Many thanks to @themanwhowas, @Technetium43, @Assembler, and @fabledFreeboota for betareading.
Many thanks to @MugaSofer for fact checking.
-x-x-x-
Kid Win leaned heavily on Aegis in front of me. Clockblocker supported Sophia behind me. At the fore, Armsmaster led our party. Assault was carrying an injured Battery gingerly, as if she was made of glass. Velocity was limping, and Miss Militia was supporting him.
And in the midst of it all, I walked alone, taking it all in. My team was alive, my friends had survived. No thanks to me.
The forcefield bridge was still working—which was fortunate, since without Vista we had no other way to get across to the Rig. Like Armsmaster's armor, it must have been shielded from the EMP in some way.
We went straight to the medical wing and dropped off our injured, and then Armsmaster turned to me.
"Annatar," he said. "My office."
"I'm coming," said Sophia.
"No." Armsmaster's voice was crisp and cold as ice. "You're not."
"It's fine," I told her. "You rest."
She gritted her teeth, but nodded an acceptance and followed the other Wards out another door, glancing back at me over her shoulder as she left.
Armsmaster's office was an interesting room. It was perfectly organized, papers stacked neatly into a well-maintained inbox and outbox, or carefully slipped into files in organized cabinets. On the wall behind the desk was set a console panel, its small screen dark. The room was halfway to being a workshop itself, too, with a rack of halberds on one wall and steel mannequins clad in spare suits of blue armor on another. Other than these functional displays, and the open, white-curtained window in the wall to the left of the entry, the only decoration on the desk was a single carved wooden paperweight in the shape of a dragon.
He sat across from me in a visibly reinforced chair meant to bear the weight of his armor and looked at me. One of his elbows rested on the desk, and his hand cupped his chin, which worked slightly as though he was chewing.
There was no other chair, so I stood, clasping my hands behind my back.
"What happened?" he asked. He didn't sound angry, surprisingly enough. He sounded worn out, more than anything else.
"In detail, or in summary?"
"In detail, please."
I nodded. "The Wards stormed Über and Leet's base," I said. "I think the PRT picked them both up."
He shrugged. "I haven't had time to verify anything, and it's not as though I can call it in anymore. I'll verify when I can; in the meantime, just be honest."
I nodded and opened my mouth to speak, before hesitating. "I'm using Fire right now," I said. "I know you prefer to have these conversations without that influence. Can I have a place to swap."
"Do it here. I'm curious to see your 'Rings of Power' outside of a recording," he said, looking me in the eyes.
I stared at him, my lips parting slightly. He smiled slightly; an impulsive, exhausted motion. "We're not
blind, Annatar."
I smiled back. Tears came to my eyes—relieved ones. I'd been keeping that secret on principle, even from people I'd started to trust. If Piggot and Armsmaster knew, I was honestly glad of it. They deserved to know. "Okay," I said, pulling forth my Jewelry Box. "
Edro a adlenc."
The light of the Rings of Power shone brilliantly upon the walls for a moment as the box opened. I slipped off Narya, took up Vilya and slipped it on. "Air's okay, right?"
"That's fine, yes. Vilya?"
"Right." I closed the box and slung it back behind me.
Armsmaster's single window faced west. I looked out through it, watching the rising sun slowly paint the tops of the buildings in gold as it trickled down, as I continued.
"The others stormed Über and Leet," I continued. "Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Shielder came and joined them as they were finishing up. After that, we decided to continue, and hunt down Bakuda while you were all fighting Lung."
"Against orders."
"Yes. We knew you all had your hands full, and we figured that without Oni Lee or Lung, Bakuda would be as weak as she'd ever get."
He nodded. "I understand the assumption," he said. "What happened next?"
"We located her hideout," I remembered. "We found a building Lung seemed to be trying to lead you away from. Aegis and Glory Girl stormed it from above while the others came in through a balcony. It was pretty well defended. Clockblocker and Vista both used their upgraded powers."
"These are the powers your Rings gave them?"
"Yes. There was a trapdoor in the bottom floor which led to what I guess was a modified parking structure. Bakuda was there with a lot of bombs—and one big one."
"The EMP."
"Right. The Wards got her talking, to buy time for Shadow Stalker to get around her and come from behind. Apparently it was supposed to be way bigger. She claimed it was going to have a payload of… 80 terajoules, I think she said, and that the EMP would take out something like half the country."
"Preliminary reports suggest only the city was caught in the effect," Armsmaster said. "We're still working on getting emergency communications online, but things are definitely not as bad as they could have been."
"That's good," I sighed. "She used a timestop bomb to freeze the other Wards and fled. Shadow Stalker barely got out and saw her leave. She warned me that Bakuda was coming towards PRT HQ. So I went outside and stopped her."
"Killed her, you mean." His voice was softer now. "Are you okay?"
I shook my head. "Not really... but not because of Bakuda." I sighed. "Bakuda was just—It was good to get closure, I guess. If anything, it was scary how easy it was." I paused, chewing on my lip, then added, "Oh, I made sure to disable her deadman's switch first."
"Good. Our problems would be much worse otherwise. You saved lives with that." He considered me for a moment in silence, one gauntleted finger tapping rhythmically on the mahogany table. After the silence had stretched just long enough that I prepared to break it, he asked, "Why did you kill her? You could have taken her in. She was fully neutralized."
I looked out the window again. The sunrise had now filled the empty streets with molten gold. The city looked almost peaceful, now, rather than dead. "I thought she'd killed my friends," I murmured. "I
knew she'd killed a lot of people. And I… She was dangerous, even when she looked subdued, so partly I wanted to make absolutely certain. But… mostly it was justice. Or vengeance."
"Justice is something the courts deal with," Armsmaster said. There was something odd what little of his face I could see; a slight worrying of the corner of his mouth, in seeming
sympathy of all things.
I didn't answer. He sighed.
"We'll have to see what happens," he said. "At the moment, there's no warrant out for your arrest. We'll have to see what the PRT chooses to do. In the meantime, I can't let you leave the Rig until something is decided. I doubt that'll take more than a day."
"I understand." I wondered if they would arrest me. I doubted this would get me sent to the Birdcage, but I
was a master. That made me dangerous. Life as a fugitive didn't sound appealing.
I didn't
regret killing Bakuda, but I was worried about the consequences it would have.
"Do you…?" he hesitated, on the cusp of a question, visibly searching for words. I waited, but at length he visibly gave up and moved on. "Who led this mission, Annatar?" he asked. "Who caused the Wards to go totally against orders and attempt to bring in Bakuda alone?"
I swallowed. "Aegis was technically in command," I said. "But… I egged them on, I gave them tactical advice, I encouraged them to stay in. Laserdream had second thoughts, and it was me who convinced her to stay, not Aegis."
Armsmaster nodded. "I had a feeling," he said. "Browbeat's report indicated as much. I'm sure you realize that your teammates could very easily have died tonight?"
I shuddered. "Yeah, I—I've been thinking about that."
"I'm sure you have." He watched me for a moment, still giving me that same, odd look, before continuing. "Thank you for being honest. I'll talk to Deputy Director Renick, and we'll decide what's to be done."
I frowned at him. "What about the director?"
He grimaced. "With the power out, Director Piggot's dialysis machine will have failed. There are systems in place for such eventualities. She should already have been airlifted out by Dragon, along with many other newly-critical patients from the local hospitals."
"Piggot needs dialysis? Why?"
"She was injured in a PRT operation several years ago. I doubt she'd like me telling you any more." He stood up. "Suffice to say that, until either she returns or we're assigned another Director, Renick and I will be taking command. Until further notice, Annatar, consider yourself off-duty. No patrols, no console work—not that we have a console, anymore. This is in effect regardless of what happens regarding your killing of Bakuda."
"Yes, sir."
He glanced out the window. "Take today off," he said. "Feel free to tinker, if you can without power. If we can, we'll have the schools back in operation in the next few days, and you can go back to regular attendance, assuming you're not arrested."
Many of the schools had shut down during Bakuda's bombing spree. Winslow had been one of them. "Which one?" I asked. "Winslow or Arcadia?"
"That remains to be seen." He looked back at me. "Your father still hasn't left the hospital, correct?"
"Right." Then I twitched, and bile surged up in my throat for the second or third time that night at least. "The EMP—"
"Your father was there for severe burns and a few broken bones, yes?"
"Right." I sighed. "Will he be okay?"
"He should." Armsmaster sounded confident. "Those are treatable without electricity. It may be a little harder, and recovery may take a little longer, but his injuries shouldn't be life-threatening even now."
I sighed in relief. "You think so?"
"I do." He scratched at his beard idly, considering me. "Stay here today, then, instead of going home. You can stay in the barracks."
"Thank you, sir."
He nodded. "Send Aegis in, please."
-x-x-x-
The Rig was larger than PRT Headquarters, and had several lounges—one of which was reserved for the Wards when we were there. That was where I went.
The room was in one of the Rig's spires, and had two windows; one faced east, and gave a lovely view of the rising sun, gold and bright, setting every surface in the room gleaming. The other faced west, towards the city, like Armsmaster's. The individual panes skyscrapers' glass windows and walls shone like stars in the reflected light of the dawn.
Carlos, Dennis, Sophia, and Sam were all seated around a coffee table, huddled over their mugs with masks off, when I arrived in the lounge. Sophia made to stand up when she saw me, but I held out a hand to stop her and came over.
"Carlos," I said lowly, "Armsmaster wants to see you."
He nodded and stood up, stretching. Then he met my eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I smiled wearily. "I don't know," I said honestly, "but thank you."
His eyes searched my face for a moment, what of it he could see under my mask. Then reached out and clapped me on the shoulder.
"We did it," he said. "We won."
I tried to keep smiling as I nodded.
He shook his head with a sigh and glanced at Sophia. "Take care of her," he ordered, then reached down, picked up his mug, and left.
I took his seat, slumping into it and allowing myself to sink into the cushioned back of the armchair. My eyes closed. For a moment I just sat there in silence, none of the others saying a word.
"You want something to drink?" Sam asked. "We've got coffee, tea…"
"Please," I whispered. "Hot chocolate?"
"I'll get it," Sophia said, standing and leaving the table, patting my pauldron gently as she passed me on her way to the water dispenser.
"How are you feeling?" Dennis asked.
"Ha," I huffed a single syllable of laughter. "Exhausted? Guilty? Relieved?"
"Aegis said about the same," Sam said.
I sighed. "How'd the Protectorate's mission go?" I asked.
"Faultline's Crew was hit pretty hard," Sam told me. "Oni Lee hit them with a couple of Bakuda's bombs. A couple of her capes were killed, but I don't know which ones. No Protectorate or New Wave casualties, thank God."
"And the villains?"
"Still free," Dennis said. "Oni Lee disabled Armsmaster's tranquilizers before he could use them. He had a spare halberd without tranquilizers, but there was no way to stop Lung. He just kept ramping up."
I opened my eyes and looked out the window. Now that I knew what to look for, I saw it—a scar, a couple of blocks long, of blackened, ruined buildings and streets torn apart by fire and claw. A sign of Lung's passage.
"Eventually they just had to withdraw," said Browbeat. "The EMP hit while they were on their way back to base."
Sophia returned and handed me an off-white porcelain mug, filled with a steaming brown liquid. I took it in both hands with a smile at her and brought it up to my nose, drinking deep of the bittersweet scent.
"Still, though," Clockblocker said. "Can you imagine if we
hadn't gotten her tonight? The EMP would have been even bigger. She was going to disable half the country with that. It really would have been worse than an Endbringer."
"Assuming we let her use it," I said, my voice soft to hide how it quavered. I brought the cup to my lips and sipped at the warm drink. It scalded my lips and tongue a bit, but it was good.
"We did our best," Clockblocker argued. "It's—"
"If we had taken the time to get our hands on a blueprint of the building before storming it," I said quietly, "we could have gone straight into her workshop. Because we came from above, she knew we were coming, and prepared accordingly."
The others were silent.
"If we hadn't had to fight through the upper floors," I continued, "we would still have had both you and Missy at full strength, Dennis. We could have shut her down before she had a chance to do anything at all." I looked up and met each of their eyes. "The EMP is my fault," I whispered, "because I was impatient. I thought we had to stop her
now, when it would have been so easy to withdraw, report her location, and come again when we were more prepared."
"Give me a break," Sophia scoffed. I blinked at her.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. You think Lung wouldn't have been there to stop us? The Protectorate were looking for Bakuda, and he stopped them from getting to her. You think he wouldn't have done it again?" She met my eyes. Despite her hard tone, her brown eyes were soft and warm.
"Don't torture yourself, Taylor. We did our best. If we'd done nothing, it would've been a lot worse. We can't do everything perfectly."
I looked down into my mug. For a moment there was silence.
"I could have done better," I said.
"Maybe," allowed Sam. "Will you, next time?"
"Yes."
"Then that's all anyone can ask." He stood up. "I'm going to turn in for a couple hours."
"Same," said Dennis. "You two should as well."
I nodded and held up my cup. "I'll just finish this."
He nodded, gave me a wry grin, and left.
"I don't actually know where the dorms are on the Rig," I told Sophia after a moment.
"I'll take you," she said, fiddling with her hair bun. "They're a couple floors down."
"Thanks," I said.
"No problem." Her hair came loose and she shook it out with a relieved sigh.
I looked up at her. "No, really," I mumbled. "Thank you for everything, Sophia."
She smiled at me, her cheeks a touch flushed against her dark skin. "Really," she said. "It's no problem."
-x-x-x-
Please consider donating to my Patreon. Many thanks to those who have already donated.
