A sound. That terrible, resonant call was the only warning anyone had that things were about to change for Brockton Bay. The Endbringer Sirens had been activated. Dennis froze mid sentence, before sighing slightly and continuing. "Sorry Dad, I'll have to finish that story about Missy and her new friend later. Duty calls." He turned away from the comatose figure and left the hospital room, rapidly breaking to a jog as he neared the main lobby. Wouldn't do anyone good if he was stuck in a panicked herd trying to escape the building.
Clockblocker hit the door to the assembly area at a dead sprint and skid to a halt next to Aegis and Gallant. Aegis easily caught him as he keeled over, panting from the exertion.
"Nice to see you made it in time Clock," Aegis started, and Clock blinked for a moment. Had he really made that statement without realizing the pun potential? File that for later to poke him about, Aegis was still talking. "I don't suppose you passed Vista on the way here?" Dennis frowned inside his helmet for a moment and straightened.
"No... she was much closer to the Rig than I was, something about ice cream with a friend. She should have been back already even if she had to find a good time to separate from them. Has she checked in at all?" Aegis shook his head even as he waved over Kid Win who had just entered with a batch of Tinkers from... New York? New Jersey? New something. "We got a text when the mess first started saying she was "helping a potential parahuman asset" but nothing since. Piggot was livid, but ordered us to form up anyway, we don't have time to search for her and her phone dropped off the grid not long after."
That was... more than a little concerning. Clock opened his mouth, to say what he wasn't totally sure, when Legend strode into the room. He listened to the (de)motivational speech with half an ear, still thinking about Vista dropping off the map and...her...friend... crap.
"Aegis!" he hissed under his breath. "Do we know if her friend is a parahuman?"
New triggers were traumatic as hell after all and if Vista's friend didn't have full control yet she could have accidentally teleported then to Tahiti for all they knew, or just thrown up a techbane field that was cutting Vista off from comms. Aegis blinked for a moment and cursed. "We'll find her later, for now focus on what we can do." Clock turned back to Legend as he finished his speech, grabbing an armband as the box passed him. "These armbands will-"
Bang
The building shook in its foundations as a sharp report echoed the bay. Clockblocker tilted his head slightly. The hell? That felt like it came from the Docks. He glanced out the window at the shipyard, which PHO had had a panic attack about a few weeks back ( To be fair buildings up and repairing themselves was slightly more BS than "normal" powers. ) and froze. From this angle he had an excellent view of a model-perfect WW2 battle ship sailing full throttle into the bay. That said, he didn't think the standard model originally came with glowing Sigil paint jobs.
Or matte-black plate anywhere there wasn't a backlit line.
And he definitely knew the freaking laser cannons were not factory standard.
The Tinker ship hit open water and formed up in line with a full battle group, all similarly equipped. The cannons rotated slightly, each tracking the same target if he had to guess. He idly wondered why they weren't broadside so the back guns could come into play, then as if his thoughts had been heard, the back guns abruptly seemed to fold and remain still at the same time. At this point, Dennis' mind pretty much blue screened and he started to chuckle.
"You think the Endbringer is funny child?" snarled one of the Brutes behind him. Reminiscent of Lung if he was being honest.
"Not at all," Clock said, now laughing outright. "just thinking that some Tinker apparently decided they don't make them like they used to." he got out between giggles. Every cape present blinked and looked out the windows to see the Tinker's toys. There was a gleam of light as the cannon barrels split into four, revealing another compressed blast charging for a shot. Then-
BANG
-another report rocked the bay, shots impacting maybe a mile out. In the flash Dennis could just make out a writhing shape charging the shores. Leviathan. The ships promptly proceeded to break any resemblance to their historic counter parts and split lengthwise, revealing the sorts of cannons you only saw in cartoons on satellites and the like. And spaceships, he thought vaguely as the barrage continued while more of the BFGs (what else are you going to call that, honestly.) were revealed, each beginning to hum deep enough to be felt even in the building.
Leviathan breached the water in a jump, heading straight for the middle of the formation. Dennis heard gasps as the capes in the room saw the damage already inflicted by the main guns, scars and blackened marks lining the abomination's form. One of his eyes was just...gone, as was his left hand, most of his right knee, and his right arm mysteriously missing. Thinking back later Clock assumed Leviathan had gone for the jump to try and break the lead ship and get around them to Brockton itself, where the concern of splash damage would force the guns to halt. No such luck. A field of hexagons slammed into existence midair, blocking the jump and sending the Endbringer crashing into another field just above the waves, and coincidentally, perfectly in the crossfire of each BFG.
"Relentless?" Glory Girl muttered quietly. Not quiet enough as every eye in the building turned to her. Glory flinched then said firmly. "That looks like Relentless' barrier power. Never seen anything else like it."
All eyes turned back to the Tinker fleet (Relentless?) as the hum changed pitch one more time. The guns briefly held a miniature star in each barrel, then there was a flash that turned night to day. When it faded, most of Leviathan had been reduced to debris falling from the skies, with a peculiar sphere falling into the seas. Dennis felt numb. Just like that? The speakers in the room and around town crackled for a moment before Relentless' voice came through clearly.
"The seas belong to those who sail them little beast. You are not welcome in our territory. From this day forward the Fog rule the ocean, as it should be. Let this serve as a demonstration to all who would challenge the Fleet of Fog's claims. To harm our family will result in nothing but a brief flash of agony and an abrupt silence. Don't push us." The voice cut off and the ships returned home to prepare. After all, when one declares war on the Endbringers, it's best to plan for the worst.
A/N: Ok, this is literally the second thing I've ever written and meant for public eye so forgive my pacing issues, have a tendency to monologue even in life sometimes. Aside from that, feel free to criticize and I'll do what I can to fix it up, but note that I'm kinda crap at keeping up with notifications and schedules so it may be left as is after roughly a week or two. In case it needs clarification, Taylor justified keeping Missy safe by her by having Vista warp space to get shots from the back guns in front of the ships.
I groaned, rolling over in bed to smush my face into the pillow.
Unfortunately, when text messages go directly to your head, rolling over doesn't exactly help with ignoring them.
'What?' I sent back to Victoria.
I really should be getting up anyways. I had school, and as much as I hated it, my dad wouldn't just let me blow it off. No matter how easy it got.
With a sigh, I rolled out of bed and shambled to the bathroom.
'u said u were goin 2 do smthing last nite'
'and ur the only one that hangs around in the ship gravyrd'
'so had to be u'
No, Victoria. That's not… just because I had something to do and I'm the only one that normally is around the graveyard does not mean that it was me. That's a causal fallacy. Correlation does not imply causation.
…Even if you're right.
'so was it?'
I sighed.
Ugh. Victoria, why did you have to ask me that?
I didn't want to lie. But even more than that, I didn't want to have my full capabilities known. At least not to anybody that didn't need to know. With Dad… well, Dad deserved to know at least the basics, sure, since it was his daughter this had all happened to, but even he was still unaware of what an existential threat I was. With Leah it was probably all going to come out sooner rather than later with her power, but I wasn't eager to make that go any faster than it had to and I didn't exactly have any control over it.
But Victoria…
Victoria didn't need to know. Not right now. Not… not when I still didn't know her enough to trust her with something like that.
Even if we were becoming friends.
I just…
Dammit.
Friendships were built on trust, but this was just too big for right now. Maybe later, if things went well and when it wouldn't jeopardize things as much.
'What are you talking about?' I asked, starting the shower as I reabsorbed my 'clothes' and then stepped under the water.
'the gravyards gone. it was u, rite?'
Deflect. Deflect, avoid, redirect.
'How would I even do that? I'm an Alexandria package with force fields and no flight, remember? And I was busy last night.'
…Even if I was busy doing exactly what you're thinking.
I cleaned off as I waited for her response, before getting out and making my daily fractional avatar adjustment as I dried off.
'well yeah, but… idk.'
'so if it wasnt u who do you think it could be?'
'Uber and Leet could have done something like this, right?' I sent back.
'yea, i guess. but theyve nevr done anything like this before.'
'Or maybe a new cape?' I offered.
'maybe, yeah. whatever. kinda wish i could thank them tho. the view from the beach is gonna be sooooo much nicer now.'
I felt myself smile. It was nice to know somebody appreciated it, even if it was for something as small as that.
'How did you find out?'
'its all over tv. probs pho too'
'ppl are flipping the fck out'
I couldn't help it; I laughed.
A second later, I got another text.
'whoops, moms yelling, gotta get ready for school. ttyl'
I just grinned. 'Bye.'
Leah was already at the table when I got downstairs, a bowl of cereal and a cup of orange juice in front of her.
I have no idea how she managed to appear bleary-eyed, considering the lack of blood vessels to cause it, but somehow she did.
I went about getting myself a bowl of cereal as well, figuring I might as well follow routine. As soon as I sat down, Leah opened her mouth to say something, but immediately snapped it shut as my dad walked into the kitchen with the newspaper under his arm.
Instead Leah just gave me a withering glare.
…What the heck had I done to her?
Her glare softened, and she rolled her eyes.
"Later," she mouthed at me, and I nodded.
Breakfast was awkwardly quiet, Dad's eyes darting between Leah and I a couple times, though he never breached the silence that surrounded us.
I almost expected him to bring up the Graveyard thing, considering it had to be in the paper from what Vicky had said, but… he didn't, and I couldn't really understand why.
I wasn't even sure how I would have responded if he had brought it up. I want to say that I would've admitted to it, but I really don't know. I may have told Dad the basics of what my trigger had done to me, but he didn't know the full details, didn't know about the Fog or my full capabilities, and I don't know if I would have told him even like this.
After I ate breakfast I cleared my place, getting up and heading towards the stairs to finish getting ready. There was the sound of rushed movement in the room behind me, and then quiet padding footsteps following me up the stairs.
At the top, I turned around, facing the blonde girl who'd trailed me.
"What?" I asked shortly.
She pursed her lips, eyes darting down the stairs and towards the kitchen. She didn't want Dad to hear?
With a sigh, I led her into my room so we weren't just standing in the hall, closing the door behind us. This seemed like it was going to be a conversation.
I directed her towards the bed, Leah taking a seat as I leaned on the side of my desk across from her.
"So. The Graveyard. That was you, right?" she asked slowly.
I nodded.
She let out a small breath of relief. "Good. I thought it was, but I wasn't one-hundred percent sure."
"What was your other idea?" I asked curiously.
Leah blinked, refocusing on me from having apparently gotten caught up in her thoughts again. "Oh. Um. Mostly someone trying to make a preemptive strike against you, since you're the only semi-public cape who bothers with that area."
I nodded. That made sense.
"So what'd you do with all of it, anyways? Heck, why did you do it?"
"It was in the way and a good source of metal," I said, shrugging.
She tilted her head. "Is there something you needed it for?"
I opened my mouth, but hesitated.
"Not that you have to tell me if you don't want to!" she rushed.
I frowned thoughtfully. Honestly, she already knew I was a Tinker, so it wasn't like the primary reason for hiding this really applied to her. Plus she'd probably find out herself somehow, better to just say it. "I recycled it all into a new ship."
She stared blankly at me. "Overnight?"
Ah. "Uh. Yes? I turned it all into nanomaterial. Like the stuff I used yesterday to show you that recording. Or the stuff that was in that container when I was… rebuilding your body."
"A programmable metamaterial?"
"No, er, nanomachines. They can mimic pretty much anything I want."
"Ohhhh. Can I see?" she asked.
"…The ship?" I assumed that was what she was talking about, since she'd already seen my nanomaterial working first-hand.
She nodded.
"I… guess? Sure? Not right now, but later?" I didn't really mind, and I did kind of want to show it off. I had a lot of pride in my ship-self.
She waved her hand at me. "That's fine. This afternoon?"
"…Alright," I agreed.
And that was that.
School was unremarkable.
Really, that's the best compliment I can give a day at Winslow.
Emma was back, but she was silent and withdrawn, staying away from the girls she hung out with and even keeping a little distance between her and Sophia. Neither Sophia nor Madison, nor any of their hanger-ons tried anything.
I ate in the lunchroom, even if it was by myself, but I did it, and did it with my back straight and head high. Compared to the past week, school seemed ridiculous.
I'd fought Lung, Squealer, a dragon the size of a 747, and saved multiple people during a major crisis alongside a well-known hero group. I had a shipyard and over a hundred eighty thousand tons of nanomaterial, as well as a my first hull. I had twenty four fusion reactors and eighteen particle colliders for dark-matter synthesis, with enough power to supply the entire eastern half of the continental US without breaking a sweat.
I was Relentless, what could I possibly have to worry about from high school?
So yeah, that was school. Unremarkable.
And afterwards, for the first day in over a week, I went straight home.
Leah looked over at me as soon as I walked in, sitting on the couch with the nanomaterial laptop. The moment she saw me she closed the laptop, putting it next to her and standing up. "Hey," she said with a smile. "Can we go see it now?" The smile expanded into a grin. "I've kinda been waiting. …Unless you have something to do?"
I shook my head. "Not… really? But it's like forty minutes away, driving."
She nodded.
I sighed, glad that I'd brought the bike I'd made the night before home with me, making it a bit less conspicuous, imitating a real-life motorcycle I'd found on the internet minus most of the noise.
I wasn't Squealer, thank you.
"Come on, then," I said, heading towards the garage on the side of the house.
"Where are we going?"
I looked over at her. "The old shipyards. Well, not so old now," I said, changing my clothes to add a jacket and my shoes to boots. I turned to see Leah eyeing the jacket.
"Can I get one?" she asked as we entered the garage, the motion-activated light clicking on.
"There's not really any point, but if you want, sure," I said, adding a jacket that matched my own to the clothes she wore formed out of my nanomaterial, but with blue highlights instead of lime green. "I'm really just doing it because I read that drivers tend to respect cyclists in proper protection more and we're less likely to get flagged by the police. Unfortunately, helmets are required for under twenties, so…" I tossed her the helmet I'd left on the seat from last night.
She looked it over for a moment, before lifting it and putting it on.
"In a contest between you and semi-truck, you'd lose, but only just," I told her. "Your frame right now is mostly plain steel from the ships that were in the graveyard. The next one is going to be closer to mine."
"Which is…?" Leah asked, adjusting the helmet on her head.
"Diamond and carbon nanotubes and a material casing that's stronger than it should be by existing in more than three dimensions. It was the closest I could get to invulnerable without exotic effects. And I'm looking into making it better," I said. My sword—the claymore—was giving me trouble analyzing it, but the potential benefits of understanding the metal were huge considering how durable it was in my tests.
A helmet of my own formed around my head, and I walked over to the garage door button to open it.
Leah pushed the green-accented motorcycle forward without my prompting, moving it outside before stopping and getting on the rear seat. I closed the garage door and moved over to the bike.
"Besides, the chances of us getting in an accident are astronomically small. Steering something like this isn't exactly hard for me," I said, adjusting myself and then sinking in. Not as far as I did with the jet, but enough that I wasn't really controlling it with my humanoid body.
Kickstand up, and we were off.
Leah paid attention to the surroundings, watching the streets and buildings we passed, asking questions every so often about shops and places that I sometimes had to admit to not knowing the answers to.
Driving was… anticlimactic. I'd experienced it last night, when there weren't so many people out, but even with the increase of people using the roads it was underwhelming. Everybody else reacted at human speeds and I… didn't.
What I was doing was… technically illegal. I guess? Driving without a license? But do driving licenses even apply to artificial intelligences? To self-driving motorcycles?
How would that even work?
I wasn't hurting anybody, I was safe, the drivers around me were safe, and I obeyed all traffic laws. Hell, I was better at it than the people around me were.
Isn't that what mattered?
I pushed my musings aside as we rolled up to the gate of the shipyard, which I was already opening. After it opened far enough we moved inside, weaving through the paths between warehouses until we were at the docks themselves.
The bike halted, kickstand down, my helmet absorbed into my head and jacket disappearing as I stared out at the bay. After a moment I turned around and looked at Leah, who'd hung her helmet on the handlebar and unzipped her own jacket.
"So…?"
"Will you show me?" she asked, looking at the dry dock where my ship-self was submerged.
I blinked. "Sure?"
Without any signal I lightened the gravity ballast and allowed my other self to rise, breaking the surface.
It was beautiful.
I was beautiful.
The only thing that would have given it away as something other than a normal, unremarkable Balao-class submarine was the coloring above the resting waterline: a light grey steel tone contrasting the dark matte-grey color below it.
I looked over at Leah, and saw her staring at my hull, eyes wide. She was completely silent, unmoving, and didn't even react until I snapped my fingers in front of her to get her attention. "Are you coming?"
She nodded, trailing behind as I walked towards the ramp I formed and then up it onto my deck.
"I just can't…"
I looked back at her as I opened the port fairwater door. "What?"
"This is part of you, isn't it? This is you. Just like that stuff on the wall yesterday."
I stared at her. "…Yeah. All of my nanomaterial is, really."
I entered the fairwater, immediately turning left and going into the conning tower through the aft bulkhead as the lights came on silently.
I already knew what it looked like. I was it, after all, but like Leah had said, seeing it was an experience. Where you would expect old electronics, mechanical parts and the bronze/copper that was so characteristic of the Gato and Balao-class subs, where there might have been huge mechanical computers and controls that took up over half the room, there were flat walls and empty space. Everything was sleek metal and white surfaces, which combined with the lack of huge components gave the sense of the space being larger than it actually was.
To be honest, the conning tower was rather superfluous. All of my imaging and targeting was internal, though I still had physical periscopes in the middle of the room for amusement and nostalgia.
Humming to myself, I moved towards the front of the cylindrical room and then down the metal stairs into the control room.
This resembled nothing like the original. No pressure valves or buoyancy wheels, no physical helm or engine controls. I was the most advanced vessel in the world, and it showed.
Instead, it looked more like a curved bridge out of a spaceship from a sci-fi show, lit with soft light that seemed to come from nowhere. All that existed was a captain's chair in the middle on a platform, more for my satisfaction than any other reason, and I took the opportunity to sit in it, relaxing.
Behind me Leah had descended the stairs, and looked around.
"It's… a bit empty, isn't it?"
I swiveled around to look at her, lifting an eyebrow even as I reshaped the room, adding a few control stations and consoles. Each had a screen to the front, left, and right, and a small flat desk/low counter surface surrounding the station's chair in a horseshoe shape. To my own right on the raised platform I added a chair and screen that would normally be taken by the XO. And in front of the room I added large screens that blinked on, showing a 180° view of our surroundings, which was really only the shipyard.
Leah just blinked, looking around at the stations. "Um. I take it back."
She trailed towards the XO station on my right, moving around the back to seat herself in front of the screen and poke at it, the overall statistics and current state of myself appearing in front of her as I let it access that information.
"Engines. Wave-Force Armor. Sonar. Life-support. Weapons!?" she twisted around to look at me, and then blinked. "Oh. Submarine. Right. Torpedoes."
"And anti-aircraft guns," I added. I wasn't even a destroyer or anything, so my weapons weren't particularly impressive, but they still weren't anything to scoff at. My photon cannons could melt through and destroy steel in microseconds.
She navigated around a bit as I relaxed, a calm coming over me as I was finally where I belonged.
After about fifteen minutes she stopped looking around my systems, her curiosity apparently satisfied, and turned to me.
"Taylor?"
I opened my eyes and looked at her. "Yeah?"
"I'm in," she said.
What?
"In what?"
"This… thing," Leah said, waving her hands around. "This stuff you're doing. I'm in. I want to help."
I stared at her.
She huffed. "Look. You may be good, you may be effectively invincible and able to do nearly anything, but that doesn't mean you can't screw up, as I think you probably know."
I winced.
"You can't do this on your own. You can't… you need someone in your corner. Someone to watch over your shoulder and keep you from going too far. People to help you. People you can rely on," she said. "And I think you know that."
I did. I really, really did. I needed the grounding that having other people around me provided. The human element that I was losing as I sunk further into my nature as what I was.
"So I want to help you. Now could you please say something I feel like I've been talking to a brick wall."
For a moment I left her hanging.
"…Okay."
She sat up. "Okay?"
I nodded. "If you really want to help me I'm not going to tell you that you can't."
Leah deflated. "Oh. Well. That makes things easier. …I still have five points left in my argument if you want to hear them?"
I shook my head, smiling. "So how do we do this?"
Leah bit her lip. "So um, I was thinking."
"Thinking or Thinking?" I asked.
"Just plain thinking," she responded, sticking her tongue out. "Anyways. From what I've read everyone seems to think you have this Tinker supplier or backer of some sort, right?"
I nodded, starting to see where she was going with this.
"And well. If you're trying to keep people from figuring out you're a Tinker, what better way than to give them one where they expect it?" She grinned widely. "Besides, it would be a good way to hide the fact I'm a Thinker, since I think people would be pretty suspicious if a cape with the same powers as one that reportedly just died showed up."
I… could work with that. It would be an excellent smokescreen. Plus if Leah actually learned how the things I made worked, it would mean she could potentially maintain her own equipment.
My stuff wasn't actually tinker-tech, after all. You just had to have a very good understanding of fields like particle physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering…
Okay, so this might not be so simple.
But Leah had some kind of intuition-based power. If she could somehow get her power to connect the dots with more complex concepts and technology as well as her normal social aspect, she might be able to actually fake being a Tinker for real. Or, enough of one that a rating for it wouldn't be out of the question.
I nodded slowly.
"Alright. But if we're going to do that, we're going to do it right."
Her brows furrowed. "Right? What does that mean?"
I gave a slow grin.
"So how's your grasp on particle physics?"
After three hours of explaining stuff, assisted by the ability to simulate everything with three-dimensional holograms, we stopped, Leah looking a bit overwhelmed by everything.
The half-hour after that was spent discussing what would go into her portrayal of a 'Tinker' —including a rather makeshift exoskeletal 'armor'— as well as the abilities she would be showing. All of which needed to match the themes that I'd shown so far that were attributed to my supposed Tinker support, especially the new armor I was making based on Greg's designs.
Exposed segments, spine-like armor down the back, hard pieces over the shoulders and forearms, flexible impact-resistant undersuit, antigrav discs and thrust outlets, etc.
As for the abilities, I was partial to her using things that were electrical, taser-like capacitor systems that could be powered by her own internal power source, beams of crackling electricity and plasma, maybe even an extendable staff like Dauntless' arc spear. It lined up well with the technology I had and wouldn't be too hard to replicate with non-nanomaterial pieces.
All part of the image, the act that she would be a cape like people were expecting.
By the time we finished, it was six o'clock, and we agreed that we should probably go home so that we could start on dinner and have it done by the time my dad got home from work.
I was still working on Leah's second frame, the differences in the fact that she still had an actual brain and the requirements that necessitated making enough changes that it wasn't simply "buy lots of charcoal and sheet metal, construct copy of my body".
Still, I estimated that I'd have it done by the next day, probably after school.
Meanwhile, I was going to leave Leah with enough study materials about what was happening both with her body and the pieces of armor and tech I'd be making for her that she could learn. I wouldn't lie and say it wasn't edging into university-level stuff for multiple fields, but that was kind of the nature of what I did. No Tinkertech bullshit that couldn't be explained, this was all a science and anybody devoted enough could learn how it worked , even if it wasn't knowledge that humanity had discovered themselves yet.
However, I had manufactured enough synthetic skin that she no longer needed my nanomaterial, which took away the persistent discomfort that had been lingering in the back of my mind.
After dinner, I did homework, and then after that, I finally went on PHO to see what they were saying about everything.
And then I realized I didn't have an account for my cape identity.
I could have just edited the servers and added it myself, along with all the relevant tags, but doing that felt… wrong?
Which is totally hypocritical considering what I'd done the night before, I know, but it still felt different somehow. Also drawing mod attention if I suddenly showed up and none of them had records of me going through the verification might be kinda counter to what I was trying to appear as.
Either way, I just bit the bullet and made a new account with my name, made a small camera out of nanomaterial, took a picture of myself in costume against the blank wall in the hallway, and sent it off to the mods. Not even five minutes later I had my tag.
Anyways, it was honestly pretty predictable: lots of people freaking out over the fact the Graveyard was suddenly missing, the PRT saying they were "investigating it", and people slowly calming down as nobody came out and claimed responsibility, (probably) realizing that it didn't affect their lives all that much and that life still went on.
There were a couple people who talked about the impact to the local shipping and fishing industry, which were then countered by people talking about the fact that there were still the old shipping containers on the shore and facilities that had been largely abandoned other than basic maintenance. All of those would have to be evaluated and cleared, and the facilities brought back up to working condition before anything could happen, though they did acknowledge that it was much more likely for companies to invest in that now that the biggest barrier was gone.
Hopefully that would mean more work for the Dockworkers in the future.
I just… It would definitely help Dad, I hoped, having work and making progress instead of the constant decline that the shipping industry had experienced ever since the Dock's riots.
I could theoretically fix all our problems in a snap. I could fix the house and his car, take care of our money issues… everything, but it was like how Dad and I had built my shelves by hand instead of taking the easy route and using nanomaterial: nothing worth doing wasn't worth taking time and putting in the effort for. It was the journey as much as the destination, and I think it would hurt our relationship just as much it would ease our life if I forced Dad to accept all that. Being forced to accept charity from your fifteen-year-old daughter who was going out in costume?
Yeah. Not the best feeling, probably.
So instead I wanted to help indirectly, like with the Graveyard. It wouldn't fix things overnight, and it wasn't something that was obviously me intending to improve our situation, but it probably would in the long run anyways, all without Dad losing his drive and sense of purpose.
I went to sleep feeling like even if the day hadn't been as… eventful as the week before, I'd still made progress in some direction.
That feeling was gone when Leah woke me at three in the morning, her face grim as she stood in the door.
"Taylor, we have a problem."
A/N: Welp. This took far too bloody long. And is too short, in my opinion, but that's how it goes.
"Accord is on the phone - no, I don't know how he got your home number - and he wants you to marry him. He has a comprehensive argument for why and what you could accomplish together, and he's not listening when I tell him no, or just to call at a civilized hour."
--=--
"Uhwuh?" I asked, intelligently.
"A Gesellschaft war-zeppelin appeared from some kind of stealth effect and started dropping paratroops into the shipyard. They've got a loudspeaker going saying that since their money paid for it they're taking possession."
--=--
"Uhwuh?" I asked, intelligently.
"My favorite fanfiction author just posted a part after a long hiatus, and it's a fucking cliffhanger!" Leah raged. "I mean sure, I could just use my power to find out what happens next, but then I'd be spoiled when it actually comes out!"
With a groan, I threw my pillow at her hard enough to smack her through the railing of the landing opposite my door and into the living room downstairs. Eh, she was tough enough to take it, and I could fix the rest in the morning. "Leah, stop messing around on the internet and just go to bed," I told her.
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Alert: Thread Necromancy is not a problem, but the current off-topic chatter is
thread necromancy is not a problem, but the current off-topic chatter isDiscussions about home PC builds and Nekomancy have more appropriate venues on SV.
Not to belittle you or anything but... You're Weak!
I work 8 hours (7 if you count the breaks) on my feet, 5 days a week, 365 days a week, minus holidays, in two shifts. One week I get up at 4.30 am just to eat, dress and get to work on time, the next I don't get back before 11 pm. I sleep only 5 or 6 hours each night, and I'm a hypocrite because I complain to my parents because they stay up until the dead of night.
Yet, somehow, I feel like a million bucks every day after work.
Git Gud Scrub!
Prefacing an insult with "Not to belittle you" does not make it any less offensive, and telling someone who is battling depression to "Git Gud" lacks any of the empathy or respect we expect from members of this community. While you may personally find that you have plenty of creative energy for personal projects after a long work week, not everyone has the same circumstances, and it is imperative that you be more mindful of this.
I am putting a Staff Notice for breaking Rule 3: Be Civil on this post. As this is your first run-in with the rules, I have elected not to infract you. Please be more considerate and respectful towards your fellow posters going forward.
Information: Could people take a moment to return to the threads topic?
I stared up at the blonde girl in my doorway. "Seriously?" I dragged a hand down over my face. "What's going on?"
I mean, it wasn't like I was tired or anything, but did we have to do this now? Hell, she probably needed her sleep.
"Can it wait till morning?" I asked.
"I—" Leah paused. "Not really."
I sat up. "Well come in, or you'll wake my dad up."
She nodded, opening the door further before slipping inside and carefully closing it behind her. Leah moved the few feet to my bed as I turned and scooted back to lean against the wall next to the window, sitting sideways. I motioned with my left hand for her to sit on the bed, and while I expected her to simply sit on the edge, she actually got on and crossed her feet, looking at me.
"So what's going on?" I asked again.
"Somebody… somebody just anonymously released a lot of information on the gangs and a bunch of the villains in Brockton Bay online," she said, looking right at me.
I straightened. "Like who?"
"Some of the E88, Lung, couple Merchant capes, a few no-namer small time parahumans and people who haven't even been a real problem," she answered. "It's bad, Taylor. This city's still trying to recover from Bakuda and this is probably going to cause an outright gang war. The E88 are finished in name—turns out they were operating out of Medhall and Kaiser was the CEO—but I doubt they're going to go down without a fight."
I let my head fall back and thump quietly against the wall. "Fuuuuuck."
The E88 ran Medhall? Well, there went one of the biggest things keeping the Bay afloat. No wonder the Nazis were rooted so deeply: they were funding a good chunk of the city.
"And the response?" It wasn't like the PRT could just ignore the information.
Most likely…
"It's going to be chaos. The PRT and Protectorate can't disregard the info, and if they don't deal with it all while it's still valid they could be seen as either inept or ineffective," she said. "The problem is they're already stretched a bit thin from trying to help out after Bakuda's attack, and this… this is going to tear them apart. Not enough resources to properly respond, already overworked, and instead of working in an ideal scenario where a group of the Protectorate can outnumber a villain and come down on them hard, the PRT capture squads are only going to have one or two heroes with them, if any."
Yeah, that's about what I thought.
"…There's going to be casualties," I concluded. The PRT may have been created to handle parahuman criminals, but the ones in the Bay typically had been at it for a long time and were very good at what they did. Even twenty officers against a scared, experienced cape…
"It's going to be a bloodbath," Leah corrected. "And there's nothing the PRT can do except try to minimize it."
Haaaaaah. God, when it rained it poured, didn't it?
"So why're you telling me this?" I asked. "Not that I don't appreciate the warning, but what can I do? At most I'd probably get in the way of the PRT doing their jobs more than help them if I tried to."
Leah smiled slowly. "Ah, but see, that's the thing. From what I've picked up on the Director here, she doesn't like having to ask for help, but she will if she has to. And who do you think the first outsiders they're going to ask are? Who's the largest and most experienced independent group in the Bay?"
Oh. "New Wave." …And Victoria, I thought.
Leah nodded. "In order to minimize casualties, the Director will likely ask New Wave for assistance in managing the situation… by having them act as a delay."
A… delay?
"See, there's no time to integrate them into the PRT capture procedures, so instead she'll use them to keep one or two capes pinned down, or put down, while allocating the officers and heroes that would normally be there to handle the capture to the more urgent threats, and then come in for capture against a cape that's tired from having to deal with a bunch of blasters and Little Miss Alexandria."
I nodded.
"And that, is where you can make a difference. New Wave can work around a highly mobile close-quarters Brute because they have two of their own. And frankly Taylor, you're kind of terrifying in your capabilities as a cape, so you shouldn't have too much problem with things."
Well…
It would let me use the new armor I had based on Greg's designs.
Alright then. If Leah, who seemed to be a pretty high-level Thinker from what I'd been seeing, thought I should do this and that it would help, there wasn't much reason not to.
Okay.
'Victoria?'
I waited for a couple minutes while Leah watched me curiously.
'Victoria!'
'There's something happening in the city, are you awake?'
This time, there was a response.
'wh'
'wha is ittttt'
'There's an emergency. I don't know if you guys know yet, but someone leaked a bunch of villains' identities and information online and someone I trust says the PRT is trying to organize to act on it now.'
'what'
'shit. okay im awake now'
'The PRT's probably going to try to contact New Wave to help with detaining or at least delaying some of them and keeping casualties to a minimum.'
'fuck'
'let me get my rents up'
I turned to the blonde sitting on my bed, and she looked at me expectantly. "Alright, I told Victoria. Er, Glory Girl." It was so weird thinking of her like that. "She's getting her family up now."
Leah nodded. "She's how you coordinated with them during the bombing?"
"Yeah."
"That's cool," she commented nonchalantly.
I gave a short laugh. 'Cool'. I felt odd calling Victoria 'cool' after what I knew about her. More like unexpectedly normal. "Yeah, she's actually pretty nice."
The corners of Leah's mouth twitched and it looked like she was holding herself back from saying something, before she just nodded.
It was a few more minutes, more than I'd expected honestly, before I got another text.
'everyones up now'
'and you were right'
'just got a call from the prt and everythnig'
'so im guessing you want in'
'Please.'
'you ready to go?'
'cause we still gotta get suited up andd everything so you could come over here now'
'I'm ready,' I sent back, instantly shifting forms and creating my new armor, making Leah jerk back in surprise.
'kk heres us'
There was a pair of coordinates in the next message, and I was already figuring out the distance and time it'd take. 'Be there soon.'
Leah recovered, looking me over and then returning her eyes to my helmet. "Do you mind if I run intel on this?"
I paused for a moment, then created a pair of contact lenses, earbuds, and what looked like a piece of tape from my hand. "Here," I said, handing them over. "The contacts will overlay your vision with whatever's going on. I should be able to manage them no matter what happens in the background. Earbuds for sounds, the tape goes on your throat as a subvocal mic."
She hurriedly put them in, and I kept the contacts transparent for now.
"Can you get off the bed for a moment?"
Leah unfolded her legs and stood up as I fluidly moved off, before I lifted the mattress and grabbed the sword that still sat under it. I had to physically clamp it to my back with my nanomaterial since whatever material it was (I was still trying to analyze it) apparently wasn't magnetic. The thin layer of nanomaterial that had been on the flat of the blade ever since I got it I moved to the edges, building up on them so they made a guard and effectively dulled the blade. It rendered it useless until I moved the nanomaterial back to the flats, which would ensure there wouldn't be any accidents, or any chance (however small it was) of it somehow being used against me.
"Alright. You should get comfortable, because this is probably going to be pretty disorienting as it is. You can stay in here if you want," I told the girl next to me.
"Okay. Good luck."
I smiled, even if she couldn't see it, but she seemed to pick up the sentiment anyways, clambering back onto the bed as I slipped out into the hallway. I couldn't leave from my room's windows since they faced the front and sides, so I had to go down through the kitchen.
Thankfully, I knew all the creaky spots and was unnaturally silent as I was, so I made it down and out the kitchen door without any incidents.
In order to prevent any chance of someone noticing me, even in the back yard, I crouched, and jumped, landing on one of the panels of my Wave-Force armor. Without pausing for even an instant, I jumped again, repeating the action and ascending four hundred feet into the air in seconds, where it would be practically impossible to see me in my (new) dark armor against the night sky.
And then I started running.
"Hey Taylor? You hearing this?" I blinked, and then synced up my senses with Leah's tools.
"Whoa. Okay, yeah, I see what you mean by disorienting. I am so glad I can't get nauseous right now," Leah said. "Anyways, I'm probably going to be pretty quiet unless I have anything I can add, so that it doesn't seem like you're talking to someone and won't distract you."
"Alright, thank you," I returned.
Four and a half minutes after I'd started, I reached the Dallons' house. It was in the nicer part of the city, south of downtown. Two stories, medium-sized. Bigger than mine and Dad's house, anyways.
But the important thing was that the lights were on. At least downstairs they were.
I quickly descended steps of my Armor to the front door, pushing the doorbell rather than knocking. I heard footsteps moving to the door, and then unlocking it before it opened, revealing Victoria in her costume.
For a moment she just stood there, looking me up and down. "Relentless?"
I raised a hand. "Hi."
"Um. I'm not imagining things, right? You look different?" she asked, sounding confused and a little bleary.
"Yeah. New armor. Sorry for not warning you first," I apologized.
"'s—" She yawned, hiding her mouth with the back of her hand. "'s cool. Looks really nice. C'mon in," she said tiredly.
I walked into the hallway, Victoria closing the door behind me. It felt weird being in a normal house with a helmet on, but there was nothing for it.
She stepped past me and led me down a couple rooms until we reached what seemed like a dining room, with a large table in the center of the room. The rest of the Dallon half of New Wave was there, Brandish and Flashbang standing and looking at what appeared to be a map on the table, a phone next to it. Panacea, on the other hand, was seated at a chair at the head of the table, her hood back and resting her head in her left hand even while looking at the map, appearing even more tired than Victoria.
It was my first time seeing her, and I was surprised at how plain she looked compared to her sister, with frizzy brown hair and a few freckles across her nose being the only things that stood out. She was the kind of person I could have seen in the halls at Winslow and wouldn't have even given a second glance.
When I walked into the room with Victoria, everybody turned to look at us. Well, Panacea just tilted her head a bit and looked up at us from under her eyelids, revealing her eyes to be slightly bloodshot.
"Relentless? Is that new armor?" Brandish asked.
"Yes, ma'am," I said, still feeling a bit self-conscious around her.
She seemed to accept the answer, because she looked back at the map. "Normally we wouldn't be including anybody else in this. However, Glory Girl seems to trust you and we could probably use all the help we can get."
"And she was the first one to tell us anything, Mom," Victoria said.
"True," Brandish agreed. "Lady Photon, are you still there?"
"We're still here," a woman's voice said, coming from the phone. "So we'll be going after Krieg, and then Cricket if possible. Can you handle Fenja and Menja, then? We need to keep them from getting to Kaiser's side if at all possible so the PRT can deal with him without interference."
"Good counters on their side, but Fenja and Menja might be tricky. Brandish and Flashbang's abilities will probably be a help, since the twins' power counters Brutes pretty well. Then again, you and GG might be able to do enough damage you can still hurt them," Leah added.
Brandish looked around at us, and when nobody said anything, she answered. "We should be able to."
"Okay, I'll inform the PRT that we'll be handling them. It's too bad we can't do more, but this is who we've been requested to handle. And surprisingly politely, coming from the Director," Lady Photon said. "Good luck."
"You too," Brandish returned.
There was a beep as the phone call ended, and then she looked up.
"Strategy. Flashbang's orbs can still affect Fenja and Menja's senses, as we know. Our focus will be on disorienting and trying to deal damage. Ideally, they won't have a chance to grow any, but ideal scenarios don't often happen. Relentless, is there anything we should know about your abilities?"
I thought for a moment. "I can contain things in my forcefields, but if they try to grow I'll have to keep increasing the size so they don't crush themselves. Eventually, I might not be able to hold them practically. I've never had to surround anything as large as they can get," I said. "Otherwise… even at scale they shouldn't be able to hurt me."
"Alright. Glory Girl, Relentless, you'll travel independently, I assume?" We both nodded, Victoria seeming a little more awake now. I looked at the map, where a bunch of pins and names were, and made note of where the one for 'Fenja/Menja' was.
"We'll meet up two blocks south of the location and proceed from there. Flashbang and I will take the car." I blinked, and was almost confused by how mundane that seemed for capes, literally driving to where you would fight. "Panacea will st—"
"I'm coming."
Everybody looked at the exhausted-looking brown-haired girl.
"…Panacea—" Brandish started, but was cut off again.
"Mom, I'm. Coming."
Brandish's lips formed a thin line, her face starting to scowl before her eyes darted over to me for a second and then returned to her daughter, her expression flattening out.
"Fine." The way it was said made it sound like it was the complete opposite of 'fine', with the added Mom-tone of 'we'll be talking about this later.'
"Okay!" Victoria said brightly at my side, drawing everyone's attention. "You guys go get in the car and armor-girl and I will start heading over."
Nobody moved, and Brandish looked back over at Panacea. "Well? You wanted to go."
The healer took a deep breath, and then stood up, walking around the opposite side of the table from Brandish and Flashbang towards us, her parents following her as she passed us and went further down the hall.
"Fly safely, Victoria," Flashbang said, the first thing I'd heard out of him the entire time. The blonde next to me nodded before she turned to me.
"Let's go, I wanna see how you do this," she said, leading me back towards the front door, turning the hallway lights off at the same time. Locking the door behind us with a key she acquired from another spot somewhere on her suit, she looked to me.
"Well?" she said, looking interested. "I completely missed it when you came to the strip mall, so I've never seen."
"Fine, fine. Just try to keep up," I said with a laugh, and then I jumped.
I bounced off of my panels until I was about halfway to the clouds, Victoria racing behind me to try and catch up.
Just as she was about to reach me, I started running towards our destination, laughing. I wasn't at full speed, because I doubted Victoria could keep up, but I was going fast enough that she couldn't catch up easily.
It was only as we were reaching the waypoint that I slowed, and then tried something different from my usual tactic. Instead of stairs, I made an ever-extending ramp in front of me, slowly increasing the friction as I slid down it like a skateboarder so that by the time I reached the bottom I only had to casually step off.
Next to me, Victoria appeared.
Despite the entire experience, she wasn't out of breath and not a single hair had been disturbed, it looked like.
"That… that is cheating," she said.
I looked over at her. "That was only about half-speed."
"Ridiculous," she said with a huff and a shake of her head.
"If it's any consolation, I think I'd rather be able to fly instead," I offered. I wasn't sure if I was serious, but flight like she had was always one of my dreams as a kid.
She smiled happily. "Hah. Yeah, it is pretty awesome."
A moment later, Victoria's phone rang. She dug it out of her side-pocket before glancing at it and then accepting the call. "Mom?"
"The PRT updated us. They've been sighted moving towards the Medhall building. We're already en-route. If you find them, you have permission to keep after and harass them to slow them down. Don't give them a chance to hit you, Glory Girl. Tell Relentless to do what she can as well. We'll be there soon."
"Will do!" Victoria replied. "Bye!"
She ended the call and put the phone back away, turning to me. "You hear that?"
I nodded. "Yep."
Victoria grinned. "Then let's go and ruin some Nazis' night."
"You have anything more accurate, Leah?"
There was no reply.
"Leah?"
Suddenly there was the sound of a throat clearing. "Yeah, hi, sorry. Had to remove the mic for a bit. I'm here," she said with what sounded like a repressed giggle.
…I figured it was probably better not to ask. "Have you heard anything more about Fenja and Menja?"
"Nope, sorry Taylor," she replied. "Everything I can get from online is at least ten minutes out of date, and that's not good enough for something like this. And the PRT is in pretty hard lockdown, they're not saying anything at al— Wait! Right there!"
The two were right below us, partially powered up and moving quickly through the streets as they ran towards the Medhall building.
Victoria and I had taken a direct path towards it from where we'd been, and it looked like the twins had made it about half-way there before we caught up.
As soon as I saw them I motioned at Victoria and got her attention, pointing down at them. She nodded, and on my next panel I pushed myself down. I shot downwards, my aim true, and just before landing twisted around, slamming into another Armor panel I'd put millimeters above the street.
I stood up slowly, looking at the story-and-a-half-tall women who were now in guard positions thirty feet in front of me, my sigils flaring and rolling across my new armor before settling. "Hello ladies," I said, making sure my voice carried across the gap. "I hope you don't mind if we interrupt your night out on the town tonight."
There was a loud crack as Victoria pounded her fist into her hand, echoing out from where she hovered in place behind me. And even though I couldn't feel it, I knew her aura had to be cranked up as high as it would go.
"I texted Mom and Dad with the location," Victoria said out of the side of her mouth towards me, and I nodded as the two giantesses raised their weapons and grew further even as we watched.
They took a half-step forward, and then Menja rushed us while Fenja… turned and ran away?
They were trying to stall us so that one of them could get to Medhall and help their side. Even one cape could tip the balance of a capture and arrest like that for Kaiser, so it made sense that was what they would do, but still.
No.
There was no escaping to go and help Kaiser today.
Faster than they could likely see, I accelerated from dead stop to moving at over sixty miles an hour, easily passing Fenja before I spun and stopped, blocking her from reaching the end of the street. She skidded to a stop, her sword and shield raised as she stood twenty feet away, and gave a muttered "tch."
I flexed my Klein field, panels manifesting into existence around me and then fading, energy crackling through the air from being exposed to so much of the capture/storage manifold and sparking off of me.
By this point Fenja was two stories tall. Her shield and sword had grown with her, the sword now almost twice as long as my claymore despite being an arming sword and starting out half the size.
Well, if she got a sword then it was only fair I used one, too, right?
I grabbed the hilt that was sticking over my shoulder and released the clamps holding the claymore to my back, pulling it over my shoulder and holding it in a single hand.
She raised her sword in into what I took as a classic stance, and then rushed me.
I brought mine up to block her as she brought her blade down on me, bearing the weight of the two-story-tall warrior-woman with barely any effort.
I was proud of having engineered a custom body more and more. I had no doubt I could have handled this with just my nanomaterial, but like this I wasn't even exerting a single percent of my full force to keep her where she was.
I stepped to the left, letting her sword slide along mine towards the ground before she stopped pushing down. Fenja turned it into a swipe to the side and I had to dig my feet into the cement to prevent her from pushing me off my feet.
Honestly, I could have just been using my Wave-Force Armor to block her, but if I relied on that all the time, I'd never get any chance to learn how to do anything else, if that made sense.
I shoved her sword away, bringing my blade up in a blink to draw a line across her forearm. I had the nanomaterial along the edge molded so it was only about as sharp as a kitchen knife, as using the actual monomolecular edge of the sword could very quickly lead to missing limbs, and as much as I wanted to stop her, I didn't want to have "potentially lethal maiming" over my head.
Still, the cut I'd made was much smaller than I'd expected, though Fenja still drew back with a hiss.
"They don't just get stronger as they gets larger, they get harder to hurt too, Taylor. I think it's some kind of Breaker effect. Something that reduces force or damage somehow?" Leah said.
"Thanks," I grunted, blocking another blow.
I was definitely fighting defensively rather than trying to be aggressive, but I had a reason: I didn't need to hurt her, all I needed to do was keep her occupied, wear her down, because while she could eventually get tired, I never would.
And okay, maybe I was trying to avoid a repeat of the Lung incident.
Fenja went to bash me with her shield, and this time I did use my Armor, white hexagons flashing into existence and flaring out from the point of impact.
"I can do this literally all night, you know," I told her.
She scowled at me, bringing her sword back towards me. And then the fight was on.
She was fucking done with this.
There were not words to describe how absolutely done with this shit she was.
All she wanted was a full night's sleep, but nooooo, apparently the city couldn't even do that without fucking it up.
And then Mom had wanted her to stay at home? Where she couldn't even do anything if they needed her?
Yeah, no.
The car hit a pothole, jostling her where she sat in the back seat.
Three AM. Three AM. Couldn't this at least have not happened until sometime during the day? Was that really too much to ask?
Streetlights flashed by as they followed the GPS' instructions to wherever Victoria had texted them.
The car suddenly stopped, and Amy sat up a bit more as her dad quickly turned off the car, and she unbuckled herself at the same time as her parents. Her hand was on the car door's handle, about to pull it, when her mother turned around, opening her own door.
"Panacea, you are to stay in the car unless we need you, is that clear?" her mom said, one-hundred percent into Brandish-mode, and Amy knew that doing anything other than agreeing would accomplish absolutely nothing.
She rolled her eyes. "Fine."
The car doors shut as her parents got out, and Amy watched through the car window as they ran down the street they'd parked in front of towards where Victoria was harassing Menja, trying to avoid her spear as much as possible.
Further down the street that armored woman—Relentless—was matching Fenja blow-for-blow, sword-for-sword. Victoria hadn't shut up about her for the past two days, and Amy had to crush the jealousy that rose. She couldn't exactly blame the woman for her powers. Still, if Amy had powers like that, she could be out there with them, not just stuck in the car until someone got hurt.
Like she was fucking useless or something.
It was always like that. "Oh Panacea, stay back!", "Panacea you're too valuable to risk!", "Panacea heal us after we've done everything!". Bullshit. Her mom and dad were just as fragile as she was, they just had training and experience. There was practically nothing stopping her from being out there with them except for that.
Brandish stopped in front of Menja, the woman taking a step back to keep both her and Victoria in sight, parrying the hard-light weapon Brandish held, which didn't even do much to the steel when normally it would have sliced right through it. Flashbang surprisingly kept running, towards Fenja and Relentless.
She watched as Victoria tried to catch Menja off-guard while Brandish kept her busy. Flashbang and Relentless had begun integrating the former's namesakes into the fight, bursts of light popping around Fenja, while Relentless didn't even seem inconvenienced by them, probably thanks to her obviously tinkertech helmet.
…
Yeah, fuck this, she wasn't just going to stay in the car while everyone else was out there. She might be the healer, but she wasn't totally defenseless. Hell, she'd taken Tattletale down in the bank without the villain even noticing her, just by standing up and touching her neck when she passed by, completely oblivious that Amy had even been there.
And damn had that felt good, too.
Amy climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind her before moving towards the tree set into the sidewalk at the corner. At least this way she could actually respond if anything happened. She leaned against it, watching her family and Relentless corral the two E88 capes and keep them from running off.
Was it really so outrageous that she came along for things like this? Half the time she thought her mom was against it for no good reason rather than to "protect" her.
Fuck, she could probably take the two giantesses down faster than anybody else, all she needed was skin contact like with Tattletale and this would be done and she could just go back to sleep for a few hours.
The fight turned in a blink. One moment Brandish was moving closer towards Menja's legs, likely to try and incapacitate the woman, and the next she was staggering backwards, a large gash on the outside of her thigh. Menja took advantage of the break in attack and kicked out, and Amy could only watch as her mother tried to step back but her leg gave out beneath her, the giantess' foot connecting with Brandish's side and throwing her fifteen feet away, towards the middle of the street …and further away from where Amy stood.
"MOM!" Victoria yelled.
Amy was instantly up, trying to see a way to get to her mother, but with Menja in-between her and Brandish, she was effectively blocked off, unless she was willing to risk getting in the middle of the entire fight and exposing herself.
Victoria dove straight towards Menja. Unlike earlier when she'd been moving back and forth, avoiding the woman's spear, her path now was completely predictable, and she was rewarded with the spear swatting her aside towards the other side of the street.
Amy gripped the tree at her side, ignoring the way its biology spread out in her mind as she watched Victoria get back up and launch herself at the giantess, only to be slapped down again, this time impacting the side of the building and falling to the ground.
"Stay down," she heard Menja growl, the haft of her spear coming down to impact Victoria's stomach, and Amy could almost hear the whoosh of air as her breath was driven from her lungs.
Victoria!
Brandish was still in the middle of the road, having rolled onto her side to try and get up, but Amy could see that her leg refused to support her. Further down the street Flashbang and Relentless had doubled down on Fenja, but Menja had already turned and was running towards the end of the street where Amy stood, huge strides eating up the distance.
Amy's hand tightened on the bark of the tree, her heart pounding and adrenaline rushing through her.
Was this seriously it? Menja was going to escape, just like that? The entire fight, completely pointless because one of them got away? Brandish and Victoria getting hurt, all for nothing?
She had a chance, just like in the bank. She could do something and change things, act on her own and achieve something that was hers, or she could just let things happen, staying out of the way and letting everyone else deal with it. Just like always.
"Fuck that."
It was so easy, almost too easy, to push the tree at her side to grow, to sculpt it into a tangle of branches that placed it right in Menja's way, the growth happening far faster than anything she'd ever done with people. The giantess slid to a stop in front of it, but Amy was already directing the branches to reach out towards the woman. "No getting away. Not this time."
The branches twined around Menja's limbs even as she struggled, and Amy felt some kind of… excitement? at the way she effortlessly reshaped the tree and reeled the woman towards her. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked, reaching out to touch Menja's skin as soon as she was close enough. "It's 3AM. I am supposed to be asleep. I have school tomorrow. It is too fucking early for this shit. So how about you just go to fucking sleep."
And then Amy knocked the woman out.
She was breathing heavily like she'd just run a mile on the track, but she only took a second to catch her breath before dashing down the street. She glanced at Victoria, but her sister was already starting to stand up, so she moved towards Brandish, sliding to a stop and kneeling next to her.
Touching her mother's neck, she saw the damage to the vastus externus and rectus femoris muscles, and took the time she needed to stop the bleeding and repair the muscles. Half the ribs on her left side were cracked, and it was another minute or so to repair those, Brandish's breathing becoming substantially easier from it.
"…Thank you, Amy," her mom said, pushing herself up.
"Holy shit, that was amazing, sis," Victoria said, drawing up behind them, seemingly having gotten her breath back. Still, Amy held out her hand, Victoria staring at it for a moment before blinking and putting her own on it. Victoria's biology bloomed into her awareness, and Amy forced her attention to the bruising that was forming on her stomach and lower chest, fixing the blood vessels and tissues with a thought.
She looked further down the street, away from where they came from. Sometime in all the excitement her father and the armored woman had brought Fenja down, a weird layer of white translucent hexagons set on top of her front, preventing her from sitting up.
"Everybody okay?" Flashbang asked as he walked towards them, Relentless trailing behind him even as the layer of hexagons stayed where it was.
"Now we are," Brandish said. "Now, Panacea…"
She could just tell what was coming, and she couldn't deal with it right now. Maybe later, but definitely not now. "I just knocked her unconscious. Same thing I did to Tattletale, Mom."
Brandish just looked at her oddly for a moment, and Amy had to wonder what she was thinking now, before her mom nodded and looked away. She still had a feeling this wouldn't be the end of it. "And Fenja?"
"I've got her under my forcefield," Relentless said in that oddly distorted-yet-clear voice, the glowing white symbols all over her fading as they watched. "If she shrinks I can just lower it."
"Well, then I think I have a call to the PRT to make," Brandish said, standing up. Amy followed her and realized that sometime in the chaos her hood had fallen down.
She didn't put it back up.
A/N: Oh hey there. Guess who's done writing fights for her stories in the near future and not tearing her hair out anymore.
This bitch.
(she says, planning for somehow narrating the Crota raid within the next few chapters of Paradoxical.)
Anyways! What do you think? I really enjoyed the beginning, personally. Amy was an absolute bundle of joy to write, but I'd still very much appreciate feedback about what you thought of her section, if not the entire chapter.
(because as you guys well know I am not at all above fixing things. there are probably also typos I missed but let me close the store and get home and then I'll fix them)
While a derail does happen sometimes the thread has a bit of a tendency for it.
I am also not happy with the way in which some of you commented on other peoples post and the hostile way in which some of you read and commented on these.
Don't snipe remain calm and if there are issues call the mods.
And assume that the other posters are not out to get you and that everyone has a mental framework that means that posts can be interpreted differently. So be more excellent to each other.
