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The River Keeps Running

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Interlude 5.x - Aisha
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    • Aisha







    Aisha isn't sure how she feels yet, but now isn't the time to dwell on it.

    Brian is alive.

    Brian is alive.

    It's… It's too much. It doesn't make sense. She thought he was dead. She knew he was dead.

    That's how she triggered.

    She can't… She can't process that. Not now. Not in public. Not in front of all the Undersiders. Not in front of fucking Armsmaster.

    Better to focus on going through the motions.

    "What did Echidna do, exactly?" Armsmaster asks.

    Armsmaster. He was, or maybe is, pretty high up in the Protectorate, right?

    Did he know?

    "She made clones," Aisha says, "evil, twisted versions of people who would do and say anything to destroy what the original holds dear."

    She makes sure to look Armsmaster straight in the eyes, looking for any hint of deceit.

    "She got Alexandria," Aisha says.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.1
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    • Lisa







    "She got Alexandria," Poltergeist says.

    She's staring at Colin, dissecting his expression.

    She's looking for something. For how he will react.

    Something happened when Echidna got Alexandria. She wants to know what he knew about it. How involved he was.

    "Her name isn't on the memorial," Colin says, slowly, carefully.

    "Oh, she didn't die," Poltergeist says. "She got caught, and cloned, and rescued, and the clones were killed, but not before they talked."

    Colin appears confused. Whatever was up with Alexandria, whatever plot or secret was revealed, he wasn't aware of it.

    "What's your point?" he asks.

    Poltergeist relaxes slightly, some of her hostility and wariness melting away.

    "How much do you know about Cauldron?" she asks.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.2
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    • Lisa







    According to Poltergeist, most of the people who stayed in Brockton Bay live in the Docks South, and so that is where her lair is. Taylor asks if they can check her house before they go to the lair, and after a time of reflection, Poltergeist agrees.

    The house is trashed. A empty house with broken windows, looted of anything of value, some of the furnitures missing or dismantled for firewood.

    Taylor's face looks like it was carved in stone.

    They don't have much hope, but they search through the house anyway, looking for any hint of what happened to Danny Hebert.

    Nothing.

    "He could have left town," Lisa says, "or he could have gone to live somewhere else in the Docks, somewhere with more people."

    He could be dead, she doesn't say.

    The words echo through the silence anyway.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.3
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    • Taylor







    Poltergeist's lair is a repurposed Endbringer shelter.

    That's pretty smart, actually. Those things are designed to be resistant and fit a lot of people. In case of emergency, pretty much everyone who still lives in Brockton Bay could be housed inside one or two of those.

    Poltergeist leads them to a few rooms she kept for herself in the back of the shelter, and pulls off her mask.

    She looks older than the last time Taylor saw her. Harder. More Adult.

    Alex's stomach growls.

    Aisha serves them food.

    There is meat.

    Meat. It's been a year since the last time she had any.

    It doesn't erase the awkwardness of the meal, or the churning dread in her stomach.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.4
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    • Taylor







    "Are you okay?" Taylor asks Colin.

    It's a stupid question. Of course he's not okay. His friends are dead.

    Dad might be dead, too.

    He might not be. She doesn't know. She has no way to know.

    The uncertainty makes it worse. The wait. She hates it.

    In that, Colin is lucky. At least, he knows.

    "Hannah is dead," Colin says, "And the people I've spent my entire adult life working for have turned out to be corrupt and practice unethical human experimentation."

    Taylor doesn't know what to answer. She… She didn't think the PRT was doing that kind of things, or the Protectorate, or the Triumvirate, but…

    Well. She didn't expect much of them either.

    She certainly didn't work for them.

    "I'm fine," Colin says.

    Taylor is fairly sure it's a lie.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.5
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    • Brian







    "You're alive," Aisha says.

    "Yes," Brian says.

    He barely recognizes her.

    She was a kid the last time he saw her. Thirteen. An insolent, provocative child.

    She took over a city.

    A broken one, yes, barely more than ruins, but she rules over it, and people obey her.

    He's been gone for a year. When he looks at her, it feels like it has been longer.

    "You triggered," Brian says.

    "Yes," the boy says.

    The boy is wearing a mask representing the face of a teenage girl. He pulls it off.

    He looks like a slightly younger version of Brian.

    "Aisha missed you," the boy says.

    "Who is Aisha?" Brian asks.

    "Your sister," the boy says.

    It doesn't make any sense.

    "I don't have a sister," Brian says.

    Aisha is crying.

    "You're alive," she says, voice breaking.

    Brian hugs her.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.6
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    • Brian







    "Do you have internet?" Lisa asks.

    Aisha has calmed down, dried her tears, and put her mask back on. Lisa can probably still tell she cried, but Brian doubts any of the others will notice.

    "Yes," Aisha says. "We managed to get a few generators up and running, mostly for our hospital, but I kept one for internet. I didn't want us to be completely isolated from the rest of the world."

    Lisa nods.

    "Good," she says. "We need to find out what happened to a few people, and it will help."

    Taylor's dad. Colin's teammates and friends, the ones who weren't on the memorial.

    With a start, Brian realizes he doesn't know what happened to his father and mother.

    He will have to ask Aisha later. She might know.

    She is alive. It's what matters.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.7
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    • Rachel







    "What about my dogs?" Rachel asks.

    She came back for them.

    For the others, too. Taylor and Lisa and Brian and Alec. Even Colin, a bit. But mostly, she came back for her dogs.

    She had to make sure they were fine.

    "I'm sorry," Poltergeist says.

    No.

    No.

    No.

    She should have known. There was an Endbringer, barely a week after they were sent to the other world. Of course no one bothered bringing them to safety. Of course they died.

    She should have known.

    "I went to look for them," Poltergeist says. "After Leviathan, I mean. I found your shelter. The dogs, they, they didn't make it. I'm sorry."

    Rachel thinks she might start screaming.

    "There was another dog," Poltergeist adds. "Not in the shelter, but besides it. I thought maybe she was one of those you used to fight the Empire that… That day. I took her in."

    "Do you want to see her?" Poltergeist asks.
     
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    • I feel for Rachel here, the dogs were likely not feed for a week before Leviathan rolled into town and killed them. The dog that Aisha found was likely Angelica. At least Rachel will have something to hold into.
     
    Homecoming 6.8
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    • Rachel







    Angelica.

    The dog is Angelica.

    Angelica made it. Angelica is alive.

    Angelica licks her face, and all Rachel can think of is how unlikely it was that she would get one of her dogs back. It has been a year. An Endbringer attacked. The city was evacuated. Brian's little sister took it over.

    Angelica survived all of it.

    People wouldn't have taken care of stray dogs with everything going on, Rachel knows that. Except Aisha. Aisha did. Aisha saved Angelica.

    Angelica is alive.

    Sirius is dead. Kuro, too. Bullet. Milk. Stumpy. Brutus. Judas. Axel. Ginger.

    Angelica is alive.

    Rachel starts crying.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.9
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    • Alec







    "What about my father?" the Dork asks. "Is he here? Do you know if he… If he survived?"

    She sounds calm, almost detached, but Alec can hear the buzzing, can see the bugs in the room flying erratically, growing more and more and more agitated, betraying her real feelings.

    The Dork isn't calm. She's terrified.

    "I don't know," Poltergeist says.

    The buzzing grows louder. More menacing.

    "I only met you one time," Poltergeist continues, "all I know about you is your first name. I don't know if your father is alive because I don't even know who your father is."

    "Danny Hebert," the Dork says. "His name is Danny Hebert. He was head of hiring at the DAU."

    Poltergeist thinks for a while before shaking her head.

    "I'm sorry," she says. "I've never heard of him."
     
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    • Homecoming 6.10
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    • Alec







    They divide in two groups.

    Lisa wants to use the computers to try and find out whether the Dork's father is alive, and his location if he is, while the Dork, unable to stay idle, wants to ask the people who stayed about him. The chances that he's still in Brockton Bay are slim, but Poltergeist doesn't necessarily remember the individual names of everyone in her territory. They all agree that leaving either of them alone would be a bad idea, so. Two groups.

    Spidey wants to get news on some of his superhero buddies, and Brian is reluctant to leave his sister's side so quickly, so they stay with Lisa, while Rachel and Alec himself go with Taylor for an afternoon of walking and talking to strangers.

    Joy.

    Alec feels a flicker of annoyance at the prospect, followed by another directed at the first.

    The Dork is upset. He should be sympathetic.

    Oh, well.

    Better get it over with.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.11
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    • Colin







    The first thing Colin does with his internet is to check what happened to Velocity and Dauntless.

    They're alive. Both of them.

    Colin takes a deep breathe, and feels like a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

    They're alive.

    Then, he looks up those of the Brockton Bay Wards who survived the Leviathan fight. Kid Win. Gallant. Clockblocker.

    They made it, too, although Gallant left the Wards and is currently working with a cape named Oracle.

    Five survivors. Out of the thirteen Ward and Protectorate capes who were in Brockton Bay when he left, five survived. How many would be alive, had he been there?

    How many could he have saved?

    On the computer beside him, Lisa slumps in relief, and Colin looks at her in askance.

    "Taylor's father is alive," she says.
     
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    • Homecoming 6.12
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    • Colin







    Colin knows he needs to make a choice.

    He needs to decide what he will do now that they are back.



    He always thought the choice would be obvious. That he would go back to the Protectorate, and be done. He knew his career would pretty much be over, but he spent all his adult life in the Protectorate. It's… It's important for him.

    Except the Protectorate, the PRT…

    Except Cauldron, and Cauldron capes, and Alexandria is Rebecca Costa-Brown and practiced human experimentation, and Eidolon was in on it, and the very betrayal might not be personal but it burns anyway, and Colin isn't sure what to do.

    Should he stay? Here, in the city he failed, team up with Poltergeist and try to keep her thousand or so subjects alive and safe? Try to rebuild?

    Should he stick with the Undersider, wherever they end up going? Try to steer them toward heroism, stay with the kids he grew fond of over the past year? Be a villain, in name only?

    Poltergeist doesn't need him. Brockton Bay doesn't need him, not really, not anymore, and neither do the Undersiders.

    The Protectorate does, and he knows people inside of it. Velocity and Dauntless. Kid Win and Clockblocker. Chevalier and Dragon. They're rebuilding themselves, the entire organization is, trying to be good, trying to be better, trying to save the world, and they need all the help they can get.

    For all his doubts and hurt feelings, this is what he came back for.
     
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    • Interlude 6.x - Joshua
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    • Joshua







    When the phone rings, it takes Joshua several seconds to recognize the ring tone.

    It's his phone. Not his work phone, the one he uses as Chevalier, but his personal one. Joshua's phone.

    "Hello?" he says.

    "I was afraid your number would have changed," says a man on the other side of the line, and Joshua freezes, because he knows this voice, and Armsmaster, Colin, has been dead for a year.

    A Tinkertech bomb, they told him, activated by a gang called the Empire 88 during a confrontation.

    Did they lie? Or is the voice just a coincidence?

    "It's Colin," the man says. "Armsmaster. I know… I know you're going to need to check for Stranger effects, and my story is going to sound crazy, but… It's me. I'm back."

    The man pauses.

    "I'm sorry it took so long," he says.
     
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    • Farewell 7.1
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    • Lisa







    Taylor's father is alive in New York.

    Good. That's good.

    She's going to leave.

    Yes. She is.

    Taylor has changed during the last year. She has grown. They all have.

    Taylor doesn't need them in the way she used to.

    She will leave. She will go to New York to live with her father.

    The question is, what will the others do? Brian, and Rachel, and Alec, and Colin, what will they do? Where will they go?

    When Taylor opens her mouth to speak, Lisa knows what she will say before the words can come out.

    What will Lisa herself do?

    The world has changed too much for them to go back to what they were.
     
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