Foundation 2.3
The Wards sat around the conference table waiting for the meeting to start.
"Any idea what this is about, Aegis?" Gallant asked carefully. They'd been suddenly called together and no information had been given ahead of time. He could tell that Aegis had been spooked by whatever it was he'd been told.
When he met the rest of the Wards, Aegis had been subdued, and everyone could tell something was wrong.
"It would be best to wait for Armsmaster to tell you. He'll be here soon," said Aegis.
"Where's Shadow Stalker? It's not like her to be late to an important meeting like this. She should know better, being on probation and all," said Vista.
"That's what this meeting is about, actually. Shadow Stalker," Aegis said quietly.
Then Armsmaster stepped in with Miss Militia and stood at the front.
"Good, you're all here," said Armsmaster. "What I'm about to tell you is highly classified and will not leave this room, understood?"
To Gallant's senses, the man was a simmering pot of anger. Miss Militia's emotions were equally turbulent, though hers was tinged with greater worry.
The Wards confirmed verbally, and what Armsmaster said next sent them all into shock.
"Shadow Stalker has gone missing. She is also suspected of attempted murder and numerous other charges."
There was a moment of pause as the statement sunk in, nobody daring to make a sound.
Armsmaster continued. "We became aware of her disappearance earlier this afternoon when her handler reported that she did not go to school, and her mother confirmed that she never returned home, which she unfortunately failed to report until this morning. A trace on her PRT issue phone's GPS history showed that it was discarded in the ship graveyard last night at 12:07 AM."
He turned on the projector, and showed a screen with an animated map of the paths traced from her last known location at Winslow High.
"Earlier in the evening, the police acquired eyewitness evidence of her involvement in the attempted murder of a fellow student at her high school a week prior in her civilian identity, as well as numerous other related crimes. Based on these facts, we have no choice but to consider the possibility that she is now fleeing from law enforcement. Effective immediately, Shadow Stalker is no longer a member of the Wards and is to be treated as a dangerous villain. Should any of you encounter her, you will not engage and risk a lethal confrontation. You will immediately retreat and report it to control."
"Oh, my god…" Vista whispered. "Stalker tried to kill someone, in school?"
"That's messed up. I always thought she was a little crazy, but this is just messed up," said Clockbuster.
"With the police investigation, it has come to light that Sophia may have led a year long bullying campaign at school against one of her peers. As a result, we are thoroughly reviewing her behavior since becoming a Ward, and we also want you guys to please speak out if she has done anything to any of you. The Wards team should be a positive environment for you to develop your skills and work with future heroes. We understand that if anything happened, it may be a very private matter, so please feel free to come to us in private, or speak with one of the counselors we have available, who will maintain full confidentiality. We will support you in every way that we can, and I hope you will support each other too. There will be no mandatory patrols over the next few days. There will be a new schedule planned, and Aegis can give you a run down of what's in the works," said Miss Militia.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia left the meeting room to allow Aegis to handle the rest.
The Wards exchanged glances amongst each other, then everyone looked at Aegis.
"So they've decided that we should have more team building exercises and some classes on conflict resolution and bullying. I don't actually have much more information than that. The schedule hasn't been set yet, but they should have something more specific for us by tomorrow. Today will essentially be a day off, give us a chance to sort our thoughts, maybe decide if you want to talk to one of the counselors," Aegis said.
"I can hardly believe it, this came out of nowhere. Sophia was cold, but damn, turning villain? Year-long bullying campaign? How did nobody catch it before it went too far?" Clockbuster said while shaking his head.
"Her emotions have always felt unusually aggressive to me, but I never really saw her acting out in front of us," said Gallant. Mentally, he replayed a number of scenes in the past where he thought Sophia was angered but outwardly showed nothing, or some of her more caustic comments that she felt unapologetic about despite being criticized by Aegis. Was there something that he could've have done sooner? He would never know, but the mere thought of it left a horrible aftertaste.
Vista opened her mouth as if to speak, but then decided to keep quiet. She'd never gotten along with Sophia, and it had been very disappointing when she thought Sophia would be a good addition to the team as a second girl, only to find out that the other girl was unfriendly and dismissive of her. Now that she really thought about it, some of times they'd talked and Sophia insinuated that she was incapable, maybe they would have qualified as bullying. Vista had always put up with that sort of thing because she expected it from everyone older than her, but maybe she really shouldn't be so tolerant of it.
She might have to take up Miss Militia on that offer to speak in private.
"Oh man…" Kid Win moaned. "A Ward turning villain. What are people going to say when they see her out in public again?"
"Nothing good, I imagine. Then again, she might have left Brockton Bay entirely, if she's really running away," said Aegis.
"Honestly guys, it sucks that she turned villain, but I'm also sort of happy that she's not on the team anymore. I could never stand how standoffish she was," said Clockblockter. "We'll definitely have a more, what'd they call it? Positive environment? Without her around."
"Well, I can't say you're alone in that, Dennis. As our leader I've always felt it to manage her, but I just chalked it up to me not being experienced enough," said Aegis.
"Nah, you're fine, Carlos. You're a great leader," said Clockblocker.
"I would tend to agree with Dennis, Carlos. I couldn't ask for a better team leader," said Gallant.
"Yeah, what they said," said Kid Win.
"Agreed," said Vista.
"Thanks guys. Let's back to the lounge, meeting's over anyway, no need to stay in this black and white room," said Aegis, referring to the drab décor of the closed conference room.
O O O
Deputy Director Renick came through the door with a visibly disturbed expression. He walked up to Director Piggot's desk and handed over some papers.
"What's this?" She asked.
"The police just received search warrant on her civilian identity. They showed up at her house and her mother contacted her handler. We've held them off for now, but their jurisdiction takes priority because she's suspected of an unpowered crime as a civilian. Our claim is only a missing person case. They'd have jurisdiction even if we found her, as criminal charges take precedence over internal discipline."
Piggot quickly glanced over the documents describing the charges and basis for the search warrant.
"Hm…they used her disappearance as an indicator of guilt and possible flight from law enforcement, and the judge accepted these as probable cause," she said. "That does complicate things for us. Anything we can use to take over the case? Anything that suggests there's more to the story?"
"The problem with the police view is that Shadow Stalker would have had to been warned about the case very quickly. But Shadow Stalker isn't a Thinker, so how did she find out? Unfortunately, we haven't found a body or clear signs of foul play yet, so we have nothing to claim jurisdiction with. Nevertheless, our working hypothesis is vigilante action. The Winslow Locker case was going nowhere before this, without any willing witnesses or hard evidence that could tie the crime to Hess. She was going to get off scot free. Boom, vigilante cape comes in and decides to enforce their own justice. Villain involvement is possible too. However, we think that if there is any, then they are probably not the instigator, but simply helping Shadow Stalker hide, which wouldn't contradict the police view."
Piggot raised an eyebrow at Renick. "Why do you say vigilante action? What about the bullying victim? It sounds like conditions were perfectly lined up for a trigger. Revenge wouldn't be much of a stretch from there."
Renick shook his head. "I did think of that, so I had it checked out. Her case is one of those we normally flag for a possible trigger. But the girl doesn't have a Corona and Gemma at all. Panacea did the healing and confirmed it in the medical report we received. It doesn't fit unless we accept that Shadow Stalker got taken out by an unpowered civilian with no training that's still recovering, and how likely is that?"
"Hm…" Piggot mulled the facts in her head. "We don't have much of a choice. Let's at least ask for a joint investigation. We'll share what we know, and maybe they'll find new clues for us."
O O O
I should apologize to her, she thought, sitting in her room, staring blankly at her homework. She'd apologized to her sister, but never had a chance to apologize for her misunderstanding before that Taylor girl left.
Didn't even leave her contact information. As if she said she wouldn't follow sis around anymore and that was that.
Now Victoria didn't have a way to find her. If she had been more friendly, would it have been possible to convince the girl to be a hero?
Just another mark down in the long list of mistakes she'd made.
Or, maybe she could just ask Ames. She probably knew how to get in touch, right?
Then she sighed as she was reminded of her last conversation with Dean. She shouldn't have blown up like that, and now it was just awkward. She'd avoided him all day, and did her best to act normal around Ames but she could probably tell something was wrong.
It would be easier if they just got together. At least she could have a sense of closure. It would be over. She could try to move on.
But no, Dean just had act all guilty and reluctant about it. She understood why Ames didn't act on her feelings—stealing a boyfriend from your own sister was just bad, but why was it so hard for Dean?
Unless, he wants to date both of us? The thought flitted across her mind, before being rejected. He wasn't that kind of jerk…she hoped.
She sighed again and threw her pencil down. She could fix the problem herself if she just went up to Ames and told her. He's all yours, sis. Totally cool with this.
But she couldn't bring herself to do it. As stupid as it was, she didn't want to be the one to end things. Because maybe, somehow, there was a way for her to win, and for Ames to win too, and she'd regret it if she gave up now.
"Arrgh!!" She let out an incoherent cry of frustration before standing up, getting in her costume, and flying out the window.
When she received a decent altitude, she just floated there basking under the twilight sun. It had only been a few weeks since the solstice, and daylight was short.
From her bird's eye view of the city, she looked for criminals to catch.
Brockton Bay was such a terrible city, there were always bad guys out whenever she patrolled, though not necessarily in the nice district her family lived in.
She roamed around for about ten minutes without finding anything, before she decided to visit some other less reputable areas.
It wasn't long before her flight took her to the docks, where she saw the devastation from the freak lightning hail storm.
It was lucky for the city that the storm was so concentrated in one place where there weren't many people around or electric appliances to explode.
Though now, as if turning into a tourist attraction, there were quite a few people taking pictures of the damage, the craters and the blackened ground.
When she arrived to look around for herself, they started taking pictures of her too, but she didn't mind.
A few minutes later, she found a crime in progress.
Finally! With a smirk, she swooped in to the thugs in ABB colours that were robbing a couple of the sightseers in an alley, her aura turned on.
"Stop right there!" She shouted, bodily slamming into one of the thugs, sending both of them into a wall.
"Shit! Cape!" One of them cried out, and turn to flee.
Naturally Glory Girl didn't let him and immediately caught up, throwing him back into the alley on his ass.
"Don't come any closer, or this guy gets it!"
She froze as a thug held a knife to the victim's throat. The frightened eyes of the young twenty-something man pleaded with her not to do anything rash, as his mouth's whimpers were muffled by the thug's hand.
Damn. She hated when they took hostages.
"Hah! Not so tough now, are you Barbie girl? All you can do is fly and punch and break shit. Why don't you just fuck off and find your glory somewhere else, huh?" The thug taunted her with a leer despite his crazily shaking hands that showed his fear.
She suppressed the urge to bash his face in, and tried to think of what to do. If the thug was serious, she couldn't get to him before the victim died. With her fear aura on, he might even be scared enough to kill accidentally, if his wildly spasming hands were any indications. Maybe she should've waited until after the robbery was over and they let the victim go before swooping in.
The other victim, also a twenty-something guy, had been similarly held hostage by the last thug who followed his accomplice's lead.
"Fine," she said with gritted teeth and slowly backed away.
"Good, good. Keep going."
She floated up and over the ceiling of the nearest building, and stealthily moved around, looking for a good spot to watch the thugs where she wouldn't be noticed.
It was difficult, but she could still make out a few words of conversation.
"…the boss."
"…take…car…yet."
"…fucking bitch…"
Soon the words died down, and she peeked over to see the whole lot of them bringing the hostage victims out of the alley where their car was still waiting.
The teen hero mentally swore as she realized they were trying to leave with the victims to keep her from following.
She quickly called police and reported the situation along with the description of the unlicensed car, victims, and thugs.
As they drove, she followed along overhead while the police sped over and stayed on the line with her.
Eventually, they came to a stop and let the hostages out of the car.
Just as Glory Girl flew out to seize the chance to take them down, Oni Lee appeared in front of her face, and grabbed onto her with one hand and stabbing into her with another holding a dagger, to no effect.
She swore loudly and punched him off, but then another copy of him came behind her. She unleashed her aura on him, but it didn't seem to do much.
Not that she was expecting anything different from a cape that committed suicide every few seconds.
A grenade went off, blowing up the copy's body, but only taking out Glory Girl's force field. Before she could fly for cover, yet more clones appeared to wrestle with her. She had a moment of horror before she fought back in a mad frenzy to get away.
Her forcefield came up just in time to take another grenade from the clone wrapped around her, but a second one went off barely two metres below her from the falling clone.
She screamed in pain as the grenade fragments dug into her legs.
There was a moment of reprieve as Oni Lee stood on top a nearby building, silent. He seemed to observe Glory Girl for a moment, head tilting in confusion as he glanced at the grenade in his hand.
Finally, he spoke. "Leave before kill."
She glared back with tearful eyes, but didn't move to attack, simply floating there, furious that her weakness had been revealed so easily.
The standoff was interrupted by the arrival of two police cars on the street. Oni Lee reacted immediately and teleported down, frightening the police while his clone left behind threw a grenade at Glory Girl.
She dodged and went down to the street as well, intent on protecting the police.
Before the police could even call PRT, Oni Lee cloned himself several times and flung grenades at them, forcing them to flee and lunge down at the ground.
The explosions that followed destroyed the car's windows and did a number on the paint and tires.
But Oni Lee didn't stop there, he went after the temporarily downed police and stabbed into their arms and legs until they couldn't stand up anymore.
"Stop it! You bastard!" Glory Girl screamed, but couldn't do anything to catch up to Oni Lee's teleportation.
Two clones appeared before and behind her in a flash and unleashed a flurry of stabs at her. Each time she punched one away, another one replaced the last, continuing the stabbing. When it didn't seem to be working, a grenade went off, followed by more stabbing.
A dagger finally found its way into her gut, and she collapsed onto the ground, clutching at her wound.
Fuck…am I…going to die? She whimpered and gasped, as every movement sent more pulses more pain through her body.
Just then, an invisible pressure descended, the world seemed to slow down as her instincts screamed at her to run away now.
Both her pain and her ability to fly was momentarily forgotten as she jolted on the ground, only to realize that she couldn't get up, couldn't run, because she was too injured.
Sheer panic engulfed her and she briefly wondered if this was anything like what her own fear aura did to people.
But she soon came to the conclusion that no, this was a different type of feeling.
Any fear she felt was entirely her own body's making, a natural response to a situation that triggered her body's primal flight instinct.
Because a predator bringing certain death was approaching.
In front of her, she saw Oni Lee freeze up entirely, as he was the true target of whatever monster was about to arrive.
As if receiving a premonition of the future, she saw his body get slashed into pieces in an explosion of blood, the guts and parts dropping on the ground and his head with the Oni mask rolling over to a rest right in front of her.
The premonition disappeared as quickly as it came, and her eyes found the source of the feeling.
A black haired girl in a blue and white open loose robe, with black crossed collar tight robes underneath and a taijitu yin-yang symbol on the waist fitting wrap, stepped out from a small shop, holding a sheathed sword.
Her hair was tied back into a high topknot with a needle pin crossing it, while the rest flowed straight past her shoulders.
On her face was a white masquerade mask that left her mouth visible.
As she walked forward, a palpable atmosphere of danger pressed down on everyone present.
Oni Lee stumbled back as if he witnessed his own death.
But he did not move away, as if frozen in shock.
To Victoria, it seemed like everything was moving in slow motion as the girl's hand went to her sword.
She began to unsheathe it.
Inch by inch, the blade emerged.
She stared unblinkingly at the weapon that promised death.
Almost as if it was a living thing, she could almost hear a roar crying out for blood.
A tremendous roar heralding the arrival of a raging beast, an apex predator that would consume everything in sight.
Her mind conjured the illusion of a vast shadow towering over her, blocking out the sun.
It was a gigantic mass without a definite shape, its gaping maw full of razor sharp fangs that looked like they were larger than her body each, and so very hungry.
It moved closer, preparing to rip her to shreds—
Because she was definitely going to die—die—DIE—
Finally, Oni Lee seemed to come out of shock and teleported away, leaving only dust behind.
The girl stopped and sheathed her sword again after only drawing it half of the way, the pressure from the Killing Intent and Sword Intent disappearing.
Not once did Victoria register that it had only been a sword made of wood.
The ABB gangers had already driven off as soon as Oni Lee starting fighting Glory Girl, the injured police had passed out with fear, and there was a moment of peace on the battlefield.
Only then did Glory Girl remember she had to breath, and took in the precious oxygen in great gulps.
Taylor glanced at the passed out police lying on the ground, and at Glory Girl, who looked to be quite scared of her and still shaking.
It seemed that she had used Intent that was a little too strong even after trying to tone it down, having been accustomed to much higher level battles against Star Condensation stage cultivators, or suppressing Ethereal Heart stage cultivators who could easily ignore anything weaker.
She had intended to use a Killing Intent was just strong enough to guarantee Oni Lee's retreat, because she did not feel as confident about a real confrontation. No matter how she thought about it, instantaneous teleportation was definitely faster than her, and the clones all had functional qi networks and spiritual presences before they turned to dust, so it wasn't like she could easily figure out which one was real.
She could maybe win by using higher level Sword Intent techniques rather than relying on her current body's cultivation level, but that was risky because she hadn't had the chance to test them out yet. While she did know the theory behind spiritual possessions and controlled reincarnations as a Star Condensation stage cultivator, she had never done it before her suicide technique that brought her to Earth Bet.
Intent was one of those things she retained the full usage of, despite having lost most of her cultivation base. Both her Killing Intent and Sword Intent were at peak Star Condensation, half-step into Saint levels. That was how she was able to infuse the wooden sword so quickly despite never having swung and imprinted on it before.
This was the first time she'd reincarnated and left her other body after all, so there was no way to know how higher level spiritual techniques would behave.
But fortunately, the Killing Intent released was strong enough to make mortals pass out before they could commit suicide, yet not strong enough to kill them outright by causing heart attacks and the like.
She walked over to them one by one, slightly shifting each of the injured policemen, and hit them in various points with her fingers, before moving on the next.
The injured cape couldn't tell what the other cape was doing, as the police didn't seem to be healed, though it looked like the bleeding was slowed down.
It felt like forever before Taylor finally knelt down beside Glory Girl.
"Your forcefield is quite useful. It slowed down the bleeding," she said. "But it's in the way…can you turn it off for a moment?"
"N-no, itzz a-auto-m-matic," Glory Girl managed to get out.
The masked girl frowned. Glory Girl had already guessed that it was that girl from before. It had to be Taylor, what with those finger pokes and clothing.
"A power that can't be controlled, huh? How sad," she said, sighing. "Does it still work when you're unconscious?"
"Y-yes. Buh w-why you nee' off? A-Ames doeszzen nee' that, 'n' she's a Str-strikrr."
Taylor sighed. "I don't know why her power works the way it does. I, however, need to maintain a flow of qi into you which your forcefield blocks."
Without further ado, Taylor began her work. She struck the forcefield once to break it, then again quickly afterward before it could come back on. It took her a few tries to get the timing down, and it took even longer to send enough qi in a carefully controlled way into Victoria's body.
What should've have taken exactly nine strikes to execute, ultimately took her over a hundred.
"Well, I've done what I can. You'll stop bleeding soon, but you'll feel faint as the blood circulation slows down before the clotting finishes. Unfortunately, I can't completely heal you instantly the way your sister can. So try not to do anything until your sister gets to you," Taylor declared, then let the other girl lie back down on the ground.
"T-thanks," Glory Girl said, waiting for help to come. "Were you there the whole time? Why didn't you help?" She asked accusingly.
"I did help…Oni Lee might have killed you if I didn't scare him off with killing intent at the end," said Taylor.
"But you could've have fought him with me!" Glory Girl said glaring.
"There was no point. At my current level, I could neither protect you nor capture him, because of his teleportation ability. As his only goal seemed to be escape with his men, it was better to let him rather than risking pointless casualties," she said in a matter of fact tone. "Besides, don't misunderstand, I haven't decided to be a hero, I only came here to buy a practice sword."
Glory Girl's glare didn't abate, but Taylor stood up and left, leaving her alone. The hero couldn't understand how the other girl could say with a straight face that a battle was pointless, when she had so easily frozen and scared off Oni Lee, while hardly lifting a finger.
But perhaps more importantly, how could anyone exert such a terrifying presence so casually?
The absolute surety with which Victoria felt that she would die just being near the real target, was that really just caused by a power like her own aura?
Taylor had even called it "killing intent".
As if her desire to kill was so strong that it became a physically tangible force of its own.
Maybe it was right that she wasn't a hero. And yet, Victoria didn't want to even think about how much worse it would be if Taylor was actually a villain instead.
Better to have her help amid ambiguous intentions than to be fighting on the opposite side.
She didn't think she could find it in her to face her again.
If I held back any more, your life would be in peril, that was what Taylor had told her, and she had so foolishly thought it was just trash talk.
Suddenly, she felt so very small.
It took another few minutes before the ambulance and PRT arrived.
O O O
Back at the Wards' Lounge, the Wards were all hanging around out of costume. A few of them had decided to play a board game to pass the time.
Dennis sat on the couch surfing the web on his phone while waiting for his turn. Then his eyes widened comically and his jaw dropped.
"Oh. Em. Eff. Gee. Guys, you gotta see this! Dean, your girlfriend just fought Oni Lee and some new cape, and it looks really bad!"
When the rest of them rushed over, similar exclamations of shock could be heard.
On the PHO forums, a clear image of Glory Girl lying in a pool of blood could be seen, with a tall figure kneeling over her in the pose of preparing to strike down with two fingers to finish her off.
It was a figure that Dean found reminded him of a certain new cape he, Victoria, and Amy had met not long ago.
Dressed in Eastern style martial arts robes, it wasn't hard to see why many PHO posters had been quick to label her a new ABB cape.
For Dean, hope and dread filled him heart in unequal measure.
There was hope that the new cape had gone to heal Victoria and only had a strange way of doing it, but that was almost overwhelmed by the dread that maybe…this was why she had said they wouldn't understand why she had no interest in healing people.
Because she was a villain.
O O O
A/N: Some of you may have noticed that I dropped the shipping tag. Having been away from the Worm fandom for a while, my feelings on the matter aren't as strong anymore. I'd rather let the pairing play out naturally if it writes itself, or leave it alone if it doesn't. The story will remained focused on cultivation themes instead.
