didn't know how you'd react, and wanted to tell you in a safe environment. I've just been so busy, I'm not used to this, to being a mom."
"You're not my mom!" Heather looked as if I smacked her. I regretted the words instantly. My words stuck in my throat and I couldn't even apologise.
She sighed. "No. I'm not. But I'm your legal guardian and it's my duty to take care of you. I was going to tell you, eventually. Now, go to your room. You're grounded."
"But-"
"No. You don't get to argue. Your room. Now." She pointed to it as if I didn't know the direction. "And you better have your English work done before dinner."
"Fine!" I kicked the chair before stomping off. Making noise felt good. I slammed my door for extra measure.
Safety. That's what this place should have provided me. A space of my own, with my own things. It was empty. The start of my hoard was hidden under my bed, away from prying eyes. There has to be more, more things, more comfort.
I ripped open my drawers, throwing my clothes across the barren floor. I poured the waste basket across it too. A good start. Heather rarely checked on me when I was grounded. Preferring to let me stew in my own brain.
A one-story house meant sneaking out was easy. I'd never had to before, but I always planned escape routes. Heather headed off to work a little while later, leaving me alone in the house. She'd return at noon, which gave me plenty of time to work with.
Our neighbours worked at similar hours. None of them really knew me. I'd spoken to our next-door neighbour once but never saw her again.
Garbage day was tomorrow, so every can was filled to the brim. Sneaking around was second nature now. People yelled if they caught you taking the things they'd thrown away, which made no sense to me.
Now, it was all mine.
Comfort exuded from my now filled room. Not a single gap to see the floor through.
Reorganising the trash into appropriate piles filled me with a feeling long forgotten. Packing trash into plastic containers in my lab never scratched the same itch. An urge so primal it hurts to fight it.
This was living. All pieces of me, each one special. Even my bed shared in the love with my 'comfy' pile of trash. There was no comfort quite like it. The bed was comfortable on its own–much better than my old bed–but now, it was worthy of royalty.
I flopped down into my chair (now enhanced with a pillow I found), and started my studies.
Heather ungrounded me once I showed her my completed work. It was some of my best yet, and there was an obvious answer as to why. She avoided talking to me too much, not even saying a word during dinner.
It felt lonely, but there were always the Wards to talk to.
Everyone was in high spirits since Armsmaster captured Lung. He'd used a similar tranquilliser design to what he made for Shadow Stalker, though much more potent. Despite his accomplishment, Lung didn't seem like he'd live.
Some villains were fighting Lung before Armsmaster arrived. His regeneration stopped when he was tranquilised. Armsmaster was blamed for it. He took down the head of a gang and was being investigated for it. There were whisperings of him potentially being fired.
Finding time to talk to him was impossible. Dennis still refused to even say a single word to me. At least there was still Vista.
Over the next few days she became a frequent patrol partner, along with anyone who could keep up. Patrolling with warping technology was definitely easier.
Mouse Protector sent me pictures of her arrests on occasion, as well as check-in texts.
My patrols were lame in comparison, even with teleportation. At least talking with Vista was fun. She knew a lot of things, and a lot of hero techniques. Talking about anything other than being a hero made her clam up, though.
Our patrols still required us to stick to a certain path, and that path usually involved keeping us in safer areas. Shadow Stalker liked to bend the rules and wander off, which at least let us catch criminals occasionally.
But I couldn't be seen going along willingly, it had to always be pretending to stop her.
Mouse Protector was right–they were holding us back. Shadow Stalker knew how to find crime and was willing to take the punishment to stop it. She was yelled at by Piggot more than anyone else. There was an injustice in that. She was a hero, helping others, and doing a better job than the rest of us.
When we were alone in the locker room after a long patrol, I decided to ask her, "Sophia. Why'd you become a hero?"
She fixed me a steely gaze. Vista told me that it was best to show confidence around her, as she respected it more. I stared back, not breaking eye contact.
"This city is filled with filth." She practically spat the word. "I needed to clean it up." She shrugged the strap of her bag further up her shoulder before walking away. I hadn't expected an answer. Sophia wasn't usually one for conversation.
She would do better on her own. The Wards held her back, gave her rules. Even if she broke them frequently, they still restrained her. Like they restrained me.
Why did they do that? People don't do things for no reason. If they restrain us, what does it accomplish? It keeps us… safe. Miss Militia told me that we weren't child soldiers, that we were learning to fight in a safer environment than the Protectorate faced every day. When we were of age to join them, we'd be more ready.
I could help now, though. Not every hero had that luxury, but I could make things that helped indirectly.
So I made my self-replicating agent. My marshmallow healing paste would be the only public version. Piggot received my 'only' batch, with a promise that I would make no more. The remainder of the batch was already back home, hidden away.
Lying was wrong… sometimes.
All the money from my marshmallow healing starter would go into a fund I could access on two conditions: I either become eighteen and graduate, or I leave the Wards.
Despite my recent realisations, I didn't plan to leave the Wards. That was a big decision I couldn't make from a one-sided argument.
Mouse Protector's words made sense. They explained things, but they weren't the whole picture.
There were more people I needed to hear from, more people I needed to understand.
"Armsmaster, why'd you become a hero?" I asked after he let me in his workshop.
"The world is chaotic. I'm a hero because I want to fight that chaos," he said, not even taking his eyes away from what he was working on.
"If the world stopped being chaotic, would you stop being a hero?"
He exhaled a laugh. "I don't believe that's possible. There'll always be someone making chaos."
"So no matter what, you'll try to help? To be a hero?"
"Of course, Knight. As heroes it's our duty to protect and serve. After you join us in the Protectorate, you'll do the same." He finally turned to look at me. A soft smile sat on his face, as if he was an old person reminiscing about the good old days.
"You took out Lung. And you're being punished for it."
His smile dropped. "Nothing that will damage me. His condition wasn't the greatest, but… It's okay. I'll be fine. Besides, no use crying over spilt milk."
Did that mean he didn't care if Lung died? Maybe I was reading that wrong, this was Armsmaster afterall. He was a hero, a respected one.
He pulled himself out of his chair and gestured to his door without a word. I stared at him for a second before leaving. Armsmaster didn't follow me out.
...
Home. Safe and sound. At least in body. My brain still pondered questions that didn't have answers. What did it mean to be a hero? Lying was wrong, but only sometimes? Were my friends actually friends?
Dennis hadn't spoken to me in a while. Vista began texting me after we started patrolling together more. She was professional, even in this short format. It felt more like talking to an adult than talking to someone younger than me. I wanted to have fun with her, go somewhere.
An arcade. That's where Dennis wanted to take me. I'd still never been. Maybe I could take Vista there? I sent her a text. It was past ten now, and she never replied past eight.
Vista: Sounds fun. We can organise it tomorrow.
My phone blipped almost instantly with a reply. That wasn't what I expected. We exchanged a few texts to say okay, and goodnight.
I stared at my ceiling. Not a single star. Maybe I could convince Heather to buy me some with all my new money. For some reason, I wasn't excited. Going out with Vista sounded fun in my brain, and I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't excited.
A gift. That's what friends did. They gave each other gifts. I scavenged through my things, trying to find just the right pieces.
Jewellery was often given as a gift. I crafted a necklace using bottle glass that I shaped with a lighter. It resembled a window, stretched out to form a cube. Easily my best work, mostly because I'd never made anything else like this.
I tucked it away into a little box. Getting rid of some of my hoard was worth it for friendship. Besides, it would still be a part of me, just worn by a friend.
A disgusting cockroach crawled across my pillow. All these new friends meant more potential enemies. Insect repellant in healthy doses was what this room needed. At the windows, by the skirting boards, and a layer across my hoard.
Not wanting to risk an awful insect crawling across me, I kicked the pillow out of the way to reveal my subsonic insect repellant. I activated her inaudible screeching and immediately felt safer. She slept beneath my pillow every night and had since I made her.
Whispered midnight secrets no one else would ever know. Long walks tucked beneath my hair on cloudless days, rainy ones, and more. She was my closest friend.
Thanks to the Cauldron discord for proofreading.
We're seconds away from canon, but don't get your hopes up. Meadow isn't important in the worm canon story and she wasn't intended to be. Don't expect her to alter too much just yet.
We're seconds away from canon, but don't get your hopes up. Meadow isn't important in the worm canon story and she wasn't intended to be. Don't expect her to alter too much just yet.
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2.7
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A bank robbery. A real life actual bank robbery!
The rain came down in sheets as we stood outside the Brockton Bay Central Bank, staring at the blackened windows. We stood in a line, putting on a show of strength with our numbers to try to scare the villains inside the bank. There were also some tricky tricks that they probably wouldn't be expecting, like the fact Aegis and Clockblocker had decided to swap costumes. Kid Win hovered high above us, ready to teleport his alternator cannon in at a moment's notice to catch them off-guard. Browbeat looked unsure, but still battle ready. His muscles had swelled up to twice their usual size and he had bone-plating hidden beneath to make himself harder to damage. As for me, I was tasked with protecting Vista so she could warp space freely.
The team inside the bank called themselves the Undersiders, the same team that gifted me Elel and Efef. Unfortunately for them, they were criminals. As nice a gift as it was, the credit mostly went to Kid Win for making their cores and for letting me keep them.
Vista stood by with her blonde hair darkened and sticking to her head from the rain. I nudged her in the side. "Think they'll be expecting two space warpers?"
She smiled at me, somehow bright in the gloomy grey. "Don't underestimate them, they're slippery."
I nodded. Vista had more experience than me in battle, but none of us really knew much about the Undersiders other than their track record of escaping. Browbeat had personally fought two of their members before joining the Wards making him the most experienced. Kid Win chased them from their casino heist but didn't get to do much other than that. Going against an enemy you know so little about is dangerous, we had to keep on our toes.
Something stirred inside the bank. Hostages spilt out of the front doors, a cloud of darkness, darker than the night, following closely behind.
Huge, lizard-like creatures made of bone came bounding out. A rider sat atop their back wearing a cheap plastic dog mask. Hellhound. The lizard thing sprinted towards Clockblocker dressed as Aegis but swapped to the real Aegis at the last second. It bit down, hard, and shook him about like a rag doll.
A horrible churning noise filled the air. Buzzing specks swarmed from the impossible darkness. Bugs. Hundreds of thousands of bugs. They attacked Clockblocker, and a group of them turned to me and Vista.
I blocked Vista with my body, turning my subsonic repellant to max blast. Insects droned as they moved through the air like birds in formation. They stopped a few feet away from us, flying in lazy circles.
In a heartbeat, they started moving again. Why aren't they stopping?
Insects washed over me, forcing their way into my eyes and mouth, crawling beneath my layers of armour to bite my skin.
Trapped. The world closed in on me as the insects did. There were too many. Too many horrible creatures biting and crawling, nipping and biting. He was here, somewhere, controlling them. It had to be Him.
Blind and dazed, I activated Aiai. She should be in 'pinch' mode. Aiming blind was difficult, but not impossible. I swept my hand from the ground beneath me to somewhere hopefully down the street.
A sound like wind rushing through my ears and then I was somewhere else. As I warped there were sickening pops, like little popcorn kernels. Bugs stopped biting and began to flee from me. Others deeper inside my armour kept chewing. Another warp. The sounds of the fight were no longer audible. I scurried into an alleyway, ripping away my armour to shake the bugs free.
Each breath was sticky in my throat. A crawling feeling remained, even when I was sure each bug was gone. Bile from my stomach forced its way out of me. More joined it soon after.
Insects. So many insects. How did he find me? My dad was in prison, rotting. He shouldn't be here. When did He get a power?
I warped home, away from it all. They could dock my pay, yell at me. I didn't care.
My skin crawled with phantom sensations, and I scrubbed it away. Deep cleansing scrubs with a kitchen sponge, the scratchy kind. Bits of bugs fell into the water. Something had crushed them against me, leaving me covered with bug guts.
The crawling sensation remained even with the guts gone.
No matter how much I scrubbed–even when it began to bleed–it wasn't enough.
Blood blended with the water, staining it red.
Heather burst into the bathroom. I kept scrubbing.
"Meadow! They said… you… oh, Meadow." She walked over to me, kneeling down beside the bath. She took the sponge from my shaking hands, running a hand through my hair. "Sweetheart. It's okay." She made gentle shushing noises, grasping me tight in her arms.
I cried. Each tear carrying some of the crawling feelings away, each squeeze from Heather helping to lessen the stings.
After Heather calmed me down, I returned to the Wards base to see how the team did.
Each Ward sported bee stings, bruises, and in Browbeat and Aegis' case, teeth marks. They didn't manage to capture a single one, and hadn't even given that many injuries in return. Everyone's mood was low from the one-sided failure.
A girl, apparently, controlled the swarm of insects. The boys named her Skitter.
Relief washed over me when I realised it couldn't possibly be my dad. Then I realised that the bug controlling woman still existed, and would be an enemy from now on. Thankfully, the Undersiders were small time players who avoided confrontation. Running into her again seemed unlikely.
I still planned to make counter measures. Just in case.
Piggot had berated them all for different reasons. Returning late didn't free me from her wrath.
It was because I ran. Vista maintained her position for a while before having to flee to avoid the sentient swarm of insects. Abandoning Vista led to the whole team falling apart without her consistent aid. It was my fault the Undersiders got away.
Miss Piggot didn't seem to care that bugs were horrible little things, and giving them a sentient brain made them a million times worse. She placed me on console duty for a week as punishment. Console duty didn't seem like much of a punishment.
From the looks of things, Vista and I weren't going to the arcade anymore. Missy said it was fine, she understood, but there was a sour tone to it all. There had to be some way to make it up to her.
Gifts, according to the internet, were the best way to show an apology. Apologising alongside giving someone a personalised gift often showed you cared.
The necklace I made before didn't seem like a big enough apology. I needed an addition, something extra.
What did Missy like? I had no idea. We hadn't spoken much outside of patrols and short conversations when I had console duty. Her costume is green, maybe something green?
In less than an hour of scouring the streets, I found the perfect thing: a small bird. It wasn't green, but I could make it green.
Freshly cut grass lay heaped into piles in a local park. Plenty for me to work with, and a little extra for my hoard.
Working with flesh took a bit of trial and error. Leaving the inner workings messy didn't matter, Missy wouldn't see inside. Experience gained from working on my self-defence finger helped ease the process.
Once it was done, I returned to the Ward's base, the gift safely secured in my pocket.
Missy was at the console, her feet resting at a weird angle on a nearby chair. She flicked through pages of a magazine, skimming without really seeming to read. A light on the console blipped for a short moment before Missy answered the call and directed someone to a road I didn't know.
"Hey, Missy," I said from a healthy distance to not startle her. She spun around in the chair, sitting up properly.
"Hey, Meadow." Her voice sounded sad. Good thing I had a gift to cheer her up!
"I wanted to apologise for earlier, at the bank. Bugs freak me out, and I didn't know they had a bug controller."
"It's fine, Meadow. Just tinker something to get rid of bugs so you don't run away next time." She smiled at me before returning her attention to the console.
Skitter's bug control overpowered the bug's natural instinct to avoid the sound. I needed something deadlier, but not so deadly it hurt other animals or people.
"That's a good idea. I'll do that. Um, I have a gift for you. Two gifts, actually." Better I start with the bigger gift.
Missy turned, her brows raised slightly in surprise. "A gift? You don't need to."
"I want to." I smiled at her and fished the bird out of my pocket. I placed it on the back of my hand to let it perch. Formerly brown feathers were now a mossy green, and capable of photosynthesis.
There were even little bird movements programmed in to make it more lifelike. It tilted its head to the side in a little jitter before setting it back straight.
Missy stared at it, her mouth agape. I knew she'd like it.
"This little fellow can generate energy from the sun. So you don't even need to feed it, just water. There's also enough processing power in there to listen to commands, plus you can teach it some more. Right now it knows 'perch', 'sing', and 'listen'."
I tapped the bird on the head to get its attention and then pointed to the console. "Perch."
The bird flew from the back of my hand to the console, landing just by Vista. She startled a little at the movement, moving her chair back to avoid it. I wasn't sure why. She wasn't even close to being in its flight path.
I made a couple of clicking noises with my tongue to get the bird's attention before commanding it to sing. An improvised songbird melody filled the room. I smiled brighter.
Making it have the processing power to improvise notes in a pleasing way took some doing. Fortunately, an electrical synthesiser from my hoard did most of the heavy lifting.
A pre-programmed aspect of the synthesiser lets it play several pre-programmed songs. I wired it up to the bird's brain to teach it how music was formed. Now, it could produce unique music each time it sang.
Its little brain could do so much.
"And 'listen' will let you show it a simple task for it to do, nothing too complicated. You show it how it's done, and then finish it by saying the command. It'll probably take a few attempts to get it to work, but it can do it."
I turned to Missy, who had frozen like a statue. Clockblocker wasn't around, so I scratched that possibility. "What do you think?" I asked to try to break her out of whatever this was.
"Um," she started, before stopping. Missy stood up from her chair before taking a hesitant step towards me. "Meadow. I don't have–I can't keep a bird. I don't own a cage, and… was this thing alive before you did this?"
"What? No. I found it dead."
"You revived it?" Her voice hit an even higher pitch than usual.
"Not really. It isn't alive. Just a robot." I picked up the bird and popped its head off with my other hand. Missy squeaked so quietly I almost missed it. This is the best day ever. I got to hear Vista squeak!
I angled the body towards her so she could see it. Inside there were mechanical parts, alongside the muscle structure and some bones in decent condition.
"I had to replace most of the brain–too much eaten by pesky bugs. I had a spare rat brain so I just used that, so it wasn't any trouble to get it if you're worried about that. But mostly it's mechanical pieces I already had. Except for the eyes, those I had to replace entirely with custom sensors. They weren't hard to design, I just based it on Elel."
With each word, Missy stepped further and further away from me. My best guess was that she didn't like fleshy stuff. I popped the head back on, making sure the spine locked back into place.
"I." Missy looked weird. Her face reminded me of the 'scared' face on my emotion chart. That didn't make sense, though. Why would she be scared? She shook her head, and her expression changed back to neutral.
"I'm sorry, Meadow. Look, I appreciate the intention of the gift, but I can't accept it. Logically, I couldn't take care of this bird. Maybe give it to-" Her eyes scanned the ceiling. "I don't know who." She finally said, looking back at me. An awkward looking smile was added as an afterthought.
"Anyway, I need to." She pointed to the console with her thumbs. "You know?"
"Console duty, right? I'll let you–I'll leave you alone." I shoved the bird back into my pocket, and placed the necklace on the console. I left before she could protest.
How could I be so stupid? Of course Missy didn't like birds. They stopped her power.
The bird hopped from one side of the pencil to the other. It chirped and tweeted with each hop. Teaching it a new command didn't get rid of the hurt. Missy didn't answer any of my texts throughout the evening. By the end of my patrol, she had gone home, leaving me no way to apologise for such a stupid gift.
A knock at my door shook me out of my sad thoughts.
"Meadow," Heather said, opening the door, "I wanted to talk about the–" She stopped talking as the door swung open. Heather's eyes scanned over my room, locking with mine at the end of her scan. "You were doing so well." Pity stared at me.
"It was just a bad gift. I'll think of a better one. You don't need to act like I've ruined my friendship over it." I shrugged, returning my attention to the bird.
"What're you–" She stared at the bird. "You made a bird?"
"Just a robot, not a real bird. No self-replication." I prodded it hard in the side, causing it to fall over. It rolled slightly before righting itself back to its feet.
My hoard shuffled as Heather trudged her way over to me. "Okay. That's not the issue right now. We can deal with the bird later." She squatted down to be at eye level. I kept my focus on the bird. "You started hoarding again?"
"Huh?" Her eyes still held too much pity to look at for long. "We had an argument, I redecorated. I even left a gap at the door so you could get in."
Rulers taped to sticks kept the hoard from spilling out into the door's path. I wasn't sure why she was bringing this up.
"Remember what you spoke about, with Dr. Kim?"
"We spoke about a lot of stuff."
"I mean with the hoarding. This isn't healthy, Meadow. You're allowed to have things, you're allowed to redecorate, but this isn't that. You're safe here. Food, shelter, security. There isn't a need to hoard all of this. Your lab has all of your usable things, and you won't go hungry here." Heather stroked a hand through my hair.
"I'm sorry that we argued, and I know I'm not your mom, but I'm here to take care of you. This?" She gestured to all of my friends in the room. "It isn't healthy. I don't want to be the bad guy here, but you need to clear this out."
"No. I can't, I need this." I dared to look at her pitying face. Her frown deepened.
"Dr. Kim told me to not check your room, to let you have it as a safe place even from me, but that clearly isn't working. We're clearing this out tomorrow. For tonight, you can sleep in my room. I'll get you scheduled in when she's next free."
My mind struggled to keep up. "Wait, please. I can't. These are my friends."
"Friends? Meadow, this is just stuff. You have friends, this isn't it."
"I don't have friends! Clock hates me, Vista hates me. Kid Win only wants to talk about tinker stuff and I don't know anything else about him. Mouse Protector promised we'd patrol again, but I haven't seen her in almost two weeks! There isn't–" A sob forcing its way out interrupted me.
Heather hugged me tight. "It's okay. We'll get you help. You'll be better. It just takes time."
Better? She made it sound like I was ill.
Heather guided me out of the room after I finished crying. She laid me down in her bed with the addition of my weighted blanket. "We'll sort this all out in the morning. Sleep well."
I pretended to fall asleep. Over the course of an hour, I heard her talking on the phone, and she did something to my door at one point. A jingling, metal against metal, and a light shake of the door in its frame.
There wasn't any way I could let her take my hoard away from me.
Protesting wouldn't have achieved anything except for another argument. She couldn't understand what my friends meant to me. No matter how much I tried to explain, she wouldn't understand. Just how none of the PRT understood. Even the heroes didn't understand.
I tried to explain it to my caseworker as I joined the Wards. How they were important to me and that I needed someone to get them back from my hideout. She agreed to get it under the condition it be stored away in those dumb plastic boxes that contained their greatness.
Once Heather went to bed, I snuck out of her bedroom window, and made my way through the backyard to my own bedroom window. As part of my escape route planning, I had its lock replaced with a Tinkertech one that looked almost identical. My fingerprint acted as an alternate unlock method. Keys could be cumbersome, especially when trying to get away fast.
A touch of my finger later and I was in.
Scooping up all of my hoard without making noise would have been impossible if not for the sound, absorbing foam on my walls. Leaving them behind felt sad.
Brave soldiers, hold the line, protect our retreat.
Bags after bags full of my friends left my window. By the end, I had fifteen bags full of stuff. I hadn't thought of how to move them away from the house. Heather's car made the most sense. She kept her keys in her purse, which she left inside her room–the very room I was pretending to sleep in.
Closing the car door would generate a noise no matter how carefully I shut it. I made sure to shovel every bag inside and start the engine before closing it.
Now to figure out how to drive. Cars are machines. I understand machines.
Heather said her car was 'automatic' before, whatever that meant. It didn't do anything automatically when I turned the engine on. I stared at the controls all over the car. All of it was nonsense. I took a deep breath.
Okay, power. Let's work together. This situation is broken, we need to fix it. We can fix it by driving this car and taking my friends somewhere new. You're my friend too, power. Let's get out of this together.
Sparks popped at the back of my mind. A feeling burned, but my connection to it remained in the shade. I concentrated, trying to pull the feeling forward.
Understanding. That was the feeling. It wasn't an understanding of how to drive, but I knew exactly what each button, lever, and dial did.
Driving without knowing how wasn't as hard as I imagined. The engine and I understood each other. Each tiny piece served a purpose, and I knew all of them. Controlling the car felt like controlling a limb.
My old hideout was too obvious a spot–they'd find me there straight away. But finding a new place would take time–time I didn't have.
I skidded the car to a halt outside the first abandoned building I saw. A fast-food restaurant. The style wasn't familiar and the signs had been stolen for their metal.
Stepping inside, I realised that this wasn't a safe house. Wind whistled through the glassless windows. Entire walls had been smashed away, leaving large open gaps, making me visible from too many angles. Safety included being obscured, hidden.
Car lights lit up the entire building. Two people exited the newly arrived interloper, their footsteps crunching the gravel.
"Meadow!" Heather yelled. "Are you still here?"
I ducked down, hugging close to the remnants of the kitchen appliances. How did she find me so easily?
There wasn't any way to get to my hoard and get free. Either I run, abandoning all that makes me whole, or I surrender and abandon all that makes me whole. She wouldn't listen, wouldn't let me keep them.
Muffled voices uttered a conversation I couldn't hear. Two women. Heather and someone else? Two car doors slammed shut, and one car roared to life before leaving. Footsteps entered the building. One of them hadn't left.
I swapped Elel to night vision and dared to take a peek. A green blur that sort of looked like Heather walked through the building, looking behind anything big enough to hide a person. At this rate, she'd find me in less than a minute.
Not enough time to think things through. I bolted, leaping out one of the back windows before sprinting my way towards the car. I tried the handle. Locked.
All of my things stared at me through the tinted windows.
"Meadow," Heather said, standing in the doorway to the restaurant. "Please come back. Talk to me."
I gripped the handle tighter, my knuckles turning white. "You want to take them away from me."
"You need help, Meadow. This isn't normal. I know that's hard to see for you, but I want to help you. We can make things better."
"Better?" Tears streamed down my face. "There is no better. No one likes me. I fuck everything up. Everything I do is wrong. But these are my friends. They're here for me. Each one loves me, understands me. More than the Wards, more than Mouse Protector, more than you."
"I'm sorry I haven't been taking care of you. You're supposed to be able to turn to me. I just don't know what I'm doing. It's hard, Meadow, especially when you don't tell me things. I didn't even know you had a fight with the Wards. We can work through this. Get you help, get you on the right track."
I shook my head, a little at first but more over time. "No."
"No?"
"No, I can't be better."
"Meadow, don't–"
"It's true! I'm… broken. Broken in a way that can't be fixed."
"You're not broken."
"I am! People don't make sense to me. Everyone keeps acting like I'm stupid, but I don't even know why! Just pitying looks. All the. Damn. Time." I rested my face against the cold metal of the car. My tears splashed against it, making little noises like raindrops. "My brain is wrong."
"Being different doesn't mean you're broken. This world can be hard, it can be cruel, but you can't get through it alone," Heather said, her footsteps inching closer to me. "People don't always know the best way to approach things and don't understand what's going on in your head. They probably don't hate you. Misunderstandings aren't the end of a friendship."
Heather placed a hand on my back. "Your brain isn't wrong, just different."
"But it needs to change, or you'll kick me out."
"I wouldn't kick you out."
"You would."
"No, Meadow, I wouldn't. I'm here to take care of you. It might not be forever, but for now, that's my job."
I looked up at her. Her face was shaded in the dim light, but I saw her eyes were a puffy red.
"Certain things you do aren't healthy. Hoarding is one of them. We can work together to iron out the unhealthy parts and get you to a better place mentally. But most of the parts you think are broken aren't." She wiped the tears from my cheek with her finger. Heather smiled at me. A sad smile.
"I've been doing some research. Non-PRT research. They were telling me a bunch of stuff that I just took at face value. Before you ran off I was reading about how to help you, with your–with all of it. I want to be more present in your life, to explain things better." She paused for a moment, her fingers rubbing idly against my back.
"I'm not a parent. I never even wanted kids. But Meadow, I want to be there for you, to get through this together. Will you come back, please?"
"Are you going to throw away my friends?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, Meadow. Hoarding is one of the unhealthy parts we need to work through."
"Then–" I didn't know what to do. Heather wanted to help, but I couldn't just abandon my friends. "Can we–Can we move them? Not throw them away, just move them to my lab. And I need something to replace them. My room is so empty without them. I can't stand the space."
"Okay. We can start with that. First, we need to go home and sleep. It's three AM."
I hugged Heather. She seemed surprised by the sudden contact. "You've never hugged me before," she whispered in my ear.
"We've hugged before."
"I've hugged you before. You've never hugged me. It's nice. Thank you, Meadow. Now, let's go home."
We drove back to the house. Street lights washed through the car in temporary orange spotlights. I rested my head against the window, feeling the vibrations through my body. Brockton Bay twinkled like starlight.
Each star, like the ones in the sky, had its own world attached. People lived near each light, awake at three AM for reasons I'd never know. Maybe they had an argument with their parents, too.
"Thanks again, Dominique. I owe you my life," I said. She had driven around the corner to let me confront Meadow alone, since I was scared Meadow would run if a stranger was with me.
"It's okay, Heather. Is she gonna be okay?" She gestured to Meadow in the car.
"Maybe. I don't know. None of this is easy."
Dominique hugged me. "Call me, if you ever need anything. I can babysit if you need a day off."
"Thank you." She was a lifesaver. Not everyone had friends they could call at three AM.
We parted ways, Meadow looked at me with sleepy eyes as I got in the car. We didn't talk on the ride home. I didn't know what to say.
Meadow's eyes were closed as I pulled up to my house. She snored, almost imperceptibly quiet.
For a while I sat there, just staring at her. Brown hair cascaded down her back, tousled by the wind as it usually was. No matter how much we brushed it, one minute outside turned it back into a wild mess.
She looked so small squished up against the side of the car.
The first few nights had been hard for her. I often found her sleeping inside her closet, clothes piled up against her like a safety blanket. She complained about nightmares, ones where she lived alone in infinite empty space. They hadn't made sense until now. Meadow needed clutter. We could do that. Healthy clutter.
It wasn't until Christy told me about weighted blankets that I got her to sleep in her own bed all night. It brought her comfort the room didn't offer. That weighted blanket was the best purchase I've ever made.
I roused her awake. She grumbled small protests but got up. We walked to her room, her head resting against my arm the entire way. Once she was in her pyjamas, I tucked her into bed, remembering to grab the weighted blanket from my room.
"Good night, Meadow," I said, turning the lights off.
"Good night, Mom," Meadow mumbled.
I held back the small noise that tried to escape from me. Once I reached my own room, a mix of exhaustion, sadness, and pure joy made its way out of my eyes again in heavy, sobbing tears.
The rain came down in sheets as we stood outside the Brockton Bay Central Bank, staring at the blackened windows. We stood in a line, putting on a show of strength with our numbers to try to scare the villains inside the bank. There were also some tricky tricks that they probably wouldn't be expecting, like the fact Aegis and Clockblocker had decided to swap costumes. Kid Win hovered high above us, ready to teleport his alternator cannon in at a moment's notice to catch them off-guard. Browbeat looked unsure, but still battle ready. His muscles had swelled up to twice their usual size and he had bone-plating hidden beneath to make himself harder to damage. As for me, I was tasked with protecting Vista so she could warp space freely.
The team inside the bank called themselves the Undersiders, the same team that gifted me Elel and Efef. Unfortunately for them, they were criminals. As nice a gift as it was, the credit mostly went to Kid Win for making their cores and for letting me keep them.
Vista stood by with her blonde hair darkened and sticking to her head from the rain. I nudged her in the side. "Think they'll be expecting two space warpers?"
She smiled at me, somehow bright in the gloomy grey. "Don't underestimate them, they're slippery."
I nodded. Vista had more experience than me in battle, but none of us really knew much about the Undersiders other than their track record of escaping. Browbeat had personally fought two of their members before joining the Wards making him the most experienced. Kid Win chased them from their casino heist but didn't get to do much other than that. Going against an enemy you know so little about is dangerous, we had to keep on our toes.
Something stirred inside the bank. Hostages spilt out of the front doors, a cloud of darkness, darker than the night, following closely behind.
Huge, lizard-like creatures made of bone came bounding out. A rider sat atop their back wearing a cheap plastic dog mask. Hellhound. The lizard thing sprinted towards Clockblocker dressed as Aegis but swapped to the real Aegis at the last second. It bit down, hard, and shook him about like a rag doll.
A horrible churning noise filled the air. Buzzing specks swarmed from the impossible darkness. Bugs. Hundreds of thousands of bugs. They attacked Clockblocker, and a group of them turned to me and Vista.
I blocked Vista with my body, turning my subsonic repellant to max blast. Insects droned as they moved through the air like birds in formation. They stopped a few feet away from us, flying in lazy circles.
In a heartbeat, they started moving again. Why aren't they stopping?
Insects washed over me, forcing their way into my eyes and mouth, crawling beneath my layers of armour to bite my skin.
Trapped. The world closed in on me as the insects did. There were too many. Too many horrible creatures biting and crawling, nipping and biting. He was here, somewhere, controlling them. It had to be Him.
Blind and dazed, I activated Aiai. She should be in 'pinch' mode. Aiming blind was difficult, but not impossible. I swept my hand from the ground beneath me to somewhere hopefully down the street.
A sound like wind rushing through my ears and then I was somewhere else. As I warped there were sickening pops, like little popcorn kernels. Bugs stopped biting and began to flee from me. Others deeper inside my armour kept chewing. Another warp. The sounds of the fight were no longer audible. I scurried into an alleyway, ripping away my armour to shake the bugs free.
Each breath was sticky in my throat. A crawling feeling remained, even when I was sure each bug was gone. Bile from my stomach forced its way out of me. More joined it soon after.
Insects. So many insects. How did he find me? My dad was in prison, rotting. He shouldn't be here. When did He get a power?
I warped home, away from it all. They could dock my pay, yell at me. I didn't care.
My skin crawled with phantom sensations, and I scrubbed it away. Deep cleansing scrubs with a kitchen sponge, the scratchy kind. Bits of bugs fell into the water. Something had crushed them against me, leaving me covered with bug guts.
The crawling sensation remained even with the guts gone.
No matter how much I scrubbed–even when it began to bleed–it wasn't enough.
Blood blended with the water, staining it red.
Heather burst into the bathroom. I kept scrubbing.
"Meadow! They said… you… oh, Meadow." She walked over to me, kneeling down beside the bath. She took the sponge from my shaking hands, running a hand through my hair. "Sweetheart. It's okay." She made gentle shushing noises, grasping me tight in her arms.
I cried. Each tear carrying some of the crawling feelings away, each squeeze from Heather helping to lessen the stings.
After Heather calmed me down, I returned to the Wards base to see how the team did.
Each Ward sported bee stings, bruises, and in Browbeat and Aegis' case, teeth marks. They didn't manage to capture a single one, and hadn't even given that many injuries in return. Everyone's mood was low from the one-sided failure.
A girl, apparently, controlled the swarm of insects. The boys named her Skitter.
Relief washed over me when I realised it couldn't possibly be my dad. Then I realised that the bug controlling woman still existed, and would be an enemy from now on. Thankfully, the Undersiders were small time players who avoided confrontation. Running into her again seemed unlikely.
I still planned to make counter measures. Just in case.
Piggot had berated them all for different reasons. Returning late didn't free me from her wrath.
It was because I ran. Vista maintained her position for a while before having to flee to avoid the sentient swarm of insects. Abandoning Vista led to the whole team falling apart without her consistent aid. It was my fault the Undersiders got away.
Miss Piggot didn't seem to care that bugs were horrible little things, and giving them a sentient brain made them a million times worse. She placed me on console duty for a week as punishment. Console duty didn't seem like much of a punishment.
From the looks of things, Vista and I weren't going to the arcade anymore. Missy said it was fine, she understood, but there was a sour tone to it all. There had to be some way to make it up to her.
Gifts, according to the internet, were the best way to show an apology. Apologising alongside giving someone a personalised gift often showed you cared.
The necklace I made before didn't seem like a big enough apology. I needed an addition, something extra.
What did Missy like? I had no idea. We hadn't spoken much outside of patrols and short conversations when I had console duty. Her costume is green, maybe something green?
In less than an hour of scouring the streets, I found the perfect thing: a small bird. It wasn't green, but I could make it green.
Freshly cut grass lay heaped into piles in a local park. Plenty for me to work with, and a little extra for my hoard.
Working with flesh took a bit of trial and error. Leaving the inner workings messy didn't matter, Missy wouldn't see inside. Experience gained from working on my self-defence finger helped ease the process.
Once it was done, I returned to the Ward's base, the gift safely secured in my pocket.
Missy was at the console, her feet resting at a weird angle on a nearby chair. She flicked through pages of a magazine, skimming without really seeming to read. A light on the console blipped for a short moment before Missy answered the call and directed someone to a road I didn't know.
"Hey, Missy," I said from a healthy distance to not startle her. She spun around in the chair, sitting up properly.
"Hey, Meadow." Her voice sounded sad. Good thing I had a gift to cheer her up!
"I wanted to apologise for earlier, at the bank. Bugs freak me out, and I didn't know they had a bug controller."
"It's fine, Meadow. Just tinker something to get rid of bugs so you don't run away next time." She smiled at me before returning her attention to the console.
Skitter's bug control overpowered the bug's natural instinct to avoid the sound. I needed something deadlier, but not so deadly it hurt other animals or people.
"That's a good idea. I'll do that. Um, I have a gift for you. Two gifts, actually." Better I start with the bigger gift.
Missy turned, her brows raised slightly in surprise. "A gift? You don't need to."
"I want to." I smiled at her and fished the bird out of my pocket. I placed it on the back of my hand to let it perch. Formerly brown feathers were now a mossy green, and capable of photosynthesis.
There were even little bird movements programmed in to make it more lifelike. It tilted its head to the side in a little jitter before setting it back straight.
Missy stared at it, her mouth agape. I knew she'd like it.
"This little fellow can generate energy from the sun. So you don't even need to feed it, just water. There's also enough processing power in there to listen to commands, plus you can teach it some more. Right now it knows 'perch', 'sing', and 'listen'."
I tapped the bird on the head to get its attention and then pointed to the console. "Perch."
The bird flew from the back of my hand to the console, landing just by Vista. She startled a little at the movement, moving her chair back to avoid it. I wasn't sure why. She wasn't even close to being in its flight path.
I made a couple of clicking noises with my tongue to get the bird's attention before commanding it to sing. An improvised songbird melody filled the room. I smiled brighter.
Making it have the processing power to improvise notes in a pleasing way took some doing. Fortunately, an electrical synthesiser from my hoard did most of the heavy lifting.
A pre-programmed aspect of the synthesiser lets it play several pre-programmed songs. I wired it up to the bird's brain to teach it how music was formed. Now, it could produce unique music each time it sang.
Its little brain could do so much.
"And 'listen' will let you show it a simple task for it to do, nothing too complicated. You show it how it's done, and then finish it by saying the command. It'll probably take a few attempts to get it to work, but it can do it."
I turned to Missy, who had frozen like a statue. Clockblocker wasn't around, so I scratched that possibility. "What do you think?" I asked to try to break her out of whatever this was.
"Um," she started, before stopping. Missy stood up from her chair before taking a hesitant step towards me. "Meadow. I don't have–I can't keep a bird. I don't own a cage, and… was this thing alive before you did this?"
"What? No. I found it dead."
"You revived it?" Her voice hit an even higher pitch than usual.
"Not really. It isn't alive. Just a robot." I picked up the bird and popped its head off with my other hand. Missy squeaked so quietly I almost missed it. This is the best day ever. I got to hear Vista squeak!
I angled the body towards her so she could see it. Inside there were mechanical parts, alongside the muscle structure and some bones in decent condition.
"I had to replace most of the brain–too much eaten by pesky bugs. I had a spare rat brain so I just used that, so it wasn't any trouble to get it if you're worried about that. But mostly it's mechanical pieces I already had. Except for the eyes, those I had to replace entirely with custom sensors. They weren't hard to design, I just based it on Elel."
With each word, Missy stepped further and further away from me. My best guess was that she didn't like fleshy stuff. I popped the head back on, making sure the spine locked back into place.
"I." Missy looked weird. Her face reminded me of the 'scared' face on my emotion chart. That didn't make sense, though. Why would she be scared? She shook her head, and her expression changed back to neutral.
"I'm sorry, Meadow. Look, I appreciate the intention of the gift, but I can't accept it. Logically, I couldn't take care of this bird. Maybe give it to-" Her eyes scanned the ceiling. "I don't know who." She finally said, looking back at me. An awkward looking smile was added as an afterthought.
"Anyway, I need to." She pointed to the console with her thumbs. "You know?"
"Console duty, right? I'll let you–I'll leave you alone." I shoved the bird back into my pocket, and placed the necklace on the console. I left before she could protest.
How could I be so stupid? Of course Missy didn't like birds. They stopped her power.
The bird hopped from one side of the pencil to the other. It chirped and tweeted with each hop. Teaching it a new command didn't get rid of the hurt. Missy didn't answer any of my texts throughout the evening. By the end of my patrol, she had gone home, leaving me no way to apologise for such a stupid gift.
A knock at my door shook me out of my sad thoughts.
"Meadow," Heather said, opening the door, "I wanted to talk about the–" She stopped talking as the door swung open. Heather's eyes scanned over my room, locking with mine at the end of her scan. "You were doing so well." Pity stared at me.
"It was just a bad gift. I'll think of a better one. You don't need to act like I've ruined my friendship over it." I shrugged, returning my attention to the bird.
"What're you–" She stared at the bird. "You made a bird?"
"Just a robot, not a real bird. No self-replication." I prodded it hard in the side, causing it to fall over. It rolled slightly before righting itself back to its feet.
My hoard shuffled as Heather trudged her way over to me. "Okay. That's not the issue right now. We can deal with the bird later." She squatted down to be at eye level. I kept my focus on the bird. "You started hoarding again?"
"Huh?" Her eyes still held too much pity to look at for long. "We had an argument, I redecorated. I even left a gap at the door so you could get in."
Rulers taped to sticks kept the hoard from spilling out into the door's path. I wasn't sure why she was bringing this up.
"Remember what you spoke about, with Dr. Kim?"
"We spoke about a lot of stuff."
"I mean with the hoarding. This isn't healthy, Meadow. You're allowed to have things, you're allowed to redecorate, but this isn't that. You're safe here. Food, shelter, security. There isn't a need to hoard all of this. Your lab has all of your usable things, and you won't go hungry here." Heather stroked a hand through my hair.
"I'm sorry that we argued, and I know I'm not your mom, but I'm here to take care of you. This?" She gestured to all of my friends in the room. "It isn't healthy. I don't want to be the bad guy here, but you need to clear this out."
"No. I can't, I need this." I dared to look at her pitying face. Her frown deepened.
"Dr. Kim told me to not check your room, to let you have it as a safe place even from me, but that clearly isn't working. We're clearing this out tomorrow. For tonight, you can sleep in my room. I'll get you scheduled in when she's next free."
My mind struggled to keep up. "Wait, please. I can't. These are my friends."
"Friends? Meadow, this is just stuff. You have friends, this isn't it."
"I don't have friends! Clock hates me, Vista hates me. Kid Win only wants to talk about tinker stuff and I don't know anything else about him. Mouse Protector promised we'd patrol again, but I haven't seen her in almost two weeks! There isn't–" A sob forcing its way out interrupted me.
Heather hugged me tight. "It's okay. We'll get you help. You'll be better. It just takes time."
Better? She made it sound like I was ill.
Heather guided me out of the room after I finished crying. She laid me down in her bed with the addition of my weighted blanket. "We'll sort this all out in the morning. Sleep well."
I pretended to fall asleep. Over the course of an hour, I heard her talking on the phone, and she did something to my door at one point. A jingling, metal against metal, and a light shake of the door in its frame.
There wasn't any way I could let her take my hoard away from me.
Protesting wouldn't have achieved anything except for another argument. She couldn't understand what my friends meant to me. No matter how much I tried to explain, she wouldn't understand. Just how none of the PRT understood. Even the heroes didn't understand.
I tried to explain it to my caseworker as I joined the Wards. How they were important to me and that I needed someone to get them back from my hideout. She agreed to get it under the condition it be stored away in those dumb plastic boxes that contained their greatness.
Once Heather went to bed, I snuck out of her bedroom window, and made my way through the backyard to my own bedroom window. As part of my escape route planning, I had its lock replaced with a Tinkertech one that looked almost identical. My fingerprint acted as an alternate unlock method. Keys could be cumbersome, especially when trying to get away fast.
A touch of my finger later and I was in.
Scooping up all of my hoard without making noise would have been impossible if not for the sound, absorbing foam on my walls. Leaving them behind felt sad.
Brave soldiers, hold the line, protect our retreat.
Bags after bags full of my friends left my window. By the end, I had fifteen bags full of stuff. I hadn't thought of how to move them away from the house. Heather's car made the most sense. She kept her keys in her purse, which she left inside her room–the very room I was pretending to sleep in.
Closing the car door would generate a noise no matter how carefully I shut it. I made sure to shovel every bag inside and start the engine before closing it.
Now to figure out how to drive. Cars are machines. I understand machines.
Heather said her car was 'automatic' before, whatever that meant. It didn't do anything automatically when I turned the engine on. I stared at the controls all over the car. All of it was nonsense. I took a deep breath.
Okay, power. Let's work together. This situation is broken, we need to fix it. We can fix it by driving this car and taking my friends somewhere new. You're my friend too, power. Let's get out of this together.
Sparks popped at the back of my mind. A feeling burned, but my connection to it remained in the shade. I concentrated, trying to pull the feeling forward.
Understanding. That was the feeling. It wasn't an understanding of how to drive, but I knew exactly what each button, lever, and dial did.
Driving without knowing how wasn't as hard as I imagined. The engine and I understood each other. Each tiny piece served a purpose, and I knew all of them. Controlling the car felt like controlling a limb.
My old hideout was too obvious a spot–they'd find me there straight away. But finding a new place would take time–time I didn't have.
I skidded the car to a halt outside the first abandoned building I saw. A fast-food restaurant. The style wasn't familiar and the signs had been stolen for their metal.
Stepping inside, I realised that this wasn't a safe house. Wind whistled through the glassless windows. Entire walls had been smashed away, leaving large open gaps, making me visible from too many angles. Safety included being obscured, hidden.
Car lights lit up the entire building. Two people exited the newly arrived interloper, their footsteps crunching the gravel.
"Meadow!" Heather yelled. "Are you still here?"
I ducked down, hugging close to the remnants of the kitchen appliances. How did she find me so easily?
There wasn't any way to get to my hoard and get free. Either I run, abandoning all that makes me whole, or I surrender and abandon all that makes me whole. She wouldn't listen, wouldn't let me keep them.
Muffled voices uttered a conversation I couldn't hear. Two women. Heather and someone else? Two car doors slammed shut, and one car roared to life before leaving. Footsteps entered the building. One of them hadn't left.
I swapped Elel to night vision and dared to take a peek. A green blur that sort of looked like Heather walked through the building, looking behind anything big enough to hide a person. At this rate, she'd find me in less than a minute.
Not enough time to think things through. I bolted, leaping out one of the back windows before sprinting my way towards the car. I tried the handle. Locked.
All of my things stared at me through the tinted windows.
"Meadow," Heather said, standing in the doorway to the restaurant. "Please come back. Talk to me."
I gripped the handle tighter, my knuckles turning white. "You want to take them away from me."
"You need help, Meadow. This isn't normal. I know that's hard to see for you, but I want to help you. We can make things better."
"Better?" Tears streamed down my face. "There is no better. No one likes me. I fuck everything up. Everything I do is wrong. But these are my friends. They're here for me. Each one loves me, understands me. More than the Wards, more than Mouse Protector, more than you."
"I'm sorry I haven't been taking care of you. You're supposed to be able to turn to me. I just don't know what I'm doing. It's hard, Meadow, especially when you don't tell me things. I didn't even know you had a fight with the Wards. We can work through this. Get you help, get you on the right track."
I shook my head, a little at first but more over time. "No."
"No?"
"No, I can't be better."
"Meadow, don't–"
"It's true! I'm… broken. Broken in a way that can't be fixed."
"You're not broken."
"I am! People don't make sense to me. Everyone keeps acting like I'm stupid, but I don't even know why! Just pitying looks. All the. Damn. Time." I rested my face against the cold metal of the car. My tears splashed against it, making little noises like raindrops. "My brain is wrong."
"Being different doesn't mean you're broken. This world can be hard, it can be cruel, but you can't get through it alone," Heather said, her footsteps inching closer to me. "People don't always know the best way to approach things and don't understand what's going on in your head. They probably don't hate you. Misunderstandings aren't the end of a friendship."
Heather placed a hand on my back. "Your brain isn't wrong, just different."
"But it needs to change, or you'll kick me out."
"I wouldn't kick you out."
"You would."
"No, Meadow, I wouldn't. I'm here to take care of you. It might not be forever, but for now, that's my job."
I looked up at her. Her face was shaded in the dim light, but I saw her eyes were a puffy red.
"Certain things you do aren't healthy. Hoarding is one of them. We can work together to iron out the unhealthy parts and get you to a better place mentally. But most of the parts you think are broken aren't." She wiped the tears from my cheek with her finger. Heather smiled at me. A sad smile.
"I've been doing some research. Non-PRT research. They were telling me a bunch of stuff that I just took at face value. Before you ran off I was reading about how to help you, with your–with all of it. I want to be more present in your life, to explain things better." She paused for a moment, her fingers rubbing idly against my back.
"I'm not a parent. I never even wanted kids. But Meadow, I want to be there for you, to get through this together. Will you come back, please?"
"Are you going to throw away my friends?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, Meadow. Hoarding is one of the unhealthy parts we need to work through."
"Then–" I didn't know what to do. Heather wanted to help, but I couldn't just abandon my friends. "Can we–Can we move them? Not throw them away, just move them to my lab. And I need something to replace them. My room is so empty without them. I can't stand the space."
"Okay. We can start with that. First, we need to go home and sleep. It's three AM."
I hugged Heather. She seemed surprised by the sudden contact. "You've never hugged me before," she whispered in my ear.
"We've hugged before."
"I've hugged you before. You've never hugged me. It's nice. Thank you, Meadow. Now, let's go home."
We drove back to the house. Street lights washed through the car in temporary orange spotlights. I rested my head against the window, feeling the vibrations through my body. Brockton Bay twinkled like starlight.
Each star, like the ones in the sky, had its own world attached. People lived near each light, awake at three AM for reasons I'd never know. Maybe they had an argument with their parents, too.
***
"Thanks again, Dominique. I owe you my life," I said. She had driven around the corner to let me confront Meadow alone, since I was scared Meadow would run if a stranger was with me.
"It's okay, Heather. Is she gonna be okay?" She gestured to Meadow in the car.
"Maybe. I don't know. None of this is easy."
Dominique hugged me. "Call me, if you ever need anything. I can babysit if you need a day off."
"Thank you." She was a lifesaver. Not everyone had friends they could call at three AM.
We parted ways, Meadow looked at me with sleepy eyes as I got in the car. We didn't talk on the ride home. I didn't know what to say.
Meadow's eyes were closed as I pulled up to my house. She snored, almost imperceptibly quiet.
For a while I sat there, just staring at her. Brown hair cascaded down her back, tousled by the wind as it usually was. No matter how much we brushed it, one minute outside turned it back into a wild mess.
She looked so small squished up against the side of the car.
The first few nights had been hard for her. I often found her sleeping inside her closet, clothes piled up against her like a safety blanket. She complained about nightmares, ones where she lived alone in infinite empty space. They hadn't made sense until now. Meadow needed clutter. We could do that. Healthy clutter.
It wasn't until Christy told me about weighted blankets that I got her to sleep in her own bed all night. It brought her comfort the room didn't offer. That weighted blanket was the best purchase I've ever made.
I roused her awake. She grumbled small protests but got up. We walked to her room, her head resting against my arm the entire way. Once she was in her pyjamas, I tucked her into bed, remembering to grab the weighted blanket from my room.
"Good night, Meadow," I said, turning the lights off.
"Good night, Mom," Meadow mumbled.
I held back the small noise that tried to escape from me. Once I reached my own room, a mix of exhaustion, sadness, and pure joy made its way out of my eyes again in heavy, sobbing tears.
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2.8
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2.8
Arcadia High was closed due to the bombs currently ripping the city apart. What should have been my first day at school became instead my first real crisis situation.
Us Wards weren't allowed to go to locations where bombs were spotted, instead focusing our efforts on rescuing people from the aftermath. We were required to take frequent breaks between attempting to rescue people from bombs that turned them to glass.
All that idle time added to my nerves.
Everyone, including the Protectorate heroes, had been armed with my patented marshmallow healing paste. My own supply was running dry only an hour in. It didn't help against people who had been stretched out like taffy, but I could at least stop severed limbs from bleeding.
Unlike the rest of the Wards, Clockblocker, and Vista's powers were deemed important enough in defusing the bombs that they were given permission to respond directly to reported devices. I can't say I envied them. Responding to the aftermath alone made me want to never be near one of these things again.
Currently, I was on search and rescue with Triumph and Shadow Stalker. We responded to bombs going off, rescuing people and then immediately having to move on to the next bomb threat before we even had a chance to breathe.
We had been given some specialised equipment, like a filter I had installed into my helmet, and a pouch of radiation pills.
Triumph didn't have many movement options. We'd started the night riding around in a PRT van, but our escorts had been required for another job which left me space warping us around the city. Stalker didn't complain as much as I thought she would at not being able to leap roof to roof.
"Fire reported on Harrison Street, no anomalous properties, and no bombs reported. Team C, can you respond? Over." A male voice came over our comms. PRT officers were handling the console since too many of us were needed out here.
"Team C responding to the fire. Over," Triumph said. "Got us a direction, Knight?"
Elel displayed a line on the map she was currently showing as the address came in. "Got it." We used Aiai to warp there in less than twenty seconds.
Before we even reached the building, we could see smoke filling the air, billowing out of the building in large plumes.
Fire danced out of the windows, greedily drinking up the oxygen and causing the air itself to feel suffocating. People stood around, staring at the building. Some were covered in ash and burns, clearly having escaped from the fire.
Triumph looked at all the people around us. "We're going to need reinforcements. Shadow Stalker, call for medical and fire services, I'll call for PRT backup."
She nodded, and walked slightly away to call the non-PRT authorities.
"This is Triumph, requesting PRT agents on my position to assist with escort. Fire may spread to other buildings. Over."
All emergency services were clogged up from the many bombs around the city, we didn't expect an immediate response.
"Knight, inside with me. Shadow Stalker, check the buildings next to it and get people out if they're still in," Triumph ordered us.
Shadow Stalker nodded before leaping into the next door building using her mist form. Intense heat created air currents that would throw her about while in shadow state. Fire wasn't dangerous to her, but being shoved around was.
Triumph and I approached the front door, we could see flames consuming the majority of the hallway beyond. Triumph yelled a superpowered shout, the air throughout the corridor rippled from the effort and the flames were pushed to the side. Most of them flickered away, but the ones that remained picked up the slack and began to seep back into the charred corridor.
He yelled again. This time they stayed out, leaving smoking remains but no fires. We entered deeper, taking care to not crash through the burnt floorboards.
"Don't make any holes unless instructed. We don't know how structurally sound this place is. At least it can stand up to my shouts, but we can't be too careful. See anyone?"
I shook my head. "Too much fire for heat vision, too much noise to hear anything." The radio on my back now acted more as a listening device, letting me hear everything around me clearly. It even let me listen to sounds beyond my range of hearing. All I could hear right now was crackling fires and creaking architecture.
"Okay. We'll check upstairs first, people are more likely to get trapped higher up."
He repeated his fire-quenching shouts as we progressed through the building.
"Anyone here?" Triumph yelled, using his power to carry it throughout the upper floor.
I turned my headphones higher, wincing at how loud everything became. A quiet voice called back, barely audible over it all.
"Someone's here, I think. Above us. In the attic?"
Triumph nodded, looking to the ceiling to find a way up. Everything around us was charred black with little to discern between what things were before. I flicked Dede over to her airblaster head and began to shoot at the ceiling. Each burst of air cleared away a small portion of the ash.
My fifth burst revealed a jutted out portion of wood. Squinting I could see it formed into a square. Some kind of trapdoor?
"There." I pointed it out to Triumph who had turned to clear away incoming fires.
"Good, okay." He reached up to grasp around but couldn't find the handle. More fires spread out of the rooms. "Shit. Open a hole, I'll deal with these."
He tossed a grenade from his bandolier into a nearby room. After a moment it exploded, instantly quenching all the flames inside. He moved to throw another into the next room.
I returned my attention to the task at hand. "Stand back!" I yelled before aiming my right arm at the attic hatch. The hole forced its way into existence, shoving the wood to the side and leaving a perfectly circular hole that hurt to look at. A ladder fell down, almost hitting me in the head.
Holding the hole like this drained Aiai's battery fast, I needed to be quick.
There weren't any flames in the attic. Inside I found a young girl, maybe only seven-years-old, huddled behind cardboard boxes.
I pulled the ladder up before shutting the spatial hole behind me. Opening it from this side proved a lot easier. Triumph looked up the ladder to me.
"There's a girl up here, young," I told him. Triumph attempted to climb up the ladder but found his armour too bulky to fit.
"Damnit. Take care of her, can you get her down?" I nodded. He hesitated before leaving to fight the last of the fires.
The girl stood up. She was covered in ash and soot, making it hard to distinguish anything about her. Each breath sounded like it hurt.
I unhooked an oxygen mask from my side. We all had canisters of oxygen which were Tinkertech of Armsmaster's design. Even if they wanted to, extreme heat wouldn't make them explode.
"Hey, there. My name's Raccoon Knight, I'm a hero. What's your name?"
She breathed in a painful sounding breath. "Wendy." Her voice was small, barely there.
"It's nice to meet you, Wendy. I need to get you out here, okay? And I need you to put this mask on, it'll help you breathe."
She looked scared, and didn't walk towards me. This wasn't a safe place to stay, we needed to get her to an ambulance. Something about the way she looked at me made me feel like it was my helmet that was scaring her.
I took it off. Without the filter the smokey air quickly choked my lungs. "See, just a normal person, like you. I'll take you outside, okay?"
I wanted to tell her we'd find her parents but PRT guidelines gave some good reasons why that wasn't a great idea. For one, she might not have them, and worse, they might be dead from this fire.
Wendy wobbled forward on shaky steps before taking my outstretched hand. I scooped her up into a side-carry. She wasn't heavy, but I wasn't strong. Definitely need to install my exo-skeleton.
"This'll help you breathe, okay?" I said, showing her the oxygen mask. She nodded, so I helped her put it on.
Aiai pinched the distance from the attic to the second floor, letting us cross it without climbing down the ladder.
My heat vision showed Triumph battling fires using his shouts downstairs. Everything had been charred black, with nothing to show what things once were. I used Aiai to avoid walking down the stairs.
"Triumph, I got her!" I yelled over to him. He turned, nodding once, and backed up away from the fires to join me in leaving.
I placed my helmet back on before heading outside. Flashing lights illuminated the smoke filled sky. Ambulances had arrived, already tending to the people who had escaped prior to us arriving.
We handed Wendy over to a young looking paramedic at an ambulance that had just arrived. He sat her down on the back-edge and checked her over with a listening device.
"How long was she in there?" He asked us.
"About ten minutes by my estimation, possibly less," Triumph said.
"Okay, thank you." He nodded to Triumph.
"I'm better suited for dealing with the fire, and I need to check on Shadow Stalker. Did you spot anyone else inside?" Triumph asked me. I shook my head. "Okay. Stay here, help with the burns if you can." He ran off, back into the smouldering building.
As I turned to find others who might need my help, Wendy made a small noise that sounded kind of like "Wait."
There was fear in her eyes. "Don't go," she said.
I stayed by her side, holding her hand to keep her company as the paramedic checked her over. He gave her another oxygen mask to breathe through.
"I'll need to take her to the hospital. Do you know where her parents are?"
I shook my head. We both looked at Wendy. After a nervous pause she just pointed at the building, tears welling back up in her eyes and running down her face, partially washing away the ash that covered her cheeks. I patted her hand, and told her I'd be back.
Ignoring her protests hurt my heart.
I approached anyone who looked like they had been in the fire. Talking to them let me piece together what happened.
They had been partying, about fifteen of them total, and then some guy walked in they didn't know. Before they could tell him to leave, he erupted into flames from the inside out and started the fire. No one was hurt, but they were all too drunk to be organised.
Wendy's parents were already taken to the hospital. Both had tried to find their daughter and the smoke got the best of them.
At least they were still alive.
"Hey, Wendy. Your parents are already at the hospital. You'll be able to see them soon, okay?"
She gave me a sad look. "Are they okay?"
"They breathed in some smoke trying to find you, but they're alive. I need to go help more people. Will you be okay going with this nice man?" I gestured to the paramedic.
She looked at him, then back to me before giving a hesitant nod. "I'll be okay."
I fished out a reel of stickers from my utility pouch. She received one fresh raccoon sticker with the words 'super brave!' in bubble font. "You're so brave, you deserve this."
She looked from the sticker to my logo before smiling. Wendy requested the sticker be placed between her collar bones, like my logo was.
One sticker of bravery later and she was off to be healed.
Shadow Stalker appeared by my side. "I'm never good at dealing with the brats. Come on, Triumph is waiting for us." She turned, leaving me no time to respond.
Her words hurt my heart even more. Wendy wasn't a 'brat'. Plus, most children Stalker interacted with were probably traumatised from what they just went through. How could she call them brats when they were the exact type of people who needed our help?
Shadow Stalker could sniff out crime and deal with it faster than most of the Wards put together, but that wasn't all there was to being a hero.
Browbeat told me that doctors called it 'bedside manner', a term for building a relationship of sorts with your patients. Heroes did something similar, it was important for people to be able to come to you with their issues.
Being a mysterious, badass cape made criminals fear you, but it also made the public fear you. It was important to build up both sides. Criminals should be stopped by your presence, but civilians still need to be able to approach you.
Triumph directed us to another call. Then another, and another. Even with the breaks, my body and mind were beyond exhausted at the end of my shift.
The hum of adrenaline didn't fade as I lay on the couch watching movies with Heather.
It didn't fade by the time I went to bed.
Laying there, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, I kept thinking about how scary it all was. Despite my brave face to the people we helped, I was terrified that we were seconds away from being frozen in time forever, or being turned into a glass sculpture, or just losing all of our limbs.
We didn't know why Bakuda had started her bombing spree. There were scarce reports of some kind of fight at the storage lockers, but little information outside of it. Even now I could occasionally hear distant explosions. A constant ringing remained in my ears from being close to a few of the mundane bombs.
Every explosion felt designed for maximum impact at the most random of places. Blowing up the train tracks and bridge made sense. They were tactical locations that limited movement in and out of the city. Even hitting the power grid made sense, blacking out entire districts made it easier to plant bombs. I wasn't sure why she wanted that, but it made sense.
Blowing up a school, residential areas, and shops didn't make sense. The only reason to do that was fear. Fear that had become widespread overnight. Tomorrow, there'd be no one who didn't want the bombing to stop, pressure would be on for the heroes to get rid of the mad bomber and fast. Why would she want that?
Each bomb just added to the force of the response she was likely to receive. Did she have some kind of plan to stop us? Or was it all just because Lung had been captured?
Bakuda was part of the ABB, it made sense she'd want her leader back, but he wasn't even the strongest cape they had, she was. Lung was a B-list villain who mostly did nothing but defend the territory he already held.
With tactical strikes, Bakuda could take out pretty much every rival gang and the heroes before anyone knew she was in town. Instead she decided to make a big splash for seemingly no reason other than revenge that her boss got caught.
Figuring out how people worked remained an unsolvable riddle to me.
What would I do with her power?
From what I'd seen, she could make bombs that would take out endbringers. Thinking about them made me sick. Thinking about the fact such a strong power went to someone who refused to use it for good made me sicker.
She could probably make explosions that were non-lethal. Improving on the containment foam grenades the heroes carried made the most obvious sense, but she could probably come up with a hundred different devices.
Temporary paralysis, like a gorgon, came to mind.
Unlike a gorgon, it wouldn't turn them to stone, and wouldn't be permanent, and would be in an area not based on sight. Not really like a gorgon at all now that I think about it.
There was a lot she could be doing instead of killing people for seemingly no reason.
The paralysis idea made me think of a muscle-freezing liquid. Something like Shadow Stalker's darts made the most sense as a delivery system. Unlike a tranquiliser, it would work fine on a person of any size with no changes needed–the only difference would be how long it lasts.
Fufu could shoot them if made from the alloy my armour was made from.
I marked down the idea.
Sleep still failed to come to me. Heather's snores carried through the house, showing I was the only one struggling.
A glass of warm milk, and an extra hour of drifting thoughts about Bakuda later, I finally managed to fall asleep.
Nightmares interrupted me several times throughout the early morning. By the time I decided enough was enough, it was nearly noon. I wasn't sure how much time I'd managed to actually sleep, but it wasn't a lot.
A similar day spent dealing with the aftermath of bombs left me equally as exhausted. Another after that didn't help. Neither did the next.
Bakuda's bombing run didn't end despite reports of Lung escaping the PHQ custody with the help of Oni Lee. Armsmaster worked overtime on little sleep, vowing to bring Lung back into custody if it's the last thing he did. Which it might be with the way he was going.
Armsmaster brushed off any attempts I made to talk to him, which weren't that many in the first place. He was rarely at the PRT building, preferring to return to the PHQ than back here.
Browbeat ended up speaking to me a lot. No one else was willing to give me the time for my questions. Vista might have if she weren't in battle focus mode twenty-four-seven.
Browbeat didn't have any more answers than I did. He had more knowledge to fill in some of the blanks, though.
Talking with him didn't feel like a back-and-forth conversation, it felt like it was a game to him and he was trying to beat me at it. At the same time, he also didn't seem to care what answers I came up with, he mostly just liked asking hard to answer questions.
Figuring out Bakuda's motivations became fifty other questions.
Questions about the Slaughterhouse Nine came up. A band of serial killers who roamed the United States looking to spread chaos and destruction for no reason other than chaos and destruction.
Dillan bought them up because one of their members was the reason my name wasn't on the healing paste starter patent. Mannequin.
He was a Tinker who turned himself into a living mannequin, and made it his quest to kill anyone trying to use their powers to improve things.
It felt petty to be annoyed at it, especially at a time like this, but I was annoyed that they kept my name hidden as its creator.
Hiding from him made me feel weak. Logically, I knew it made sense to hide. Emotionally, I wanted people to know it was me who made the paste. Dillan had called it my 'ego' getting in the way of logic, a concept of self-importance that he looked down on.
Every conversation with Browbeat left me dizzy and regretful for talking to him at all.
Mouse Protector joined me on a search and rescue a few days in. It was nice seeing her again.
Aiai helped me keep pace with her. Mouse Protector used a disc launcher attached to her hand to fire a tagged disc, then she'd grab it, load it back up, and fire again. I could see how to improve its firing mechanism just from watching it be used.
We had stopped on the top of a squat skyscraper's roof, waiting around for the next crisis. She offered me a mango-flavoured juice box.
"Thanks." I took it. It was warm. I should install a liquid storage system that's self-cooling somewhere.
"Where have you been, anyway?" I ventured to ask a little into our break.
"Ah, sorry, kid. An old friend showed up, and I got busy keeping her busy. Before I knew it the week had gone by and I hadn't even patrolled with you." She hopped up onto the raised edge of the building. Mouse Protector's powers gave her better balance, so I wasn't scared she'd fall.
"I thought we were gonna patrol together after I made Aiai."
"Aiai?"
I patted the device on my arm. "Spatial warping thingy. Her name is Aiai."
Mouse Protector tilted her head to one side. "Alright. Well, I'm sorry. I really did want to patrol with you again. But this woman–her name's Ravager, and she hates my guts–wouldn't leave me alone. She followed me all the way here, can you believe it?"
"She followed you? Why?"
"Since I've humiliated her so much, she considers me her arch-nemesis or something. Truthfully I've never bothered to listen to her yelling. You just tune it out after a while."
"Why isn't she in jail, if you've fought her that much?"
"Good question, kid. Very poignant." I'd look that word up later. "She's a slippery one, and fighting her isn't easy, she's an excellent fighter. Tagging her in the first place takes a lot of effort. Then her power stops me just constantly teleporting to her." Mouse Protector slashed at the air with her sword.
"Wounds she inflicts stick around for a long time. Even a little scratch from her nails can become lethal. My teleport puts me close, and she's great at hitting between my armour. You can see the issue."
Mouse Protector sat down on the raised roof edge with her legs dangling towards the street. I walked closer, sitting down on the gravel instead of the raised edge.
"You could probably use this against her," I handed her my frisbola, "your aim is better than mine anyway."
"What is it?" She lifted it up to inspect the bottom.
"A bola. You throw it and it splits into three, then it'll wrap around anything it hits."
"Woah, kid, that's wicked. I'll need to follow through, but this should work nicely."
Mouse Protector patted the top of my helmet. "Got anything to put her down after she's wrapped up?"
"I had an idea for an electric-shock knuckle duster."
"Seven hundred."
"Huh?"
"I'll pay you seven hundred to make that for me, plus an extra two hundred whenever I need repairs."
"That's nice of you, but I've never really repaired my own stuff before. Once one of them is gone, they're gone forever. My power doesn't like remaking things. I tried to make Coco again but it wouldn't let me."
Weirdly, despite Cici breaking apart after I used her against Hookwolf, I had ideas to make something new out of her parts, but no ideas for remaking Coco. The new Cici would have functioned slightly differently, rather than as a delivery system, I thought about making her into a breaching device that stuck to whatever she hit first.
"Alright. Five grand if you put in a Tinkertech battery. I know that you can't make that stuff on your own and gotta use other people's stuff, so I'm willing to pay more if you think it's fair. And since it's one time only, I'll give you back the pieces after. Then, I pay another five grand for you to make it into something else."
"Mouse, that's a lot of money." At least it seemed like it–I wasn't sure what a 'grand' was.
Based on what she was saying, it was definitely more than seven hundred. Imagining seven hundred dollars in the first place seemed impossible. I hadn't bothered to look at my bank account, yet, but I knew there was money in there. No one had bothered to teach me how money works, either.
"Don't worry, I got the cheddar to spare. I'll even go through official channels to make it easier for you."
"I don't–okay. I'll make it for you." She'd use it to fight crime, which would help people. It was hard to say no to someone just wanting to help others, even if I had no idea if that pay was fair.
She gave me a thumbs up before vanishing from her sitting position. "Great! Now let's go find some more people to save," she said from behind me.
We resumed our patrol. Calls of fighting or explosions came in several times an hour. Even with our extended travel options we struggled to keep up.
A gun fight between two groups made the street we were overlooking look like a war zone.
Based on their attire, and skin colours, one side was the Azn Bad Boys, and the other were the Empire Eighty-Eight. Just normal people, no parahumans in sight. Bullets flew by from both sides. Cars received most of the impacts, but a couple hit buildings. People were likely to get hurt–if they hadn't already–if this kept going.
We needed to take out the ABB first. The bombs most likely implanted in them or their loved ones made them fight for survival, which made them wild and unpredictable. We could get the Empire Eighty-Eight members to hopefully stand down if we took the ABB down first.
Neither side would be leaving here out of handcuffs.
Mouse Protector hatched a plan with me. She disagreed about the Empire just surrendering, they wouldn't want to be arrested anymore than the asian gang members would want to be blown up. Instead, she'd focus on the ABB, and I'd go after the smaller group of Empire members.
I pinched her to a space closer to the ABB members. They were taking cover behind cars across the road. Mouse Protector stepped through, going from the rooftop we were on to the rooftop above them. Then I moved the pinched space to put me closer to the Empire members.
Guns were so loud up close. I was glad for my ears being protected by foam.
I could see Mouse Protector crouching at the edge of the roof from my position. The Empire seemed too distracted with their ongoing firefight to notice.
Mouse Protector counted off to three on her fingers.
We dived in, me swinging Dede in hammer form into Empire hands to disarm them of their guns, and Mouse Protector teleporting into the middle of the asian men with her shield raised. She tagged a gun, using it to teleport just to the side every time they fired.
The man I slammed Dede into cursed as the gun went flying out of his hand.
Before his friend could turn and shoot, I threw a marshmallow grenade towards him. As he swung around the marshmallow stuck to the mouth of his gun and swelled up enough to catch his hand in the sticky balloon. His attempts to free his hand just got his other hand caught in the mess as well.
The first man, Teardrop (named for the teardrop under his eye), swung a clunky punch towards me, my training made it easy to dodge.
I wagged a finger disapprovingly and tutted with each sway.
Dede clicked to the next head. I fired the punch of air right into his stomach as he attempted to rush me. He keeled over, grasping at his belly, and his momentum caused him to skid across the ground in an undignified heap.
I marshallowed his arm to the floor before moving on to the other members. Two were left, both of them taking pot shots towards Mouse Protector who was dancing around the ABB with ease. Technically the plan was for me to retreat after taking out two of them, but I needed to stop them shooting at her.
Marshmallow gun attempted to run, despite both of his hands being captured in the sticky gunk. A light shove sent him sailing into a nearby car, where the marshmallow kept him stuck down proper.
"Stay raccoon put, please." Still no good at puns.
He attempted to spit at me as I left to stop his trigger happy friends.
A quick airblast knocked one of the men into the other, causing them to both stumble to the ground. My final marshmallow grenade later and they were contained. Their hands had been tangled together as they fell, making the grenade stick their arms to the ground and cover their guns up.
"Looks like you're in a sticky situation," I said. Better.
"Fuck you, those chinks started it."
I ripped off a piece of duct tape and covered his mouth. "I'd wash your mouth with soap but I have morals, unlike you." I punctuated the 'you' with a light boop to his nose.
I turned to his friend, "How about you?"
He shook his head, staying silent. "Good. I'll be back, shortly. Stick around."
I warped to Mouse Protector, who was wrapping up her fight without me. All of the men were zip-tied, disarmed, and thrown against the wall.
One of the men had a gunshot wound in his leg. He looked old, way too old to be shooting a gun in a gang war.
"Do I have permission to heal you?" I knelt down in front of him.
"Ooh, so polite. Better leave them be, Knight, they'll remember us better with the wounds," Mouse Protector said while twirling her sword around.
"It'll make the paramedics job easier," I said. She shrugged before plucking out her phone to call the PRT.
The old man looked at me with fear in his eyes. It reminded me of Wendy. After a moment he nodded. His expression softened as the healing paste numbed the pain.
"Won't heal you completely, but should stop the hurt. It'll also speed up the recovery time a little."
We waited around for the PRT to arrive. Response times were slow with all that was going on right now, which gave us time to gather the Empire members together into an easy to arrest group. They protested a lot, the ABB on the other hand were completely quiet.
Once the PRT agents arrived we were free to move on to yet more danger.
There wasn't an end in sight for the mindless destruction. Bakuda just kept on going, even after getting her boss back.
I tried to think more about her goal. What was her endgame? Fear seemed the most obvious answer, but fear made people lash out. At some point she was bound to find herself at knife point while blissfully sleeping. She was putting bombs into her own people, making them fight for her, then blowing them up if they disobeyed. What did that accomplish?
For one, it probably made it impossible for them personally to kill her. She most likely had some mechanism in place to detonate their bombs if they tried to attack her. Anyone close to her would have a bomb installed to discourage betrayal. Even those loyal to her would get one. There was no way to ensure they remained loyal, especially with their true leader coming back.
Would she put one in Oni Lee as well? Would she put one in Lung?
Ruling through fear only works if you're untouchable. She most likely considered herself above everyone if she thought it could work.
"What do you think Bakuda's goal is?" I asked Mouse Protector on our next break. We'd stopped in a park to eat sandwiches. Mouse Protector lounged across a bench as I sat in the grass nearby.
"Other than to blow up half the city?"
"Other than that."
"Power is my guess. She's going on a murder spree to feel powerful, and she's definitely insane."
"If it's just power she wants, why not take out Lung and take over the gang?"
"I don't know, kid. Daddy issues?" Mouse Protector shrugged. "We'll probably never know. Why're you thinking about it?"
"I thought that if I understood her, I could understand how to stop her."
"Noble, and maybe in some other situation that could work. Not here, though. She's insane with a capital I and her logic isn't going to match your logic."
"Even if she is insane, it can help to know what she's thinking, right? That way we know where she'll hit next."
"Hmm. I'm not sure, but we can try it." Mouse Protector hunched her back and extended her hands out like claws. "Bleh! I'm Bakuda, and I love blowing up children. I'm going to blow up children next!"
"I don't think you should joke about blowing up children," I said. No one deserved to be blown up, but children were entirely innocent.
"Alright, alright. But seriously, all the places she's blown up, what do they have in common?"
"Nothing. She blew up a bridge, the trainyard, a bunch of shops, some pharmaceutical place, a couple of transformers, several roads, random houses, and a school that had no one inside." I counted them off on my fingers as I said them.
"Some important, some not," Mouse Protector concluded. "So, no rhyme or reason behind each bomb, just random places. I got… diddly squat. Absolutely no clue."
There had to be something. "Random places means… she… doesn't care? Yeah, she doesn't care about the places she hits. Which means that it doesn't matter to her what she's hitting, it's more for the effect of it?"
Mouse Protector stretched herself out across the bench fully. "Power, like I said before."
"Maybe a little, but it's the type of power that leaves you afraid of her. Eventually someone is gonna attempt to get rid of her, she's too explosive of a leader."
"Heh. Good one, kid. Might be daddy issues like I said. She wants to impress Lung with all of it?" She shrugged again before taking a loud sip of her juice box.
"Would Lung be impressed by this? He seemed happy to sit around doing nothing."
"You probably know better than I do, kid. This ain't my turf." She rolled off the bench to her feet. "Listen, it's a noble idea to try to understand them better so you can beat them better, but you'll leave yourself dizzy with all that running in circles."
Mouse Protector squatted down in front of me. "The best way to defeat any villain, is to annoy the crud out of them. Make it humiliating to lose to you. How do you think people feel when they get beat by little old me shouting mouse puns at them?"
"Like it's the best day of their lives?"
Mouse Protector snorted. "For you, maybe. For them, they take themselves seriously, they want others to take them seriously. So when they're beaten by what most people incorrectly assume is a 'joke' hero." She airquoted as she said 'joke'. "No one takes them seriously afterwards. Ravager chased me all the way down here just to get her revenge, she wouldn't do that if she didn't really, really hate me."
"But knowing how they work–how their brain functions, let's us know what they're going to do next, right?"
"Sure, maybe a little, but you gotta know when to stop. How long have you been trying to figure out Bakuda?"
"Since the bombing started."
"That's a whole four days of running around inside your head trying to figure out what she's all about. All of that mental power could have been better spent figuring out a plan to defeat her, don't you think?"
Knowing her motivations might have helped figure out where to take those plans, but I could have been planning despite it. "Yeah. I just thought it would help make those plans in the first place if I knew why."
"Did you read her case file?"
"Case file?"
"PRT makes one for every cape that shows up, hero or villain. Piggy should have given you the basics at least."
"She didn't."
Mouse Protector made a humourless 'ha' sound. "That's what you get with Piggy. Best ask the robot you call a leader instead."
"Armsmaster?"
"Yeah, beep boop man."
"Okay. Thanks for the advice."
"No problem, ready to go?" She held out a hand to help me up. I took it and we returned to our patrol.
Piggot most likely didn't hold the information back for no reason. Despite whatever Mouse Protector had against her–and despite Piggot's personality–she was a reasonable person.
She'd once said that information was the key to winning any battle. It was in passing, but she clearly thought information helped win fights. Holding that back from us Wards didn't make sense from what I knew of her.
Going to Armsmaster felt wrong, like I was sneaking around. Piggot would respect it more if I spoke to her directly and I could use all the respect from her I could get.
Maybe she'd even approve of a homegrown lab assistant?
A/N: Thanks to Cauldron discord for proofreading as usual.
Arcadia High was closed due to the bombs currently ripping the city apart. What should have been my first day at school became instead my first real crisis situation.
Us Wards weren't allowed to go to locations where bombs were spotted, instead focusing our efforts on rescuing people from the aftermath. We were required to take frequent breaks between attempting to rescue people from bombs that turned them to glass.
All that idle time added to my nerves.
Everyone, including the Protectorate heroes, had been armed with my patented marshmallow healing paste. My own supply was running dry only an hour in. It didn't help against people who had been stretched out like taffy, but I could at least stop severed limbs from bleeding.
Unlike the rest of the Wards, Clockblocker, and Vista's powers were deemed important enough in defusing the bombs that they were given permission to respond directly to reported devices. I can't say I envied them. Responding to the aftermath alone made me want to never be near one of these things again.
Currently, I was on search and rescue with Triumph and Shadow Stalker. We responded to bombs going off, rescuing people and then immediately having to move on to the next bomb threat before we even had a chance to breathe.
We had been given some specialised equipment, like a filter I had installed into my helmet, and a pouch of radiation pills.
Triumph didn't have many movement options. We'd started the night riding around in a PRT van, but our escorts had been required for another job which left me space warping us around the city. Stalker didn't complain as much as I thought she would at not being able to leap roof to roof.
"Fire reported on Harrison Street, no anomalous properties, and no bombs reported. Team C, can you respond? Over." A male voice came over our comms. PRT officers were handling the console since too many of us were needed out here.
"Team C responding to the fire. Over," Triumph said. "Got us a direction, Knight?"
Elel displayed a line on the map she was currently showing as the address came in. "Got it." We used Aiai to warp there in less than twenty seconds.
Before we even reached the building, we could see smoke filling the air, billowing out of the building in large plumes.
Fire danced out of the windows, greedily drinking up the oxygen and causing the air itself to feel suffocating. People stood around, staring at the building. Some were covered in ash and burns, clearly having escaped from the fire.
Triumph looked at all the people around us. "We're going to need reinforcements. Shadow Stalker, call for medical and fire services, I'll call for PRT backup."
She nodded, and walked slightly away to call the non-PRT authorities.
"This is Triumph, requesting PRT agents on my position to assist with escort. Fire may spread to other buildings. Over."
All emergency services were clogged up from the many bombs around the city, we didn't expect an immediate response.
"Knight, inside with me. Shadow Stalker, check the buildings next to it and get people out if they're still in," Triumph ordered us.
Shadow Stalker nodded before leaping into the next door building using her mist form. Intense heat created air currents that would throw her about while in shadow state. Fire wasn't dangerous to her, but being shoved around was.
Triumph and I approached the front door, we could see flames consuming the majority of the hallway beyond. Triumph yelled a superpowered shout, the air throughout the corridor rippled from the effort and the flames were pushed to the side. Most of them flickered away, but the ones that remained picked up the slack and began to seep back into the charred corridor.
He yelled again. This time they stayed out, leaving smoking remains but no fires. We entered deeper, taking care to not crash through the burnt floorboards.
"Don't make any holes unless instructed. We don't know how structurally sound this place is. At least it can stand up to my shouts, but we can't be too careful. See anyone?"
I shook my head. "Too much fire for heat vision, too much noise to hear anything." The radio on my back now acted more as a listening device, letting me hear everything around me clearly. It even let me listen to sounds beyond my range of hearing. All I could hear right now was crackling fires and creaking architecture.
"Okay. We'll check upstairs first, people are more likely to get trapped higher up."
He repeated his fire-quenching shouts as we progressed through the building.
"Anyone here?" Triumph yelled, using his power to carry it throughout the upper floor.
I turned my headphones higher, wincing at how loud everything became. A quiet voice called back, barely audible over it all.
"Someone's here, I think. Above us. In the attic?"
Triumph nodded, looking to the ceiling to find a way up. Everything around us was charred black with little to discern between what things were before. I flicked Dede over to her airblaster head and began to shoot at the ceiling. Each burst of air cleared away a small portion of the ash.
My fifth burst revealed a jutted out portion of wood. Squinting I could see it formed into a square. Some kind of trapdoor?
"There." I pointed it out to Triumph who had turned to clear away incoming fires.
"Good, okay." He reached up to grasp around but couldn't find the handle. More fires spread out of the rooms. "Shit. Open a hole, I'll deal with these."
He tossed a grenade from his bandolier into a nearby room. After a moment it exploded, instantly quenching all the flames inside. He moved to throw another into the next room.
I returned my attention to the task at hand. "Stand back!" I yelled before aiming my right arm at the attic hatch. The hole forced its way into existence, shoving the wood to the side and leaving a perfectly circular hole that hurt to look at. A ladder fell down, almost hitting me in the head.
Holding the hole like this drained Aiai's battery fast, I needed to be quick.
There weren't any flames in the attic. Inside I found a young girl, maybe only seven-years-old, huddled behind cardboard boxes.
I pulled the ladder up before shutting the spatial hole behind me. Opening it from this side proved a lot easier. Triumph looked up the ladder to me.
"There's a girl up here, young," I told him. Triumph attempted to climb up the ladder but found his armour too bulky to fit.
"Damnit. Take care of her, can you get her down?" I nodded. He hesitated before leaving to fight the last of the fires.
The girl stood up. She was covered in ash and soot, making it hard to distinguish anything about her. Each breath sounded like it hurt.
I unhooked an oxygen mask from my side. We all had canisters of oxygen which were Tinkertech of Armsmaster's design. Even if they wanted to, extreme heat wouldn't make them explode.
"Hey, there. My name's Raccoon Knight, I'm a hero. What's your name?"
She breathed in a painful sounding breath. "Wendy." Her voice was small, barely there.
"It's nice to meet you, Wendy. I need to get you out here, okay? And I need you to put this mask on, it'll help you breathe."
She looked scared, and didn't walk towards me. This wasn't a safe place to stay, we needed to get her to an ambulance. Something about the way she looked at me made me feel like it was my helmet that was scaring her.
I took it off. Without the filter the smokey air quickly choked my lungs. "See, just a normal person, like you. I'll take you outside, okay?"
I wanted to tell her we'd find her parents but PRT guidelines gave some good reasons why that wasn't a great idea. For one, she might not have them, and worse, they might be dead from this fire.
Wendy wobbled forward on shaky steps before taking my outstretched hand. I scooped her up into a side-carry. She wasn't heavy, but I wasn't strong. Definitely need to install my exo-skeleton.
"This'll help you breathe, okay?" I said, showing her the oxygen mask. She nodded, so I helped her put it on.
Aiai pinched the distance from the attic to the second floor, letting us cross it without climbing down the ladder.
My heat vision showed Triumph battling fires using his shouts downstairs. Everything had been charred black, with nothing to show what things once were. I used Aiai to avoid walking down the stairs.
"Triumph, I got her!" I yelled over to him. He turned, nodding once, and backed up away from the fires to join me in leaving.
I placed my helmet back on before heading outside. Flashing lights illuminated the smoke filled sky. Ambulances had arrived, already tending to the people who had escaped prior to us arriving.
We handed Wendy over to a young looking paramedic at an ambulance that had just arrived. He sat her down on the back-edge and checked her over with a listening device.
"How long was she in there?" He asked us.
"About ten minutes by my estimation, possibly less," Triumph said.
"Okay, thank you." He nodded to Triumph.
"I'm better suited for dealing with the fire, and I need to check on Shadow Stalker. Did you spot anyone else inside?" Triumph asked me. I shook my head. "Okay. Stay here, help with the burns if you can." He ran off, back into the smouldering building.
As I turned to find others who might need my help, Wendy made a small noise that sounded kind of like "Wait."
There was fear in her eyes. "Don't go," she said.
I stayed by her side, holding her hand to keep her company as the paramedic checked her over. He gave her another oxygen mask to breathe through.
"I'll need to take her to the hospital. Do you know where her parents are?"
I shook my head. We both looked at Wendy. After a nervous pause she just pointed at the building, tears welling back up in her eyes and running down her face, partially washing away the ash that covered her cheeks. I patted her hand, and told her I'd be back.
Ignoring her protests hurt my heart.
I approached anyone who looked like they had been in the fire. Talking to them let me piece together what happened.
They had been partying, about fifteen of them total, and then some guy walked in they didn't know. Before they could tell him to leave, he erupted into flames from the inside out and started the fire. No one was hurt, but they were all too drunk to be organised.
Wendy's parents were already taken to the hospital. Both had tried to find their daughter and the smoke got the best of them.
At least they were still alive.
"Hey, Wendy. Your parents are already at the hospital. You'll be able to see them soon, okay?"
She gave me a sad look. "Are they okay?"
"They breathed in some smoke trying to find you, but they're alive. I need to go help more people. Will you be okay going with this nice man?" I gestured to the paramedic.
She looked at him, then back to me before giving a hesitant nod. "I'll be okay."
I fished out a reel of stickers from my utility pouch. She received one fresh raccoon sticker with the words 'super brave!' in bubble font. "You're so brave, you deserve this."
She looked from the sticker to my logo before smiling. Wendy requested the sticker be placed between her collar bones, like my logo was.
One sticker of bravery later and she was off to be healed.
Shadow Stalker appeared by my side. "I'm never good at dealing with the brats. Come on, Triumph is waiting for us." She turned, leaving me no time to respond.
Her words hurt my heart even more. Wendy wasn't a 'brat'. Plus, most children Stalker interacted with were probably traumatised from what they just went through. How could she call them brats when they were the exact type of people who needed our help?
Shadow Stalker could sniff out crime and deal with it faster than most of the Wards put together, but that wasn't all there was to being a hero.
Browbeat told me that doctors called it 'bedside manner', a term for building a relationship of sorts with your patients. Heroes did something similar, it was important for people to be able to come to you with their issues.
Being a mysterious, badass cape made criminals fear you, but it also made the public fear you. It was important to build up both sides. Criminals should be stopped by your presence, but civilians still need to be able to approach you.
Triumph directed us to another call. Then another, and another. Even with the breaks, my body and mind were beyond exhausted at the end of my shift.
The hum of adrenaline didn't fade as I lay on the couch watching movies with Heather.
It didn't fade by the time I went to bed.
Laying there, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, I kept thinking about how scary it all was. Despite my brave face to the people we helped, I was terrified that we were seconds away from being frozen in time forever, or being turned into a glass sculpture, or just losing all of our limbs.
We didn't know why Bakuda had started her bombing spree. There were scarce reports of some kind of fight at the storage lockers, but little information outside of it. Even now I could occasionally hear distant explosions. A constant ringing remained in my ears from being close to a few of the mundane bombs.
Every explosion felt designed for maximum impact at the most random of places. Blowing up the train tracks and bridge made sense. They were tactical locations that limited movement in and out of the city. Even hitting the power grid made sense, blacking out entire districts made it easier to plant bombs. I wasn't sure why she wanted that, but it made sense.
Blowing up a school, residential areas, and shops didn't make sense. The only reason to do that was fear. Fear that had become widespread overnight. Tomorrow, there'd be no one who didn't want the bombing to stop, pressure would be on for the heroes to get rid of the mad bomber and fast. Why would she want that?
Each bomb just added to the force of the response she was likely to receive. Did she have some kind of plan to stop us? Or was it all just because Lung had been captured?
Bakuda was part of the ABB, it made sense she'd want her leader back, but he wasn't even the strongest cape they had, she was. Lung was a B-list villain who mostly did nothing but defend the territory he already held.
With tactical strikes, Bakuda could take out pretty much every rival gang and the heroes before anyone knew she was in town. Instead she decided to make a big splash for seemingly no reason other than revenge that her boss got caught.
Figuring out how people worked remained an unsolvable riddle to me.
What would I do with her power?
From what I'd seen, she could make bombs that would take out endbringers. Thinking about them made me sick. Thinking about the fact such a strong power went to someone who refused to use it for good made me sicker.
She could probably make explosions that were non-lethal. Improving on the containment foam grenades the heroes carried made the most obvious sense, but she could probably come up with a hundred different devices.
Temporary paralysis, like a gorgon, came to mind.
Unlike a gorgon, it wouldn't turn them to stone, and wouldn't be permanent, and would be in an area not based on sight. Not really like a gorgon at all now that I think about it.
There was a lot she could be doing instead of killing people for seemingly no reason.
The paralysis idea made me think of a muscle-freezing liquid. Something like Shadow Stalker's darts made the most sense as a delivery system. Unlike a tranquiliser, it would work fine on a person of any size with no changes needed–the only difference would be how long it lasts.
Fufu could shoot them if made from the alloy my armour was made from.
I marked down the idea.
Sleep still failed to come to me. Heather's snores carried through the house, showing I was the only one struggling.
A glass of warm milk, and an extra hour of drifting thoughts about Bakuda later, I finally managed to fall asleep.
...
Nightmares interrupted me several times throughout the early morning. By the time I decided enough was enough, it was nearly noon. I wasn't sure how much time I'd managed to actually sleep, but it wasn't a lot.
A similar day spent dealing with the aftermath of bombs left me equally as exhausted. Another after that didn't help. Neither did the next.
Bakuda's bombing run didn't end despite reports of Lung escaping the PHQ custody with the help of Oni Lee. Armsmaster worked overtime on little sleep, vowing to bring Lung back into custody if it's the last thing he did. Which it might be with the way he was going.
Armsmaster brushed off any attempts I made to talk to him, which weren't that many in the first place. He was rarely at the PRT building, preferring to return to the PHQ than back here.
Browbeat ended up speaking to me a lot. No one else was willing to give me the time for my questions. Vista might have if she weren't in battle focus mode twenty-four-seven.
Browbeat didn't have any more answers than I did. He had more knowledge to fill in some of the blanks, though.
Talking with him didn't feel like a back-and-forth conversation, it felt like it was a game to him and he was trying to beat me at it. At the same time, he also didn't seem to care what answers I came up with, he mostly just liked asking hard to answer questions.
Figuring out Bakuda's motivations became fifty other questions.
Questions about the Slaughterhouse Nine came up. A band of serial killers who roamed the United States looking to spread chaos and destruction for no reason other than chaos and destruction.
Dillan bought them up because one of their members was the reason my name wasn't on the healing paste starter patent. Mannequin.
He was a Tinker who turned himself into a living mannequin, and made it his quest to kill anyone trying to use their powers to improve things.
It felt petty to be annoyed at it, especially at a time like this, but I was annoyed that they kept my name hidden as its creator.
Hiding from him made me feel weak. Logically, I knew it made sense to hide. Emotionally, I wanted people to know it was me who made the paste. Dillan had called it my 'ego' getting in the way of logic, a concept of self-importance that he looked down on.
Every conversation with Browbeat left me dizzy and regretful for talking to him at all.
...
Mouse Protector joined me on a search and rescue a few days in. It was nice seeing her again.
Aiai helped me keep pace with her. Mouse Protector used a disc launcher attached to her hand to fire a tagged disc, then she'd grab it, load it back up, and fire again. I could see how to improve its firing mechanism just from watching it be used.
We had stopped on the top of a squat skyscraper's roof, waiting around for the next crisis. She offered me a mango-flavoured juice box.
"Thanks." I took it. It was warm. I should install a liquid storage system that's self-cooling somewhere.
"Where have you been, anyway?" I ventured to ask a little into our break.
"Ah, sorry, kid. An old friend showed up, and I got busy keeping her busy. Before I knew it the week had gone by and I hadn't even patrolled with you." She hopped up onto the raised edge of the building. Mouse Protector's powers gave her better balance, so I wasn't scared she'd fall.
"I thought we were gonna patrol together after I made Aiai."
"Aiai?"
I patted the device on my arm. "Spatial warping thingy. Her name is Aiai."
Mouse Protector tilted her head to one side. "Alright. Well, I'm sorry. I really did want to patrol with you again. But this woman–her name's Ravager, and she hates my guts–wouldn't leave me alone. She followed me all the way here, can you believe it?"
"She followed you? Why?"
"Since I've humiliated her so much, she considers me her arch-nemesis or something. Truthfully I've never bothered to listen to her yelling. You just tune it out after a while."
"Why isn't she in jail, if you've fought her that much?"
"Good question, kid. Very poignant." I'd look that word up later. "She's a slippery one, and fighting her isn't easy, she's an excellent fighter. Tagging her in the first place takes a lot of effort. Then her power stops me just constantly teleporting to her." Mouse Protector slashed at the air with her sword.
"Wounds she inflicts stick around for a long time. Even a little scratch from her nails can become lethal. My teleport puts me close, and she's great at hitting between my armour. You can see the issue."
Mouse Protector sat down on the raised roof edge with her legs dangling towards the street. I walked closer, sitting down on the gravel instead of the raised edge.
"You could probably use this against her," I handed her my frisbola, "your aim is better than mine anyway."
"What is it?" She lifted it up to inspect the bottom.
"A bola. You throw it and it splits into three, then it'll wrap around anything it hits."
"Woah, kid, that's wicked. I'll need to follow through, but this should work nicely."
Mouse Protector patted the top of my helmet. "Got anything to put her down after she's wrapped up?"
"I had an idea for an electric-shock knuckle duster."
"Seven hundred."
"Huh?"
"I'll pay you seven hundred to make that for me, plus an extra two hundred whenever I need repairs."
"That's nice of you, but I've never really repaired my own stuff before. Once one of them is gone, they're gone forever. My power doesn't like remaking things. I tried to make Coco again but it wouldn't let me."
Weirdly, despite Cici breaking apart after I used her against Hookwolf, I had ideas to make something new out of her parts, but no ideas for remaking Coco. The new Cici would have functioned slightly differently, rather than as a delivery system, I thought about making her into a breaching device that stuck to whatever she hit first.
"Alright. Five grand if you put in a Tinkertech battery. I know that you can't make that stuff on your own and gotta use other people's stuff, so I'm willing to pay more if you think it's fair. And since it's one time only, I'll give you back the pieces after. Then, I pay another five grand for you to make it into something else."
"Mouse, that's a lot of money." At least it seemed like it–I wasn't sure what a 'grand' was.
Based on what she was saying, it was definitely more than seven hundred. Imagining seven hundred dollars in the first place seemed impossible. I hadn't bothered to look at my bank account, yet, but I knew there was money in there. No one had bothered to teach me how money works, either.
"Don't worry, I got the cheddar to spare. I'll even go through official channels to make it easier for you."
"I don't–okay. I'll make it for you." She'd use it to fight crime, which would help people. It was hard to say no to someone just wanting to help others, even if I had no idea if that pay was fair.
She gave me a thumbs up before vanishing from her sitting position. "Great! Now let's go find some more people to save," she said from behind me.
...
We resumed our patrol. Calls of fighting or explosions came in several times an hour. Even with our extended travel options we struggled to keep up.
A gun fight between two groups made the street we were overlooking look like a war zone.
Based on their attire, and skin colours, one side was the Azn Bad Boys, and the other were the Empire Eighty-Eight. Just normal people, no parahumans in sight. Bullets flew by from both sides. Cars received most of the impacts, but a couple hit buildings. People were likely to get hurt–if they hadn't already–if this kept going.
We needed to take out the ABB first. The bombs most likely implanted in them or their loved ones made them fight for survival, which made them wild and unpredictable. We could get the Empire Eighty-Eight members to hopefully stand down if we took the ABB down first.
Neither side would be leaving here out of handcuffs.
Mouse Protector hatched a plan with me. She disagreed about the Empire just surrendering, they wouldn't want to be arrested anymore than the asian gang members would want to be blown up. Instead, she'd focus on the ABB, and I'd go after the smaller group of Empire members.
I pinched her to a space closer to the ABB members. They were taking cover behind cars across the road. Mouse Protector stepped through, going from the rooftop we were on to the rooftop above them. Then I moved the pinched space to put me closer to the Empire members.
Guns were so loud up close. I was glad for my ears being protected by foam.
I could see Mouse Protector crouching at the edge of the roof from my position. The Empire seemed too distracted with their ongoing firefight to notice.
Mouse Protector counted off to three on her fingers.
We dived in, me swinging Dede in hammer form into Empire hands to disarm them of their guns, and Mouse Protector teleporting into the middle of the asian men with her shield raised. She tagged a gun, using it to teleport just to the side every time they fired.
The man I slammed Dede into cursed as the gun went flying out of his hand.
Before his friend could turn and shoot, I threw a marshmallow grenade towards him. As he swung around the marshmallow stuck to the mouth of his gun and swelled up enough to catch his hand in the sticky balloon. His attempts to free his hand just got his other hand caught in the mess as well.
The first man, Teardrop (named for the teardrop under his eye), swung a clunky punch towards me, my training made it easy to dodge.
I wagged a finger disapprovingly and tutted with each sway.
Dede clicked to the next head. I fired the punch of air right into his stomach as he attempted to rush me. He keeled over, grasping at his belly, and his momentum caused him to skid across the ground in an undignified heap.
I marshallowed his arm to the floor before moving on to the other members. Two were left, both of them taking pot shots towards Mouse Protector who was dancing around the ABB with ease. Technically the plan was for me to retreat after taking out two of them, but I needed to stop them shooting at her.
Marshmallow gun attempted to run, despite both of his hands being captured in the sticky gunk. A light shove sent him sailing into a nearby car, where the marshmallow kept him stuck down proper.
"Stay raccoon put, please." Still no good at puns.
He attempted to spit at me as I left to stop his trigger happy friends.
A quick airblast knocked one of the men into the other, causing them to both stumble to the ground. My final marshmallow grenade later and they were contained. Their hands had been tangled together as they fell, making the grenade stick their arms to the ground and cover their guns up.
"Looks like you're in a sticky situation," I said. Better.
"Fuck you, those chinks started it."
I ripped off a piece of duct tape and covered his mouth. "I'd wash your mouth with soap but I have morals, unlike you." I punctuated the 'you' with a light boop to his nose.
I turned to his friend, "How about you?"
He shook his head, staying silent. "Good. I'll be back, shortly. Stick around."
I warped to Mouse Protector, who was wrapping up her fight without me. All of the men were zip-tied, disarmed, and thrown against the wall.
One of the men had a gunshot wound in his leg. He looked old, way too old to be shooting a gun in a gang war.
"Do I have permission to heal you?" I knelt down in front of him.
"Ooh, so polite. Better leave them be, Knight, they'll remember us better with the wounds," Mouse Protector said while twirling her sword around.
"It'll make the paramedics job easier," I said. She shrugged before plucking out her phone to call the PRT.
The old man looked at me with fear in his eyes. It reminded me of Wendy. After a moment he nodded. His expression softened as the healing paste numbed the pain.
"Won't heal you completely, but should stop the hurt. It'll also speed up the recovery time a little."
We waited around for the PRT to arrive. Response times were slow with all that was going on right now, which gave us time to gather the Empire members together into an easy to arrest group. They protested a lot, the ABB on the other hand were completely quiet.
Once the PRT agents arrived we were free to move on to yet more danger.
...
There wasn't an end in sight for the mindless destruction. Bakuda just kept on going, even after getting her boss back.
I tried to think more about her goal. What was her endgame? Fear seemed the most obvious answer, but fear made people lash out. At some point she was bound to find herself at knife point while blissfully sleeping. She was putting bombs into her own people, making them fight for her, then blowing them up if they disobeyed. What did that accomplish?
For one, it probably made it impossible for them personally to kill her. She most likely had some mechanism in place to detonate their bombs if they tried to attack her. Anyone close to her would have a bomb installed to discourage betrayal. Even those loyal to her would get one. There was no way to ensure they remained loyal, especially with their true leader coming back.
Would she put one in Oni Lee as well? Would she put one in Lung?
Ruling through fear only works if you're untouchable. She most likely considered herself above everyone if she thought it could work.
"What do you think Bakuda's goal is?" I asked Mouse Protector on our next break. We'd stopped in a park to eat sandwiches. Mouse Protector lounged across a bench as I sat in the grass nearby.
"Other than to blow up half the city?"
"Other than that."
"Power is my guess. She's going on a murder spree to feel powerful, and she's definitely insane."
"If it's just power she wants, why not take out Lung and take over the gang?"
"I don't know, kid. Daddy issues?" Mouse Protector shrugged. "We'll probably never know. Why're you thinking about it?"
"I thought that if I understood her, I could understand how to stop her."
"Noble, and maybe in some other situation that could work. Not here, though. She's insane with a capital I and her logic isn't going to match your logic."
"Even if she is insane, it can help to know what she's thinking, right? That way we know where she'll hit next."
"Hmm. I'm not sure, but we can try it." Mouse Protector hunched her back and extended her hands out like claws. "Bleh! I'm Bakuda, and I love blowing up children. I'm going to blow up children next!"
"I don't think you should joke about blowing up children," I said. No one deserved to be blown up, but children were entirely innocent.
"Alright, alright. But seriously, all the places she's blown up, what do they have in common?"
"Nothing. She blew up a bridge, the trainyard, a bunch of shops, some pharmaceutical place, a couple of transformers, several roads, random houses, and a school that had no one inside." I counted them off on my fingers as I said them.
"Some important, some not," Mouse Protector concluded. "So, no rhyme or reason behind each bomb, just random places. I got… diddly squat. Absolutely no clue."
There had to be something. "Random places means… she… doesn't care? Yeah, she doesn't care about the places she hits. Which means that it doesn't matter to her what she's hitting, it's more for the effect of it?"
Mouse Protector stretched herself out across the bench fully. "Power, like I said before."
"Maybe a little, but it's the type of power that leaves you afraid of her. Eventually someone is gonna attempt to get rid of her, she's too explosive of a leader."
"Heh. Good one, kid. Might be daddy issues like I said. She wants to impress Lung with all of it?" She shrugged again before taking a loud sip of her juice box.
"Would Lung be impressed by this? He seemed happy to sit around doing nothing."
"You probably know better than I do, kid. This ain't my turf." She rolled off the bench to her feet. "Listen, it's a noble idea to try to understand them better so you can beat them better, but you'll leave yourself dizzy with all that running in circles."
Mouse Protector squatted down in front of me. "The best way to defeat any villain, is to annoy the crud out of them. Make it humiliating to lose to you. How do you think people feel when they get beat by little old me shouting mouse puns at them?"
"Like it's the best day of their lives?"
Mouse Protector snorted. "For you, maybe. For them, they take themselves seriously, they want others to take them seriously. So when they're beaten by what most people incorrectly assume is a 'joke' hero." She airquoted as she said 'joke'. "No one takes them seriously afterwards. Ravager chased me all the way down here just to get her revenge, she wouldn't do that if she didn't really, really hate me."
"But knowing how they work–how their brain functions, let's us know what they're going to do next, right?"
"Sure, maybe a little, but you gotta know when to stop. How long have you been trying to figure out Bakuda?"
"Since the bombing started."
"That's a whole four days of running around inside your head trying to figure out what she's all about. All of that mental power could have been better spent figuring out a plan to defeat her, don't you think?"
Knowing her motivations might have helped figure out where to take those plans, but I could have been planning despite it. "Yeah. I just thought it would help make those plans in the first place if I knew why."
"Did you read her case file?"
"Case file?"
"PRT makes one for every cape that shows up, hero or villain. Piggy should have given you the basics at least."
"She didn't."
Mouse Protector made a humourless 'ha' sound. "That's what you get with Piggy. Best ask the robot you call a leader instead."
"Armsmaster?"
"Yeah, beep boop man."
"Okay. Thanks for the advice."
"No problem, ready to go?" She held out a hand to help me up. I took it and we returned to our patrol.
Piggot most likely didn't hold the information back for no reason. Despite whatever Mouse Protector had against her–and despite Piggot's personality–she was a reasonable person.
She'd once said that information was the key to winning any battle. It was in passing, but she clearly thought information helped win fights. Holding that back from us Wards didn't make sense from what I knew of her.
Going to Armsmaster felt wrong, like I was sneaking around. Piggot would respect it more if I spoke to her directly and I could use all the respect from her I could get.
Maybe she'd even approve of a homegrown lab assistant?
A/N: Thanks to Cauldron discord for proofreading as usual.
I'm going to be honest. This is one of my most favorite Worm fics ever! Please keep it up! 👍
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thank you, that means a lot. I'm gonna be sticking this out to the end even if it kills me, so dw.
2.x - Interlude; Raccoon Knight Fanclub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2.9 Interlude; Beginning of the first ever inaugural just started official meeting of the Raccoon Knight ultra omega fanclub supreme
"And so begins our first ever inaugural meeting of the Raccoon Knight fanclub!" Abi spreaded her raccoon sticker covered arms wide to welcome the new members.
Two of the ten people in the fanclub had shown up, which was less than she had expected. Seven of the ten members were from Brockton Bay, and she had tried to schedule around everyone.
Her mom had rented them a small space at the community centre to host them all. The room lay bare with empty chairs waiting for people who were never going to arrive.
Bags of chips were placed in small bowls along the fold-out plastic tables, as well as a few other snacks. She'd bought three bottles of soda to have enough for everyone but now she was going to have to take them home to drink.
Two boys–both around her age–sat behind the tables across from her.
Bert was a short guy with dark skin and thick glasses. Unless his aunt forced him to cut his hair, it usually remained long and unstyled. Abi thought he seemed nice enough if not a bit distracted by whatever he was doing on his phone.
Dash on the other hand was tall, lanky, and pale. His blonde hair was the definition of shaggy. Abi couldn't get a good read on him, but she thought he must be a nice enough person if he came.
Dash clapped in three slow bursts. "Yay," he deadpanned.
He'd mostly come for the snacks and to meet new people. Raccoon Knight seemed fun but he didn't really care either way. Abi had a cute enough face for him to not leave immediately, even if he considered her clothing choice garish.
Flower-pattern dungarees with a bright yellow shirt beneath. Her brown hair had been tied up into a loose ponytail that didn't do much to stop hair getting into her face, which she promptly blew away each and every time.
Bert raised from his chair and walked over to the whiteboard Abi was standing by. He didn't take his eyes off his phone the entire time. Dash thought his clothes were a bit too normal. A t-shirt and jeans felt so nondescript he might mistake the boy for a spy trying to blend in.
The whiteboard featured images of Raccoon Knight, as well as a list of her accomplishments. Creating it had been a communal effort while chatting on Parahumans Online. Bert had contributed the most, a fact he was proud of.
He unlocked his gaze from his phone to scribble on the whiteboard: 'March 30th - RK seen fighting two parahumans' underneath her 'accomplishments'.
"Four days ago–at roughly three to four PM–Raccoon Knight was spotted fighting two parahumans outside of Green Grove Pharmaceuticals with help from Aegis and Kid Win. I think I've found who they are, as well," Bert spoke in a bored monotone voice.
"Really? That's awesome! Who are they?" Abi practically leapt with excitement.
"Mush and Whirlygig. Based on my research, I think they're independent villains who teamed up. Whirlygig can make swirling storms of small litter. Mush is a shapeshifter who uses loose debris to make his new form, including trash." He marked down each villain in the 'Raccoon Knight's Enemies' tab.
"Wouldn't Mush or whatever beat RK?" Dash asked.
"You're right! He's the perfect counter! Do you know how the fight went, Bert? My mom forced me to go out to sushi with her so I couldn't check your PHO message."
Bert adjusted his glasses before talking. "I got in contact with the person who posted the fight footage and they messaged me back this morning. According to him, Raccoon Knight hit headfirst into a wall, and then left with a paramedic after."
"Bert!" Abi yelled, causing Bert to flinch. "You're amazing! Wait… she got hurt?!"
"Sounds like it. My uncle hit his head bad once and he couldn't think straight for a month. He still sometimes forgets stuff," Dash said. He yawned wide before kicking his feet up on the table.
"What do we do?" Abi rushed over to where Dash was sitting. "Do you think they'll get Panacea involved?" She said, leaning in closer to the lanky teen. He became a little uncomfortable at her intensity.
"Panacea doesn't fix brains." Bert said from behind her. Abi's head whipped around to look at him.
"You're right. Dammit, you're right." Her face dropped. Dash couldn't help but feel bad, she just looked so lost and confused.
"Maybe we could make her like, I dunno? Maybe a 'get well soon' basket or something."
"Dash! You're a genius!" Abi's head whipped around again. Bert worried she might hurt herself at this rate.
"Sure, that's what they say about me."
"What do we put in it? Do either of you know how to bake?"
Dash did but chose to not say anything.
"My aunty can," Bert supplied.
Abi ran over to him to grasp his shoulders in her hands. She beamed a bright smile at him. Bert stared at her with a blank expression.
"Do you think you could get her to bake us like… a few cookies? And maybe some of those colourful round thingies?"
"Macaroons?"
"Yes, macaroons!"
"I could ask her, but that doesn't mean she will."
"A gazillion million dollars! Wait, I only have ten. Will she accept ten dollars?"
"You don't need to pay her. We could get store bought ones for money."
"Homemade is so much better, though."
"All I can do is ask. She's a busy woman."
"Fine, fine, that makes sense. What is she busy with? Maybe we could help her?"
"She runs a soup kitchen and volunteers at a woman's shelter."
"Holy shoot, that's perfect! We could volunteer to help feed people at her soup kitchen, then she'd see how we mean well and then she can make us some homemade bakery treats?"
"Let me ask her first." Bert returned to staring at his phone again.
Abi released her death grip on Bert's shoulders to let him text his aunt. She spun around to release some of her energy before sitting across from Dash.
"Hi," she said, staring intently into his brown eyes.
"Um, hey," he said.
"Is your name actually Dash? Because my name isn't actually Abi, it's Abigail but everyone just calls me Abi. Is your name actually Dasholomew or Dashchard?"
"Just Dash. My parents wanted me to be fast or something, probably," he chuckled. Abi laughed uproariously at his joke.
"Fast? That's hilarious. I wonder what my parents wanted me to be? What does Abigail even mean?"
"We could look it up," Dash said while pulling out his flip phone. "This place has the internet."
"Do it. Do it. Do it!" With each 'do it' Abi drew herself closer to the boy sitting across from her.
"Okay, okay," he waved her down. After a minute of him typing, and a minute of Abigail bouncing with nervous energy, Dash finally said, "Oh, here it is. Abigail means 'cause of joy' in Hebrew, or father's joy. You seem pretty joyful, kinda fitting, y'know?"
"I am joyful! Though if my 'father's joy' then why does he keep cancelling? Maybe I'm not the right type of joyful anymore?" She said more to herself than to the other teen.
"That sucks. It's my mom for me, she keeps going on like 'business' trips–whatever that means–and leaving me with my dad. Though it's chill, she brings me back cool stuff from Egypt or whatever." He flicked his phone shut and slid it into his pocket with practised ease.
"Woah, that's cool. My dad is just a workaholic. He goes out of state to go to meetings about something? I don't know what he does, actually."
Before Dash could speak, Bert sat down and interrupted the pair.
"My aunty says she can bake us some things. We just have to help her make them, and to volunteer at her soup kitchen in the future," he said. His eyes left his phone to stare at the bowl of chips in front of him. He dared to take one and try it. Not stale like he expected, but each chip had a different flavour like Abi had just poured all of the bags together before dividing them. Which is exactly what she had done.
"Yes!" Abi fist pumped.
"I don't mind volunteering or whatever, but I have a lot of school work right now. So, I don't know how long I can."
"Oh! I have a lot too. We'll have to make a schedule." Abi ran to grab poster paper and marker pens.
Bert glanced up at Dash before averting his gaze. "Don't feel like you have to volunteer, if you don't want to."
"Huh? Oh, nah dude. It's cool. She's kind of intense but I'm not gonna be dragged along or anything." He paused for a moment, then added, "You shouldn't let her drag you around either. You haven't said much at all and she's just kind of volunteered you for everything. Are you alright or whatever?"
Bert adjusted his glasses. He wasn't used to interacting with people like this. Abi didn't act differently in person than she did online. He'd expected a level of disconnect between her online self and her in-person self, the same applied to Dash. Neither of them were much different than who they were in text messages.
So what did that say about him? He felt more confident online. It was easy to dictate facts and to skirt around actual conversation.
"I'm okay." He said and was surprised to find he meant it. "Thank you for asking."
"Good, good. Here," Dash held up three fingers then tapped them against his chest, "if you ever give me that signal, I'll get you outside for a breather, alright?"
Bert nodded. He hadn't expected Dash to be so thoughtful, that part did betray his online self.
A blur of a girl came rushing back towards various art supplies onto the table. "I'm back! Here's all the stuff, I couldn't find the tape so I had to look through each and every drawer to find it. Turns out, it was in my backpack. Anyway, let's figure out our schedules!"
The group spent about thirty minutes marking down the times they would be free, and idly chatting about their schedules.
"What school do you guys go to? I go to Arcadia. Some of the kids there only go for half-days because they have internships but I wasn't allowed to try for one because my grades are so bad." Abi asked as they marked down their school times.
"Winslow for me," Dash said. "Place sucks." He flicked a marker pen in frustration. "Total shit hole."
"Clarendon. My aunty wanted me to go to Immaculata but didn't trust the area."
"Awh. I was hoping you went to Arcadia too. We could have hung out at school as well!"
"Based on this. Our schedules line up on the third of April. We could all volunteer on that day and then help my aunty bake after that."
"Works for me." Dash shrugged.
"Cool! That works for me too. We should get supplies today so we can put it all together right away! Wanna go buy stuff now? I have like, ten dollars."
"I can throw in a bit of money, if it'll help. My dad gives me a bit of pocket money."
"Sorry, I don't have anything on me except bus fare," Bert said, his impassive face not showing his embarrassment.
"That's okay. You're supplying us with the vital piece, the final component, the ultimate part of the puzzle." Abi bolted out of her chair to raise her hands up to the fluorescent lights. "Baked goods!"
They settled on going to the mall to make sure they could cover all bases.
Abi's normal loud tone made more sense amongst the hustle and bustle of people doing their shopping. Even then, Dash couldn't help but wince whenever people turned their heads to see who was yelling.
Bert wilted from the attention Abi was gathering to their group.
His aunt had encouraged him to meet new people after he told her about the fanclub meet-up.
Originally he didn't plan to go, content to just supply the group with information on his current favourite research topic. A heavy push from his aunt changed his mind. Right now, he was uncomfortable. Overall, however, he found that he didn't mind the duo.
Raccoon Knight wasn't a well documented cape, especially with people being so averse to her due to her early public appearances. So he had taken it upon himself to supply her thread with actual information regarding her heroics and activities.
Abi messaged him quite early on to invite him to an 'actual real proper fangroup, not like the thread' private group.
His supply of information trumped what they had gathered on their own. He'd even managed to find some of the cape's early career that had been shrouded in mystery.
He watched Abi spin around for the seventh time. Walking backwards in a busy mall made Bert worry for her safety. Despite currently moving, she still couldn't sit still.
She had profusely thanked Bert for his work multiple times over. He wasn't used to praise. Normally, he edited wikipedia pages or supplied missing information from cape threads. Most people expected that information to be supplied and didn't see the work that went into getting it.
It filled him with an odd sensation, one he wasn't used to. Being praised by his aunt was one thing, being praised by someone unrelated to him felt better.
Along the way they were interrupted by Abi rambling about things in store windows. Both of them got to know her faster than they had got to know anyone. She was an open book, and they couldn't help but share along with her.
"What about this one?" Abi said while holding up a wicker basket. "Comes with some cute little ribbons."
"Probably a bit too small, might not be able to fit all the other stuff we've got." Dash jostled his carrier bag full of items to punctuate his point. So far they'd gathered a collection of cheaper items, mostly dollar store things. They didn't have much money to go around and most would be spent on the basket itself.
Raccoon Knight didn't seem like she would mind cheap stuff–one the most prominent images of her was her eating a sandwich from a Boardwalk bin, afterall. That image had been set as Abi's wallpaper ever since it showed up.
"How about this one?" She grabbed a basket five times the size of the last.
Dash rolled his eyes, causing Abi to giggle and pick a more reasonable sized one.
Once they had collected their new basket, they headed out with barely a dollar coin to their name.
Dash didn't mind the expenditure, he received money daily from his dad and would probably have spent it on something stupid anyway. Abi would have spent more, if she had more, with no doubt in her mind about it.
"Have either of you met a cape before?" Bert questioned the pair.
"I met Aegis, Clockblocker, and Kid Win at the Boardwalk once. Pretty cool. We spoke for a bit and I got their autographs. They seemed chill, though, like, they also were swarmed by a bunch of people so we didn't talk too much," Dash said.
"Woah! That's so cool. Did Kid Win have any of his tech with him?"
"He had some on his belt, and his hoverboard. I think. What about you? Meet any heroes?"
"Nah. I wanna meet Raccoon Knight someday, though. Or Miss Militia. Both of them are pretty cool. What about you Bert?"
"I met a villain."
The group stopped dead, causing Bert to walk forward a little before he realised.
"That sounds scary! Are you okay? Tell us what happened. Were they blowing stuff up? Who was it?"
"I'm okay. I was walking home from school and they were trying to break into a manhole cover. They stopped me to tell me to steer clear. Nothing blew up while I was there but they did mention using explosives. It was Uber and Leet," he supplied in order.
"Oh. That doesn't sound too bad. Have you ever watched their stuff?" Abi asked.
"I watched them a bunch, pretty funny watching them fail and stuff. They had a mean streak for a bit so I stopped for a while but their new stuff is good too. Like how are they that incompetent when they've been doing it for so long?"
Bert shook his head. "I watched them once. I didn't enjoy it."
"Why not?"
"They were driving around and beating up prostitutes."
"Oh, that's when I stopped watching them too. Didn't feel right. Still kind of bugs me."
"You still watch it."
"Hey, man. It's not like I'm beating them up."
Abi held her hands out between them. "Woah, woah, woah. No arguing. We can settle this nicely, okay? Now, I side with Bert here. We shouldn't encourage villainy, even if it is just giving them an extra view count. But, Dash is right, this is just him watching stuff for fun, he shouldn't be blamed for what they do."
"I wasn't blaming him. Sorry it sounded that way, Dash."
"I'm sorry too, dude." He rubbed a hand through his blond hair, messing it up further. "I'll think about not watching them anymore, sound good?"
"Okay, I can accept that. I volunteered at the same woman's shelter my aunt did for a bit, and I saw a lot of nasty bruises on some of the women. It hurt to look at. I stopped going because it was too much. So, it was a little close to home."
"Shit, dude, that sucks. I guess I never really thought about it too much."
Abi grabbed them both into a double side hug. She squealed in delight. "Look at us! Solving problems and handling things like mature people would. We're an excellent team."
"Yeah, yeah. We're great." Dash pushed himself away from the hug. "I have a gift card for the food court, you guys wanna get a bite to eat?"
"Yes!" Abi let go of Bert who stumbled a little at the sudden lack of support. "Food time!"
She stomped away with big steps towards the food court, forcing the boys to power walk to keep up.
"You okay with physical contact like that, dude? We can ask her to stop if it's too much."
"I'm okay with it. Just not used to it, is all."
"Alright. Well if it ever gets too much just let me know. I don't think she'd take it poorly or anything, she seems nice enough, yeah?"
Bert nodded, still unsure why the other teen was being so nice to him.
Alora mused over her godson's new friends. He'd spent the better half of the past three days hanging out with them.
Her first impressions hadn't been exactly on the nose with the lankier teen boy. She had him pegged as a layabout who didn't care about anything. He proved to be surprisingly empathetic and didn't seem to mind the hard work.
Abigail on the other hand didn't seem to know the meaning of 'thinking'. The young girl had word-spewed her entire thought process to Alora in the course of a minute. Keeping up with her took physical effort. Overall she didn't seem to mind the work but did voice any and every question she had–which was a seemingly infinite amount.
This wasn't to say she had been annoyed by the teen's unending questions, quite the opposite. Alora appreciated anyone who was willing to put in the work, and she had proven that she was. So, she answered all of them as best she could, which often just raised more.
As long as Abigail kept working while asking, she didn't mind.
Bertrand was usually a quiet boy who needed a bit of poking to get him to talk. Getting a conversation out of him wasn't hard, he just didn't feel the need to express much of what he was thinking. Abigail seemed excellent at getting him out of that shell. She'd ask him a million questions, most Alora herself didn't know the answer to.
She wasn't unfamiliar with her adopted nephew, but she hadn't ever thought to ask him what his favourite colour was (orange), or what his 'high score' was in some video game. The questions were mundane and most people wouldn't care, but she could tell that Abi was carefully storing them in her memory.
Dash provided his own answers too. She saw him talk to Bertrand whenever Abi ran off to talk to someone else. After inching ever closer–while pretending to double check stoves or sort out the food–she overheard him asking Bertrand if he was okay with the noise levels. It wasn't what she had expected.
Overprotective, maybe, but she had expected the boy to potentially be bullying her godson. To hear that he was just asking his new friend if he was alright gave her a warm feeling in her chest.
After a few hours of labour she could see that the trio were exhausted. Bertrand helped here sometimes but never in the chaos himself. Usually, she let him fill out paperwork in the back. Even post lunch-time the kitchen received a lot of visitors, often people trying to avoid the lunch-time rush. Being in the middle of that chaos took a lot out of a person.
She gathered together the teens to drive them back to her place to bake their promised treats. Making a gift basket for a cape she'd never heard of wasn't what she thought they'd need them for. So long as Bertrand had friends, it didn't matter.
"Testimonials!" Abi shouted from the backseat.
"Indoor voice, please." Alora said.
"Sorry. Testimonials!" She said at a more polite level. "We should get videos of the people Raccoon Knight helped. Bert, you said there were homeless people and some lady named Tony, right?"
"Tina. Yes, one of her first appearances was helping homeless people. A few of them told the shelters that they had been healed by a cape wearing a bucket for a helmet. She asked them for soda can tabs, which lines up with what her chainmail looked like during the Rune fight. There were also homeless people saying that someone similar fixed their building's plumbing and electricity."
"Tina, that's it. Bert you're amazing, this is good. Real good. We should come back tomorrow and ask if any of them have met Raccoon Knight. And maybe we can get in contact with this Tina. Oh, we can't bake today or they'll go stale by the time we've got the footage." Abi leant forward between the front seats.
"Miss Hamza, would it be okay if I came back tomorrow to the soup kitchen? And also would it be okay if you baked for us in the future once we have the videos, instead?"
"Sure, hon. Just remember to be polite to those people, okay? They're there to eat. I have Wednesday off if you want me to bake, then."
Abi nodded with all the enthusiasm in the world. "Okay! I can do that. And yeah, we can get it all by Wednesday, right guys?"
The boys gave her unsure nods.
04/04/2011 03:35 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
so was she wearing her iconic early era bucket helm when she saved you?
04/04/2011 03:35 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
No, she was wearing a rainbow flag around her face. One of those gay pride ones.
04/04/2011 03:36 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
thats even earlier than we knew! you must have been the first person she ever saved!!!! was she as nice as she seemed in person????
04/04/2011 03:37 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
She was polite and nice to me. Even going so far as to reassure me that it'd be okay.
04/04/2011 03:37 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
woah!
totally awesome
04/04/2011 03:38 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
how did you know it was raccoon knight if she didn't have her iconic armour???
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
She didn't have a name at the time, she said she was still figuring it out. Later on I saw her bat/spear-thingy on the back of Raccoon Knight when they announced her, which let me put the pieces together.
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
YOU MET HER PRE NAME??!!!!!
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Yeah, I guess so?
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
awesome totally awesome
i am omega jealous right now
what did she smell like? people who met her early say she smelt bad but now people say she smells like apples
04/04/2011 03:41 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Not great. I figured it was because she'd been rooting around in the garbage. She even had bits of trash clinging to her still.
04/04/2011 03:41 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
so cool!
04/04/2011 03:43 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
hey so like i said in my first message
not the message asking you to join the group the message from today
would you be willing to make a little video thanking her? i don't even have to look at the footage if you wanna keep your identity secrettttttt
04/04/2011 03:44 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
I can do that, and I don't mind if you watch it. Give me a little bit and I'll get back to you.
04/04/2011 03:44 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
04/04/2011 04:17 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Here:[File Attachment: Thank You.avi - 5.7 mb]
04/04/2011 04:17 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
THANK YOU
i really really really really really appreciate this
04/04/2011 04:18 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
No problem. I've got to get ready for work now. See you.
04/04/2011 04:18 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
BYEEEEEEEEEEEE
Bert adjusted the cheap video camera to accommodate for the noon sun.
Dash and Abi stood in front of a homeless man with dark wrinkled skin. His salt and pepper beard was the most hair on his head. They'd lucked into finding him in the soup kitchen after asking if anyone there knew Raccoon Knight.
"Recording," Bert informed them.
"Okay! Rex, could you tell us about your interaction with the fabled Raccoon Knight." Abi mimed speaking into a microphone she didn't have then held it out to Rex to speak into.
He leaned in for a moment before realising she wasn't holding anything. "Sure, I can do that. I was collecting bottles, cans, and the sorts to sell later. She approached me and asked for the tabs in exchange for a weird looking sandwich."
"And what did you do?"
"Well, I asked her why the bread looked funny. Said it was homemade, or a mix of different bread, I'm not sure. I do remember that it had ham and honey mustard."
"Did it taste good?" Abi continued to mime the microphone moving back and forth.
"Yes, it did."
"Did Raccoon Knight heal you with her awesome cool healing gunk?"
"Not sure I'd call it gunk, but yes, she did offer me some. She told me it was made out of marshmallows."
"Marshmallows? Write that down!" She gestured to no one in particular. Dash pulled out his phone to mark it down.
"Yep, marshmallows. It worked too, healed my leg right up."
"Woah! Can we see? Your leg I mean."
Rex rolled his pant leg up to reveal a scar running up his calf.
"Doesn't look like it's healed," Dash investigated the scar. To him it looked like any other scar.
"Her mystery balm healed me up faster than it would have on its own. Clinic told me that the infection they spotted had cleared up faster than it would have, too. Never got to thank her for it, she only came back once."
"Magical healing marshmallow gunk! Crazy, you can only see it here, folks," Abi stared directly into the camera while gesturing to the scar.
"Who're you talking to?" Dash asked.
"Our adoring audience!"
"Okay…"
"Anyway! What do you want to say to Raccoon Knight! We can guarantee that this recording will reach her personally."
"We can't guarantee that, but we will try," Dash amended.
"Just… Thank you. My leg feels better, and I enjoyed our short conversations. I wish you the best with being a hero, odd little duck."
"And… cut! Good work everyone."
Rex bid them farewell, pleased that he finally got to thank the girl.
Then the trio were set with the task of finding someone else she had helped. No one had any leads.
"What about the Rune fight? Did anyone get hurt?"
"From the news report there were injured civilians who were healed by an unnamed parahuman." He double-checked the information on his phone before saying it.
"Knowledge guy, Bert. A million points!"
"So, what, we just go knocking on houses?"
"Maybe we could put an ad in the paper. If you've been helped by the amazing Raccoon Knight, call here!"
"That won't work. People will just crank call you all the time."
"Dammit! I always forget the human capacity to be a jerk." Abi squished her cheeks to make a long, low raspberry noise.
"We could ask in the PHO post. You said your private messages were already flooded with mean people anyway."
"Bert! You're a genius as always. I can do that. Think we'll get any actual messages?"
The boys both shrugged.
"Worth a shot, I guess," Dash said.
Abi rubbed at her eyes as she opened up PHO. Crafting her message had taken all of her creative spirit and left her so drained she passed out as her head hit the pillow. Or it was from working in a soup kitchen two days in a row.
She had received seven messages. Raccoon Knight's thread had died down significantly since its debut on the twenty-seventh. People grew bored easily. Bullying a teenager who had only posted one message and none since got tired fast.
The hero's post in the thread had done nothing but endear her more in the heart of the teenager. Despite the spelling mistakes, it was clear that Raccoon Knight just wanted to clear the air and explain things. So she didn't want to waste perfectly good food, who cares?
Her eating a sandwich had been set as Abi's background since it was posted. There was just something about it that made her smile.
All seven messages were trolls. Nothing. She knew there had to be more people out there but had no idea how to find them.
She groaned, lamenting the lack of information on her new favourite cape.
To make matters worse, Bert sent her a text to tell her that his Aunt had something come up and couldn't bake for the foreseeable future.
Abi squished her unicorn plush tight, venting her frustrations into a bear hug.
She fired off a text to Dash to tell him the bad news.
Abi: miss hamza cant make any delicious treats for our favourite awesome super hero
Abi: toooooo busy
They at least had the non-perishable candy already in the gift basket. At this point she felt the need to just accept store bought baked goods.
Dash: that sucks
Dash: I can bake
Abi: WHAT?!
Dash could bake well. He personally thought his repertoire was lacking, but he could at least make the items they had been looking for. The downside had been waiting three days for Dash to have a day free from family obligations.
All three new friends met up at his house to assist in the baking process.
Bert had been surprised by the neighbourhood. His Aunt lived past Captain's Hill so he hadn't really been into the docks before. To say it was outside his comfort zone was an understatement.
Dash had assured him several times over that the area was safe, just rundown, and that his dad was willing to drive Bert home if needed.
After an awkward introduction to Mr Callahan–Dash's dad–he had left the kids alone to their own devices.
Abi sat on his countertop, sneaking finger scoops of the cookie dough whenever she thought no one was looking. Bert scanned through the baking recipes and was designated measurer. Dash was busy baking, while also trying to make sure Abi didn't eat all the dough before they were done.
They baked a variety of things, including some extra to sate the ever-hungry maw of Abigail.
"So, you don't even eat sugar?" Abigail asked Dash after he had off-handedly mentioned it.
"Nope. I use alternatives when baking for myself."
"M'you hate guff tashing stuff?" Abi said through a mouthful of cookie.
"I've no idea what you just said."
"Do you hate good tasting stuff?" She repeated after her mouth was clear.
"It still tastes good without sugar. I just don't like eating the stuff. We don't drink any soda either."
"We? So it's your parents forcing you into at gunpoint!" She held her fingers up in a gun shape to Dash's head. "Eat the not sugar or we'll force you to eat celery all day."
"Celery is good."
"Celery is the devil!"
"It's good with peanut butter," Bert chimed in.
"Peanut butter? Are you insane? Bert if you've gone mad you've legally got to tell me. We're friends now and that means you have to legally tell me this stuff, okay?"
Dash left to grab a stick of celery and a jar of peanut butter. He dipped the stick into the jar before holding it out to Abi. She fake gagged as he pushed it closer.
"Come on, one bite won't kill you."
"It'll murder me dead! My blood will be on your hands!"
"That's fine by me. Take a bite."
"So cruel, so callous. To think you could betray me so easily."
"Take a bite, drama queen."
Abi clicked her tongue. "Fine." She liked peanut butter but definitely did not like celery. The idea of eating it did make her want to gag for real. After hesitating too long, Dash pushed it a little closer. Abi took it from him as if it were a live snake before taking a hesitant bite.
She liked it. "Damnit."
"Ha. Knew it. What do you say?"
"Fine, sorry I guess. Celery is okay sometimes."
"Good enough. Wanna, like, watch some TV while these bake?"
They left to channel surf while their baked goods finished.
Being around a friend's house this late in the afternoon made Abi feel like she was breaking some kind of rule. Her mom had caved right away to her demands of going out. It still felt like rule breaking despite parental approval.
Getting Mr Callahan's approval for the five PM baking session hadn't taken much. Like Abi's mom, he was trying to accommodate for the other parent not being around as much.
Bert practically required a three page essay on why he should be allowed to join them. His aunt had approved of his friends, but had also been worried about sending him to a part of town she considered dangerous. He felt like it had been worth the effort of convincing her. Over the past eight days their friendship had grown more than any other friend he'd had. Though he wasn't there yet to admit that to them.
His phone now featured pictures of them together doing a few activities, and sometimes just hanging out. As he scrolled through, trying to wrack his brain for something fun they could do tomorrow, he received an alert from the PHO thread.
Raccoon Knight had been seen patrolling with Mouse Protector.
"Abi. Look." He held the phone up for her to see. Her eyes scanned the screen several times over before she reached out to grab the phone as if that would make it less real.
"No, no, no, but our get-well-soon basket can't be a get-well-soon basket if she's already well!"
"What's happening?" Dash asked, shutting the TV off.
"Raccoon Knight was just seen patrolling with Mouse Protector."
"It's a travesty! We're ruined! Everything crumbles beneath my grasp!" Abi wailed, half-tripping over the coffee table as she started to her feet. "We're doomed!"
"Calm down, we're not ruined, dude. She's better, that's a good thing. We can just change the card up to something else, okay?"
"But who sends a basket for no reason?"
"It's a 'thank you' basket. People send baskets for all sorts of reasons, probably."
"My aunty sent one to a business associate who moved away."
"See. People send baskets for stuff."
Abi turned to look at the boys. A smile crept up her face. "How about a 'stay well' basket? We can say we were making it for her concussion, and now that she's better we can just tell her to not get a concussion again."
"Sure, we can make a 'stay well' basket instead. Work for you, Bert?"
He nodded.
"Good, works for all three of us."
"Okay, this is good. Sorry, I freaked out there. Okay, okay, okay. We can fix this and then send it. Wait… does anyone know how to send stuff to the Wards?"
They didn't.
Sending things to a new Ward had proven to be needlessly difficult.
Abi had done the research over the past two weeks. Well, she'd started it and then asked Bert to do it.
Wards didn't often receive packages from fans due to security reasons. Getting anything bigger than a letter sent was an arduous process. Fanmail could work, but she wanted to save it as a last resort. Without being able to contact Raccoon Knight directly, she struggled to think of ways to get the gift to her.
At least they got to eat all the things Dash had made.
She'd attempted to send messages to Raccoon Knight over PHO, but her PM's had been closed. Why did people have to be so mean to her?
Abi trudged into class. School didn't agree with her, and she didn't agree with it. At least she got to have fun talking to the other students in her remedial class. Neither Dash or Bert had made fun of her for being considered a 'problem' student, much to her surprise. Usually people weren't so kind.
The two boys had become fast friends, and in just under three weeks she considered them her closest. She only wished they came to Arcadia.
Mrs. Wilkins spoke in a soft voice, wore soft clothes, and had a soft attitude. Despite being as meek as a dormouse, she knew how to wrangle together the so-called 'undesirables' that were placed in her class.
Officially, they were students who needed an extra helping hand to receive the same education as their fellow students. Unofficially, Abi could recognise when people were looking down on her, and every uttered 'you have so much potential' just made her want to scream. Mrs. Wilkins stood in stark contrast to those teachers. She listened, and didn't mind if Abi spoke a little loud sometimes. Never once did Abi feel looked down on by the timid woman.
She fistbumped Tommy before falling into her chair. Tommy didn't speak, which made him great at listening, and Abi loved to speak.
Mrs. Wilkins cleared her throat to grab the class's attention. Standing beside her was someone new. Her hair was incredibly long, reaching down to her thighs. It waved and wobbled and clumped into tangled spurts. A round, pudgy face with a slightly content smile. A scar ran across her chin. Abi's mom told her that every scar tells a story, but that story doesn't always want to be told. Maybe she'd ask the girl about it!
Overall, she didn't stand out as unusual, except for her hair. Just a normal person.
"We have a new student today. She's got a lot of catching up to do, so please help her when you can." Mrs. Wilkins turned to the girl and asked her to say a few words. Her content face turned startled instantly.
It reminded Abi of Dash. His face often betrayed his emotions even when trying to hide them.
"Oh, um…" She fidgeted with her hair. "My name is Meadow. I like bubblegum ice cream… and, um… did you know that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards us but the rest are flying away?"
Mrs. Wilkins gave her a funny look before thanking her and asking her to go to her seat.
Abi's gloomy aura dissipated as she thought about making a new friend. Maybe she'd join the Raccoon Knight fanclub?
"And so begins our first ever inaugural meeting of the Raccoon Knight fanclub!" Abi spreaded her raccoon sticker covered arms wide to welcome the new members.
Two of the ten people in the fanclub had shown up, which was less than she had expected. Seven of the ten members were from Brockton Bay, and she had tried to schedule around everyone.
Her mom had rented them a small space at the community centre to host them all. The room lay bare with empty chairs waiting for people who were never going to arrive.
Bags of chips were placed in small bowls along the fold-out plastic tables, as well as a few other snacks. She'd bought three bottles of soda to have enough for everyone but now she was going to have to take them home to drink.
Two boys–both around her age–sat behind the tables across from her.
Bert was a short guy with dark skin and thick glasses. Unless his aunt forced him to cut his hair, it usually remained long and unstyled. Abi thought he seemed nice enough if not a bit distracted by whatever he was doing on his phone.
Dash on the other hand was tall, lanky, and pale. His blonde hair was the definition of shaggy. Abi couldn't get a good read on him, but she thought he must be a nice enough person if he came.
Dash clapped in three slow bursts. "Yay," he deadpanned.
He'd mostly come for the snacks and to meet new people. Raccoon Knight seemed fun but he didn't really care either way. Abi had a cute enough face for him to not leave immediately, even if he considered her clothing choice garish.
Flower-pattern dungarees with a bright yellow shirt beneath. Her brown hair had been tied up into a loose ponytail that didn't do much to stop hair getting into her face, which she promptly blew away each and every time.
Bert raised from his chair and walked over to the whiteboard Abi was standing by. He didn't take his eyes off his phone the entire time. Dash thought his clothes were a bit too normal. A t-shirt and jeans felt so nondescript he might mistake the boy for a spy trying to blend in.
The whiteboard featured images of Raccoon Knight, as well as a list of her accomplishments. Creating it had been a communal effort while chatting on Parahumans Online. Bert had contributed the most, a fact he was proud of.
He unlocked his gaze from his phone to scribble on the whiteboard: 'March 30th - RK seen fighting two parahumans' underneath her 'accomplishments'.
"Four days ago–at roughly three to four PM–Raccoon Knight was spotted fighting two parahumans outside of Green Grove Pharmaceuticals with help from Aegis and Kid Win. I think I've found who they are, as well," Bert spoke in a bored monotone voice.
"Really? That's awesome! Who are they?" Abi practically leapt with excitement.
"Mush and Whirlygig. Based on my research, I think they're independent villains who teamed up. Whirlygig can make swirling storms of small litter. Mush is a shapeshifter who uses loose debris to make his new form, including trash." He marked down each villain in the 'Raccoon Knight's Enemies' tab.
"Wouldn't Mush or whatever beat RK?" Dash asked.
"You're right! He's the perfect counter! Do you know how the fight went, Bert? My mom forced me to go out to sushi with her so I couldn't check your PHO message."
Bert adjusted his glasses before talking. "I got in contact with the person who posted the fight footage and they messaged me back this morning. According to him, Raccoon Knight hit headfirst into a wall, and then left with a paramedic after."
"Bert!" Abi yelled, causing Bert to flinch. "You're amazing! Wait… she got hurt?!"
"Sounds like it. My uncle hit his head bad once and he couldn't think straight for a month. He still sometimes forgets stuff," Dash said. He yawned wide before kicking his feet up on the table.
"What do we do?" Abi rushed over to where Dash was sitting. "Do you think they'll get Panacea involved?" She said, leaning in closer to the lanky teen. He became a little uncomfortable at her intensity.
"Panacea doesn't fix brains." Bert said from behind her. Abi's head whipped around to look at him.
"You're right. Dammit, you're right." Her face dropped. Dash couldn't help but feel bad, she just looked so lost and confused.
"Maybe we could make her like, I dunno? Maybe a 'get well soon' basket or something."
"Dash! You're a genius!" Abi's head whipped around again. Bert worried she might hurt herself at this rate.
"Sure, that's what they say about me."
"What do we put in it? Do either of you know how to bake?"
Dash did but chose to not say anything.
"My aunty can," Bert supplied.
Abi ran over to him to grasp his shoulders in her hands. She beamed a bright smile at him. Bert stared at her with a blank expression.
"Do you think you could get her to bake us like… a few cookies? And maybe some of those colourful round thingies?"
"Macaroons?"
"Yes, macaroons!"
"I could ask her, but that doesn't mean she will."
"A gazillion million dollars! Wait, I only have ten. Will she accept ten dollars?"
"You don't need to pay her. We could get store bought ones for money."
"Homemade is so much better, though."
"All I can do is ask. She's a busy woman."
"Fine, fine, that makes sense. What is she busy with? Maybe we could help her?"
"She runs a soup kitchen and volunteers at a woman's shelter."
"Holy shoot, that's perfect! We could volunteer to help feed people at her soup kitchen, then she'd see how we mean well and then she can make us some homemade bakery treats?"
"Let me ask her first." Bert returned to staring at his phone again.
Abi released her death grip on Bert's shoulders to let him text his aunt. She spun around to release some of her energy before sitting across from Dash.
"Hi," she said, staring intently into his brown eyes.
"Um, hey," he said.
"Is your name actually Dash? Because my name isn't actually Abi, it's Abigail but everyone just calls me Abi. Is your name actually Dasholomew or Dashchard?"
"Just Dash. My parents wanted me to be fast or something, probably," he chuckled. Abi laughed uproariously at his joke.
"Fast? That's hilarious. I wonder what my parents wanted me to be? What does Abigail even mean?"
"We could look it up," Dash said while pulling out his flip phone. "This place has the internet."
"Do it. Do it. Do it!" With each 'do it' Abi drew herself closer to the boy sitting across from her.
"Okay, okay," he waved her down. After a minute of him typing, and a minute of Abigail bouncing with nervous energy, Dash finally said, "Oh, here it is. Abigail means 'cause of joy' in Hebrew, or father's joy. You seem pretty joyful, kinda fitting, y'know?"
"I am joyful! Though if my 'father's joy' then why does he keep cancelling? Maybe I'm not the right type of joyful anymore?" She said more to herself than to the other teen.
"That sucks. It's my mom for me, she keeps going on like 'business' trips–whatever that means–and leaving me with my dad. Though it's chill, she brings me back cool stuff from Egypt or whatever." He flicked his phone shut and slid it into his pocket with practised ease.
"Woah, that's cool. My dad is just a workaholic. He goes out of state to go to meetings about something? I don't know what he does, actually."
Before Dash could speak, Bert sat down and interrupted the pair.
"My aunty says she can bake us some things. We just have to help her make them, and to volunteer at her soup kitchen in the future," he said. His eyes left his phone to stare at the bowl of chips in front of him. He dared to take one and try it. Not stale like he expected, but each chip had a different flavour like Abi had just poured all of the bags together before dividing them. Which is exactly what she had done.
"Yes!" Abi fist pumped.
"I don't mind volunteering or whatever, but I have a lot of school work right now. So, I don't know how long I can."
"Oh! I have a lot too. We'll have to make a schedule." Abi ran to grab poster paper and marker pens.
Bert glanced up at Dash before averting his gaze. "Don't feel like you have to volunteer, if you don't want to."
"Huh? Oh, nah dude. It's cool. She's kind of intense but I'm not gonna be dragged along or anything." He paused for a moment, then added, "You shouldn't let her drag you around either. You haven't said much at all and she's just kind of volunteered you for everything. Are you alright or whatever?"
Bert adjusted his glasses. He wasn't used to interacting with people like this. Abi didn't act differently in person than she did online. He'd expected a level of disconnect between her online self and her in-person self, the same applied to Dash. Neither of them were much different than who they were in text messages.
So what did that say about him? He felt more confident online. It was easy to dictate facts and to skirt around actual conversation.
"I'm okay." He said and was surprised to find he meant it. "Thank you for asking."
"Good, good. Here," Dash held up three fingers then tapped them against his chest, "if you ever give me that signal, I'll get you outside for a breather, alright?"
Bert nodded. He hadn't expected Dash to be so thoughtful, that part did betray his online self.
A blur of a girl came rushing back towards various art supplies onto the table. "I'm back! Here's all the stuff, I couldn't find the tape so I had to look through each and every drawer to find it. Turns out, it was in my backpack. Anyway, let's figure out our schedules!"
The group spent about thirty minutes marking down the times they would be free, and idly chatting about their schedules.
"What school do you guys go to? I go to Arcadia. Some of the kids there only go for half-days because they have internships but I wasn't allowed to try for one because my grades are so bad." Abi asked as they marked down their school times.
"Winslow for me," Dash said. "Place sucks." He flicked a marker pen in frustration. "Total shit hole."
"Clarendon. My aunty wanted me to go to Immaculata but didn't trust the area."
"Awh. I was hoping you went to Arcadia too. We could have hung out at school as well!"
"Based on this. Our schedules line up on the third of April. We could all volunteer on that day and then help my aunty bake after that."
"Works for me." Dash shrugged.
"Cool! That works for me too. We should get supplies today so we can put it all together right away! Wanna go buy stuff now? I have like, ten dollars."
"I can throw in a bit of money, if it'll help. My dad gives me a bit of pocket money."
"Sorry, I don't have anything on me except bus fare," Bert said, his impassive face not showing his embarrassment.
"That's okay. You're supplying us with the vital piece, the final component, the ultimate part of the puzzle." Abi bolted out of her chair to raise her hands up to the fluorescent lights. "Baked goods!"
...
They settled on going to the mall to make sure they could cover all bases.
Abi's normal loud tone made more sense amongst the hustle and bustle of people doing their shopping. Even then, Dash couldn't help but wince whenever people turned their heads to see who was yelling.
Bert wilted from the attention Abi was gathering to their group.
His aunt had encouraged him to meet new people after he told her about the fanclub meet-up.
Originally he didn't plan to go, content to just supply the group with information on his current favourite research topic. A heavy push from his aunt changed his mind. Right now, he was uncomfortable. Overall, however, he found that he didn't mind the duo.
Raccoon Knight wasn't a well documented cape, especially with people being so averse to her due to her early public appearances. So he had taken it upon himself to supply her thread with actual information regarding her heroics and activities.
Abi messaged him quite early on to invite him to an 'actual real proper fangroup, not like the thread' private group.
His supply of information trumped what they had gathered on their own. He'd even managed to find some of the cape's early career that had been shrouded in mystery.
He watched Abi spin around for the seventh time. Walking backwards in a busy mall made Bert worry for her safety. Despite currently moving, she still couldn't sit still.
She had profusely thanked Bert for his work multiple times over. He wasn't used to praise. Normally, he edited wikipedia pages or supplied missing information from cape threads. Most people expected that information to be supplied and didn't see the work that went into getting it.
It filled him with an odd sensation, one he wasn't used to. Being praised by his aunt was one thing, being praised by someone unrelated to him felt better.
Along the way they were interrupted by Abi rambling about things in store windows. Both of them got to know her faster than they had got to know anyone. She was an open book, and they couldn't help but share along with her.
"What about this one?" Abi said while holding up a wicker basket. "Comes with some cute little ribbons."
"Probably a bit too small, might not be able to fit all the other stuff we've got." Dash jostled his carrier bag full of items to punctuate his point. So far they'd gathered a collection of cheaper items, mostly dollar store things. They didn't have much money to go around and most would be spent on the basket itself.
Raccoon Knight didn't seem like she would mind cheap stuff–one the most prominent images of her was her eating a sandwich from a Boardwalk bin, afterall. That image had been set as Abi's wallpaper ever since it showed up.
"How about this one?" She grabbed a basket five times the size of the last.
Dash rolled his eyes, causing Abi to giggle and pick a more reasonable sized one.
Once they had collected their new basket, they headed out with barely a dollar coin to their name.
Dash didn't mind the expenditure, he received money daily from his dad and would probably have spent it on something stupid anyway. Abi would have spent more, if she had more, with no doubt in her mind about it.
"Have either of you met a cape before?" Bert questioned the pair.
"I met Aegis, Clockblocker, and Kid Win at the Boardwalk once. Pretty cool. We spoke for a bit and I got their autographs. They seemed chill, though, like, they also were swarmed by a bunch of people so we didn't talk too much," Dash said.
"Woah! That's so cool. Did Kid Win have any of his tech with him?"
"He had some on his belt, and his hoverboard. I think. What about you? Meet any heroes?"
"Nah. I wanna meet Raccoon Knight someday, though. Or Miss Militia. Both of them are pretty cool. What about you Bert?"
"I met a villain."
The group stopped dead, causing Bert to walk forward a little before he realised.
"That sounds scary! Are you okay? Tell us what happened. Were they blowing stuff up? Who was it?"
"I'm okay. I was walking home from school and they were trying to break into a manhole cover. They stopped me to tell me to steer clear. Nothing blew up while I was there but they did mention using explosives. It was Uber and Leet," he supplied in order.
"Oh. That doesn't sound too bad. Have you ever watched their stuff?" Abi asked.
"I watched them a bunch, pretty funny watching them fail and stuff. They had a mean streak for a bit so I stopped for a while but their new stuff is good too. Like how are they that incompetent when they've been doing it for so long?"
Bert shook his head. "I watched them once. I didn't enjoy it."
"Why not?"
"They were driving around and beating up prostitutes."
"Oh, that's when I stopped watching them too. Didn't feel right. Still kind of bugs me."
"You still watch it."
"Hey, man. It's not like I'm beating them up."
Abi held her hands out between them. "Woah, woah, woah. No arguing. We can settle this nicely, okay? Now, I side with Bert here. We shouldn't encourage villainy, even if it is just giving them an extra view count. But, Dash is right, this is just him watching stuff for fun, he shouldn't be blamed for what they do."
"I wasn't blaming him. Sorry it sounded that way, Dash."
"I'm sorry too, dude." He rubbed a hand through his blond hair, messing it up further. "I'll think about not watching them anymore, sound good?"
"Okay, I can accept that. I volunteered at the same woman's shelter my aunt did for a bit, and I saw a lot of nasty bruises on some of the women. It hurt to look at. I stopped going because it was too much. So, it was a little close to home."
"Shit, dude, that sucks. I guess I never really thought about it too much."
Abi grabbed them both into a double side hug. She squealed in delight. "Look at us! Solving problems and handling things like mature people would. We're an excellent team."
"Yeah, yeah. We're great." Dash pushed himself away from the hug. "I have a gift card for the food court, you guys wanna get a bite to eat?"
"Yes!" Abi let go of Bert who stumbled a little at the sudden lack of support. "Food time!"
She stomped away with big steps towards the food court, forcing the boys to power walk to keep up.
"You okay with physical contact like that, dude? We can ask her to stop if it's too much."
"I'm okay with it. Just not used to it, is all."
"Alright. Well if it ever gets too much just let me know. I don't think she'd take it poorly or anything, she seems nice enough, yeah?"
Bert nodded, still unsure why the other teen was being so nice to him.
...
Alora mused over her godson's new friends. He'd spent the better half of the past three days hanging out with them.
Her first impressions hadn't been exactly on the nose with the lankier teen boy. She had him pegged as a layabout who didn't care about anything. He proved to be surprisingly empathetic and didn't seem to mind the hard work.
Abigail on the other hand didn't seem to know the meaning of 'thinking'. The young girl had word-spewed her entire thought process to Alora in the course of a minute. Keeping up with her took physical effort. Overall she didn't seem to mind the work but did voice any and every question she had–which was a seemingly infinite amount.
This wasn't to say she had been annoyed by the teen's unending questions, quite the opposite. Alora appreciated anyone who was willing to put in the work, and she had proven that she was. So, she answered all of them as best she could, which often just raised more.
As long as Abigail kept working while asking, she didn't mind.
Bertrand was usually a quiet boy who needed a bit of poking to get him to talk. Getting a conversation out of him wasn't hard, he just didn't feel the need to express much of what he was thinking. Abigail seemed excellent at getting him out of that shell. She'd ask him a million questions, most Alora herself didn't know the answer to.
She wasn't unfamiliar with her adopted nephew, but she hadn't ever thought to ask him what his favourite colour was (orange), or what his 'high score' was in some video game. The questions were mundane and most people wouldn't care, but she could tell that Abi was carefully storing them in her memory.
Dash provided his own answers too. She saw him talk to Bertrand whenever Abi ran off to talk to someone else. After inching ever closer–while pretending to double check stoves or sort out the food–she overheard him asking Bertrand if he was okay with the noise levels. It wasn't what she had expected.
Overprotective, maybe, but she had expected the boy to potentially be bullying her godson. To hear that he was just asking his new friend if he was alright gave her a warm feeling in her chest.
After a few hours of labour she could see that the trio were exhausted. Bertrand helped here sometimes but never in the chaos himself. Usually, she let him fill out paperwork in the back. Even post lunch-time the kitchen received a lot of visitors, often people trying to avoid the lunch-time rush. Being in the middle of that chaos took a lot out of a person.
She gathered together the teens to drive them back to her place to bake their promised treats. Making a gift basket for a cape she'd never heard of wasn't what she thought they'd need them for. So long as Bertrand had friends, it didn't matter.
"Testimonials!" Abi shouted from the backseat.
"Indoor voice, please." Alora said.
"Sorry. Testimonials!" She said at a more polite level. "We should get videos of the people Raccoon Knight helped. Bert, you said there were homeless people and some lady named Tony, right?"
"Tina. Yes, one of her first appearances was helping homeless people. A few of them told the shelters that they had been healed by a cape wearing a bucket for a helmet. She asked them for soda can tabs, which lines up with what her chainmail looked like during the Rune fight. There were also homeless people saying that someone similar fixed their building's plumbing and electricity."
"Tina, that's it. Bert you're amazing, this is good. Real good. We should come back tomorrow and ask if any of them have met Raccoon Knight. And maybe we can get in contact with this Tina. Oh, we can't bake today or they'll go stale by the time we've got the footage." Abi leant forward between the front seats.
"Miss Hamza, would it be okay if I came back tomorrow to the soup kitchen? And also would it be okay if you baked for us in the future once we have the videos, instead?"
"Sure, hon. Just remember to be polite to those people, okay? They're there to eat. I have Wednesday off if you want me to bake, then."
Abi nodded with all the enthusiasm in the world. "Okay! I can do that. And yeah, we can get it all by Wednesday, right guys?"
The boys gave her unsure nods.
...
04/04/2011 03:35 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
so was she wearing her iconic early era bucket helm when she saved you?
04/04/2011 03:35 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
No, she was wearing a rainbow flag around her face. One of those gay pride ones.
04/04/2011 03:36 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
thats even earlier than we knew! you must have been the first person she ever saved!!!! was she as nice as she seemed in person????
04/04/2011 03:37 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
She was polite and nice to me. Even going so far as to reassure me that it'd be okay.
04/04/2011 03:37 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
woah!
totally awesome
04/04/2011 03:38 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
how did you know it was raccoon knight if she didn't have her iconic armour???
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
She didn't have a name at the time, she said she was still figuring it out. Later on I saw her bat/spear-thingy on the back of Raccoon Knight when they announced her, which let me put the pieces together.
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
YOU MET HER PRE NAME??!!!!!
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Yeah, I guess so?
04/04/2011 03:39 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
awesome totally awesome
i am omega jealous right now
what did she smell like? people who met her early say she smelt bad but now people say she smells like apples
04/04/2011 03:41 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Not great. I figured it was because she'd been rooting around in the garbage. She even had bits of trash clinging to her still.
04/04/2011 03:41 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
so cool!
04/04/2011 03:43 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
hey so like i said in my first message
not the message asking you to join the group the message from today
would you be willing to make a little video thanking her? i don't even have to look at the footage if you wanna keep your identity secrettttttt
04/04/2011 03:44 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
I can do that, and I don't mind if you watch it. Give me a little bit and I'll get back to you.
04/04/2011 03:44 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
04/04/2011 04:17 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
Here:[File Attachment: Thank You.avi - 5.7 mb]
04/04/2011 04:17 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
THANK YOU
i really really really really really appreciate this
04/04/2011 04:18 PM - PorcelainGuitar:
No problem. I've got to get ready for work now. See you.
04/04/2011 04:18 PM - blabbyabigabbyhabby:
BYEEEEEEEEEEEE
...
Bert adjusted the cheap video camera to accommodate for the noon sun.
Dash and Abi stood in front of a homeless man with dark wrinkled skin. His salt and pepper beard was the most hair on his head. They'd lucked into finding him in the soup kitchen after asking if anyone there knew Raccoon Knight.
"Recording," Bert informed them.
"Okay! Rex, could you tell us about your interaction with the fabled Raccoon Knight." Abi mimed speaking into a microphone she didn't have then held it out to Rex to speak into.
He leaned in for a moment before realising she wasn't holding anything. "Sure, I can do that. I was collecting bottles, cans, and the sorts to sell later. She approached me and asked for the tabs in exchange for a weird looking sandwich."
"And what did you do?"
"Well, I asked her why the bread looked funny. Said it was homemade, or a mix of different bread, I'm not sure. I do remember that it had ham and honey mustard."
"Did it taste good?" Abi continued to mime the microphone moving back and forth.
"Yes, it did."
"Did Raccoon Knight heal you with her awesome cool healing gunk?"
"Not sure I'd call it gunk, but yes, she did offer me some. She told me it was made out of marshmallows."
"Marshmallows? Write that down!" She gestured to no one in particular. Dash pulled out his phone to mark it down.
"Yep, marshmallows. It worked too, healed my leg right up."
"Woah! Can we see? Your leg I mean."
Rex rolled his pant leg up to reveal a scar running up his calf.
"Doesn't look like it's healed," Dash investigated the scar. To him it looked like any other scar.
"Her mystery balm healed me up faster than it would have on its own. Clinic told me that the infection they spotted had cleared up faster than it would have, too. Never got to thank her for it, she only came back once."
"Magical healing marshmallow gunk! Crazy, you can only see it here, folks," Abi stared directly into the camera while gesturing to the scar.
"Who're you talking to?" Dash asked.
"Our adoring audience!"
"Okay…"
"Anyway! What do you want to say to Raccoon Knight! We can guarantee that this recording will reach her personally."
"We can't guarantee that, but we will try," Dash amended.
"Just… Thank you. My leg feels better, and I enjoyed our short conversations. I wish you the best with being a hero, odd little duck."
"And… cut! Good work everyone."
Rex bid them farewell, pleased that he finally got to thank the girl.
Then the trio were set with the task of finding someone else she had helped. No one had any leads.
"What about the Rune fight? Did anyone get hurt?"
"From the news report there were injured civilians who were healed by an unnamed parahuman." He double-checked the information on his phone before saying it.
"Knowledge guy, Bert. A million points!"
"So, what, we just go knocking on houses?"
"Maybe we could put an ad in the paper. If you've been helped by the amazing Raccoon Knight, call here!"
"That won't work. People will just crank call you all the time."
"Dammit! I always forget the human capacity to be a jerk." Abi squished her cheeks to make a long, low raspberry noise.
"We could ask in the PHO post. You said your private messages were already flooded with mean people anyway."
"Bert! You're a genius as always. I can do that. Think we'll get any actual messages?"
The boys both shrugged.
"Worth a shot, I guess," Dash said.
...
Abi rubbed at her eyes as she opened up PHO. Crafting her message had taken all of her creative spirit and left her so drained she passed out as her head hit the pillow. Or it was from working in a soup kitchen two days in a row.
She had received seven messages. Raccoon Knight's thread had died down significantly since its debut on the twenty-seventh. People grew bored easily. Bullying a teenager who had only posted one message and none since got tired fast.
The hero's post in the thread had done nothing but endear her more in the heart of the teenager. Despite the spelling mistakes, it was clear that Raccoon Knight just wanted to clear the air and explain things. So she didn't want to waste perfectly good food, who cares?
Her eating a sandwich had been set as Abi's background since it was posted. There was just something about it that made her smile.
All seven messages were trolls. Nothing. She knew there had to be more people out there but had no idea how to find them.
She groaned, lamenting the lack of information on her new favourite cape.
To make matters worse, Bert sent her a text to tell her that his Aunt had something come up and couldn't bake for the foreseeable future.
Abi squished her unicorn plush tight, venting her frustrations into a bear hug.
She fired off a text to Dash to tell him the bad news.
Abi: miss hamza cant make any delicious treats for our favourite awesome super hero
Abi: toooooo busy
They at least had the non-perishable candy already in the gift basket. At this point she felt the need to just accept store bought baked goods.
Dash: that sucks
Dash: I can bake
Abi: WHAT?!
...
Dash could bake well. He personally thought his repertoire was lacking, but he could at least make the items they had been looking for. The downside had been waiting three days for Dash to have a day free from family obligations.
All three new friends met up at his house to assist in the baking process.
Bert had been surprised by the neighbourhood. His Aunt lived past Captain's Hill so he hadn't really been into the docks before. To say it was outside his comfort zone was an understatement.
Dash had assured him several times over that the area was safe, just rundown, and that his dad was willing to drive Bert home if needed.
After an awkward introduction to Mr Callahan–Dash's dad–he had left the kids alone to their own devices.
Abi sat on his countertop, sneaking finger scoops of the cookie dough whenever she thought no one was looking. Bert scanned through the baking recipes and was designated measurer. Dash was busy baking, while also trying to make sure Abi didn't eat all the dough before they were done.
They baked a variety of things, including some extra to sate the ever-hungry maw of Abigail.
"So, you don't even eat sugar?" Abigail asked Dash after he had off-handedly mentioned it.
"Nope. I use alternatives when baking for myself."
"M'you hate guff tashing stuff?" Abi said through a mouthful of cookie.
"I've no idea what you just said."
"Do you hate good tasting stuff?" She repeated after her mouth was clear.
"It still tastes good without sugar. I just don't like eating the stuff. We don't drink any soda either."
"We? So it's your parents forcing you into at gunpoint!" She held her fingers up in a gun shape to Dash's head. "Eat the not sugar or we'll force you to eat celery all day."
"Celery is good."
"Celery is the devil!"
"It's good with peanut butter," Bert chimed in.
"Peanut butter? Are you insane? Bert if you've gone mad you've legally got to tell me. We're friends now and that means you have to legally tell me this stuff, okay?"
Dash left to grab a stick of celery and a jar of peanut butter. He dipped the stick into the jar before holding it out to Abi. She fake gagged as he pushed it closer.
"Come on, one bite won't kill you."
"It'll murder me dead! My blood will be on your hands!"
"That's fine by me. Take a bite."
"So cruel, so callous. To think you could betray me so easily."
"Take a bite, drama queen."
Abi clicked her tongue. "Fine." She liked peanut butter but definitely did not like celery. The idea of eating it did make her want to gag for real. After hesitating too long, Dash pushed it a little closer. Abi took it from him as if it were a live snake before taking a hesitant bite.
She liked it. "Damnit."
"Ha. Knew it. What do you say?"
"Fine, sorry I guess. Celery is okay sometimes."
"Good enough. Wanna, like, watch some TV while these bake?"
They left to channel surf while their baked goods finished.
Being around a friend's house this late in the afternoon made Abi feel like she was breaking some kind of rule. Her mom had caved right away to her demands of going out. It still felt like rule breaking despite parental approval.
Getting Mr Callahan's approval for the five PM baking session hadn't taken much. Like Abi's mom, he was trying to accommodate for the other parent not being around as much.
Bert practically required a three page essay on why he should be allowed to join them. His aunt had approved of his friends, but had also been worried about sending him to a part of town she considered dangerous. He felt like it had been worth the effort of convincing her. Over the past eight days their friendship had grown more than any other friend he'd had. Though he wasn't there yet to admit that to them.
His phone now featured pictures of them together doing a few activities, and sometimes just hanging out. As he scrolled through, trying to wrack his brain for something fun they could do tomorrow, he received an alert from the PHO thread.
Raccoon Knight had been seen patrolling with Mouse Protector.
"Abi. Look." He held the phone up for her to see. Her eyes scanned the screen several times over before she reached out to grab the phone as if that would make it less real.
"No, no, no, but our get-well-soon basket can't be a get-well-soon basket if she's already well!"
"What's happening?" Dash asked, shutting the TV off.
"Raccoon Knight was just seen patrolling with Mouse Protector."
"It's a travesty! We're ruined! Everything crumbles beneath my grasp!" Abi wailed, half-tripping over the coffee table as she started to her feet. "We're doomed!"
"Calm down, we're not ruined, dude. She's better, that's a good thing. We can just change the card up to something else, okay?"
"But who sends a basket for no reason?"
"It's a 'thank you' basket. People send baskets for all sorts of reasons, probably."
"My aunty sent one to a business associate who moved away."
"See. People send baskets for stuff."
Abi turned to look at the boys. A smile crept up her face. "How about a 'stay well' basket? We can say we were making it for her concussion, and now that she's better we can just tell her to not get a concussion again."
"Sure, we can make a 'stay well' basket instead. Work for you, Bert?"
He nodded.
"Good, works for all three of us."
"Okay, this is good. Sorry, I freaked out there. Okay, okay, okay. We can fix this and then send it. Wait… does anyone know how to send stuff to the Wards?"
They didn't.
Sending things to a new Ward had proven to be needlessly difficult.
Abi had done the research over the past two weeks. Well, she'd started it and then asked Bert to do it.
Wards didn't often receive packages from fans due to security reasons. Getting anything bigger than a letter sent was an arduous process. Fanmail could work, but she wanted to save it as a last resort. Without being able to contact Raccoon Knight directly, she struggled to think of ways to get the gift to her.
At least they got to eat all the things Dash had made.
She'd attempted to send messages to Raccoon Knight over PHO, but her PM's had been closed. Why did people have to be so mean to her?
Abi trudged into class. School didn't agree with her, and she didn't agree with it. At least she got to have fun talking to the other students in her remedial class. Neither Dash or Bert had made fun of her for being considered a 'problem' student, much to her surprise. Usually people weren't so kind.
The two boys had become fast friends, and in just under three weeks she considered them her closest. She only wished they came to Arcadia.
Mrs. Wilkins spoke in a soft voice, wore soft clothes, and had a soft attitude. Despite being as meek as a dormouse, she knew how to wrangle together the so-called 'undesirables' that were placed in her class.
Officially, they were students who needed an extra helping hand to receive the same education as their fellow students. Unofficially, Abi could recognise when people were looking down on her, and every uttered 'you have so much potential' just made her want to scream. Mrs. Wilkins stood in stark contrast to those teachers. She listened, and didn't mind if Abi spoke a little loud sometimes. Never once did Abi feel looked down on by the timid woman.
She fistbumped Tommy before falling into her chair. Tommy didn't speak, which made him great at listening, and Abi loved to speak.
Mrs. Wilkins cleared her throat to grab the class's attention. Standing beside her was someone new. Her hair was incredibly long, reaching down to her thighs. It waved and wobbled and clumped into tangled spurts. A round, pudgy face with a slightly content smile. A scar ran across her chin. Abi's mom told her that every scar tells a story, but that story doesn't always want to be told. Maybe she'd ask the girl about it!
Overall, she didn't stand out as unusual, except for her hair. Just a normal person.
"We have a new student today. She's got a lot of catching up to do, so please help her when you can." Mrs. Wilkins turned to the girl and asked her to say a few words. Her content face turned startled instantly.
It reminded Abi of Dash. His face often betrayed his emotions even when trying to hide them.
"Oh, um…" She fidgeted with her hair. "My name is Meadow. I like bubblegum ice cream… and, um… did you know that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards us but the rest are flying away?"
Mrs. Wilkins gave her a funny look before thanking her and asking her to go to her seat.
Abi's gloomy aura dissipated as she thought about making a new friend. Maybe she'd join the Raccoon Knight fanclub?
Thanks to Cauldron discord for feedback, as usual.
Writing interludes is scary. These characters can feel highly irrelevant right now, but I hope their antics make up for the lack of Meadow. I wanted to set them up now so that in the future you can feel like you already know them.
Next chapter will be the start of Arc 3.
Writing interludes is scary. These characters can feel highly irrelevant right now, but I hope their antics make up for the lack of Meadow. I wanted to set them up now so that in the future you can feel like you already know them.
Next chapter will be the start of Arc 3.
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- Location
- the Literature Club
If Raccoon Knight has a million fans, I am one of them.
If Raccoon Knight has ten fans, I am one of them.
If Raccoon Knight has one fan, I am that one.
If Raccoon Knight has no fans, I am no longer on this Earth.
If the world is against Raccoon Knight, I am against the world.
Till shade is gone. Till water is gone. To support Raccoon Knight on the Last Day.
If Raccoon Knight has ten fans, I am one of them.
If Raccoon Knight has one fan, I am that one.
If Raccoon Knight has no fans, I am no longer on this Earth.
If the world is against Raccoon Knight, I am against the world.
Till shade is gone. Till water is gone. To support Raccoon Knight on the Last Day.
I started getting very concerned halfway through that them making some kind of video diary about RK, was going to turn into them posting that diary online talking about her healing people, and getting her seen by the S9/Mannequin. So the ending we got instead was a much better surprise.
Abi and Meadow seems like they're gonna get along like a dumpster fire (in a good way).
Abi and Meadow seems like they're gonna get along like a dumpster fire (in a good way).
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In my first draft Abi wanted to make two videos. One was going to be posted online to show RK being cool, and the other would be the personal thank yous. So you were pretty close to my original idea.
Also thanks for reading <3
These people aren't real fans unless they were fans when she was Pre Parahuman.
3.1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
3.1
Nervous energy balled up inside of me and refused to release. Even moving couldn't get rid of the tight feeling in my chest.
Lung had been taken out by the villains. Bakuda had been captured, her super bomb stopped. Vista and Clockblocker were heroes to the whole Ward team for helping to stop it. I wasn't even included in the attack plan. Not that I was bitter, it would just be nice to be included in something important.
Only stragglers of the ABB were left. There was still plenty to do when I next patrolled, but for now, school.
Despite knowing that she was gone, despite knowing that her remaining bombs were being disarmed, despite the soldiers outside, despite knowing that I was safe, I still couldn't help but flinch at every passing person on the way to Arcadia.
Students from Immaculata High had been some of Bakuda's victims. Students from Arcadia could have bombs implanted into them and not even know it.
Tinkers were creative, she could have used a sleeping gas bomb to implant them stealthily. If I was her, it would have made sense to do it quietly.
Doing school work or even meeting new people felt pointless in the face of the past week. I should have been out there, fighting, disarming bombs, and helping people. There was still so much damage, so much destruction left to fix.
Guards stood outside the gates to Arcadia, scanning people with devices as they passed, a metal detector. My finger would likely trigger it due to the metal framework implanted inside.
I considered leaving to avoid facing it all but thought better of it. Leaving at the first hurdle would be admitting defeat. At least school was only a few hours per day right now. I could leave later on if it got too much.
"Take out anything metal and open your backpack, please," one of the guards asked me.
"I have some metal shrapnel in my middle finger, right hand," I lied.
"That's fine."
He waved the device over me as the other guard checked my backpack. It beeped as it passed over my finger but he ignored it. Lying was wrong. In this case, it was justified.
The guard returned my backpack to me before turning his attention to the next student in line. Even these guards didn't make me feel safer from the invisible threats.
I took a deep breath in. I can do this.
When I spoke to Piggot about Bakuda's file I'd asked her why she did her job. She considered herself a soldier, changing from sword to pen didn't change that. Paperwork was just another battlefield for her to fight in.
School should be similar–just another battlefield to fight in.
Mostly, I didn't want to disappoint Heather. She had been excited at me getting to go back to a 'normal' life. Could I ever be normal with the ringing still in my ears?
No one paid me any attention as I found my way to class. Just another face in the crowd. As long as I remembered my list, no one should bother me: Don't eat from the trash. No tinkering. Remember to shower.
The classroom I would be spending the rest of the school year in was hidden away in the southern part of Arcadia. It was the only door at the end of a dead-end hallway. Being close to the cafeteria helped further obscure it, as most people wouldn't notice an extra place when they were hungry for food.
Mrs. Wilkins, my new teacher, wore a moss-coloured cardigan over a flowery dress. Chestnut hair fell loosely down to her shoulders. Her big, droopy eyes blinked at me as I entered the room.
"Ah, Meadow, I assume?" Her voice was soft, but still perfectly audible. Vista had explained to me how people did that, she called it 'projecting your voice'. A vital skill for public speaking, or for a young hero.
"Yeah, that's me."
My nerves threatened to burst out of my seams. Other students were already seated to my left, some of them staring directly at me. I tried to ignore the stares as I took a deep, calming breath. Time to be Meadow, not Raccoon Knight. I managed to force my face into a smile.
Mrs. Wilkins nodded, then cleared her throat. All of the class turned to look at me.
They're just normal students. No weapons, no bombs, no powers.
"We have a new student today," Mrs. Wilkins said. "She's got a lot of catching up to do, so please help her when you can." She turned back to me before saying, "Introduce yourself, dear."
"Oh, um…" How do I introduce myself? "My name is Meadow. I like bubblegum ice cream… and, uh…" I struggled to find anything else about myself. It was like Mrs. Wilkins had drained all my memories from me in an instant.
People like facts, right?
"Did you know that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards us but the rest are flying away?"
Wikipedia had become my favourite site since getting my laptop. There were so many things you could learn that led into yet more things.
Mrs. Wilkins' face shifted into an expression I didn't understand. Maybe she didn't know that fact?
"Ah, thank you, Meadow. Take a seat wherever you like. I'll be handing out assignments shortly."
There were six other students in the class, three girls and three boys. Dozens of empty seats meant this classroom was used for more than just us. All of my classmates had decided to sit in the front two rows.
Everyone looked… normal. Maybe it was just from the way the class had been described to me but I had expected the people to look more unusual.
A girl wearing bright yellow clothes waved at me as if trying to dislodge a bug from her arm.
"Meadow! Sit here!" She patted the desk to her right. Sitting anywhere else would feel rude, now. Besides, there was no reason to be unfriendly to her.
I took a seat at the desk next to her, slinging my backpack over the back of the chair.
The blond-haired boy in front of the enthusiastic girl looked back at me with a blank expression before turning back to the front.
"Hi, my name is Abigail but everyone calls me Abi! Abigail means 'cause of joy', did you know that? You can also call me Abi if you want."
A strand of her brown hair escaped out of her ponytail, falling into her face as she leant over to me. She tried to blow it away but it just fell back to where it was.
"Okay. Nice to meet you, Abi." I didn't know what else to say to her.
"Nice to meet you too! This is Tommy." She patted the boy in front of her on the back. "He doesn't speak, but he's a great listener.
"Also that's Eric." She gestured to a wide boy with square features. He was doodling with an intense look on his face. "He likes playing the trombone."
"That's Tiffany but we call her Taffy." Taffy looked spaced out, she seemed to be counting the ceiling tiles. Her dark silken hair shimmered as she shifted her head to count behind her.
"There's Mel, we call her Mel." The stocky girl wore dark clothes with purple accents. She had big, clunky boots kicked up onto the vacant seat in front of her. I liked her face, it looked nice.
"Terry, he likes making origami." Abi gestured to a skinny boy whose desk was completely covered in little paper structures. He was in the middle of making another as she spoke. His brown hair was styled into a bowl cut, a hairstyle that I still didn't understand.
"And that's, oh, that's everyone. Also you, Meadow, but you knew that."
"Thanks for introducing everyone?" I said, part-confused, part-thankful. It was a lot of people to take in at once.
"No problem!"
Conversation still failed to be a skill I had while Meadow. For some reason, being Raccoon Knight made the confidence thing a whole lot easier. Mrs. Wilkins stood up before I could figure out what to say next.
We weren't all learning the same thing, as we were all here from different places in life–even if no one here looked much older than me.
Mrs. Wilkins' job was to tell us what we needed to read, what worksheets we needed to do, and to offer individual help if we got stuck. Otherwise we were free to work at our own pace.
She went around the classroom to give the small group our individual lessons.
"Let me know if you need any help, Meadow. I'll also check in with you later on. For now, just focus on worksheet A and leave the rest for the future. Feel free to ask the other students if you need help, as well. Just don't disturb anyone, okay?" Mrs. Wilkins said. I nodded.
Today's worksheet was English, my worst subject. The PRT had assigned me a lot of tests to determine where I was education wise. Science and maths were my best subjects, probably thanks to my power. She had helped me a lot over the past couple of months, I didn't know where I'd be now if not for her.
I couldn't recall what my old best subjects had been. Memories of school were a distant blur in my mind.
The sheet wasn't too hard, neither was the reading I needed to do, but focusing on school work felt impossible. My eyes would slip away from every word on the page no matter how hard I tried to focus.
There, their, they're. Who cares? My eyes wandered over there, to Mel. She was scribbling against the page as if trying to tear it apart. Their work would be ruined if they continued. Mel's hazel eyes met my own. They're looking right at me!
Her eyes wandered down to my paper then back up to me. I looked away.
Her boots made big, stompy footsteps as she walked over to me.
"Hey, new kid. Meadow, right?" Her accent was unfamiliar. Probably not from around here.
"Yes." I hoped she wasn't here to yell at me for staring at her.
"You need help?"
"Oh, um, sure."
Mel left to grab her chair. She shoved it against my desk then sat down next to me. She was much taller up close, and the muscle-definition in her arms became more obvious. The smell of cherries drifted from her short, black hair.
She leant closer to check over my assignment.
"You got 'where' wrong on this part. Think of it like a sister to 'there'. So, if I asked 'where is my pencil?', you could say 'over there'." She pointed to nothing in particular, then spelled 'there' out letter-by-letter.
"That makes sense. The 'H' makes them siblings."
"Perfect." Mel smiled at me, then showed me a few more things I had got wrong.
My eyes drifted to her face, which was covered with obvious makeup in dark colours. Heather had taught me how to apply subtle makeup to hide certain imperfections. She didn't explain why we were supposed to use it though, so I often forgot. Mel's makeup stood out; it wasn't trying to be sneaky like the way Heather did hers.
Maybe not in dark colours, but more obvious makeup might be fun to try. My first thought was to ask Heather if she knew how to do it, then I realised the obvious answer was sitting right next to me.
"I like your makeup. Could you teach me how to do it like that?"
Mel squinted at me. "Thank you," she said slowly. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head a little. "Thank you," she said again. This time she smiled at me.
"Sorry. I'm used to people being dicks. You don't seem like the type to wear stuff like this." She gestured to her face and body.
"Hm, not really. I prefer brighter colours. I've just never seen makeup like yours."
Mel got up out of her chair all of a sudden to walk over to her bag. Her hands reached deep into the thick backpack to rummage around inside. Eventually she found what she wanted and returned with several small brightly coloured pots.
Their glass jars clicked and clacked as she placed them down on the desk in front of me.
"My sister likes bright colours too. She always forgets to bring her nail polish to school so I ended up buying spares in case she ever needs it. What colour do you want?"
What colour did I want? Each of them looked like they'd be fun to paint with. You could make a pretty field of flowers with a sunny sky, a meadow. "All of them?"
Mel's face lit up, a bright contrast to her dark clothing. "We can do that. Hold out your hands like this."
Her fingers splayed across the desk showed me what to do. Nail polish smelled weird. A small price to pay for the colours.
After a few short minutes each finger nail had been painted a different colour. Wiggling fingers made for a shimmering rainbow.
"Thank you. These are awesome!" I gave Mel the brightest smile I could.
Her face flushed red for some reason as she smiled back. "They suit you. No problem. Anyway, we should get back to work."
Mel spent some time guiding me through the rest of my worksheet. She never told me the answer, instead trying to give me hints and to guide me along the right track. It was hard but with Mel's help, I got through it before the bell.
Mel's guidance helped me remain focused on the tasks at hand. Mostly. We spent a bit of time just talking, getting to know one another. By the end of my few short hours, we'd arranged to meet up outside of school in a couple of days, then again further in the week for a makeup tutorial. I looked forward to them both.
Abi had joined in on our conversations occasionally but kept remembering she was supposed to be doing something else and then hopping back to her own desk. She was enthusiastic about seemingly every single thing she put her mind to.
Mel headed home instead of coming to lunch with me. Abi and Taffy joined me instead.
Lunch lined up with the end of school for me. Technically I could just go home and eat there. However, Heather would still be at work and I was still learning how to cook. There was also the benefit of getting to know my potential new friends.
Taffy was tall, standing several heads over everyone in the class. Based on her features I figured she was asian. Long legs gave her long strides that were hard to keep up with. It didn't help that she had no situational awareness, making her often barge through gathered groups of people. Abi didn't seem much better, which left me to apologise to each person we shoved past.
"Bert ended up eating the whole cookie in like three seconds flat! We were shocked, surprised, and amazed that he could eat so fast. Dash was sure he would beat him," Abi continued to ramble as we walked to the cafeteria.
My brain was too focused on checking the people around us for potential weapons or for potential threats to listen to what she was saying. I hummed in response at what I thought were appropriate times.
Two girls ahead of us pushed away from the lockers they were leaning against, both began heading towards us. A look in their eyes and the way they walked made me think they were looking for trouble.
One of the girls began to speak as she walked over to our group, "Well, looks like motormouth dragged something fresh out of the trash. What do you–" I cut the blonde girl off by punching her in the mouth.
She collapsed backwards to the ground, holding her lip as blood spurted out between her fingers. Her friend squawked then moved towards me, I punched between her collarbones to disable her advance. She joined her friend on the ground.
"What the heck! Meadow, why'd you hit them?!" Abi pulled me away from the now crying girls.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you insane you stupid bitch?" The blonde girl screamed from the floor. Flecks of blood spat out of her mouth as she spoke. Two boys were attending to the girl I'd punched in the sternum.
Abi led me back towards the classroom we'd come from. The girl I'd punched screamed some more rude things as we left. Taffy followed along, her face stuck in a wide-eyed expression.
"Meadow… Why did you? Why'd you hit her?!" Abi asked, continuing to lead me through the hallways.
"She was a threat, I dealt with it."
"Isabelle isn't a threat! She's a bag of air! You didn't need to punch her just for saying mean things."
"I thought she was going to hurt you or Taffy."
Taffy didn't react to her name, continuing to stare wide-eyed ahead of us.
"No. She's not a physical person, just likes hearing the sound of her own voice. You can't just hit people!" She let go of my arm to face me. "Oh gosh, I'm gonna be in so much trouble." Abi chewed on the end of one of her stray strands of ponytail.
"Why would you be in trouble for me defending you?"
"I don't know! That's just how it works!" Her arms waved around as she spoke. "You hit her because of me and that means I'll get in trouble too. My mom's gonna kill me."
"Your mom hurts you?"
"What? No? It's just an expression. Geez, what's with you?"
"I don't… I'm sorry. I didn't want to get you in trouble. I just wanted to help."
"It's fine. Well, it's not fine, but it's fine. Just… let's go talk to Mrs. Wilkins, okay? She'll know what to do." Abi walked ahead. "C'mon Taffy." She gripped the taller girl's hand in her own to guide her along.
Leaving was still an option. Leaving Abi to deal with the consequences of my actions wasn't an option. I followed along.
Mrs. Wilkins was upset with me. The principal was upset with me. Heather was upset with me.
I stared at the floor of the principal's office as they scolded me for fighting. All of them were treating me with a level of care you'd use for porcelain figures, as if the wrong word would make me explode. Heather didn't say much at all other than apologising on my behalf.
Due to my circumstances, they were being lenient with me–my phone told me that meant less strict.
The first part of my punishment was that I had to leave school before lunch time from now on to reduce the chance for me to run into other students. I was also required to go to an anger management class after school every week. Anger wasn't the emotion I felt before punching them. Anger usually felt explosive, like it needed to escape at all costs. Punching them had felt like the right thing to do, no emotion involved.
Still, Heather thought it was a good idea, and it beat being kicked out of school after my first day there. Despite my nerves, it hadn't been so bad.
Heather and I drove back home in silence. She didn't even glance at me once during the entire ride. After we parked in the driveway the door handle didn't open the door. The lock switch didn't look red. Red for go was confusing.
"Meadow," Heather said.
"What?" I looked over to her. She looked sad.
"I don't want to punish you for this."
"Then don't." I turned away to stare at a bird out the window. It fluttered between branches without a care in the world.
"You understand what you did wrong, right?"
I grunted in a vague 'yes'.
"I don't want to punish you because I think this is because of the hero thing. You've been in crisis mode all week, so it's understandable why you reacted the way you did. You saw what you thought was a threat and reacted with a level of violence you thought would solve it." She paused for a long moment. I didn't feel the need to respond.
"I overworked myself, so you overworked yourself," she continued. "It's my job to look out for you and in this situation, I failed. We both needed a break from it all but I failed to give you that. To give us that."
Heather paused again. She took a deep breath before continuing. I looked back over to her. Her eyes were focused dead-ahead as if she could see through the closed door of the garage.
"Still, that doesn't mean you can hit someone. It's also hard to blame you for it due to your situation." Heather slumped forward to rest her head against the steering wheel. She groaned. "This is hard, Meadow."
"Sorry."
"Thank you, I just… we need to open a dialogue, okay?"
"What does that mean?"
She straightened up then looked over to me. I avoided her gaze by looking at the dashboard.
"It means we need to talk. To have a back-and-forth conversation that lets us both know what each other is thinking. Can we do that?"
"Sure."
"Good. Good…"
For a long while we both sat there in silence. Birds fluttered outside, singing a small tune. Wind rustled the trees in a hushed song. Nature hummed in harmony, unaware we were here.
I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the window. Heather tapped a tune of her own against the car steering wheel, a song of anxiety.
"This week sucked," Heather breached the silence.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."
I hummed in response.
"I've been so stressed out. I kept having to run from bomb-to-bomb, from fight-to-fight, and the entire time I kept thinking about you being out there. I was so worried that the next call would be that you were hurt–or worse–and I didn't know how to deal with that. So I just kept going, trying to save the next person so that their loved ones didn't hear the same call I feared getting." Heather stared straight forward, her knuckles turning white from the death grip she had the steering wheel in.
I leant over to hug her. She flinched at my touch before wrapping her arms around me. Traitorous tears broke free of my eyes.
"I was so scared, too. I was scared I was going to die. I was scared you were going to die. I keep having dreams where I find you buried beneath all that rubble or I find you turned to stone. Mom, I don't know how to deal with this. It's all too much. I keep jumping at every passing person and I don't know how to fix it."
Heather squeezed me tight, gentle shushes joined the tender hug. Tears of her own fell onto my back.
"It's okay. We're going to be alright. We can get through this. I know it's scary but we can fix this. We'll both go to therapy more often. We'll look out for each other, make sure we're both safe. We'll get through this. Okay, Meadow?"
I fought back the sobs to speak, "We'll get through this. Yeah, we'll get through it."
I believed it.
Healing isn't an instant process. Like most things, it takes work and effort.
Neither of us were quite sure what the future held. What we did know was that we had each other. Knowing that I wasn't alone in my thoughts helped a lot on its own.
So we watched movies we'd seen before. Knowing all the story didn't ruin the movie for me. It gave me a comforting familiarity. Heather normally complained that we were watching the same movie for the seventh time in a week. Tonight, she just wrapped us in a blanket and watched along.
Neither of us were okay, but we were both here.
Today wasn't what I expected. A week ago I had been excited at the prospect of going to school. Now, I found myself struggling to want to go back. I didn't regret hitting Isabelle. I did regret the impression I made on my classmates.
Not all of it had been bad. Mel had been nice, we'd even set up to meet outside of school. Would she still want to go after learning I punched two girls?
"I met someone today. I mean I met the whole class, but one of the girls helped me with my work," I told Heather as the movie continued in the background. Her head rested on top of my own, it shifted in a way that showed she was looking down at me.
"Was she nice?"
"Very." I held out my hands for Heather to see my nails. "She painted my nails."
"Colourful."
"Yeah."
We continued to bask in the familiar warmth of a seen movie. Heather twirled a strand of my hair around in her fingers. I stopped a yawn before it could escape me.
"She asked me to go out with her in a few days," I said.
"That's nice. You should do it."
"Yeah? I wasn't sure if I should. I don't want to, y'know, again."
"It'd be good for you. Just be careful."
"What if she doesn't want to because I hit someone?"
"Then give her time. First impressions aren't the end-all, be-all, you can always make up for it. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise you?"
Mel snorted with laughter. "That's fucking hilarious. She's a bitch, totally deserved it."
"I've never hit someone before!" At least not outside of training.
"Really? You hit them like a pro from what I heard."
"I've had some self-defence classes."
"Nice, I approve. I took kickboxing for a while, more for sport than self-defence."
"That's so cool!"
Mel smirked at me, while brushing a finger across her nose.
We had stopped in a small park that barely counted as a park. Despite its small stature and rusted out playground, it offered us a level of privacy we didn't have wandering the streets.
Our day had started with window shopping before we both got bored of just looking. We had no real plan or goal in mind for what to do, so we just began to walk around the nicer areas of the city. We avoided Empire territory as best we could. Our skintones shouldn't stand out to them, but neither of us wanted to deal with the potential of meeting one of the local nazis.
I wished they didn't exist.
Hookwolf and Alabaster escaping still set me on edge when I thought about it. I doubt either would notice me in my civilian identity but I'd rather they be behind bars entirely. Victor remaining in custody didn't help ease my brain at all. There was the nagging feeling that his escape was a matter of when not if.
Shaking my head helped clear my negative thoughts. Yesterday's session with Dr. Kim was focused on ways to counter negativity, to move past the bad and look towards the good. None of the lessons had stuck in just a day, so just ignoring the negativity was still my best option.
Mel and I had decided to sit on the swings. Neither one could move much from all the rust clinging to the metal chains. Each movement elicited a gross sounding squeak. After trying to swing and being met with metal grinding against metal, neither of us dared to move much more than a gentle sway.
It wouldn't be hard to fashion up a rust removal chemical that replicated with rust. The starter I had used for my healing paste was still tucked away in the boxes at my lab. Singling it out would have brought too much attention to it, so I'd let it be taken away with the rest of my hoard.
Beyond removing the rust, we could tighten some of the bolts to make this place a little more functional. Maybe Mel wouldn't question it so much if I told her I just liked repairing things.
Could I risk it?
A horrible metal against metal squeak pierced my ears as Mel shifted her weight.
"Sorry." She winced. "Didn't mean to."
"It's okay. I might be able to fix it." I pulled the wrench out of one of my many pockets before climbing up onto the seat of the swing to tighten the bolts near the top.
"You carry a wrench with you?"
My face flushed with heat. I was hoping she wouldn't consider it odd. "I like to be prepared. I also have a box cutter, pliers, and a multi-tool for the rest. Oh, also some tape."
"Wow, you really are prepared. I feel underdressed now."
I smiled down at her. "If I'm around you can always use my tools, I don't mind."
Mel's grin brightened further, she raised her eyebrows in a way I didn't understand. "Despite what most people might think, I don't know shit about mechanical stuff."
I hopped down onto the padded playground floor to test the swing. There was still a grinding noise of the rusty chains dragging across each other, but the squeaking had stopped.
"I could teach you, if… you teach me some kickboxing?"
Mel stood up, she towered over me by about a head. Her build was quite stocky, making her loom wide as well as tall. There was a comfort in being around someone bigger than you. She stretched out a hand for me to shake. Her grip was firm.
"You got yourself a deal, Meadow. How about we start right now?"
"Fuck yeah!"
Mel took me through some basics, mostly how to kick. My fighting practice had covered the idea of kicking safely but hadn't taught me much else. Punching, blocking, grappling, and how to counter all three, were the focus of Heather's lessons. Kicking didn't come up much.
It left me off-balanced without much reach in my legs to compensate for the downside. Mel noticed pretty quickly and moved me towards stances instead. They were less flashy than kicking but 'a good base will make everything more effective', according to Mel. Heather had told me something similar.
Limb enhancers would improve my kicking as well as my reach. I had thought of them in the past but had never bothered due to giving Coco (rest in peace) a piston mechanic. Now they seemed like the next thing I should prioritise.
Mel took our training with a level of seriousness I'd expect from Vista. She wasn't shy to correct mistakes. Despite it being blunt, I liked the straight-forward direction more than someone trying to be nice about it.
After teaching me the basics we did some mock spars using only the moves she'd shown me. Even holding back the blows, it helped to have a target to hit.
I found my eyes drifting to her arms as she went through the motions. She had a knight's build, like Glory Girl. Her makeup ended up running a little from the sweat. It made her look a little wilder, a little more feral. I guessed I probably looked the same. Heather often joked that my hair made me look like a wild girl, and exercise would only enhance that look.
We ended up training for over an hour due to losing track of time. Both of us sat on the stairs to the jungle gym to catch our breaths. Mel sat on the top step, while I sat on the bottom step. Her big, stompy boots rested by my head on the step above me.
My many-pocketed backpack held delicious juice boxes to help cool us down after our exercise.
"You have a surprising amount of muscle definition in your arms," Mel commented. "You said you've been training for a month, right?"
Now that she mentioned it, I noticed the slight muscle on my arms. My muscle-enhancement protein must be working well.
"Yep. Though I have also been exercising outside of it. My mom likes fitness–used to be a soldier–so she's got me eating more and doing daily runs, lifting weights, and stuff."
"Makes sense." Mel wiped down her forehead with the back of her hand. She was barely sweating, unlike myself. Maybe I should make something to combat sweat? Then I'd also need to make something to combat overheating.
The taller girl stretched her arms up high over head with a satisfied grunt. She leapt down from the stairs then offered me a hand to help me up. I pulled myself up with her help, then stretched as well.
After I finished, I found her hazel eyes boring into my own as she stared at me with a soft smile.
Eye contact felt weird, I'd never been a fan of it. This time, it felt weirder. My heart squeezed for an unknown reason as she continued to stare at me. I couldn't take it anymore and looked away.
Breaking eye contact was considered rude, people–for whatever reason–liked it. I didn't hate it, I just felt uncomfortable doing it too long.
Mel touched her fingers against my left hand. A moment later she slid the rest of her hand across mine to hold my hand completely. Her hand was rough and her grip was firm. I glanced up at her to find her staring away from me with beet red cheeks.
"We should get going. Sunset's soon," she said, almost a mutter.
"Okay." I smiled at her. We walked away from the rusty park, hand-in-hand, as the sun began to dip behind the buildings. I wasn't sure why she wanted to hold my hand, maybe she was scared?
Either way, there was a comfort I enjoyed from her firm grip. Even with the sweat, I didn't mind it.
Nervous energy balled up inside of me and refused to release. Even moving couldn't get rid of the tight feeling in my chest.
Lung had been taken out by the villains. Bakuda had been captured, her super bomb stopped. Vista and Clockblocker were heroes to the whole Ward team for helping to stop it. I wasn't even included in the attack plan. Not that I was bitter, it would just be nice to be included in something important.
Only stragglers of the ABB were left. There was still plenty to do when I next patrolled, but for now, school.
Despite knowing that she was gone, despite knowing that her remaining bombs were being disarmed, despite the soldiers outside, despite knowing that I was safe, I still couldn't help but flinch at every passing person on the way to Arcadia.
Students from Immaculata High had been some of Bakuda's victims. Students from Arcadia could have bombs implanted into them and not even know it.
Tinkers were creative, she could have used a sleeping gas bomb to implant them stealthily. If I was her, it would have made sense to do it quietly.
Doing school work or even meeting new people felt pointless in the face of the past week. I should have been out there, fighting, disarming bombs, and helping people. There was still so much damage, so much destruction left to fix.
Guards stood outside the gates to Arcadia, scanning people with devices as they passed, a metal detector. My finger would likely trigger it due to the metal framework implanted inside.
I considered leaving to avoid facing it all but thought better of it. Leaving at the first hurdle would be admitting defeat. At least school was only a few hours per day right now. I could leave later on if it got too much.
"Take out anything metal and open your backpack, please," one of the guards asked me.
"I have some metal shrapnel in my middle finger, right hand," I lied.
"That's fine."
He waved the device over me as the other guard checked my backpack. It beeped as it passed over my finger but he ignored it. Lying was wrong. In this case, it was justified.
The guard returned my backpack to me before turning his attention to the next student in line. Even these guards didn't make me feel safer from the invisible threats.
I took a deep breath in. I can do this.
When I spoke to Piggot about Bakuda's file I'd asked her why she did her job. She considered herself a soldier, changing from sword to pen didn't change that. Paperwork was just another battlefield for her to fight in.
School should be similar–just another battlefield to fight in.
Mostly, I didn't want to disappoint Heather. She had been excited at me getting to go back to a 'normal' life. Could I ever be normal with the ringing still in my ears?
No one paid me any attention as I found my way to class. Just another face in the crowd. As long as I remembered my list, no one should bother me: Don't eat from the trash. No tinkering. Remember to shower.
The classroom I would be spending the rest of the school year in was hidden away in the southern part of Arcadia. It was the only door at the end of a dead-end hallway. Being close to the cafeteria helped further obscure it, as most people wouldn't notice an extra place when they were hungry for food.
Mrs. Wilkins, my new teacher, wore a moss-coloured cardigan over a flowery dress. Chestnut hair fell loosely down to her shoulders. Her big, droopy eyes blinked at me as I entered the room.
"Ah, Meadow, I assume?" Her voice was soft, but still perfectly audible. Vista had explained to me how people did that, she called it 'projecting your voice'. A vital skill for public speaking, or for a young hero.
"Yeah, that's me."
My nerves threatened to burst out of my seams. Other students were already seated to my left, some of them staring directly at me. I tried to ignore the stares as I took a deep, calming breath. Time to be Meadow, not Raccoon Knight. I managed to force my face into a smile.
Mrs. Wilkins nodded, then cleared her throat. All of the class turned to look at me.
They're just normal students. No weapons, no bombs, no powers.
"We have a new student today," Mrs. Wilkins said. "She's got a lot of catching up to do, so please help her when you can." She turned back to me before saying, "Introduce yourself, dear."
"Oh, um…" How do I introduce myself? "My name is Meadow. I like bubblegum ice cream… and, uh…" I struggled to find anything else about myself. It was like Mrs. Wilkins had drained all my memories from me in an instant.
People like facts, right?
"Did you know that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards us but the rest are flying away?"
Wikipedia had become my favourite site since getting my laptop. There were so many things you could learn that led into yet more things.
Mrs. Wilkins' face shifted into an expression I didn't understand. Maybe she didn't know that fact?
"Ah, thank you, Meadow. Take a seat wherever you like. I'll be handing out assignments shortly."
There were six other students in the class, three girls and three boys. Dozens of empty seats meant this classroom was used for more than just us. All of my classmates had decided to sit in the front two rows.
Everyone looked… normal. Maybe it was just from the way the class had been described to me but I had expected the people to look more unusual.
A girl wearing bright yellow clothes waved at me as if trying to dislodge a bug from her arm.
"Meadow! Sit here!" She patted the desk to her right. Sitting anywhere else would feel rude, now. Besides, there was no reason to be unfriendly to her.
I took a seat at the desk next to her, slinging my backpack over the back of the chair.
The blond-haired boy in front of the enthusiastic girl looked back at me with a blank expression before turning back to the front.
"Hi, my name is Abigail but everyone calls me Abi! Abigail means 'cause of joy', did you know that? You can also call me Abi if you want."
A strand of her brown hair escaped out of her ponytail, falling into her face as she leant over to me. She tried to blow it away but it just fell back to where it was.
"Okay. Nice to meet you, Abi." I didn't know what else to say to her.
"Nice to meet you too! This is Tommy." She patted the boy in front of her on the back. "He doesn't speak, but he's a great listener.
"Also that's Eric." She gestured to a wide boy with square features. He was doodling with an intense look on his face. "He likes playing the trombone."
"That's Tiffany but we call her Taffy." Taffy looked spaced out, she seemed to be counting the ceiling tiles. Her dark silken hair shimmered as she shifted her head to count behind her.
"There's Mel, we call her Mel." The stocky girl wore dark clothes with purple accents. She had big, clunky boots kicked up onto the vacant seat in front of her. I liked her face, it looked nice.
"Terry, he likes making origami." Abi gestured to a skinny boy whose desk was completely covered in little paper structures. He was in the middle of making another as she spoke. His brown hair was styled into a bowl cut, a hairstyle that I still didn't understand.
"And that's, oh, that's everyone. Also you, Meadow, but you knew that."
"Thanks for introducing everyone?" I said, part-confused, part-thankful. It was a lot of people to take in at once.
"No problem!"
Conversation still failed to be a skill I had while Meadow. For some reason, being Raccoon Knight made the confidence thing a whole lot easier. Mrs. Wilkins stood up before I could figure out what to say next.
We weren't all learning the same thing, as we were all here from different places in life–even if no one here looked much older than me.
Mrs. Wilkins' job was to tell us what we needed to read, what worksheets we needed to do, and to offer individual help if we got stuck. Otherwise we were free to work at our own pace.
She went around the classroom to give the small group our individual lessons.
"Let me know if you need any help, Meadow. I'll also check in with you later on. For now, just focus on worksheet A and leave the rest for the future. Feel free to ask the other students if you need help, as well. Just don't disturb anyone, okay?" Mrs. Wilkins said. I nodded.
Today's worksheet was English, my worst subject. The PRT had assigned me a lot of tests to determine where I was education wise. Science and maths were my best subjects, probably thanks to my power. She had helped me a lot over the past couple of months, I didn't know where I'd be now if not for her.
I couldn't recall what my old best subjects had been. Memories of school were a distant blur in my mind.
The sheet wasn't too hard, neither was the reading I needed to do, but focusing on school work felt impossible. My eyes would slip away from every word on the page no matter how hard I tried to focus.
There, their, they're. Who cares? My eyes wandered over there, to Mel. She was scribbling against the page as if trying to tear it apart. Their work would be ruined if they continued. Mel's hazel eyes met my own. They're looking right at me!
Her eyes wandered down to my paper then back up to me. I looked away.
Her boots made big, stompy footsteps as she walked over to me.
"Hey, new kid. Meadow, right?" Her accent was unfamiliar. Probably not from around here.
"Yes." I hoped she wasn't here to yell at me for staring at her.
"You need help?"
"Oh, um, sure."
Mel left to grab her chair. She shoved it against my desk then sat down next to me. She was much taller up close, and the muscle-definition in her arms became more obvious. The smell of cherries drifted from her short, black hair.
She leant closer to check over my assignment.
"You got 'where' wrong on this part. Think of it like a sister to 'there'. So, if I asked 'where is my pencil?', you could say 'over there'." She pointed to nothing in particular, then spelled 'there' out letter-by-letter.
"That makes sense. The 'H' makes them siblings."
"Perfect." Mel smiled at me, then showed me a few more things I had got wrong.
My eyes drifted to her face, which was covered with obvious makeup in dark colours. Heather had taught me how to apply subtle makeup to hide certain imperfections. She didn't explain why we were supposed to use it though, so I often forgot. Mel's makeup stood out; it wasn't trying to be sneaky like the way Heather did hers.
Maybe not in dark colours, but more obvious makeup might be fun to try. My first thought was to ask Heather if she knew how to do it, then I realised the obvious answer was sitting right next to me.
"I like your makeup. Could you teach me how to do it like that?"
Mel squinted at me. "Thank you," she said slowly. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head a little. "Thank you," she said again. This time she smiled at me.
"Sorry. I'm used to people being dicks. You don't seem like the type to wear stuff like this." She gestured to her face and body.
"Hm, not really. I prefer brighter colours. I've just never seen makeup like yours."
Mel got up out of her chair all of a sudden to walk over to her bag. Her hands reached deep into the thick backpack to rummage around inside. Eventually she found what she wanted and returned with several small brightly coloured pots.
Their glass jars clicked and clacked as she placed them down on the desk in front of me.
"My sister likes bright colours too. She always forgets to bring her nail polish to school so I ended up buying spares in case she ever needs it. What colour do you want?"
What colour did I want? Each of them looked like they'd be fun to paint with. You could make a pretty field of flowers with a sunny sky, a meadow. "All of them?"
Mel's face lit up, a bright contrast to her dark clothing. "We can do that. Hold out your hands like this."
Her fingers splayed across the desk showed me what to do. Nail polish smelled weird. A small price to pay for the colours.
After a few short minutes each finger nail had been painted a different colour. Wiggling fingers made for a shimmering rainbow.
"Thank you. These are awesome!" I gave Mel the brightest smile I could.
Her face flushed red for some reason as she smiled back. "They suit you. No problem. Anyway, we should get back to work."
Mel spent some time guiding me through the rest of my worksheet. She never told me the answer, instead trying to give me hints and to guide me along the right track. It was hard but with Mel's help, I got through it before the bell.
Mel's guidance helped me remain focused on the tasks at hand. Mostly. We spent a bit of time just talking, getting to know one another. By the end of my few short hours, we'd arranged to meet up outside of school in a couple of days, then again further in the week for a makeup tutorial. I looked forward to them both.
Abi had joined in on our conversations occasionally but kept remembering she was supposed to be doing something else and then hopping back to her own desk. She was enthusiastic about seemingly every single thing she put her mind to.
Mel headed home instead of coming to lunch with me. Abi and Taffy joined me instead.
Lunch lined up with the end of school for me. Technically I could just go home and eat there. However, Heather would still be at work and I was still learning how to cook. There was also the benefit of getting to know my potential new friends.
Taffy was tall, standing several heads over everyone in the class. Based on her features I figured she was asian. Long legs gave her long strides that were hard to keep up with. It didn't help that she had no situational awareness, making her often barge through gathered groups of people. Abi didn't seem much better, which left me to apologise to each person we shoved past.
"Bert ended up eating the whole cookie in like three seconds flat! We were shocked, surprised, and amazed that he could eat so fast. Dash was sure he would beat him," Abi continued to ramble as we walked to the cafeteria.
My brain was too focused on checking the people around us for potential weapons or for potential threats to listen to what she was saying. I hummed in response at what I thought were appropriate times.
Two girls ahead of us pushed away from the lockers they were leaning against, both began heading towards us. A look in their eyes and the way they walked made me think they were looking for trouble.
One of the girls began to speak as she walked over to our group, "Well, looks like motormouth dragged something fresh out of the trash. What do you–" I cut the blonde girl off by punching her in the mouth.
She collapsed backwards to the ground, holding her lip as blood spurted out between her fingers. Her friend squawked then moved towards me, I punched between her collarbones to disable her advance. She joined her friend on the ground.
"What the heck! Meadow, why'd you hit them?!" Abi pulled me away from the now crying girls.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you insane you stupid bitch?" The blonde girl screamed from the floor. Flecks of blood spat out of her mouth as she spoke. Two boys were attending to the girl I'd punched in the sternum.
Abi led me back towards the classroom we'd come from. The girl I'd punched screamed some more rude things as we left. Taffy followed along, her face stuck in a wide-eyed expression.
"Meadow… Why did you? Why'd you hit her?!" Abi asked, continuing to lead me through the hallways.
"She was a threat, I dealt with it."
"Isabelle isn't a threat! She's a bag of air! You didn't need to punch her just for saying mean things."
"I thought she was going to hurt you or Taffy."
Taffy didn't react to her name, continuing to stare wide-eyed ahead of us.
"No. She's not a physical person, just likes hearing the sound of her own voice. You can't just hit people!" She let go of my arm to face me. "Oh gosh, I'm gonna be in so much trouble." Abi chewed on the end of one of her stray strands of ponytail.
"Why would you be in trouble for me defending you?"
"I don't know! That's just how it works!" Her arms waved around as she spoke. "You hit her because of me and that means I'll get in trouble too. My mom's gonna kill me."
"Your mom hurts you?"
"What? No? It's just an expression. Geez, what's with you?"
"I don't… I'm sorry. I didn't want to get you in trouble. I just wanted to help."
"It's fine. Well, it's not fine, but it's fine. Just… let's go talk to Mrs. Wilkins, okay? She'll know what to do." Abi walked ahead. "C'mon Taffy." She gripped the taller girl's hand in her own to guide her along.
Leaving was still an option. Leaving Abi to deal with the consequences of my actions wasn't an option. I followed along.
...
Mrs. Wilkins was upset with me. The principal was upset with me. Heather was upset with me.
I stared at the floor of the principal's office as they scolded me for fighting. All of them were treating me with a level of care you'd use for porcelain figures, as if the wrong word would make me explode. Heather didn't say much at all other than apologising on my behalf.
Due to my circumstances, they were being lenient with me–my phone told me that meant less strict.
The first part of my punishment was that I had to leave school before lunch time from now on to reduce the chance for me to run into other students. I was also required to go to an anger management class after school every week. Anger wasn't the emotion I felt before punching them. Anger usually felt explosive, like it needed to escape at all costs. Punching them had felt like the right thing to do, no emotion involved.
Still, Heather thought it was a good idea, and it beat being kicked out of school after my first day there. Despite my nerves, it hadn't been so bad.
Heather and I drove back home in silence. She didn't even glance at me once during the entire ride. After we parked in the driveway the door handle didn't open the door. The lock switch didn't look red. Red for go was confusing.
"Meadow," Heather said.
"What?" I looked over to her. She looked sad.
"I don't want to punish you for this."
"Then don't." I turned away to stare at a bird out the window. It fluttered between branches without a care in the world.
"You understand what you did wrong, right?"
I grunted in a vague 'yes'.
"I don't want to punish you because I think this is because of the hero thing. You've been in crisis mode all week, so it's understandable why you reacted the way you did. You saw what you thought was a threat and reacted with a level of violence you thought would solve it." She paused for a long moment. I didn't feel the need to respond.
"I overworked myself, so you overworked yourself," she continued. "It's my job to look out for you and in this situation, I failed. We both needed a break from it all but I failed to give you that. To give us that."
Heather paused again. She took a deep breath before continuing. I looked back over to her. Her eyes were focused dead-ahead as if she could see through the closed door of the garage.
"Still, that doesn't mean you can hit someone. It's also hard to blame you for it due to your situation." Heather slumped forward to rest her head against the steering wheel. She groaned. "This is hard, Meadow."
"Sorry."
"Thank you, I just… we need to open a dialogue, okay?"
"What does that mean?"
She straightened up then looked over to me. I avoided her gaze by looking at the dashboard.
"It means we need to talk. To have a back-and-forth conversation that lets us both know what each other is thinking. Can we do that?"
"Sure."
"Good. Good…"
For a long while we both sat there in silence. Birds fluttered outside, singing a small tune. Wind rustled the trees in a hushed song. Nature hummed in harmony, unaware we were here.
I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the window. Heather tapped a tune of her own against the car steering wheel, a song of anxiety.
"This week sucked," Heather breached the silence.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."
I hummed in response.
"I've been so stressed out. I kept having to run from bomb-to-bomb, from fight-to-fight, and the entire time I kept thinking about you being out there. I was so worried that the next call would be that you were hurt–or worse–and I didn't know how to deal with that. So I just kept going, trying to save the next person so that their loved ones didn't hear the same call I feared getting." Heather stared straight forward, her knuckles turning white from the death grip she had the steering wheel in.
I leant over to hug her. She flinched at my touch before wrapping her arms around me. Traitorous tears broke free of my eyes.
"I was so scared, too. I was scared I was going to die. I was scared you were going to die. I keep having dreams where I find you buried beneath all that rubble or I find you turned to stone. Mom, I don't know how to deal with this. It's all too much. I keep jumping at every passing person and I don't know how to fix it."
Heather squeezed me tight, gentle shushes joined the tender hug. Tears of her own fell onto my back.
"It's okay. We're going to be alright. We can get through this. I know it's scary but we can fix this. We'll both go to therapy more often. We'll look out for each other, make sure we're both safe. We'll get through this. Okay, Meadow?"
I fought back the sobs to speak, "We'll get through this. Yeah, we'll get through it."
I believed it.
...
Healing isn't an instant process. Like most things, it takes work and effort.
Neither of us were quite sure what the future held. What we did know was that we had each other. Knowing that I wasn't alone in my thoughts helped a lot on its own.
So we watched movies we'd seen before. Knowing all the story didn't ruin the movie for me. It gave me a comforting familiarity. Heather normally complained that we were watching the same movie for the seventh time in a week. Tonight, she just wrapped us in a blanket and watched along.
Neither of us were okay, but we were both here.
Today wasn't what I expected. A week ago I had been excited at the prospect of going to school. Now, I found myself struggling to want to go back. I didn't regret hitting Isabelle. I did regret the impression I made on my classmates.
Not all of it had been bad. Mel had been nice, we'd even set up to meet outside of school. Would she still want to go after learning I punched two girls?
"I met someone today. I mean I met the whole class, but one of the girls helped me with my work," I told Heather as the movie continued in the background. Her head rested on top of my own, it shifted in a way that showed she was looking down at me.
"Was she nice?"
"Very." I held out my hands for Heather to see my nails. "She painted my nails."
"Colourful."
"Yeah."
We continued to bask in the familiar warmth of a seen movie. Heather twirled a strand of my hair around in her fingers. I stopped a yawn before it could escape me.
"She asked me to go out with her in a few days," I said.
"That's nice. You should do it."
"Yeah? I wasn't sure if I should. I don't want to, y'know, again."
"It'd be good for you. Just be careful."
"What if she doesn't want to because I hit someone?"
"Then give her time. First impressions aren't the end-all, be-all, you can always make up for it. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise you?"
...
Mel snorted with laughter. "That's fucking hilarious. She's a bitch, totally deserved it."
"I've never hit someone before!" At least not outside of training.
"Really? You hit them like a pro from what I heard."
"I've had some self-defence classes."
"Nice, I approve. I took kickboxing for a while, more for sport than self-defence."
"That's so cool!"
Mel smirked at me, while brushing a finger across her nose.
We had stopped in a small park that barely counted as a park. Despite its small stature and rusted out playground, it offered us a level of privacy we didn't have wandering the streets.
Our day had started with window shopping before we both got bored of just looking. We had no real plan or goal in mind for what to do, so we just began to walk around the nicer areas of the city. We avoided Empire territory as best we could. Our skintones shouldn't stand out to them, but neither of us wanted to deal with the potential of meeting one of the local nazis.
I wished they didn't exist.
Hookwolf and Alabaster escaping still set me on edge when I thought about it. I doubt either would notice me in my civilian identity but I'd rather they be behind bars entirely. Victor remaining in custody didn't help ease my brain at all. There was the nagging feeling that his escape was a matter of when not if.
Shaking my head helped clear my negative thoughts. Yesterday's session with Dr. Kim was focused on ways to counter negativity, to move past the bad and look towards the good. None of the lessons had stuck in just a day, so just ignoring the negativity was still my best option.
Mel and I had decided to sit on the swings. Neither one could move much from all the rust clinging to the metal chains. Each movement elicited a gross sounding squeak. After trying to swing and being met with metal grinding against metal, neither of us dared to move much more than a gentle sway.
It wouldn't be hard to fashion up a rust removal chemical that replicated with rust. The starter I had used for my healing paste was still tucked away in the boxes at my lab. Singling it out would have brought too much attention to it, so I'd let it be taken away with the rest of my hoard.
Beyond removing the rust, we could tighten some of the bolts to make this place a little more functional. Maybe Mel wouldn't question it so much if I told her I just liked repairing things.
Could I risk it?
A horrible metal against metal squeak pierced my ears as Mel shifted her weight.
"Sorry." She winced. "Didn't mean to."
"It's okay. I might be able to fix it." I pulled the wrench out of one of my many pockets before climbing up onto the seat of the swing to tighten the bolts near the top.
"You carry a wrench with you?"
My face flushed with heat. I was hoping she wouldn't consider it odd. "I like to be prepared. I also have a box cutter, pliers, and a multi-tool for the rest. Oh, also some tape."
"Wow, you really are prepared. I feel underdressed now."
I smiled down at her. "If I'm around you can always use my tools, I don't mind."
Mel's grin brightened further, she raised her eyebrows in a way I didn't understand. "Despite what most people might think, I don't know shit about mechanical stuff."
I hopped down onto the padded playground floor to test the swing. There was still a grinding noise of the rusty chains dragging across each other, but the squeaking had stopped.
"I could teach you, if… you teach me some kickboxing?"
Mel stood up, she towered over me by about a head. Her build was quite stocky, making her loom wide as well as tall. There was a comfort in being around someone bigger than you. She stretched out a hand for me to shake. Her grip was firm.
"You got yourself a deal, Meadow. How about we start right now?"
"Fuck yeah!"
Mel took me through some basics, mostly how to kick. My fighting practice had covered the idea of kicking safely but hadn't taught me much else. Punching, blocking, grappling, and how to counter all three, were the focus of Heather's lessons. Kicking didn't come up much.
It left me off-balanced without much reach in my legs to compensate for the downside. Mel noticed pretty quickly and moved me towards stances instead. They were less flashy than kicking but 'a good base will make everything more effective', according to Mel. Heather had told me something similar.
Limb enhancers would improve my kicking as well as my reach. I had thought of them in the past but had never bothered due to giving Coco (rest in peace) a piston mechanic. Now they seemed like the next thing I should prioritise.
Mel took our training with a level of seriousness I'd expect from Vista. She wasn't shy to correct mistakes. Despite it being blunt, I liked the straight-forward direction more than someone trying to be nice about it.
After teaching me the basics we did some mock spars using only the moves she'd shown me. Even holding back the blows, it helped to have a target to hit.
I found my eyes drifting to her arms as she went through the motions. She had a knight's build, like Glory Girl. Her makeup ended up running a little from the sweat. It made her look a little wilder, a little more feral. I guessed I probably looked the same. Heather often joked that my hair made me look like a wild girl, and exercise would only enhance that look.
We ended up training for over an hour due to losing track of time. Both of us sat on the stairs to the jungle gym to catch our breaths. Mel sat on the top step, while I sat on the bottom step. Her big, stompy boots rested by my head on the step above me.
My many-pocketed backpack held delicious juice boxes to help cool us down after our exercise.
"You have a surprising amount of muscle definition in your arms," Mel commented. "You said you've been training for a month, right?"
Now that she mentioned it, I noticed the slight muscle on my arms. My muscle-enhancement protein must be working well.
"Yep. Though I have also been exercising outside of it. My mom likes fitness–used to be a soldier–so she's got me eating more and doing daily runs, lifting weights, and stuff."
"Makes sense." Mel wiped down her forehead with the back of her hand. She was barely sweating, unlike myself. Maybe I should make something to combat sweat? Then I'd also need to make something to combat overheating.
The taller girl stretched her arms up high over head with a satisfied grunt. She leapt down from the stairs then offered me a hand to help me up. I pulled myself up with her help, then stretched as well.
After I finished, I found her hazel eyes boring into my own as she stared at me with a soft smile.
Eye contact felt weird, I'd never been a fan of it. This time, it felt weirder. My heart squeezed for an unknown reason as she continued to stare at me. I couldn't take it anymore and looked away.
Breaking eye contact was considered rude, people–for whatever reason–liked it. I didn't hate it, I just felt uncomfortable doing it too long.
Mel touched her fingers against my left hand. A moment later she slid the rest of her hand across mine to hold my hand completely. Her hand was rough and her grip was firm. I glanced up at her to find her staring away from me with beet red cheeks.
"We should get going. Sunset's soon," she said, almost a mutter.
"Okay." I smiled at her. We walked away from the rusty park, hand-in-hand, as the sun began to dip behind the buildings. I wasn't sure why she wanted to hold my hand, maybe she was scared?
Either way, there was a comfort I enjoyed from her firm grip. Even with the sweat, I didn't mind it.
Thanks to RedIronWolf and NotDis for proofreading <3
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- Location
- Usa
Meadow looks at the camera, "does this mean I am turning into a lesbian all of suddenly and dating her after one meeting? Crap, now I have to study dating stuff. Damn you OP Arthur person."
She pulls out some books on dating and piles them on the table next to her. Spends the next few hours reading books on dating before pulling one last book onto the table. Gives the camera one last glare before getting to leave. "Someone just said I am dating to my horror so I have read all about this stuff damn it and do not give me crap on what I have to read that is making my brain explode right and my power really is a pervert for sure." She walks off screen as every saw the tidal is the lesbian karma sutra.
"Damn perverts along with my power." She mutters walking off screen.
Ok, silly omake that please do not take overall with fun. Some thing very silly about her bitching about the OP making her study all about dating. Along with the comment in the post above this for the idea.
She pulls out some books on dating and piles them on the table next to her. Spends the next few hours reading books on dating before pulling one last book onto the table. Gives the camera one last glare before getting to leave. "Someone just said I am dating to my horror so I have read all about this stuff damn it and do not give me crap on what I have to read that is making my brain explode right and my power really is a pervert for sure." She walks off screen as every saw the tidal is the lesbian karma sutra.
"Damn perverts along with my power." She mutters walking off screen.
Ok, silly omake that please do not take overall with fun. Some thing very silly about her bitching about the OP making her study all about dating. Along with the comment in the post above this for the idea.