Thump.
Thump.
"Victoria! You need to get up, now!"
Thump.
Thump.
I cracked open my eyes, beary and unfocused, and groggily moved my arm to find my phone while my mind struggled to catch up. After some mindless grasping, my hand felt the familiar shape and texture of my phone, and I temporarily recoiled from the screen's brightness. After swiping down and lowering the brightness to its minimum, I was finally able to comprehend the current time.
2:00 AM.
What the fuck.
"Victoria!"
"I'm awake, I'm awake!" I yelled out, rubbing my eyes and sitting up. My bedroom's door was then flung open, and my mother flicked on the light. She was still wearing her pyjamas, her hair dishevelled from sleep.
"You need to get changed into your costume, quickly, because you need to fly Amy to the PRT headquarters."
I felt all the drowsiness disappear when she said that. Because of how good Amy was at healing, and how violent Brockton's cape scene was, it was routine for me to fly her around when some Protectorate or Ward hero ended up getting too injured from a fight.
"Who needs her healing?"
"Lung. From what they've told me, a new cape fought him and won and Armsmaster successfully arrested him because of that. But this new cape did something to interfere with his regeneration, and they're worried Lung might actually die in PRT custody."
Wait.
What.
In my previous timeline it was Armsmaster that took credit for Lung's capture. So this meant either I was in some alternate timeline, maybe some other Earth that's really similar to Bet, or I was actually in the past and that there was someone else like me out there…
Focus, Victoria. I told myself. You can think about this later.
"Get changed. Amy is already waiting for you downstairs." Mom said, giving me another of her 'looks', and walked out of my room, closing the door behind her.
I got out of bed and opened up the right hand side of my wardrobe, and I saw my old costume for the first time I woke up in the past. The dress, shorts and cape hung up on different hangers, the high boots sitting underneath, and the gold tiara sitting on a shelf above it. It still had the old, familiar white and gold colour scheme, and I almost cringed away in embarrassment. Not because of the outfit itself, but the connection it had to me personally; a representation of how violent and hot-headed I was, and how much I've changed since then.
And I thought about it for a moment.
Nah.
I closed my wardrobe and flung together a basic outfit; jeans, t-shirt and the same faded, well-worn New Wave hoodie I wore earlier. While I was getting changed, Fragile had managed to hand me some other necessities, being my phone, wallet, spare house keys, my PRT identification card attached to a lanyard and a pair of gloves that reached past my wrists.
I was in a hurry, after all.
After getting changed, I wolfed down a half eaten slice of my pizza from earlier, and I flung myself downstairs, half running and half flying, my mind buzzing with theories about this new cape. I had a hunch of who it was, but that had to wait until I got more information.
As I got to the front door, I saw that mum and Amy were already waiting for me. Mum hadn't changed, but was also wearing her dressing gown. Amy was in her complete Panacea costume; her bulky, white and red jacket with a red cross on the shoulders and matching white pants and shoes. Mum, turning from Amy to face me, looked angry once she realised I wasn't in costume.
"Victoria, why aren't you in your cos-"
"Because it's two in the morning and I need to get Amy to the PRT building ASAP." I quickly responded, and gave her a quick hug before walking out of the door. She sputtered in response, too caught off guard.
Amy caught on to my impatience, and she followed me outside. I swallowed the uneasiness I always felt when I was around her, and activated my forcefield as I bent down to scoop her into a princess carry, careful not to touch her skin. With my hold secure, Amy then shoved both her hands into her jacket. A familiar flying position for the both of us, so much so we didn't even need to say anything.
And another reminder of how close I was to this girl, and how completely alien that feeling was to me now. At least I had my forcefield, a long sleeved jumper and gloves, just to be sure she couldn't touch me.
I then turned back to the front door, and Carol looked confused and angry.
"I'll text you once Amy is done. Bye, Mum."
"Victoria Dallon, I swear to-" She yelled, but I cut her off by flying away. I could deal with her scolding me later, there were more important things to be worrying about. As I climbed to the usual height for flying, I looked upwards at the night sky, partially ruined from the city's light pollution. I was struck with another small, personal epiphany.
Despite how I've done, all the things I've been through, and the fact that I was back here again, there was one part of me that hadn't changed.
I still really liked flying.
"You're really that excited, huh?"
I looked at Amy, who was giving me a small, teasing smile. Images of the Red Queen flashed in my mind, like when she was with Goddess or when I was imprisoned on Earth Shin, and I reminded myself again.
Look at her face. Check her hands.
Her face was rounder, a little chubbier, and her curly brown hair was shorter. Her jacket was flapping in the wind, and I could see that her wrists were still missing the red tattoos.
Breathe. She's not the Red Queen.
"Well, think about it: a completely new cape somehow took down a leader of one of the major gangs, the same guy who fought against a full squadron of Protectorate heroes and came out on top. Of course I'd be interested in something like that, Amy." I replied, keeping my voice even.
"Yeah, but you didn't even put on your costume and you practically flew down the stairs! And you left Mum stuttering! She doesn't do that, like, ever!"
"I can handle her later. Finding out what's going on is more important. And also making sure Lung doesn't die."
"I can't believe out of all the villains in this city it's Lung that I have to go and save from dying. Like, couldn't it have been someone a little less awful, like Uber or Leet?"
There was a brief pause as she looked into the distance in thought.
"Actually, I don't know if they'd be better. Sure, Lung is a complete shithead, but at least he's not annoying."
I couldn't help but let out a laugh at that. Amy smiled at me, free of self-consciousness and self-loathing, but then her expression changed into something that made my skin crawl.
Concern.
"You've been kinda…quiet, today. So, uh, I wanna make sure that you're ok?" She asked.
I mulled the question over, trying to think of a reply that the younger me would've said.
"I'm fine, it's just that I've been thinking of life stuff, y'know? What I'll do after school, what kind of hero I want to be, if I'll stay in Brockton or move somewhere else, that sorta stuff."
"Oh, yeah, that makes sense, since it's our last year of high school." She replied, nodding in understanding, but then looked away in resignation, "You're luckier than me, though. I'll probably be stuck healing until I die of old age."
And now for something the current me would say.
"You still have options, Amy. You could go and study medicine at a university, or even just take a break to think things over."
"Why should I go to university, though?" She asked, eyes squinting in confusion, "When my power tells me everything about a person biologically, and just heals them?"
"Because there's more to learning how to be a doctor or surgeon than just the raw biology, there's learning how to act like a medical professional, how to interact with patients, and how to avoid burning yourself out."
Amy looked like she wanted to disagree with me, but then sighed and looked away.
"I'll keep that in mind, then." She muttered, as started descending towards the rooftop of our destination.
The PRT E-N-E headquarters was smaller than the other skyscrapers surrounding it, covered in thick, tinted glass panels, reinforced by intersecting steel beams that made the building look really odd when looking at it from a distance, like an optical illusion.
The ground floor was for the public, with a reception, waiting area, rooms for citizens to book tours for the Rig or to report information about anything cape related, and a Protectorate themed gift shop which occasionally sold New Wave merch.
The rest of the building was for everything else that the PRT needed to function on a daily basis; Public Relations, Legal, informants for Watchdog, and people to manage and delegate everything for the civilian side of the organisation, going off my own experience with the Wardens and Breakthrough.
The top couple of floors were dedicated to the cape side of things, as well as the Director's office. An entire floor for the Wards, which included amenities, bedrooms, and a lounge room that also doubled as their 'meeting' room. There was a small, hospital-like area for when capes got critically injured, where they were probably keeping Lung, and rumoredly, a teleportation device that connected to the Rig.
I touched down on the rooftop's landing pad, and bent down to let Amy onto her feet. She then put up her hood and straightened out her jacket, and we both started heading towards the lift, walking side by side.
I felt another ache, remembering just how close Amy and I were, to the point that we didn't even need to say anything, or just how easy it was to slip back into the banter she and I had.
I didn't know how to feel about that.
Just as we both walked down the steps of the landing pad, I realised Armsmaster was already waiting for us, standing stoically with his arms crossed next to the lift, one hand holding onto a tablet of some kind, and his trademark halberd collapsed on his back. As Amy and I got closer, he started speaking.
"Panacea and Glo-" He cut himself off and stared at me for a second. "You're not wearing your costume."
Not a question, but a statement; an accusation, maybe? Or was it disappointment at what could be seen as laziness?
"I was in a hurry. From how my mum acted it seemed like Lung was in imminent danger of dying." I replied, shrugging at him.
He nodded at me once, the bottom half of his face still stoically neutral. He turned around and inputted a code into a keypad, which opened the doors to the lift, and gestured for us to enter.
If he was judging me for it, I didn't care. I was far past the point of caring about being perfect.
As we entered the lift, Armsamster entered another code and pressed a button for a specific floor, he began talking again.
"At approximately 11:56 PM, the PRT received a call from a new cape, saying that they took down a small Azn Bad Boys hideout, and had several gang members incapacitated. I was already dispatched to the nearby area because we'd gotten calls about Lung fighting a group of unidentified capes." He explained, voice still serious and no-nonsense. Despite them being the same man, he spoke so differently to Defiant.
"Did the new cape give out a name or anything?" I asked.
"Khepri." He answered, nonchalantly, typing something on his tablet.
Memories reemerged from the deep within me, of one moment being in the hospital and the next being thrown into a battlefield, completely incapable of moving anything as some unknown force flew me into a blast of golden light. My autonomy taken away from me just like she did, watching helplessly through several sets of eyes, trying in vain to understand what was going on.
My palms felt sweaty as my mind raced, preparing for her to reappear again and forcibly control me, dragging me off into another battlefield.
Breathe.
I took another couple of breaths, forcing myself to be calm. Detach myself from my emotions so I could look at the facts objectively, more rationally, said the Scholar. As my breathing slowed, I could see that Amy was looking at me with concern, while Armsmaster was oblivious to my small panic attack.
I shook my head and tried to give her a reassuring smile, which only made her frown deepen.
"Kind of an odd name to pick, especially in this day and age." I stated, trying to eke out more information from the tinker, "Not many people name themselves after mythological figures."
"Egyption god of rebirth, represented by a scarab beetle, and is also tied to the morning sun." He explained, not even looking up from his screen, "But you'll understand more once you see what happened to Lung."
Just as he said that, the lift's doors opened, revealing a plain hallway, with white walls and matching tiles. Armsmaster walked out into the hallway, and we both followed closely behind. After passing several doors, he stopped again, input another code into a keypad, and entered.
Lung was lying down on a hospital bed, naked from the waist up, and half of his head and face was wrapped up in a bandage, his metal, draconic mask covering the other half as a small measure of privacy. He was absolutely covered in sores, his skin red, blotchy, and swelling. Other parts of his skin were a black-brown colour, and from the disgusting smell I could tell those areas were already starting to rot. Several tubes entered his body; one was hooked into an IV bag, while the others were taking some of his blood out, purifying it, and then injecting it back into him.
This has been a man that faced an Endbringer by himself and came out alive while a city drowned, created a gang that no one wanted to mess with because no one wanted to fight him, and even when I fought him myself at the prison when I was influenced by Goddess, the only thing I could do to was delay him.
And this was the most fucked that I've ever seen him, and had to be easily in the top five of the grossest things I've encountered as a hero, including that time I had to grab a fetus out of my throat.
"Now, before you start healing him, Panacea, I'm going to need you to tell me what his symptoms are, and what's causing it, since I need that information for a report." Armsmaster stated, walking over to the opposite side of the hospital bed, and then opening up his tablet.
Amy had a disgusted look on her face once she saw him, and moved closer and touched a patch of skin on his arm that was unmarked by the trauma inflicted on the rest of his body. I walked over to stand next to her.
"Fuck. Christ. I have no idea where to begin." She said, her brows furrowed in concentration.
"Start with the symptoms first, please." Armsmaster exhaled, seemingly annoyed.
"First off: there's evidence of trauma to the head, but his regeneration has healed the brain and parts of the skull. Most likely some sort of explosion, given the unhealed burn tissue surrounding the left side of the head. Most of his skin is covered in sores and rashes originating from…" She paused, "...several different species of insect and arachnid venom. Some of the venom injected made its way into the bloodstream. He currently has enough of it in his entire body to kill half a dozen to a dozen people, maybe?"
"Good. Anything else?" He spoke, still rapidly typing on his tablet.
"Whoever did this has a sick sense of humour." Amy replied, looking like she was trying to hold back a smile.
He looked up from his tablet at her, and I gave her a questioning glance.
"His, uh, penis and testicular area have symptoms of severe necrosis, caused by repeated injections of brown recluse venom, and since no other area is that severe I'm assuming it was intentional." She said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.
Yeah, what the fuck, Taylor? I thought. Why would you do something like that?
Armsmaster sighed, and held his helmet in his free hand, where his forehead would be if he wasn't wearing it.
"Moving on, you can now start healing him properly, Panacea. I've gotten everything I've needed, so I'll bid you two girls goodnight," He said, walking towards the door, "I'll send a PRT officer up to let you two out once you're done."
Armsmaster was a lot more…grumpier than I remembered him being. Defiant was more distant, but a lot more pleasant than his previous self, so what was going on with him? Because in the first timeline, it was him that captured Lung, not Skitter or Khepri or whatever she's calling herself?
I needed more information. I couldn't just let him leave.
"Wait, Armsmaster, sir."
He turned to face me, already halfway out of the door.
"Can you give us more information about this new cape? Because they just managed to beat one of the major gang leaders of the city, and I'll need to tell New Wave about them in case they become a villain."
"I don't have any obligation to tell you anything more, Glory Girl." He grunted out, "But you'll find out soon enough because once I finish this report it'll be sent to New Wave."
Time to break out the big guns, then.
"Article eight, section three, line twenty-three of the Parahuman Response Team and Independent Heroes Act states that the PRT has an obligation to corroborate information regarding developments with villains, rogues and vigilantes in each respective area with any officially recognised independent teams or solo heroes, and vice versa. Especially if it'll radically change the local scene, like a completely unknown cape taking down a major gang leader."
He stared at me for a couple of seconds, just enough for the pause to be uncomfortable, and then let out another sigh, while I heard Amy mutter something about being a nerd under her breath.
"Khepri is capable of finely controlling insects and arachnids, but I don't know if it's any insects within a certain range or they have some kind of mechanism that gives them control." He explained hesitantly, like he didn't want to talk, and handed me his tablet, "I'm classifying them as a master six for the time being, but that'll change depending on what they'll do next."
"Thank you, sir." I said, and looked at the screen, which was displaying a video from Armsmaster's point-of-view, the first frame was of him on his motorbike driving somewhere in the northern part of town.
"That tablet has several videos taken from different cameras on my armour. Don't look at anything else or do anything else other than watch the recordings. Once you've finished, just leave it here, I'll come back for it later."
"Thank you, sir." I repeated, respectfully as I could. I knew I'd already annoyed him, and I didn't want to push my luck.
He stared at me again, and I could imagine that he looked extremely tired behind his visor.
"Just don't break it." He said, and finally walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
"I can't believe you just did that," Amy stated, giving me a full grin, "You bullied Armsmaster into letting you see footage of a new cape, just because you were that curious."
"I didn't bully him, Amy. I just asked for information he was supposed to give me."
She playfully rolled her eyes at me, and then leaned over to get a better view of the tablet.
The video started with Armaster racing down a street somewhere in the Docks area, given from the dilapidated, partially ruined buildings. His head then moved to his hand, and I could see that a small group of insects had formed an arrow, pointing in a north-easterly direction. He shook his hand, but they remained put, still in the shape of an arrow. Armsmaster then accelerated, and after passing a couple of streets, slowed down and stopped, the arrow pointing into a nearby alleyway.
As he got off the motorbike, insects had started gathering just a few feet away from him, and in the dim lighting of a half-broken streetlight had made the insects look semi-liquid, like a thick, oily darkness. The swarm then formed into something that resembled a silhouette of a person, almost like someone had a bed sheet draped over them.
"Over in that alley, Lung is incapacitated from a head injury and enough venom in his veins to kill several people. Tranq him before he recovers from that." The clone-thing said, the chirps, buzzing and skittering of the insects synchronised to form a voice, garbled and static, like someone talking on a phone with bad reception.
"That's so creepy. And disgusting." Amy stated, and I hummed in response.
Armsmaster then turned back to motorbike, opening up a container located just behind the seat, and grabbed several vials of what I'd assumed to be tranquilisers, loading all of them into the butt of his halberd, and ran into the alleyway.
Lung was lying down on his back, moaning and writhing, his skin halfway covered in black scales, like he was in the middle of transforming but couldn't continue. He partially rolled onto his back and stared at Armsmaster, who shot several tranquillisers at his back. Lung's groaning ceased as he went limp, and the black scales started to recede.
Just as Armaster walked over and bent down to check Lung's vitals, there were a series of thunks, like someone walking on metal. Armsmaster had then turned around, revealing Khepri, sitting on the fire escape's railing.
The first thing I noticed was that her armour was different; the armour panels were gold instead of black, including the mask, and the lenses were a light-blue rather than yellow. The biggest detail was that the mask hadn't changed otherwise, still sporting the same mandibles as Skitter's. Her bodysuit was still the same colour, and I could see movement in between the gaps in her armour, and I realised that not only did she have a visible cloud of insects floating just above her head, but also had numerous others shifting and scurrying on her person. I noted that her new suit had the same colour scheme as my Antares, oddly enough.
I still needed more information before making any conclusions.
"You must be Khepri, the caller we got for the ABB hideout near here?" Armsmaster asked. Khepri gave him a single nod, and remained completely still overwise. The camera's pov quickly shifted to glance at an unconscious Lung, and then back to her.
"How on earth did you do this?" He asked, again.
"Injected him with enough venom to counteract his healing, as his power prioritises what injury is the most lethal, which allowed me to incapacitate him with a can of pepper spray, which exploded from the heat he was emitting. You might want to get him to Panacea, though. I don't know how much venom his power can heal off before he actually dies." She buzzed, completely motionless, her insect 'voice' having no inflection or tone in it.
I didn't understand what she was doing. Was she trying to intimidate or threaten him?
"Are you a new cape? I don't know of any insect controllers that are local to the east coast." Armsmaster asked, and Khepri shrugged her shoulders in response, going back to her unnatural stillness.
"This is my first night going out as a cape, so I was patrolling around when I overheard Lung talking about wanting to 'go and kill some kids', so I had to intervene."
Kids? What kids? What children would be hanging around in ABB territory, this late and night, and enough to draw Lung's ire? So Khepri was either lying about that, or…
I had a moment of realisation, finally linking several suspicions I've had.
Lung wasn't talking about actual children, he was talking about the Undersiders.
Armsmaster lingered for a moment, the camera still focused on Khepri, but then turned back to Lung, and he started grabbing out tools from his armour, constructing something around the comatose villain. There was a thump sound, and again the point of view changed as Armsmaster turned to face Khepri again, now standing on the ground.
Despite the changes to her armour, the stance was undeniable Skitter. Her back was completely straight, very little motion or movement other than the subtle rise from her breathing, with the air of complete confidence.
"Wait. Before you leave, let me get some details from you." Armsmaster said, and grabbed out his phone, "Name, and if you want to take credit for Lung's capture."
He already had Khepri's name at this point, so I guess he just asked for posterity?
"Khepri, and I'll take credit for his capture."
"Do you want to join the Protectorate, or if you're young enough, the Wards?"
I found it odd that he tried to pitch it to her. And also that he was so unsure of her age he recommended both the Protectorate and the Wards. Was that just because she was speaking entirely through her insects?
"No, I have…personal reasons as to why I don't want to join."
Another important detail to remember.
"So you want to be an independent?"
Khepri just shrugged again.
"Well, that's too bad. Since you managed to take down Lung by yourself, I'd think you would do really well if you joined. But if you have any questions, here's my personal number."
Khepri opened up her cheap, prepaid phone and entered it, and the camera moved back to face Lung as Armsmaster went back to constructing whatever he was making, and the video ended.
"Well, that seems to be the end of it." I stated, and turned the tablet off, "Are you almost done with healing, Amy?"
I looked to the side and saw that Amy was standing a good foot away from the hospital bed, hands stuffed into her jacket's pockets.
"Oh, I finished healing him ages ago. You just seemed so interested in watching that I didn't want to interrupt you." She mentioned, shrugging. I looked at Lung's unconscious body, and all the sores, rashes and dead skin were already gone, leaving his skin completely healthy.
I've gotten so much information from that recording, but little in the way of concrete answers, and even more questions than I started with. But there was one thing I was certain about:
I needed to talk to Dean.
Being back at Arcadia gave me more of that specific feeling, an odd mixture of nostalgia and uneasiness. Not just because of the relationship I had with my family, or the friends I once had here, or the school itself, but the fact I was a very different person when I was last here.
And the fact that everyone still believed I was that impulsive, hot-headed person.
I was currently rushing towards the school's library, just after finishing my first class of the day, and due to the way my schedule was arranged, I had about two hours until my next class. I remember conspiring with Dean, picking the same courses and classes to give us the best chance of having the same spares.
As I entered the library, I scanned the room looking for him. The library was set up with shelves situated on the sides with large tables in the middle, and a computer area just next to the faculty desk. There were a couple of other students mulling about, either reading, quietly chatting, or sleeping, and a single faculty member was sitting at the main desk, typing away at the computer.
Dean was sitting down at one of the large tables, right at the back of the room. He looked up from his phone and saw me, lips forming into a massive smile as he beckoned me closer, and I felt another pang in my heart. I loved him, well and truly, but I've been mourning him for the past four years, and it was going to be a while until I was comfortable with dating him again.
"Victoria, what's going on? You texted me at like, two in the morning about having to talk to me again, and it was urgent?" He whispered, just as I sat down next to him and got out my notepad.
"It's her. She's fucking here and I have no idea how or why." I hissed.
"Her?"
"Taylor Hebert! The girl who took over the city and puppeteered thousands of people, including me, to fight Scion! She's here, somehow, and I have a million questions and no answers!"
"Alright, just slow down for a second, breathe, and explain everything from the start." He said, gently, and wrapped his arm around my waist. After a couple of deep breaths, I explained.
"Last night, I was woken up by my mum to fly Amy to the PRT building to heal Lung, because he'd been beaten by a new cape."
"Wait, Lung has been captured?"
I nodded, and continued.
"By a new cape named Khepri. The same girl who was Skitter in my previous timeline, and that's also what she was known as when she mind controlled everyone. Her costume was different, black and gold rather than purely black."
Dean unwrapped his arm, and gave me a puzzled expression.
"I have a lot of questions. One, how did she take him down in the first place?"
"Injected him with a ton of venom, which somewhat cancelled his regeneration, and then Armsmaster tranquilised him, or at least that's what she claimed."
"That…makes sense, I suppose. Question two: Are you absolutely sure that it's the same girl from your timeline? How do you know she's not a different version?"
"Because she can still control insects in the exact same way, her suit's different, and the fact she's using the same name when she became an S-Class threat during Gold Morning. And lastly…" I paused, "It's hard to explain. It's just the way she moved, the way she talked, her posture is the exact same as I'd remember her being. Something in me just knows that it's her, I guess?"
He hummed, and reached over to grab my notebook, and wrote some details down.
"Maybe it's a… what did you call them again? The things that give us powers?" He asked.
"Agents, or Shards. I've heard other people call them passengers, though."
"Maybe it's an agent thing, then. Like yours recognises Taylor's, somehow? Anyway, my third question: What's different from the last timeline?"
"Armsmaster was the one to capture Lung, and Skitter's first known public appearance was when the Undersiders robbed the Brockton Bay Central Bank, something that's probably still going to happen."
He jotted down more notes, and pointed his pen at me.
"Anything else? Odd details and whatnot?"
"She mentioned that Lung quote 'wanted to kill some kids', and that was her reason for fighting him. Armsmaster, when I talked to him yesterday, was acting…strangely. Like he didn't want to say anything about what happened, or anything about Khepri."
He stopped writing, twirled the pen in his hand, and looked at me.
"I have a theory."
I nodded and gestured for him to continue.
"That, in the first timeline, Taylor goes out as Skitter for the first time. Encounters Lung, the Undersiders, and Armsmaster. She was crucial in his capture, but Armsmaster talked her out of taking credit. Gets recruited into the Undersiders later, and helps them rob the bank. So, ergo, all Taylor had to do was repeat the steps from the first timeline."
"But why was he acting strangely last night?" I asked, "I don't know him like you do, but you'd think that Lung getting captured would be a good thing in his books, right?"
He hesitated for a second, as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Armsmaster is, how do I say this, a very prideful man? Now, don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of him, he's one of my role models as a hero, and he works extremely hard to keep Brockton from descending into actual anarchy. But he craves getting recognition for it, given how much of a thankless job it is."
I squinted my eyes at him.
"You're saying he was acting strangely because he was upset he wasn't able to take credit for Lung? Is that what you're implying?"
He shrugged his shoulders in a 'what can you do' gesture. I had an idea of what the man was like before he'd become Defiant, and from what other people had told me.
But I didn't think he would be… this bad.
"Anyway, now we have to discuss Khepri, because I have no idea where to even start with her, and I was hoping you could help me out." I said, crossing my arms and tapping my foot impatiently, "Like, why did she choose the name Khepri? Why is she joining the Undersiders again? What's her goal?"
"You don't seem to like her very much." Dean replied, tilting his head in thought.
"It's not that I don't like her, it's more that she's an incredibly complicated person and it's irritating me that I can't figure out what her motivations are. She hurt a lot of people, some of them innocent civilians. She killed two directors and Alexandria. But she also managed to make her territory one of the safest places in the city after Leviathan, and did a lot of good as Weaver. I just can't wrap my head around as to why."
He sat there, and then he asked me an odd question.
"Do you know what happened to her afterwards? After Scion's defeat and the dust settled?"
"Officially, to the people who only knew her as Skitter or Weaver, she died during Gold Morning, just as millions of others had. But to the people who knew the truth, like the Undersiders, or the upper members of the Wardens, she… disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Either she was dead, on some alternative version of Earth, or who knows elsewhere. No one had any evidence of what truly happened to her in the end, so she was marked as missing in action."
"And lastly, she became a Ward, right?"
I nodded. I remember seeing that press release live, of Chevalier announcing Alexandria's death, and seeing Taylor in her new costume announcing her intentions to become a hero.
"So, this is my speculation: Since she did become a hero, I'm going to assume she had some amount of remorse for her actions as Skitter. So, imagine, just after doing what she did to stop Scion, she reawakened in the past, at the same time you did. Maybe it was just after Scion's defeat, or it was two and a half years like you. Don't you think that you would want to try and right your wrongs, especially because everything you did was wiped clean?"
"But why would she rejoin the Undersiders again? Why not become a hero, if she wants to be a better person?"
"I don't have all the answers, Victoria. You'll actually have to talk to her for that.."
"So you're saying I should…" I sighed, trying to put my thoughts into words, "...Give her the benefit of the doubt, a second chance?"
He smiled wryly at me.
"It's what heroes do, isn't it? Try to look for the best in everyone?"
I thought back to a specific memory, but one that wasn't mine. When Aiden had joined me in the Firmament, I saw a memory of his through a crystal, of that very girl who had crossed so many lines, comfortably patting his back and handing him a hot chocolate. It had been the first time I ever saw her doing something objectively kind, without any of the underlying threats or ruthlessness.
I've seen others take that second chance and rebuild themselves into something better, like Rain and Ashley, and I've trusted people I normally wouldn't, like Tattletale and the Undersiders.
Maybe she deserved that chance.
