Wyvern
Part Thirteen: Growing Pains
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Taylor
"Holy. Shit."
The words were spoken softly, almost reverently. I thought I recognised the voice. Lowering the wing which I'd been using to cover my eyes, I discovered that Vicky and Aegis had been joined by other costumed teens. Specifically, the Wards. Amy, I could see, was off ensuring that the gang members who'd been too injured to run were going to survive to see trial.
Which wasn't my problem. My
problem was that I happened to be in danger of adding to my teenage fan club—currently consisting of Glory Girl, with Panacea and possibly Aegis as honorary members as far as I could see. Five of the six Wards standing before me seemed to be staring at me in awe; Aegis, of course, being the exception. Glory Girl, hovering alongside me, was radiating smugness so hard it almost formed a separate aura all of its own.
The voice had been that of a teenage boy, which didn't narrow down the options very much. There was only one female Ward in attendance, being Vista; at least, I assumed it was her from the costume. I inhaled deeply, and found familiar scents hitting my nostrils. Before, when I was a smaller size, I hadn't been consciously aware of sampling scents. Now, it seemed the world was full of them.
"You said she was big," went on the speaker. From the slight echo, and the fact that I couldn't see anybody's lips moving, it had to be Clockblocker who was talking. "You didn't say she was
this big."
"Wooooow," breathed Vista. My infra-red vision could see her increased heart rate, but she didn't smell scared. She smelled
excited. "This is
so damn cool." I half-expected her to put out her hand and try to pet me, but she'd obviously been told that I was a person, not a
thing. "You look
awesome."
Well,
that sort of attention I could get used to. A currently airborne Vicky draped one arm over my neck as I preened just a little. If I knew her at all, she was grinning from ear to ear. With an agreeable chirp, I nodded toward Vista, who reacted by darting forward and hugging me, or as much of me as she could reach. I looked quizzically down at her, then tilted my head toward Vicky.
"It's a dragon thing," she explained cheerfully. "Or rather, a wyvern thing. Teenage girls like 'em. Don't tell me you didn't know that?"
I considered her words. There
had been a phase when I'd worn a sparkly dragon T-shirt almost obsessively, to the point that Mom had to resort to threats to get me to let her wash it. But I'd thought it was just me; Emma hadn't had the slightest interest in dragons at the time. And now I had a teenage Ward, only a bit older than I'd been then, hugging me just because I
was a dragon. Or rather, a wyvern. Life was strange sometimes.
Which reminded me of something that had occurred to me after the fight. Experimentally, I generated some flame in my gullet then snorted. A little flame and rather a lot of smoke came out through my nostrils. All the Wards recoiled slightly, and Vista looked up at me. "Sorry," she said hastily. "I didn't mean to upset you." Letting me go, she backed off hurriedly.
"No, it's okay," Vicky told her. "I don't think she's angry." She turned to me. "Are you?"
I shook my head, then peeled back my lips to show them a wyvern-style grin—they collectively took another step back—and snickered slightly.
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Okay, I get it. You think it's funny. You realise you're scaring
children here, right?"
Half of these 'children' are older than you. I nudged her with my nose, then blew smoke all over her. She flew out of the cloud, coughing, then glared at Clockblocker when he started laughing.
"Not funny," she said indignantly, then switched her glare to me when I snickered again. "I mean it. That wasn't funny at all."
"Actually, it kinda was," Aegis pointed out, a grin lurking on his face. "The look on your face was
priceless. I—uh, hi, sir."
Vicky and I both turned our heads. Armsmaster was approaching, and from what I could see of his mouth, he wasn't very pleased. Of course, the man never seemed pleased about anything that I could tell.
"Aegis," he said curtly as he came up to us. "I'm sure the Wards would be more useful with helping police the situation than standing around gawking at a new cape." Though his words were phrased as a suggestion, the tone said something else altogether.
"Uh, yes, sir," Aegis replied hastily. "Come on, Wards. Vista, you go with Clockblocker to check out the museum …" His voice faded away as he retreated with the Wards.
Armsmaster turned to me. He looked at Glory Girl for a moment; I suspected he wanted to be able to order her to leave too. Of course, as we were both members of a team quite separate from the Wards, I
also suspected that she'd tell him to go to hell if he tried.
"Did you want something, Armsmaster?" she asked sweetly. Her irritation at my smoke prank had apparently vanished almost as fast as the smoke itself, for she casually leaned against the side of my neck while standing on nothing.
His expression became just a little more sour. "I'd hoped for a private talk with Wyvern, Miss Dallon," he replied gruffly.
"Nope," she said, just as sweetly as before. "Mom wants to make sure she's got a responsible member of New Wave nearby at all times." She hooked her thumb at herself. "That's me." I nearly snickered again at the thought of Vicky considering herself 'responsible', but stopped myself in time. Armsmaster might take it the wrong way.
"Very well," he said, not sounding happy at all. "Wyvern, you appear to have increased in size. How did this happen?" As he tilted his helmet back to look up at me, I could see his fingers flexing slightly, as if he wished he was holding his halberd. That particular weapon was securely racked on his back, which didn't surprise me. If he couldn't intimidate me with it when I was human sized, there wasn't much he could do with it when I was this big. Well, except for start a fight, which would almost certainly go very badly for him.
Of course, I couldn't exactly answer the question, so I deferred to Vicky with a tilt of my head. She glanced at me, then at Armsmaster. "I'm sorry, what was the question again? How did Wyvern get so large?" With an effort, I stopped myself from grinning at her innocent tone. Vicky was milking this for all the amusement she could get out of it.
"Yes," gritted Armsmaster. "She was already quite powerful and somewhat impulsive. I need to know what happened to cause this change."
And then Vicky reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out my busted glasses, minus the glass. As primly as any librarian, she perched these on her nose and assumed a professorial air. Inside, I was already cackling with laughter, but outwardly I did my best to maintain a stolid expression for Armsmaster's benefit.
"Sources vary on the exact cause of my teammate Wyvern's sudden and perhaps inexplicable alteration in size and mass," she intoned solemnly. "Personally, I favour the hypothesis that if one angers a dragon and said dragon happens to increase in size and bites one's arm off, then one deserves whatever one gets."
"So it happened during the fight with Inago then," he said, with the air of a man hanging on to his temper by a very thin thread. "Was it a sudden change, or did she gradually increase in size?"
"I wouldn't know," Vicky said, dropping the faux professor tone. "I was unconscious for most of the fight, after Inago beat the living crap out of me and filled my lungs with his bugs." She gestured toward where the villain himself was being treated prior to being taken away. "If you want to find out, ask him."
"Inago is unconscious, and likely to be so for some time," Armsmaster said flatly. "He's been dosed with Brute-scale tranquillisers. This should hold until we get him into a secure cell. Even if he he
was willing to give us any answers, he wouldn't be able to supply them any time soon,." He took a step closer to me. "This growth is a potential indicator of a concerning trend. If you get much larger, you may end up being an inadvertent danger to the city. I would like to strongly recommend that you come with me to the Protectorate base, where we can study—"
Leaning down so that my muzzle was barely a foot from his helmet, I opened my mouth to give him a good long look at the
extremely impressive array of teeth that my tongue told me was there.
NO, I thought as hard as I could, while giving voice to a chirp that would hopefully get the message across.
"
No," a deep voice rumbled.
What?
Where my teeth had failed to scare him, that voice did the trick. Armsmaster took not one but
two steps back, while Vicky whirled in midair and stared at me.
"You
talked!" she blurted/"You can
talk?" he demanded.
If I hadn't been so astonished myself, I might have laughed at the look of sheer bogglement on Glory Girl's face. Armsmaster's helmet visor covered most of his face, but I was pretty sure he was equally surprised.
I coughed a couple of times, sending puffs of smoke into the air. Then I took a deep breath and concentrated, trying to figure out how I'd done it.
I guess, I thought really hard.
This is kind of new. As I concentrated on the words, I voiced the chirp.
"
I guess," rumbled the voice. It wasn't my voice, not really. Even though I could feel the vibration in my chest as I spoke the words, that voice did not belong to Taylor Hebert, fifteen year old nerd. It was as gravelly as ten miles of bad road, and so deep it sounded like the voice-over for an advertisement about extreme off-road skeet-shooting, or some other intensely masculine (read: unnecessarily dangerous) pursuit.
"This is kind of new."
"Yeah, no crap it's new," Vicky exclaimed. "And wow, I think your voice is deeper than Uncle Neil's." An evil grin spread over her face. "Oh, god. I
so want to see Amy's face when you talk in front of her. She'll blow a fuse for sure."
"Why can you talk now but not earlier?" demanded Armsmaster. From his tone, he suspected he was the victim of a massive practical joke. "Are you trying to claim that the increased size has enabled you to talk?"
I took another deep breath. This wasn't like talking normally. It took all my concentration and a certain amount of effort, and I had to think out what I wanted to say in advance. But I
could talk, which was kind of amazing.
I'm not claiming it. I'm saying it.
"
I'm not claiming it," my wyvern voice rumbled.
"I'm saying it." It was a relatively long speech for me, and I felt a breath of smoke come out with it, as if a rush of flame was about to follow. I wasn't even going to
think about how I was managing the nuances of human speech without normal human speech apparatus to make it work. The fact that I now had a wingspan wide enough to reach right across the street if I angled it right merely indicated that my life had become far too weird for ordinary human logic to work out.
"Which only proves my point," he argued. "Your unexpected size change, coupled with new abilities, indicates that there are aspects about your powers that nobody understands yet. For your safety—for
everyone's safety—I really think you should—"
Now I was getting angry. Toasting him in his armour would be a bad idea, for several reasons. So would biting his arm off, as I'd done with Inago. He didn't have his halberd out for me to melt, which
had shut him up before, if only by accident. But now I had a new tactic to use;
speech. If I could just
tell him to go away and leave me alone—
This time, I didn't have time to think about the words. I didn't need to; they just came out all by themselves.
"FFUUCCKK OFFF!"
Previously, I'd been speaking at a relatively moderate tone; say, that of a big man raising his voice slightly.
Now, it was more like the same big man shouting into a megaphone the size of a city bus. My voice
boomed down the street. Those few birds which had just come in for a landing after the fight scattered into the sky once more.
Everyone turned to look at us. The driver's side airbag in the PRT van spontaneously went off with a bang. Over at the museum, three bullet-holed windows gave up the ghost and collapsed into shards of glass.
I was pretty sure they'd heard it halfway across the city. In fact, I suspected they might've heard it in
Boston. Which meant that every Ward on site, along with every PRT soldier and Protectorate hero, had just heard me drop the mother of all F-bombs on Armsmaster.
On the upside, the man had it coming. On the downside, I didn't think I was
ever going to change back at this rate. Especially with that memory coming back to haunt me every time I tried to relax and pretend everything was going to be okay. And it
would come back to haunt me; I could almost guarantee it.
Vicky tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked around, she pointed upward, then flew in that direction. That was a good idea, I figured, and brought my wings down to fly off. What I hadn't considered was that the downwash of air was the last straw for a man who'd already been knocked off balance by a massive sonic assault to the inner ears. When I last saw him from a hundred feet up, he was sprawled on his ass, shaking his head dizzily.
Oh, shit. I just cursed out Armsmaster, deafened him, then knocked him on his ass.
He is gonna be pissed.
Well, there was nothing I could do about it, so I set course to follow Vicky.
<><>
Armsmaster
Colin had just regained his feet when the first PRT soldier reached him. His ears were still ringing, a warm feeling on his upper lip told him that he had a nosebleed, and several of the more delicate systems in his helmet were malfunctioning. On the fourth try, the speech-to-text function kicked in, although half the HUD was flickering intermittently.
… ALL RIGHT, SIR?
"I'm fine," he enunciated carefully. "My armour protected me from the worst of it. I'm temporarily deaf, though." That shout, he suspected, would have broken capillaries and caused mild surface tissue damage to an unarmoured person. He was lucky his eardrums hadn't burst altogether.
The soldier pointed at Colin's mouth. YOU'RE BLEEDING, SIR. DO YOU REQUIRE MEDICAL ATTENTION?
"No." He shook his head, wincing as he felt something rattling inside the helmet where nothing should've rattled.
I'm going to have to tear it down and rebuild mostly from scratch. It seems every time I encounter Wyvern, she ends up destroying my equipment. "It's just a nosebleed. I'll be fine once my hearing comes back."
YES, SIR. The soldier moved away from him and Colin turned his attention to the helmet. Not all of the heads-up display options were working at the moment but with a little effort, he managed to coax it into doing a self-test. Red flags began to pop up immediately, with more showing every second. He'd designed the helmet with a certain amount of redundancy, but the damage wrought by Wyvern's bellow had apparently overwhelmed even some of the more robust systems.
It was only partially his fault, Colin decided, for not being more cautious. He couldn't have known ahead of time that she'd be able to talk, although he
had gotten the report on the volume of her roar. The damage perpetrated by her shout, however, seemed to be
more than the roar had done. Perhaps because the roar had been more drawn out and thus less intense?
This only proves my point, he told himself. Any self-respecting cape should have been more careful when using a new ability, even one so innocuous as speech. It wasn't the first time he'd been told to fuck off, of course. Though Wyvern could not have been expected to know about the sheer damage potential inherent in a simple shout. Triumph aside, of course.
Has she ever met Triumph? I'll have to check that. If I can get her into the Wards, perhaps he can give her some pointers on not being so destructive.
DO YOU NEED HEALING? The words scrolled across his HUD, and he turned to see who was speaking. If it was the soldier from before, he intended to have words with the man about respecting boundaries.
But it wasn't one of the soldiers. Instead, it was Panacea herself. She was grimy, with bloodstains on her clothing and hands and a weary look in her eyes. She looked back at him fearlessly. Her lips moved, and a moment later the words scrolled across in front of his eyes. SOMEONE SAID YOU HAD LOST YOUR HEARING AND HAD A NOSEBLEED. DO YOU NEED HEALING?
He sighed. There was a time to be self-sufficient and a time to bow to the inevitable. Holding out his hand, he triggered the control that folded back the pad over his index finger. While biometrics could be made to work through his armour, it was easier with bare skin. "Will this do?" he asked carefully.
YES. HOLD STILL. She took his hand and pressed her thumb to his bare forefinger. Despite having been healed by her before, he still somehow expected to feel some kind of sensation. But with Panacea, all he felt was a spreading nullification of the aches and pains that invariably built up over the day. When the wavefront of her power reached his head, he felt rather than heard a sharp popping sound, then his hearing returned.
"Your eardrums weren't burst, not quite, but your ears were severely traumatised," she told him firmly. "You also had burst capillaries around your mouth, covered by your beard. Next time, get medical help
immediately. Loud sounds
can cause serious injury, up to and including brain damage. Which I can't help with, as you know." She released his hand and touched her upper lip. "If I was you, I'd wash your face. There's blood in your moustache."
"Thank you, Panacea," he said automatically.
Always thank your medic. "I'd like to reiterate my suggestion for a therapist. If your inability to affect brains is a mental block, and I don't see why it shouldn't be, then perhaps they can help you get past it."
"No, thank you," she said sharply. "It is what it is." Turning away from him, she started back toward the museum. He watched her go, wondering briefly at her attitude. If he had her power, he'd move heaven and earth to make it as efficient as possible. But she wasn't even willing to talk to someone about her problem.
I guess I'll never understand people.
His radio was still working, albeit seriously damaged. He could only hear every third word, and he couldn't transmit at all. With that in mind, he located Aegis, who was helping stand guard over one of the groups of captured gang members. From the torn and bloodied clothing, he guessed these people had been injured too much to fight or flee. The fact that they were standing without effort meant they'd since been healed, probably by Panacea.
"My equipment's damaged," he told the second in command of the Wards bluntly. "I'm heading back to base to deal with it. You'll take your orders from the ranking PRT officer on site. Understood?"
Aegis nodded. "Understood, sir." He was a good kid, as far as Colin knew about teenagers. The few reports Colin had bothered to review stated that Aegis was conscientious and scrupulous with his duties. This was a good thing, as Triumph was due to graduate from the Wards in a couple of months. The sound Blaster had already expressed his intent to jump straight into the Protectorate, leaving Aegis to take over the team in his absence.
Without another word, Colin turned and headed back to where he'd left his bike. Fortunately, the vehicle had sensory systems he could connect into while he was riding, which would reduce the load on the damaged electronics in his helmet. And if he set the autopilot, he could use the ride back to base considering what he was going to do about Wyvern.
<><>
Taylor
It was only when I was circling Vicky's house preparatory to landing that the next big obstacle raised its ugly head. Or more specifically, it was a recurring obstacle that had chosen to show up at exactly the wrong time.
Because fuck my life.
"
Vicky," I said, trying not to speak so loudly that all of her neighbours heard it.
"Problem."
"Oh, crap, what now?" she asked, flying closer to me. "You're not getting bigger, are you?" Measuring me by eye, she shook her head. "I don't
think you're getting bigger."
"
No." I'm not getting any bigger, but I'm not getting any smaller, either. I shook my head and concentrated. This was going to be a long one.
"How do I get inside?"
"Oh," she said. "Oh, crap. I didn't think about that." She looked at me and then down at the house, and I could
see her trying to figure out how I was supposed to get in through the front door. I was pretty sure my shoulders were wider than the doorway itself, even if I crouched low enough to get under the lintel. My head would fit inside, I figured, but the rest of me would be out of luck.
"
Me too," I managed.
"Big as a car." Well, my
torso was, or thereabouts. I had no idea how much I weighed, or even where to find a set of scales that could
take my weight at the moment. 'Skinny' was not a word that described me right then. Nor was 'petite'.
"Hah! That's the answer!" Vicky snapped her fingers. "Land on the driveway! I'll be right back!" She glided down and landed next to the front door.
By the time I managed to backwing and land—being ultra-careful not to hit the house
or the nearby telephone pole with my wings—she was inside. I wasn't quite sure whether either structure would break before my wings did, but I didn't want to take the chance either way. I seemed to be inordinately tough in wyvern form, but there was such a thing as reckless negligence. As it was, I heard a clatter as the great gusts of wind from my wings knocked over a garbage can two houses down. I decided to leave it be, as the only manipulator I had was my mouth, and I did
not want to accidentally bite a filled trash can in half. Even from where I was, I didn't like the smell.
I didn't know what Vicky was up to, but I felt faintly ridiculous standing on the driveway of a suburban home in wyvern form. Some deep instinct told me that I should seek a desolate mountain cave or the caldera of a volcano to make my home. I told it to go away and stop bothering me; I was human first and wyvern second. Even if I
was starting to gain a distinct understanding of Alice's conundrum when she was too large to fit through the door into freedom.
And then, with a rumble, the garage door rolled up. Vicky stood there, beaming at me proudly. "I said I was a genius before, and I'll say it again. Car-sized wyvern, meet car-sized door."
I had to admit, she was right. It was an ingenious solution, and one that I should've thought of myself.
"Yup," I agreed.
"Genius." Carefully furling my wings closely at my sides, I ducked my head and waddled forward into the one car-space that was free. I suspected that it belonged to Brandish, while the other car was probably Flashbang's. If I kept my head low and made sure not to erect the crest on my head, I figured I could fit inside.
"Okay, that's good," Vicky said cheerfully. "Now the tail." I felt her nudge that appendage, apparently with her elbow. Turning my head, mindful not to bump Mark's car with my jaw, I carefully brought my tail all the way into the garage. The moment it was out of the way, Vicky started the garage door rolling down again.
Which got me out of the public eye, a move I approved of. But now I was stuck in a garage, surrounded by remarkably fragile—and remarkably
expensive—obstacles.
"Okay. Now what?" Changing back would be a chore, given my feelings of guilt over having yelled in Armsmaster's face. Well, I felt
kind of guilty. I hadn't meant to yell that loudly.
"Hey, I got your back," she assured me. "Or rather, I got you your favourite bathrobe." With the air of a magician producing a rabbit from a hat—or, for the more upmarket ones, a hat from a rabbit—she levitated over the car and retrieved a lumpy bundle from beside the door leading into the house. It was bright pink, which should've clued me in on what it was. In my defence, it was folded Vicky-style, which meant 'this goes there, and that goes anywhere, and forget it'. She dropped it on the hood of the car beside my head, and rubbed her hands together. "Now for the fun bit."
I figured I knew what was coming, and mentally braced myself. Vicky's aura always made me feel a little weird afterward. Whether this was from the emotional aftertaste of the feelings she made me experience or the intellectual knowledge that she was in some small way controlling my mind, I wasn't totally sure I liked it. Which was why I wanted to learn how to reliably force the change myself, and not depend on either her or Amy.
The wave of love and affection washed through me, as it always did. I tamped down the impulse to spread my wings and surf on the almost palpable emotions; if I did that, I might just put my wing through the garage wall. Not to mention Flashbang's car. But it was definitely doing its job. Second by second, the tension was melting out of my body.
I felt the change coming before it actually began, and closed my eyes. Deep within, there was a pull, drawing me back toward my human form. Toward being Taylor Hebert. I swayed on my feet as it began. Even with my eyes closed, I could
feel my body changing. My wings shrank; my tail retracted toward my butt; my torso contracted, losing mass in a way I found most disconcerting. Not least because this was the first time I'd
felt the change in size and mass so vividly.
As my weight distribution shifted, I stumbled. Hastily, I opened my eyes so I wouldn't fall into anything I couldn't afford to pay for, and saw my hands clutching on to Flashbang's car. I still felt weird, but looking down at myself revealed that I was human once more. Nothing dragony, nothing scaly; all original issue.
"Oh, good," I mumbled, and passed out.
<><>
Armsmaster
Travelling at a steady seventy-five miles per hour, Colin's bike thundered down the road toward the Bay. To the uneducated observer, this particular street wouldn't seem to have any real purpose, as there were no businesses that fronted on to it. A stop sign, combined with AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY and NO TRESPASSING, marked where it turned off from the main thoroughfare. The PRT logo was affixed to the authorized-vehicles sign, making it clear exactly which organisation was setting the street aside for their private use.
Those in the know, as Colin was, would be aware of the PRT strike squad permanently quartered in the unassuming buildings on either side of the street. It was their job to monitor the state of the road on a twenty-four hour basis, and to discourage any unauthorised vehicles from making use of it. Given that any such vehicles would trigger tyre-shredders at regular intervals down the street, this was more for the safety of the public than anything else.
Colin's bike, of course, was authorised. The IFF chip he'd built into the bike deactivated the tyre-shredders before he ever reached them. At the far end of the road, butting on to the water itself, was a row of bollards. When he passed the fifty-yard mark, the bollards began to smoothly retract into the road to clear the way. At twenty-five yards, they were mostly done. At ten yards, as their tops became flush with the road surface, the force-field bridge sprang into existence. Straight as a ruler, it led directly out toward the Protectorate base in the middle of the bay.
Assault had once referred to the bridge as Bifrost, citing its colour (the same shifting rainbow hues that typified the bubble around the base proper) and the fact that it connected the realm of the gods with the world of ordinary men. Colin considered this, then told Assault that the reference was fanciful at best and counterfactual at worst, considering that more parahumans (yes, he did actually get the reference; he just didn't think it was valid) could be found in and around Brockton Bay than ever resided on the base. More to the point, did Assault want the Empire taking note of the Norse connotations and getting the impression that the Protectorate considered themselves Aryan in nature? The only response he got from Assault was a long stare and a shake of the head. Nothing more was said about Bifrost, or any other classical allusions to do with the base or the bridge, which suited Colin quite well.
The bike, still on autopilot, began to slow as he approached the end of the bridge. Once he reached the repurposed oil rig that served the Protectorate as a base in Brockton Bay, he took over control once more and cruised up the long curving ramp. Behind him, the bridge winked out of existence, but he was no longer paying attention to it.
By the time he reached the vehicle level, which only took a few seconds, he'd decided to check the bike over for any signs of damage. It might've been much farther away from Wyvern than himself or even the PRT van, but there was still the chance that the overpressure wave had caused damage to its more delicate components. So he steered the cycle into the maintenance area he'd set up to keep it up to scratch.
Stepping off the cycle, he plugged a diagnostic cable into it and activated the 'test all' function. This would take about fifteen minutes to complete, so he headed into his workshop proper, the one where he built all the other equipment he used in the field. On a rack over the workbench was the sad-looking remains of his previous halberd, the melted head drooping off of one end. He was still working on cannibalising its systems for use in the replacement, but he figured to be done by the end of the day. Or rather, considering this setback, sometime the next morning.
Removing his helmet, he placed it on the stand he'd designed for it and set that up to run a diagnostic as well. Then he took the current halberd off of his back, and began to remove his armour.
He was halfway through his task, sliding the left-hand vambrace and gauntlet off his arm, when his phone pinged.
"You have a call from … Director Emily Piggot," it announced in a gentle tone. Not unlike the one Dragon used, actually, though he wasn't quite sure which had come first.
"Accept," he said absently, pulling his hand out of the end of the vambrace and placing the armour section on its rack. "Hello, Director. What can I do for you?"
"
You can tell me what happened at the Isaac Lord Museum." Piggot's tone was abrupt.
"Specifically, what you said to Wyvern that made her tell you to fuck off in front of thirty very impressionable schoolchildren. Some of whom recorded the confrontation. Would you like me to tell you how I know this?"
He could definitely hazard a guess. "They've put it online?"
"
Precisely." There was no video feed with the call but from his previous association with her, she had to look like she was sucking on a lemon right then.
"I realise that she was the one who did the swearing. Believe me, if it had been you, we'd be having an entirely different conversation right now. But to anger someone who'd just beaten up Inago and scared off two other gang capes was not the brightest move in the world. So what did you say, and why did you say it?"
Colin took a deep breath. "Well, to start with, you're of course aware that she can now speak. Were you also aware of how she's now much bigger than she was before? Or how these two changes may be related?" He began working to disconnect the other vambrace.
"
I was a little perplexed by how she seemed to be larger than your previous description and imagery would have suggested, yes," she agreed.
"When did this happen, exactly? Did she enter the fight at that size, or did she transform and then increase in size during the fight?"
"I asked those exact questions," he said, doing his best not to sound irritated. He didn't want her to think he was angry with her, after all. "But Glory Girl didn't know, and Wyvern apparently hadn't realised she was verbal at that point."
"
Aegis's report should clear a few things up, considering he was present for the entire conflict," she replied.
"Unfortunately, he's still there at the moment. In the meantime, how certain are you about the link between Wyvern's size and her ability to speak?"
"I'm not," he answered candidly. "It's based off of what Glory Girl and Wyvern herself have alleged, but the only evidence I have for that is the fact that Wyvern has been non-verbal to this point. It may be that she really needs to achieve this size before she can speak, or she might simply have been faking inability to speak the whole time to put me off my guard. I can't say, one way or the other."
"
It would seem a little out of character for Glory Girl to go along with such a ruse unless she was taken in as well," the Director mused.
"Let's assume for the moment that they're telling the truth about Wyvern only being able to speak while enlarged. That said, you still haven't told me what you said or did to make her angry."
He hadn't been looking forward to this, but it had to be said. "I was trying to impress upon her the gravity of the situation," he explained. "Her sudden changes in size and capabilities indicate that there may be more changes in future. She went from the size of a human to the size of a car over the course of several days and a few combats. Inago isn't the only tough opponent in Brockton Bay. What if she ends up in combat with Fenja and Menja, just as an example, and decides that she needs to grow even larger? The destructive capability of her flame breath is notable enough at normal size. If her powers go out of control, she could destroy a significant chunk of the city without even meaning to."
"
Let me see if I can figure what happened next," Piggot said.
"You urged her to come in for power testing, despite her extremely blunt refusal to do that the last time the subject was raised. She refused once more; you wouldn't let the matter drop. So she yelled in your face, then flew away. Is that about right?"
"That sounds … accurate," he admitted. "Though the sheer intensity of her shout damaged, a number of my helmet systems, including the total destruction of the recording equipment. Over and above that, it also caused me a few minor superficial injuries. Panacea healed me, but I'm currently in the process of ascertaining what I need to do to get my armour back to working order." He hesitated, then spoke up. "I believe that Wyvern has the potential to be an extremely loose cannon, especially considering the damage she can inflict and the lack of any real oversight from New Wave."
"
Yet you want her in the Wards." It wasn't a question.
"I do." He removed the other vambrace. "We can study her powers and determine how they propagate. With proper training and discipline, we can ensure that the full scope of her power is kept in check for when it's truly needed—
and determine how to bring it out when it is."
There was a long silence from the Director's end, such that Colin checked the phone to see if she'd hung up. The signal was still strong, so he went back to removing his armour.
Finally, she spoke again.
"You think if she can be made strong enough, she could battle Endbringers, and possibly win." He couldn't interpret the tone in her voice, but it didn't sound like unconditional agreement.
"There are risks to the idea, of course," he said to forestall any protests. "Her power may have a hard ceiling. And of course, to reach a size capable of seriously threatening any one of the Endbringers, she would need be powerful enough to level any city she fought in. So we'd have to be
absolutely certain she can do it …"
"
If I had a dollar for every cape who was absolutely certain his ability could one-shot an Endbringer, I'd be able to retire rich," she observed dryly.
"Yes," he conceded.
"Or … it would have to be a last resort. One where we don't
mind losing the city, so long as the Endbringer goes down."
"
You're banking a lot on the idea of a teenage girl being the one cape who can solo an Endbringer," the Director noted.
"It's never happened before. Why do you even think she can do it?"
"Well, I don't think she
can," admitted Colin. "But the possibility exists, however slight, that she
might be able to. Given how much she ramped up to fight Inago, and how hard she took him down, there exists the outside possibility that she powers up to meet and
exceed perceived threats."
"
And there exists no greater threat than the Endbringers," agreed the Director.
"Did you actually have a plan for testing the limits of her powers without actually destroying the city in the process?"
"Not … as such," Colin said. "I wanted to gather data first. See how her power works, and if I can gauge its strength that way. There are a lot of variables involved. But I can't do
any of it unless I can actually get access to her."
"
Well, my office has been informed that she's officially a member of New Wave," the Director stated.
"Which means that unless her legal status changes a lot, or if she specifically gives permission, you're unlikely to get that access."
"About that." Colin didn't want to go down this path, as it opened the way for potential backlash in future, but he felt he owed it to himself just to see what the Director thought about it. "When she shouted at me, I suffered injury, and my armour was damaged. That could be construed as an attack on a Protectorate member with a parahuman ability. If we pressed
that as a charge …"
Again, Piggot was silent for a few moments. Colin didn't bother trying to interpret it, but instead concentrated on taking the last of his armour off. He was just racking his chestplate when she spoke again.
"As much as I hate to say it, if she belonged to any other team, I'd think about it. For the record, in my opinion the entire concept's a dirty trick of the highest calibre. Consider yourself unofficially reprimanded."
He wasn't sure if the feeling in his chest was disappointment or relief. "Any other team? What's so special about New Wave?"
"
Brandish. Or, more specifically, Carol Dallon. With her daughter as witness, she could tear apart any justification we had for impressing Wyvern into the Wards. No, the only chance we have of getting our hands on her is if she actually commits a real crime and gets caught for it." Piggot paused.
"Or, of course, volunteers. But after today's little debacle, that's becoming less and less likely by the second. Just by the way, I'm giving you an official reprimand to go with the unofficial one."
"What?" He'd thought the day was bad enough. "Why?"
"
You pushed the recruitment attempt beyond first refusal and got her angry enough to shout at you and fly off, thus making any further attempts that much harder." Her tone was flat.
"The damage to yourself and your armour is thereby your own fault. As such, repair costs will come out of your Tinker budget. Is that understood?"
He'd seen her like this often enough. There would be no arguing with her. When Emily Piggot set her mind on an outcome, that outcome happened. No matter
how much it hurt to have his Tinker budget curtailed in such a fashion. "Yes, Director."
"
Good. Now fix your armour while I see what I can do to straighten out your mess." There was a beep as the call disconnected.
With a sudden surge of anger, Colin punched the workbench. The pain helped to centre him, and he hissed as he shook the stinging sensation out of his knuckles. He didn't know which was worse; the fact that he'd failed with Wyvern, or that Piggot now knew he was capable of such failure.
As much as he resented Dauntless for his steadily (if slowly) increasing power capability, Colin was a realist. The Endbringers were a danger that
had to be defeated, somehow, someday. He had a few ideas for weapons that might do it, but the problem was that such weapons could only be tested
against an Endbringer. On the other hand, once Wyvern came into the Wards, he could take over her training. With him as a mentor, she could learn to use her abilities tactically and they could fight as a team; him as the brain, her as the brawn. And if they succeeded? He'd be happy with
half the glory of defeating an Endbringer.
And of course, he'd always wanted to partner with a dragon.
<><>
Taylor
"Ugh, my head."
I barely recognised the voice as my own. My throat was so rough and scratchy, it felt like I'd been gargling sandpaper. The
taste was indescribable. I hurt
everywhere. My head, my arms, my legs, my body; everything felt as though I'd been beaten with a baseball bat.
"Ah, you're awake. Wow, you've been asleep
forever." Bright and chirpy, the voice could only belong to one person. I tried to open one eyelid; after several attempts, I managed to break the seal and crack the gunk that had glued it shut. Even
that hurt.
"Vicky," I croaked. "Water." Right then, I was ready to kill for a drink. Fortunately, it turned out that I wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures.
"Right here," Vicky told me cheerfully. I watched her blurry form pouring water from a pitcher into a glass (or so I gathered from the gurgling noises) and then she leaned over me, coming more into focus as she did so. "Okay, up you come." One strong hand slid down behind my back, lifting me effortlessly into a sitting position (a passing thought suggested that Vicky would make an
amazing nurse) while the other guided a straw to my lips.
Opening my mouth, I took the straw between my lips and greedily drank. The water soaked into my parched tissues, dissolving the evil-tasting slime and washing it away down my throat. Let my stomach acid deal with it, I figured. As thirsty as I was, I figured it wasn't a good idea to choke on the water, so I did my best to take it slowly. It wasn't easy, but I managed it. The water was cool but not chilled, and felt
heavenly to my throat.
When the glass was empty, Vicky let me lie down again. "Want more?" she asked. "Ames said you'd want one, but only to give you more if you really wanted it."
I considered that. With the initial edge taken off my thirst, I felt like I could do with more, but not so much that it was a burning obsession. "I'll see how I feel in a bit," I said, my voice much more like my own. "Could I have a wash-cloth or something? I need to clean my eyes out."
"Sure," she said, and zipped away. I wasn't even certain if her feet were touching the floor at this point. Not that it mattered; if it got me that wash-cloth a moment sooner, I didn't care if she flew through the
wall. In the meantime, I relaxed into the nice soft mattress, trying to figure out what had gone before.
I remembered the fight, going up against Inago. I'd gotten
big. Bigger than I had against Stinger, by a considerable margin. With that size, I'd
brutalised him. Of course, he'd been trying to hurt or kill me in the process, and Oni Lee had also been attacking me, so I'd been probably justified in hitting him so hard.
I frowned slightly, then winced as
that hurt, too. What had happened with Oni Lee? I remembered biting him at one point, but whether that had been
him-him or one of his clones, I wasn't sure. And then he'd been on my back when I detonated a fireball right next to us. Had he survived the battle? Was he fine, or badly injured? There was so much I didn't know.
And then, of course, there was Inago himself. We'd gone at it hammer and tongs, but as big and strong as he'd gotten, I'd been bigger and stronger. His 'bugs' had not survived my flames, and I suspected he'd only just survived losing an arm (I'd
bitten his
arm off! What the
fuck, wyvern-me?) and then being blown up. I'd been on the brink of
ending him once and for all when Vicky showed up.
All of which gave me severe cause for concern. I'd been aware that as a wyvern, my emotions were more … raw. I had less control over my reactions. It wasn't that I was an uncontrollable beast, just more … instinctive. When I saw a threat, I acted to end it. Amy and Vicky had been in danger, so I went all-out to save them, not even hesitating to use lethal means to do so. Even when an enemy was down, I was more inclined to make sure they couldn't get up again than to leave them for the authorities.
Which led me to Armsmaster. I didn't want to think about what had happened with Armsmaster, but there wasn't much I could do about that. I saw him as an overbearing, pretentious halberd-swinging
adult, while he no doubt considered me to be an immature, dangerous
child. He'd been one of my heroes, growing up. Never in my worst nightmares had I imagined that I'd ever tell him to fuck off, for any reason. And I'd not only done that, but I'd done it with a voice that could break glass.
And knocked him on his ass when I flew off.
Once he got over the ringing in his ears, he would've been seriously pissed with me. To make matters worse, he knew who I was and where I lived. Thinking about it, I was just a little surprised (but in no way disappointed) that it was Vicky sitting beside me when I woke up, and not a cop. What was the penalty for telling the local head of the Protectorate to fuck off, anyway? I couldn't imagine what I'd done was legal.
Vicky came back into the room just as I reached that particularly depressing conclusion. "Wash-cloth," she announced. "Want me to do it for you?"
"No, I'm good," I said, glad of the interruption. "Help me sit up again?"
"Sure," she said, handing the cloth to me and lifting me up once more. With her help, I shuffled backward and leaned against the headboard with the pillow behind me. Once I was stable, I set about cleaning my eyes out and giving my face a general wash. It felt
amazing.
When I lowered the cloth, Dad was standing beside the bed.
<><>
Danny
Taylor jumped a little, and squeaked in surprise. Then she dropped the cloth and reached out for him. Kneeling down beside the bed, he gathered her into his arms. She clung to him, her face burrowed into his shoulder, for the longest time. For his part, a few tears trickled down his cheeks. A small part of him was glad that Glory Girl had given them some privacy.
When he let her go, she was sniffling. There may have been a tear or two on her face as well, though he doubted she'd ever admit to it. "You okay?" he asked her, a catch in his voice. "I didn't see the fight, but Glory Girl has described it in
quite some detail."
She nodded quickly, then after a moment changed her mind and shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I didn't know I was going to get that big. I didn't know I was going to be fighting someone so tough. I didn't know I could get that brutal. And I
really didn't know I was going to swear at Armsmaster like that."
"Well, I wasn't asking about
that, but we can get to that in a moment," he acknowledged. "It's just that Glory Girl said you were wincing a lot when you first woke up."
"Yeah, I feel like I've been used as a piñata," she said ruefully. "It's no fun at all. I guess it's an after-effect of pushing my powers so hard?"
"Well, you know about as much about that as I do," he pointed out. "But I'm just glad you're here and you're all right." He hugged her again. "When Brandish called me and said you'd passed out at her house, I was a little worried. But when Panacea assured me it was just natural sleep, and you needed it to recover from the exertion, it made me feel a bit better."
"Wait, how long have I been out?" The look of almost comedic alarm on her face tempted him to answer something like
six months, kiddo. Happy birthday. But this wasn't the time or place for jokes like that.
"It's been nearly twelve hours," he said. "I took the liberty of going online and checking out the ParaHumans Online boards. There's a few pictures of you fighting Inago, and a
lot of footage showing you cursing out Armsmaster."
"Oh, god," she groaned, running her hand over her face. "I'm gonna be the most despised cape in the city, aren't I?"
"No, that's still apparently L33t," he replied with a grin. "In fact, there's a lot of support for you. Nobody really knows what he said to set you off, but the fact that you just told him to eff off instead of biting him in half or turning him into a charcoal briquette has earned you quite a few fans. On top of the fact that you turned Inago into a lefty for a few days, that is."
From the sour look on her face, she'd apparently managed to forget that little fact for a moment or two. "Yeah, great," she muttered. "But I still swore at Armsmaster. I can't imagine that there's not going to be any fallout over that."
"Oh, there probably is," he agreed. "But if there was going to be anything official, it would already have happened. So officially, I suspect they're going to pretend it never happened.
Unofficially, you may cop a little grief from Protectorate capes. Or high-fives, depending on how they feel about Armsmaster." At her somewhat surprised look, he shrugged and tried to look innocent. "What? I've been talking to Brandish."
She snorted. "Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than my Dad suddenly becoming a cape expert. Anyway, so it looks like I can grow to the size of a minibus, totally wreck high-tier villains, then pass out at the end of it. Also, I'm gonna need some way to work out a costume that can survive me growing to
that size again. And Armsmaster wants me to turn myself over to the Protectorate for poking and prodding." The tone of her voice made it clear how little she thought of
that option.
He sat down on the bed beside her. "Well, I don't have powers, but I'm here for you. Whatever you want to do with your powers, you have my full support."
"Thanks, Dad. That means a lot to me." She put her arms around him and hugged him again.
"Anytime, baby girl." He paused, then decided to shift the topic to something that had been puzzling him. "So when did you realise you could talk in wyvern form?"
She shrugged. "Not until I actually said something. See, Armsmaster was being a dick …"
End of Part Thirteen
Part Fourteen