Many thanks to @dwood15, @Technetium43, @fabledFreeboota, and @Assembler for betareading.
Many thanks to @MugaSofer for fact checking.
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Vicky sat with her legs crossed, one over the other, idly worrying her lower lip with her teeth as her eyes traversed the pages of her book. It was a textbook—a long, rambling thing for Parahumans 103.
Why am I taking Parahumans 103? she wondered, raising her eyes to the ceiling some two feet away from her face.
It's a bit like, I don't know, a tinker taking an engineering course, isn't it?
She slowly turned over in the air so that she was belly-down and held the book in one hand while the other ran through her hair, idly combing out the tangles that came with turning around in midair.
Vicky loved her hair, she really did—thick, luxurious blonde curls that surrounded and framed her face in a bright halo. Almost any other head of hair wouldn't have been able to pull off a tiara, but the gold-on-gold worked better than it had any right to. Nonetheless, thick, curly hair tangled, and slowly rotating in three dimensions was not ideal for maintaining a careful hairstyle.
She closed her eyes tightly and looked back at the book, trying to focus.
It is believed that the particular powers which manifest following a trigger event are tailored to that trigger event in some way. Certain patterns have been observed. In Brutality and Brutes
, Dr. Osmond Blake explores a statistical link between brute powers and triggers involving physical injury or…
Vicky blinked once, languidly.
It's my fourth time reading that passage, isn't it?
She started laughing. The textbook dropped out of her fingers and landed on her bed, bouncing.
She slowly dropped, picked it up, and tossed it across the room onto her desk, where it landed with a hollow
thump. Still laughing, she cut her power and dropped the remaining foot and a half to her bed, landing on her side. The bed creaked under her sudden weight and for a moment she bounced up and down before the mattress settled under her.
She sighed, the mirth fading, and stared up at her ceiling. The light fixture—a plain, round thing with an internal incandescent bulb—showed every faint crack in the plaster in sharp relief.
I should talk to Mom about redoing the paint.
There was a knock on her door. "Come in!" she called, and when it opened she grinned. "Hey, Ames."
One of Amy's brows were raised and she looked Vicky up and down. "I'd ask if you usually go to bed in costume, but I know you don't. What's up?"
Vicky made a 'pfft' sound and looked back up at the ceiling. "A villain's out there rampaging with bombs, and I'm stuck here doing
homework." She rolled her eyes. "Mom won't let me go out unless there's a crisis, but if there
is a crisis, I don't wanna wait to change. I am
gone."
Amy chuckled. "Bored?"
"
Suuuuper bored." Vicky glanced over at her sister. "What about you?"
Amy shrugged. "Just reading. Heard you laughing. What was that about?"
"Oh, nothing. I just—" Vicky giggled again. "I was trying to study. Can't do it."
"And that's funny?"
"Once you've read the same sentence four times without getting it, yeah. A little bit."
Amy shrugged and came forward, sitting down at the foot of the bed. She reminded Vicky of a bird, perched on a branch, ready to fly at a moment's notice.
"What were you studying?"
"Parahuman studies. Amy, why am I taking that class?"
Amy chuckled. "Don't ask me. Having second thoughts?"
"
So many second thoughts." Vicky turned away from her sister and looked out her bedroom window. She frowned. "Hey, Ames?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you have your phone?"
"Yeah, why?"
Vicky's brow creased. "Can you look up whether that bitch lit the city on fire recently?"
Amy shifted behind her, stood up, and looked out the window too. "Oh," she said succinctly. "Yeah, I'll check."
She started fumbling in her pocket even as Vicky swung her legs over the other side of the bed and stood up, approaching the window and looking out. The fire was bright, orange and red. She couldn't see the flames themselves, of course—it wasn't that close—but the glow cast light against the tall buildings and sent smoke and haze into the sky, glowing.
"Oh, fuck."
"What is it?" Vicky asked quickly.
"…I've got good news and bad news."
"Good news first. I like good news."
"It's not Bakuda."
Vicky's brows rose. "Hey, that
is good news."
"It's Lung."
Vicky's brows fell again. "Oh."
"Yeah."
There was a moment's silence.
"Okay!" said Vicky brightly. "Sorry to dash, Ames, but I gotta run!"
"No," said Amy, her voice monotone and deadpan. "You are
not rushing off to fight Lung."
"Amy is quite right."
Vicky turned. There was her mother, standing in the doorway, in full costume. The orange crossed blades on the white made Vicky's fingers itch slightly, as they always did.
Time for action.
"I just got off the phone with your aunt," she said. "Who was contacted by Director Piggot. The Protectorate has engaged Lung while the Wards attack Über and Leet. Vicky, you and your cousins are going to join the Wards. Your aunt and uncle and I are going to join the Protectorate. Understood?"
"What about Dad?" Amy asked.
Brandish looked away. "He'll be coming with me," she said. "If he comes at all."
Vicky grimaced. "One of his bad days? Surely a little cape fight would make him feel better? Can't he pull himself together for this?"
"That," Amy said, her voice frosty, "is not how depression works, Vicky."
Vicky gritted her teeth and looked back out the window. "So what's the plan?"
"Laserdream and Shielder are coming here now," said Brandish. "Laserdream is in contact with the PRT and will lead you to the Wards. You're to follow her lead, understand?"
"Yes, Mom."
Brandish smiled under her mask. "Good. Good luck, Vicky, and be careful."
Vicky leapt forward with a power-assisted lunge and embraced her mother. "I'll be fine," she said. "I'm invincible.
You be careful—you're all squishy."
Brandish laughed and hugged her back. "Go," she ordered. "Your cousins will be on the front porch any minute."
Vicky pulled away from her mother and gave her sister a jaunty wave over her shoulder. "Later, Sis," she said.
Amy waved back. "Go beat up bad guys." Vicky could practically hear the unspoken,
but not too badly.
-x-x-x-
Vicky reached the warehouse just in time to see a body in a red suit tumbling through the air, shards of broken glass scattering around it. The thickset form slowed on the way down, the glass passing it up as its flight kicked in.
A little thing like
flight wasn't going to stop Vicky from seizing this one by the horns, though. She caught Aegis' bulky form halfway down to the ground. He blinked brown eyes at her for a moment.
"Just dropping for a visit?" she asked.
"…You know I can fly, yes?"
Vicky shrugged. "Hey, not every day beefcakes drop out of the sky."
Aegis laughed—a faint, incredulous sound. "Fair enough." He extricated himself from her arms and put a finger to his ear. "Annatar, Glory Girl is on site," he said, picking shards of broken glass out of his costume and flesh.
"Laserdream and Shielder are just behind me," Vicky said.
Aegis nodded. "You heard that?" A pause. "Right. I'll go scout. Call me back if you need me." He removed his finger from his ear. "Vicky, I'm going to go up and see if I can figure out where Bakuda is. Help the others out."
"Will do."
Aegis rose upward like a shot and shrank into the night sky. Vicky watched his shapely legs disappear into the black and then followed him up part of the way, diving into the window he'd broken on his way out.
The room was empty, but the moment she passed the threshold of the window, Vicky could hear running feet heading away down the hallway. Then came a cry and a scuffling, as of two bodies grappling with one another.
She ran through the doorway and quickly sidestepped Kid Win's flying form as he was thrown past her into the wall. Über was running the other way, half-dressed. Comically large goggles were on his face—so large, in fact, that she could see the outsides of the frames even from behind him—but other than that his bulk was wearing only a tight t-shirt and jeans.
You know, he's not half bad looking, she thought as she rose into the air and flew towards him.
It's such a shame he's a jackass.
She bowled him over just as he came to a flight of stairs, and with a shout he started to fall, reaching for her to catch himself. His hand caught on her wrist and he blinked up at her.
She grinned at him. "Stop, in the name of the la-ah!" He twisted his wrist in her grip, leveraging his half-fallen position to throw her in midair. She went rolling in the air above the stairway for a couple feet as he slid back up.
She righted herself quickly, but he was already running back down the hallway, in the other direction. "Oh, no you don't!" She dove after him only to overshoot her mark as he slipped into an open doorway.
She didn't bother going back for the door and instead burst through the wooden wall behind him even as Kid Win picked himself back up and rushed to join her. There were more footsteps from the other side, coming up the stairs—the other Wards, hopefully.
Uber was halfway through opening a window when she came in. A smirk spread across her features as she charged.
She struck his back hard, sending him tumbling over the windowsill and falling out of the warehouse. She vaulted after him and flew down. He'd rolled as he landed, coming up standing, and was already running.
She dove and punched him. He didn't try to block; instead, he allowed her to strike him and used the force to push himself forward and around the corner. She sped after him and caught a glimpse of him as he ducked back into the warehouse's front door. The door slammed shut behind him.
She busted through the concrete wall and saw him sprinting towards a table on the side of the room. As she charged him, he picked something up from it and rolled out of her way.
He raised it as she turned back. It was a sword, glowing faintly blue.
"Stay back," he growled, flicking something on the hilt. The glow began to flicker rapidly, so rapidly that Vicky almost couldn't tell the difference.
"Buddy," she said, "I'm invincible."
He brandished the sword. "To impacts, maybe. This thing will deliver several thousand volts to you, about three hundred times a second."
She cocked her head. "…You know I'm invincible to electric shocks too?" although, privately, she was suddenly feeling a lot more cautious.
The rapid attacks would get through my barrier.
He blinked. "Wait, really?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." Über looked down at the sword in his hand, then sighed. "If I surrender, can you
please not hit me again?"
"Sure."
He tossed the sword back on the table. The blade, still active, sheared cleanly through the wood and stuck about a foot into the concrete below. He blinked at the damage for a moment. "Oops."
Vicky punched him. He was thrown back a couple feet and landed hard on his ass.
"Ow! The fuck, bitch?"
"You deserved it," she said easily, turning towards the stairs. Clockblocker was leading Gallant, Vista, and Shadow Stalker down to her at a jog. Vicky waggled her brows at Gallant, raising one hand to her ear in a 'call me' sign. He gave her a nod, but she couldn't see his face under the helmet.
"Where's Leet?" she asked.
Shadow Stalker pointed at an adjoining doorway where, sure enough, two feet were sticking out of the darker room. "Already taken care of," she said.
At that moment, the warehouse's main door opened, and in stepped Laserdream, Shielder at her heels.
Vicky's elder cousin stalked across the room until she was standing directly in front of her. Her eyes were hard, and she said nothing.
Vicky grinned. "Hey, coz. You missed the fun!"
Laserdream didn't reply, turning instead to Clockblocker. "Where's Aegis?" she asked.
"He and Kid Win have gone on ahead to scout," the Ward replied. "Annatar's on tactical command, from on console." He turned to Shadow Stalker. "Tranquilizers?"
Shadow Stalker nodded and withdrew a crossbow bolt, approaching Über's still seated form. "Nighty night, loser," she said, jabbing it into his neck.
"Fuck you very much," he replied. Then, without further ceremony, he fell back.
"Vicky Dallon."
"Glory Girl when I'm in costume," Vicky told her cousin with a cheeky grin. "Wouldn't want to unmask me to these fine people, would you?"
Clockblocker snickered. Laserdream was unimpressed. "I know your mom told me I was in command," she said. "So when I said,
scout ahead and don't engage until I give the word, what part of that did you misunderstand?"
"Über threw Aegis out a window."
"Aegis can
fly."
Vicky shrugged.
"New Wave." The voice came from the radio Shadow Stalked had pulled from her belt. It was cool and hard; female, but not especially feminine.
Vicky turned, blinking.
"I'm Annatar," said the person on the other end of the radio.
"I've been coordinating this mission. We're not done yet. We need to find Bakuda's hideout and take her out."
"Wait, what?" Laserdream's voice was sharp. "You want to attack a tinker's hideout now, without any of the Protectorate
or most of New Wave?"
"Yes." Annatar sounded almost surprised at the question.
"She's been blowing up my city. I'm not about to let that continue."
"Have you got a plan?" Vicky cut in.
"Aegis and Kid Win are scouting from the air. I'd appreciate assistance to them. You can all fly."
"What are we looking for?" Vicky asked.
"Movement around the fight with Lung. We're under orders not to interfere with that fight itself, but we know both Oni Lee and Lung are there, so if we can find Bakuda's hideout she should be alone."
"It
is a tinker's hideout, though," Clockblocker said.
"Yes," agreed Annatar.
"And a much better tinker than Leet. Be careful, everyone. Vista, you're transportation for the ground team. New Wave, are you willing to join Aegis and Kid Win in the air?"
Laserdream was shaking her head. "This is crazy. We were supposed to help you with Über and Leet, not jump into an attack on Bakuda herself."
"Hey," said Vicky, a smirk on her lips. "You wanna head home, you can feel free.I'm sure your mom will understand if you were scared to face the
big bad tinker on her own terms."
Laserdream glared at Vicky. "
You need to listen when someone else is in charge," she said sharply. "I really don't want to have to tell your mom that you were hurt because you charged in on your own—"
"I'm
invincible—"
"—and I
also don't want my little brother getting hurt because you were a careless idiot," Laserdream steamrolled over her.
"You will have time for this later." Annatar sounded annoyed.
"The Wards are moving out. We're running out of time. Help or don't."
"I'll help," said Vicky immediately.
Laserdream sighed. "I guess we will too," she said. "Let's go. But I'm going to talk to your mom about this, Vicky."
Vicky shrugged. When Laserdream turned away, she threw Gallant a wink, and carefully wiggled her hips a little more than strictly necessary as she followed her cousins out of the warehouse.
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