Part Twenty-Five: Operation Ellisburg
- Location
- Australia
Wyvern
Part Twenty-Five: Operation Ellisburg
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Rooftop Helipad, Boston Protectorate Building
Taylor
"Wait!" The voice of Director Armstrong rang out across the rooftop just as Strider was prepping to teleport us again. "What's going on? Where are you going?"
"Ah. Hold on, please." Mrs Pelham stepped away from Strider. "I apologise. I got caught up in the moment. Glory Girl suggested that we go straight on to Ellisburg and clean it up at the same time, and it seemed like a good idea. I should've let you know that we were going on with Bastion. That's my bad."
"Oh." Armstrong looked at the rest of us. "Wyvern, you're good to do Ellisburg as well? You feel fit enough to take on Nilbog?"
"Well, it's not like we're going to be fist-fighting them one at a time," Vicky snarked. "You should've seen the absolute crater she made out of Eagleton."
I half-expected him to get angry at the back-talk, but he just raised one eyebrow a little. "The footage has been sent my way, yes. The amount of damage that was done there is what's making me ask the question. Wyvern, do you personally feel up to that level of exertion all over again?"
I looked warily at him. "I didn't think I'd need to be. It's not like Nilbog can produce lightning guns or missiles or laser cannons, and he doesn't even know I'm coming … does he?"
"It's highly unlikely that he does, no," he conceded. "Or that he can muster the ordnance you faced at Eagleton. But that's not the whole story. Have you ever heard of Watchdog?"
Mrs Pelham's head came up, a frown appearing on her face. It seemed she knew that name, at least. "No," I answered honestly. "What's his powerset?" With a name like that, I guessed the Director was talking about a cape of some sort.
He shook his head. "Watchdog isn't a person, they're a think tank made up of precogs that the PRT keeps on hand to answer questions about potentially dangerous situations. Someone once posited the idea of an all-out surprise attack on the Goblin Kingdom with overwhelming force, and asked about possible downsides. The consensus was that there would be long-lasting unpleasant consequences, though the indications as to exactly what are a little unclear."
"Unclear?" asked Vicky. "What do you mean, 'unclear'?"
Director Armstrong sighed. "I never said this, but precogs rarely seem to be both powerful enough to get a solid prediction and transparent enough in their predictions for anyone to readily understand what they mean by them. But Watchdog's answers show up on a spectrum from least bad to most bad, and all indications are that it'll be on the problematic end of that scale. The phrase 'Trojan horses' was mentioned."
"But that's like an attack with PRT forces and normal capes, right?" Vicky gestured to me. "She could wreck the place even harder than Alexandria could, or maybe Hero." Nobody was willing to make a claim like that about Eidolon, because he was the guy with all the powers, and I was pretty sure bringing up Legend would be a sore point all around.
He frowned, an expression his face was really suited for. "I wasn't privy to the original question, so I couldn't say for sure, but … perhaps? All I know is that if I wanted to send my capes to attack Ellisburg, I'd need to get permission from the top, and that permission hasn't been granted in ten years."
Vicky and I looked at each other, while Mrs Pelham asked the relevant question. "So how did Director Piggot get permission?"
Armstrong rubbed his chin. "Before we get into that: Bastion, we probably won't need you for the moment. I'd appreciate it if you could make a start on your report on the Eagleton mission. And Strider, this discussion may take a while. If you have any other pending jobs, feel free to carry them out. I have your number for when I need to contact you again."
"Yes, sir." Bastion headed for the rooftop entrance.
Strider merely nodded; a moment later, he vanished with a crack of what I assumed was displaced air.
Mrs Pelham looked around the roof. The helicopter that we'd arrived in was still and silent, the crew apparently somewhere downstairs. There were guards at the rooftop entrance, but I figured we were too far away for them to hear what we were saying. Understanding crossed her face as she turned back to Director Armstrong. "She didn't get permission at all, did she?"
"I honestly doubt it, no," he said heavily. His expression was unhappy, and not all of it was because his face fell naturally into those lines.
A thought occurred to me. "Not to be a nitpicker, but did she actually need permission to ask me a favour?"
"Technically she didn't, because we're not under her jurisdiction, or that of any part of the PRT." Mrs Pelham shook her head, her lips tightening. "She asked you to do it, not ordered. Legally, we're free agents. A favour for someone isn't the same as an official act."
"That's a very fine line to walk." Director Armstrong's unhappy expression was threatening to become permanently engraved upon his features. "And I'm not certain many judges would agree that she's on the correct side of it."
"Why the hell would she even do that?" Vicky burst out. "Especially if there's a chance it can go badly wrong?"
Armstrong looked at the three of us. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but she's one of the only two survivors from the original Ellisburg debacle. Those monsters ate her squadmates and ruined her health. She hates Nilbog with a white-hot fury that probably hasn't cooled down at all in the last ten years. If she thought she had a better than even chance of killing him, she'd gear up and parachute in there herself with a knife between her teeth, and to hell with the consequences."
That gave me the clue. "'Better than even'. Director Piggot thinks I've got a more than fifty-fifty chance of dealing with Nilbog once and for all. That's why she asked me to do it."
Mrs Pelham folded her arms and nibbled at her lower lip, her expression pensive. "Yes, but even if you kill Nilbog, it may yet set off some kind of deadman switch. In this particular context, I dislike the phrase 'Trojan horses'. It sounds far too ominous for my taste."
"Yeah, but the PRT haven't got anyone like Wyvern on their side," Vicky reminded her, then seemed to remember that Director Armstrong was part of the conversation as well. "No offense and all that, but it's true."
"None taken," he replied. "However, your aunt is correct. Deadman switches are a distinct risk for this kind of situation. God only knows what Nilbog is able to bring to the table after ten years of being cooped up in Ellisburg. If he's the biological equivalent to a Tinker, the way our analysts suspect he is, he could have anything cocked and ready to fire."
"But you saw what Wyvern did, right?" Vicky was nothing if not persistent. "When those Eagleton robots pushed her hard enough, she went full Smaug on them. They had a deadman switch, and she ended that along with everything else."
"Yes, I saw it." Director Armstrong was being amazingly patient, in my view. "That's the only reason I haven't already declared this conversation over and done. I need to be sure that Wyvern isn't going to go easy on them through some misplaced idea of fair play. You'll get exactly one chance to finish the job, and that means eradicating every last member of the Goblin Kingdom in one fell swoop. No survivors, no second chances, no sparing any of them, even the ones that look too cute to be dangerous."
"Um," I said, clasping my right elbow with my left hand. "You're kinda making it sound like genocide. I thought if I just took out Nilbog, the danger would be over."
"It needs to be genocide," he insisted. "A special type, but genocide all the same. We think all the creatures came from him. They're all basically twisted clones of Nilbog, with different appearances and capabilities. But what if, hypothetically, he's primed them to scatter in all directions if it looks like Ellisburg is going to be overrun or destroyed? There are literally thousands of them, and if each one is infected with a different virulent disease that we've never seen before, he only needs one to make it through the cordon to start an apocalypse."
"Trojan horses." Mrs Pelham nodded slowly, her expression as unhappy as his had been. "I hate to say it, but it fits."
"So, we're just gonna let him hold us hostage like that?" asked Vicky.
Director Armstrong's brows came down and he reared his head back a little. "I'd hardly call it holding us hostage—"
"Well, what would you call it?" She didn't give him time to answer before she kept going. "If he's got the ability to spread exotic diseases all over the region, and all he needs is a reason—or an excuse—to do it, and we're too scared to take him down because he's holding this cocked gun to our heads, then excuse me, Mr Director sir, but I call that holding us hostage."
It occurred to me that she might not have thought the scenario all the way through. There was another potential layer of horror to go.
What if they're all pretending to have different personalities, and it's all really just him in every one of those clones? If just one gets away, then even if the original is killed, he gets to start up all over again, outside the walls of Ellisburg. And meanwhile, we think just because we've killed the original that it's time to relax.
Despite that, I was still no more comfortable with the idea of killing off the inhabitants of Ellisburg than I had been after the fact of wiping out the Machine Army. In some ways, it was even harder.
If I worked at it, I could convince myself that the Eagleton robots had been mere machines blindly following their creator's programming, a bunch of defective things to be shut down and destroyed at the first opportunity. On the other hand, while Nilbog's creatures were vicious and murderous and no longer really human, that last description also applied to me when I was the wyvern. At the end of the day, they were still undoubtedly living, sapient beings. The whole 'gun aimed at our heads' thing was not a point in their favour, but I'd dealt with armed, dangerous people before, without needing to kill them.
"Uh, is it possible to talk to Nilbog? Maybe get him to surrender instead of going all mutually assured destruction on us?" I ventured while Director Armstrong was still working on an answer to Vicky's challenge. Not that I thought she was wrong—for someone who the public saw as impulsive and reckless more often than not, she was smarter than most people I knew—but I had to ask the question. I had to know.
I had to at least try.
"They've got loudspeakers on the wall," he told me. "Periodically, they urge him to turn himself in. The goblins started off with destroying the speakers, but when they were replaced with armoured ones, Nilbog started sending envoys to recite a list of demands, such as setting aside a few thousand square miles for his 'fiefdom', in return for his graciously allowing us to live among his people."
Vicky snorted. "Yeah, watch that not happen."
Director Armstrong nodded sombrely. "The list gets longer each time, and the demands get more bizarre. It would be ideal if we could talk him out of there, but all indications are that he's been drinking his own Kool-Aid for so long that he truly believes himself a king with no rules to restrain him. Even if we reached an agreement with him, it would only be a matter of time before he broke it, or decided that we'd broken it and retaliated without warning."
I grimaced, unhappy with the way this was being reframed. "So, what you're saying is, I've got to hit them hard and give them no chance to send people over the wall or anything like that."
Mrs Pelham came over to me. "Wyvern, if you're not comfortable with this, we can draw a line under what we've already done so far and call it a day. You've already done a magnificent job, and gotten rid of one looming threat." She put her hand on my shoulder. "Nobody could ask more of you than what you've already done."
"But I kinda told Director Piggot that I could do this. That I would do this. She made it sound really important." I looked at her empathetic expression and felt bad all over again. Mom and Dad had rarely disagreed over anything important, so I'd never really run into this before, but I deeply respected the Director and Mrs Pelham (and I didn't know Director Armstrong very well but he seemed nice, and he mostly supported Director Piggot's views) and it was hard to figure out what was the right thing to do when they had different sets of expectations for me.
I caught Vicky's eye, and she looked at me expectantly. I was glad that she wasn't putting her two cents in anymore, but that didn't really matter because I already knew which way she'd jump. She thought it was a good idea for me to go and do it, and her reasoning was solid enough for me not to dismiss it out of hand. Also, I respected her at least as much as I did Mrs Pelham and the Directors.
"And it is important," Mrs Pelham agreed. "But your mental well-being is even more important. Ellisburg will still be there tomorrow, and next week. I'm not saying not to do it, I'm saying to ask yourself if you're up to doing it now."
I knew Nilbog was dangerous, and the wrong move (which could include making no moves at all) could see a breakout, followed by potential plagues ravaging the continental US. Up until now, I'd never heard of a disease-causing cape more dangerous than Rash, a low-tier villain in Miami who could turn her opponents' immune systems against them, so there weren't many precautions set up against such attacks (especially since Rash's ability wasn't contagious). By the time it was over, we'd have safeguards in place, but at the cost of how many lives?
Still thinking it over, I looked at Director Armstrong. "If I decided to do it now, can you call ahead to Ellisburg and let them know I'm coming, and warn them to be on alert in case something goes wrong anyway?" Because Eagleton had nearly gone disastrously wrong, and I liked to think I could learn from my mistakes.
He gave me a short, sharp nod. "I can definitely do that. So, you're going to do it?"
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Mrs Pelham was watching me closely, and I gave her what I hoped was a confident nod. "Yeah, I think so. It's not gonna be any easier if I do it tomorrow or next week, and by then things might've changed for the worse."
Mrs Pelham and I both ignored Vicky's small fist-pump and muttered, "yes!". Instead, she looked thoughtfully at me as Director Armstrong pulled out his phone and made a call.
"You know I'm not telling you not to do it," she said. "I just want you to be sure in your own mind that this is what you believe you should do, not based on anyone else's thoughts on the matter."
"Yeah, I'm certain," I said. "Like I said, it's gotta be done. He murdered the whole town, once upon a time. Doesn't that level of serial killing from a cape usually rate a kill order?" I wasn't exactly trying to talk myself into it believing my own words, but I sure as hell wasn't trying to talk myself out of it either.
"It usually does, yes, but you're not yet eighteen," she reminded me, being vague about my age on general principles. "Trust me when I say that killing someone at your age, no matter how needful it is, leaves a mark that never really goes away."
She wasn't just saying the words. I got the impression that she was speaking from personal experience. For all I knew, she was. My own entry into the world of capes had been so traumatic that I'd temporarily forgotten everything about my life, including my own name. I had no idea what she'd gone through, back when she triggered with powers.
"If not me, who?" I asked quietly. "Killing's something you can't undo; I get that. The robots in Eagleton did their best to kill me before I got on top of the situation, but I still regret that they had to die. Same with Nilbog. I'm not happy about everything that's led up to this point, yet here we are."
The three major events, of course, were that Nilbog had taken over Ellisburg, killing thousands; I'd triggered with powers and been pushed by events into becoming something not too far short of an Endbringer; and Director Piggot had asked me to do something about Nilbog. I could literally do nothing to change any of those things. The one I'd had most control over was the Director's request, and I'd said yes before I really knew what I was getting into. Awkward situation or no, I preferred to bull on through rather than back away from something I'd started.
Story of my life, really.
"Here we are," she echoed with a sad nod. "Alright then, we'll give you all the backup we can, and if you need someone to talk to afterward and you don't feel like sharing this burden with your father, I'll be there to listen."
"Thanks, I appreciate it." I gave her a quick hug. "Seriously, I appreciate everything about New Wave taking me onto the team and giving me all the support."
A smile quirked the corner of her mouth as she looked over at Vicky. "I think we both know who the driving force behind that little coup was, but I can't argue with the results."
Though she could undoubtedly hear us, Vicky said nothing in reply. However, she did buff her nails on her costume and preen a little. I didn't blame her; her decision at the time to rescue me had been the best possible one she could've made.
Director Armstrong ended the call but didn't put his phone away. "They've been alerted and are awaiting your arrival," he reported. "I'll contact Strider now and let him know you're ready to go on."
Mrs Pelham smiled. "That would be appreciated, thanks."
"Totally," snarked Vicky. "Flying to Ellisburg would be even more of a pain than flying back to Brockton Bay." She paused. "Are we gonna need Bastion for this?"
Director Armstrong paused before hitting the call icon on his phone. "I'm afraid that will no longer be possible." To his credit, he didn't look or sound happy about having to deny us. "I haven't been given clearance to send anyone to attack Nilbog, so simply not standing in your way is the most I'm allowed to do right now."
He didn't explain further, but the writing was on the wall. The moment he'd admitted that nobody in the PRT could launch such an attack without permission from above, his hands had been tied. Before, he could have claimed an assumption that Director Piggot had been given such permission; now that it was out in the open, he couldn't do anything of the sort without risking his own career.
"Understood, and thank you." Mrs Pelham's expression and tone gave me the impression that she'd come to the same conclusions as I had. This didn't surprise me in the slightest, given that as a senior member of New Wave, she had to be damn good at cape politics. "I strongly suspect he wouldn't be needed as much as he was at Eagleton. He did well there."
Again, I picked up on the subtext. Even though Bastion had been more than a little whiny after the fact (I was still certain that he hadn't expected me to be able to put a plasma jet through his force field as easily as I had) the truth was that he'd stepped up and done his bit to keep us all safe. We couldn't have done it without him, and that was a fact. Mrs Pelham was just making sure that he got some kind of attaboy from his boss after we left.
"Thank you. Excuse me a moment, please." He hit the button to call Strider and half-turned away from Mrs Pelham in that subconscious privacy move that most people use.
"It'll be fine," Vicky said encouragingly to me, though in truth I hadn't been worried about that. As Mrs Pelham had said, Bastion's force field would be less useful where we were going than where we'd been. My dubious expression was entirely due to my less than total enthusiasm about wiping out Nilbog and his multitude of critters. "We're New Wave. We got this."
"Oh, totally," I agreed. "Just, uh … keep in mind that we didn't expect anything big out of Eagleton, either. For a bunch of machines that had all of five minutes' warning, they ramped up fast. I'm not saying Nilbog will be able to do the same thing, but … well, he has been behind those walls for ten years, waiting for someone to kick the front door in and start shooting."
"No, true." It was times like this that she showed just how smart she was. Most people would've held onto their preconceptions and insisted that everything was going to be okay. "I'll make sure to keep an eye out for anything that looks even remotely hinky."
"You and me both, trust me." In my regular Wyvern form, the one that breathed fire, I could see pretty far into the infrared part of the spectrum. Among other things, this let me detect heat signatures through thin barriers, as well as normal smoke. If any of Nilbog's clone-minions tried to sneak up on us by going chameleon, I would see it before it got close enough to be a problem.
Director Armstrong joined us, sliding his phone into his pocket. "Strider says he'll be a couple of minutes. Are you okay with waiting up here?"
Mrs Pelham glanced at Vicky and me, and we gave her virtually identical shrugs. Sure, the wind was brisk and made Vicky's cape flap sideways, but she had her skin-level force field and I'd been more capable of handling cold temperatures since I got the ice upgrade. I honestly didn't care where we waited, so long as we got it over with sooner rather than later.
"It appears so," she informed him, then created a force field that combined shelter against the wind with a bunch of chairs. "Let's get comfortable, shall we? We can use the time to devise a strategy to use against Nilbog."
Vicky claimed the nearest chair and leaned back in it. "I thought the strategy was going to be 'rawr, fear my terrible flame' or something similar. I mean, a dragon—sorry, wyvern—attacking a town of goblins? Have you never read a fantasy book in your life?"
"More than you have, I bet," I retorted. "But this isn't a fantasy book, I'm not a fantasy dragon, and Nilbog absolutely isn't a fantasy goblin of any description. So, we need to forget any preconceptions about fantasy books and movies."
"Best not to use flame at all," Director Armstrong put in. "During the Ellisburg debacle, there were reports of some of his creatures using fire and heat to create more of themselves."
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on," she mock-complained. "What's the fun in being able to turn into a wyvern if you can't just toast the bad guys into a greasy smear?"
I nudged her with my shoulder. "I do have other options." More than I'd started the day with, even.
"Oh, right, yeah." She brightened. "There is that."
"Whichever one you choose," Director Armstrong warned, "don't do it piecemeal if you can help it. If Nilbog's creatures realise that you really do have the wherewithal to destroy them all at once, that will almost certainly trigger whatever doomsday protocol they've got saved up."
I nodded. "Got it. Don't use fire, do use something that will get them all at once." I still wasn't totally on board with the idea of killing them all at once—or at all, honestly—but I knew enough to understand that Nilbog would absolutely kill me if he saw me as a threat and he had the opportunity to do so. While I was less than thrilled at Director Piggot for putting me in this situation without giving me all the information I needed to make an informed choice, I had made the decision and I did see her side of things.
Strider made his usual entrance just about then, with a muted crack. We got up from our chairs, and Mrs Pelham dismissed the force field.
"Three to go to Ellisburg," Director Armstrong said to Strider. "Afterward, take them on to Brockton Bay."
Strider nodded. "Copy that." I was just thinking that he was taking it all in his stride (pun intended) when he looked over at me with rather more respect than when we'd first me. "Going to do an Eagleton job on them?"
"Well, that's the general idea," I said awkwardly.
"Good." He gave me a definitive nod. "Ready to go?"
Mrs Pelham looked from me to Vicky, and put her hands on our shoulders. "Ready."
We arrived at the centre of a helipad, surrounded by yet another PRT encampment. This time, as Strider had noted, there was no elevation change and thus no sudden need to pop our eardrums. An officer was standing by with a trooper in attendance; as soon as we appeared, he started in our direction, but stopped at the edge of the helipad circle. Basic safety precautions, I figured.
"Wyvern?" he asked. When I nodded, he continued. "Pleased to meet you. Major Holden. Director Armstrong gave us the heads-up."
"Ah, good." Mrs Pelham looked around. "Did he tell you to back the men off from the walls, and to put them on alert?"
Major Holden frowned. "He did, but I didn't get an adequate explanation for that. Would you mind clarifying?"
She glanced in my direction, and I realised this was my show, so I needed to step up. "Sure," I said. "When I hit them, I'll be hitting to destroy them. If they get any kind of idea that's about to happen, and I'm sorry but there's a good chance of it, then they might just put whatever dead-man switch into operation that they've been brewing in there for the last ten years." I knew I was just saying what other people had already said, but it really did bear repeating.
Major Holden frowned. "Why are you so sure they'll know that something's about to happen?"
"Um, because I need to be big enough to cover the area all at once, and I can't get that big on the ground, and when I'm that big in the air, I'm not exactly subtle." I paused, suspecting I knew where we might be getting off-track. "You have seen the footage, right?"
"Of your power test? I know of it, but I haven't viewed it yet." His sideways glance at the trooper with him was almost too fast to notice. "Sergeant, have you watched it yet?"
"Yes, sir." The sergeant was wearing the standard PRT faceless helmet so I couldn't see where he was looking, but I would've bet good money he was looking at me to try to discern the wyvern within. "It's kind of impressive. And when she says she's not subtle in the air when she's that big, it's nothing but the truth, sir."
"Well, then." He knew he'd fucked up, and we knew it too. Fortunately, it seemed his mistake lay in not having given the orders yet, rather than refusing to give them. "Sergeant, everyone has their orders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Make it so."
"Roger that, sir." The sergeant took a step to the side, and I thought I could hear a vague murmur coming from his helmet.
The effects of the orders, though not immediate, gradually became visible and audible all around us. Men shouted, engines revved, and troopers ran here and there at the double (or at least, what I assumed was at the double). It seemed that, belatedly at least, the PRT in Ellisburg had decided to take me seriously.
"Uh, one more thing," I said, drawing the officer's attention back to me. "I'm going to need a place to change. Got a barracks free or something? It'll only take a couple of minutes."
"And I'll go with," Vicky added quickly. "Someone needs to grab her costume until she wants it again, and that's me."
"Ah, yes, of course." Major Holden conferred briefly with the sergeant, who (as had happened in Eagleton) pointed the way to where I could Change. We headed that way, ready to do this whole thing over again.
When I got home, I decided, I was going to collapse for a week.
Glory Girl
Only someone who knew Taylor like Vicky did would've seen it, but she could tell her bestie's heart just wasn't in it as she stalked out of the barracks in all her wyvern glory. Oh, sure, there was the the bared teeth and the slightly-outspread wings, but Vicky could see under it all to the drag in the step and the limp crest. She'd faked enough enthusiasm herself over the years to spot it every time in someone else.
Somewhere along the line, Vicky realised, this had gone from 'fun' to 'work' for Taylor. She wasn't doing it because she wanted to do it, she was doing it because she figured she had to do it. There was no doubt that Taylor was going to do her best, she just wasn't going to enjoy it.
They paused outside, and Taylor chirped interrogatively. Major Holden looked to Vicky for a translation; fortunately, her association with Taylor had also made her good at being a Wyvern whisperer. "She wants to know if you guys are all set up and ready to roll if things go south."
"Thank you," he said. She caught his dubious glance at Taylor, but figured that was due to him trying to see the teenage girl where the wyvern now stood. "We're as ready as we're going to be."
Taylor nodded, then spread her wings for takeoff. Vicky and Aunt Sarah took to the air at the same time; Taylor's costume and mask had already been stashed in the belt pouch Vicky was using for that purpose, so they were ready for action.
Well, ready for Taylor to get really ready for action, anyway.
Vicky stayed level with Taylor as the latter flapped her wings hard for altitude. Aunt Sarah stayed just a little lower, spreading out a broad force field between them and Ellisburg, just in case. And as for Taylor … she just kept getting bigger and bigger.
A smirk played across Vicky's lips as she imagined the look on Holden's face when he realised exactly how much of an understatement the sergeant had made when he said Taylor's full Changed size was 'kind of impressive'. Already, Taylor was Learjet sized and still going for altitude; the bigger wings meant she could go even higher with each prodigious downstroke. And you ain't seen nothing yet, Vicky silently promised the man.
Turning her attention to Ellisburg, she noted they were now well above the walls, and thus in plain sight of any of Nilbog's minions that might happen to glance their way. As the thought formed, she heard the mournful sound of a horn echoing over the rooftops from a ramshackle tower. Either this was totally unrelated and they had the best timing in history, she decided, or that was a watchkeeper sounding the alarm.
Taylor still hadn't sized up to her full capability yet, so Vicky started looking more closely at what lay within the walls of Ellisburg. While it would take an anti-aircraft gun to make a dent in Taylor right now (maybe several), Vicky didn't quite put it past Nilbog to have constructed the medieval equivalent just for such an occasion. Trebuchets, or whatever the things were called.
No siege engines appeared to be waiting on Taylor to swoop overhead, but those cute shingle roofs could conceal anything, so Vicky didn't relax quite yet. That alarm horn had been there for a reason, so there had to be something Nilbog thought he could do. Whether it could do anything against Taylor at full strength was something else altogether, but Vicky figured it was safer to assume that Nilbog had something nasty up his sleeve than to discount the idea altogether.
And then Taylor looked downward, squinted, and said, "OH, SHIT."
At that size, her voice was audible to everyone in the surrounding area, so the trick wasn't so much hearing her as not being deafened by her. Still, Vicky had no idea why she'd said that; before the question could be asked, Taylor folded her wings and dived, downsizing even faster than she'd upsized before.
Vicky shared a confused glance with Aunt Sarah. "What's she doing?" she asked. "What did I miss?"
"I have no idea." Sarah started downward. "Keep an eye on Ellisburg. I'll ask her."
"Right, yeah, okay." Vicky maintained altitude, even as Sarah threw up an aerodynamic force field then rocketed down in Taylor's wake.
Far below, Taylor had gotten down to about Learjet size again, but Vicky still couldn't figure out what was going on. Jaws gaping wide, Taylor was flying parallel to the ground, belching huge volumes of fire downward. Vast swathes of otherwise unoccupied ground—they'd evacuated everything and everyone from the vicinity of Ellisburg for miles around—were being scorched to cindered ruin, but Vicky didn't know why.
Aunt Sarah got close enough to Taylor to ask her what the hell was going on (though Vicky suspected she'd be more polite about it); Vicky didn't hear the question, but she heard the answer. "Get back! Disease spores!"
And that explained everything, all at once. They'd thought that Nilbog might have his creatures run in all directions carrying disease within them, but he was being sneakier than that. How Taylor had seen them at all, Vicky wasn't sure, unless they were visible in a part of the spectrum her wyvern form was equipped to see.
Personally, Vicky wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find out that was precisely the case. Taylor's Changer forms were bullshit squared on a bullshit sandwich.
The fire breath was hopefully scorching the spores to ash, which sounded like a win to Vicky. All Taylor had to do was kill the spores faster than Nilbog could make them. Vicky was sure that she and Aunt Sarah could go into Ellisburg if they had to, and punch out Nilbog once and for all.
Then, ahead of Taylor, she saw the real problem. The cordon around Ellisburg had been unbroken and still was; they'd just pulled back a ways and prepped for trouble. Unfortunately, the trouble coming their way was an intangible cloud of spores, and the only method Taylor had to deal with it was just as problematic to humans as it was to spores.
She had no doubt they were equipped with air filtration equipment; on a duty station like Ellisburg, that would be a given. But while the standard PRT uniforms were fire-retardant (because fire and other heat energy effects were horribly common among villainous Blasters), truly fireproof gear was probably something they hadn't anticipated needing. The solution, unfortunately, was likely to be far more problematic than the cure.
Taylor was a lot closer to the situation, so her grasp of the dilemma was likely to be even more comprehensive than Vicky's. Breathe fire to eliminate a mass of the spores, and kill a bunch of troopers who were just trying to keep their small patch of America safe, or skip over them and let the disease spread even farther? Vicky wasn't sure she could make that call.
Not only could Taylor make it, but she also acted on it. And, in typical Taylor fashion, she took the third option.
Going from a fast glide to all-out flight in just a few wingbeats, she powered ahead of where Vicky imagined the rolling cloud of spores to be. As she passed over the men and women in the path of the spores, she bellowed, "Get down!" Then, in a move Vicky wouldn't have been able to emulate if she lived to a hundred, she dropped one wing straight down and pivoted around it, losing all her lift and forward motion at the same time. Dropping out of the sky, she landed on her feet, wings spread wide for balance and facing back the way she'd come.
The vast cone of fire she blasted outward barely grazed the ground this time, even as she swept it sideways to cover the oncoming cloud of spores. Under it, the PRT troopers hugged the earth as they'd been told, making use of every dip and hollow they could find. They'd be real warm, Vicky figured, but they'd survive with one hell of a story to tell.
The fire reached far back along her path, no doubt destroying the offending spores in their millions and billions. "Don't use fire, my ass," muttered Taylor, no doubt forgetting for the moment that her slightest utterances at that size were audible to all and sundry. Then she flapped her wings once and took to the air, gliding forward over the PRT troopers and their singed surroundings.
That was where things went wrong for her. Vicky felt the breeze freshening where she was, a little upwind from Taylor, but her shout of warning came too late. Taylor, inhaling in preparation for another devastating roil of flame, was caught on the back foot when the spores got to her too soon.
If she'd been able to breathe flame before they went down her throat, Vicky was sure, there would've been no problem. But it didn't happen that way. Taylor inhaled, and promptly started coughing and hacking like a fifty-packs-a-day smoker. Smoke indeed gusted out of her mouth and nostrils, and a little flame, but not enough and far too late.
To Vicky's alarm, Taylor began dropping in size, even as she doubled over and made sounds like she was doing her best to hock up a lung. Her claws dug at the incinerated ground and her tail whipped from side to side, all while she heaved and convulsed and choked. The harsh coughing sounds made Vicky fear that she was about to start bringing up blood.
Aunt Sarah clearly had the same idea, because she encased herself in no fewer than four layers of force field and swooped down toward Taylor. "Hold on!" she shouted. "I've got you!"
And then Taylor grew again, to what Vicky privately called 'Armsmaster' size. It was the smallest size at which she could form speech, but she didn't bear the red and gold markings anymore. Nor was she in the blue and black, or any of the other colour combinations Vicky knew of. Now, her scales were an unhealthy green fading into a dirty yellow. "No," she rasped, almost in a continuation of the prior coughing fit. "I've got this."
She took to the air, upsizing steadily as she went, and flew downwind. Vicky expected her to breathe out some exotic stream of energy to neutralise the cloud of spores—pattern recognition was a thing, after all, and Taylor had pulled this shit more than once before—but instead she inhaled deeply. And for the first time, Vicky saw the spores.
It was a vast, spreading cloud, so big that Taylor would've only had the barest chance to contain it all before it got past her. When Taylor breathed inward, every last spore popped into visibility as it was drawn back toward her. The cloud collapsed in on itself, concentrating as it neared Taylor, vanishing into her nostrils or down her throat.
It had to be some bullshit power thing, Vicky decided, along the lines of how Taylor had inhaled fucking electricity to depower the Machine Army. Even at the size she was, there was no way that much air could fit into lungs of that size. As the last of the cloud around her vanished, she should've been ten times the size she was just from the air she'd breathed in, but that simply wasn't the case.
Then, when she finally breathed out, it was different from every other breath effect she'd pulled so far. Almost twisting and twining through the air, her exhalation strongly resembled the fibrous tendrils of a fungus network Vicky had once seen under the microscope in science lab. As they reached the ground wherever the spores had touched down, they flared brightly, then went dull again.
Taylor flew toward Ellisburg, unleashing her new breath weapon again. The tendrils scoured the land, flaring as (Vicky guessed) they neutralised the spores that had settled and were digging in. More than a few were destroyed around the PRT troopers, but they seemed none the worse for the experience.
She had to pause to inhale twice more, drawing the spores into herself, before she'd sterilised their spread all the way back to the walls of Ellisburg. Vicky could see the inhabitants of the Goblin Kingdom running through the narrow streets: whether in panic or in anger, she couldn't tell. Monsters flung what looked like bony spears at her, but she gained altitude and only a few hit her. None penetrated her hide.
As she ascended, she performed that impossible inhalation twice more, each time catching a cloud of spores on the way out of the Goblin Kingdom. She also increased in size, until she was as big as she'd been over Eagleton. At least this time she hadn't gotten a size increase, Vicky mused.
"THAT," she informed Nilbog, the PRT camp, and anyone else within about ten miles, "WAS NOT NICE. I GET IT. YOU WANT TO SURVIVE. THAT WASN'T THE WAY TO DO IT."
And then she Changed, into the purplish-red and gold form that she'd used to finish off Eagleton, and breathed a vast wave of annihilation, straight down.
Ellisburg … vanished, along with the Tinkertech wall that had been containing it all these years.
So did a good three hundred feet of ground underneath it, including the bedrock.
When Taylor let up, all that was left of Nilbog was subatomic particles on the breeze.
She was already starting to size down as Vicky flew in alongside her head. "Well, dang," Vicky said cheerfully. "That'll have to put a smile on grumpy-pants Piggot's face, don't you think?"
Taylor turned to look at her, now back in her red-and-gold form and just big enough to talk. "Nothing against you, Vicky, but right now I don't give a shit about what makes Piggot happy."
Yup, Vicky decided as Taylor glided back down toward the PRT encampment and Aunt Sarah flew up to meet with them, she's definitely over this.
She'd come around in time, Vicky knew. Taylor always bounced back. But if Director Piggot knew what was good for her, she wouldn't be asking any more favours of New Wave for a while.
End of Part Twenty-Five
Part Twenty-Five: Operation Ellisburg
[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Rooftop Helipad, Boston Protectorate Building
Taylor
"Wait!" The voice of Director Armstrong rang out across the rooftop just as Strider was prepping to teleport us again. "What's going on? Where are you going?"
"Ah. Hold on, please." Mrs Pelham stepped away from Strider. "I apologise. I got caught up in the moment. Glory Girl suggested that we go straight on to Ellisburg and clean it up at the same time, and it seemed like a good idea. I should've let you know that we were going on with Bastion. That's my bad."
"Oh." Armstrong looked at the rest of us. "Wyvern, you're good to do Ellisburg as well? You feel fit enough to take on Nilbog?"
"Well, it's not like we're going to be fist-fighting them one at a time," Vicky snarked. "You should've seen the absolute crater she made out of Eagleton."
I half-expected him to get angry at the back-talk, but he just raised one eyebrow a little. "The footage has been sent my way, yes. The amount of damage that was done there is what's making me ask the question. Wyvern, do you personally feel up to that level of exertion all over again?"
I looked warily at him. "I didn't think I'd need to be. It's not like Nilbog can produce lightning guns or missiles or laser cannons, and he doesn't even know I'm coming … does he?"
"It's highly unlikely that he does, no," he conceded. "Or that he can muster the ordnance you faced at Eagleton. But that's not the whole story. Have you ever heard of Watchdog?"
Mrs Pelham's head came up, a frown appearing on her face. It seemed she knew that name, at least. "No," I answered honestly. "What's his powerset?" With a name like that, I guessed the Director was talking about a cape of some sort.
He shook his head. "Watchdog isn't a person, they're a think tank made up of precogs that the PRT keeps on hand to answer questions about potentially dangerous situations. Someone once posited the idea of an all-out surprise attack on the Goblin Kingdom with overwhelming force, and asked about possible downsides. The consensus was that there would be long-lasting unpleasant consequences, though the indications as to exactly what are a little unclear."
"Unclear?" asked Vicky. "What do you mean, 'unclear'?"
Director Armstrong sighed. "I never said this, but precogs rarely seem to be both powerful enough to get a solid prediction and transparent enough in their predictions for anyone to readily understand what they mean by them. But Watchdog's answers show up on a spectrum from least bad to most bad, and all indications are that it'll be on the problematic end of that scale. The phrase 'Trojan horses' was mentioned."
"But that's like an attack with PRT forces and normal capes, right?" Vicky gestured to me. "She could wreck the place even harder than Alexandria could, or maybe Hero." Nobody was willing to make a claim like that about Eidolon, because he was the guy with all the powers, and I was pretty sure bringing up Legend would be a sore point all around.
He frowned, an expression his face was really suited for. "I wasn't privy to the original question, so I couldn't say for sure, but … perhaps? All I know is that if I wanted to send my capes to attack Ellisburg, I'd need to get permission from the top, and that permission hasn't been granted in ten years."
Vicky and I looked at each other, while Mrs Pelham asked the relevant question. "So how did Director Piggot get permission?"
Armstrong rubbed his chin. "Before we get into that: Bastion, we probably won't need you for the moment. I'd appreciate it if you could make a start on your report on the Eagleton mission. And Strider, this discussion may take a while. If you have any other pending jobs, feel free to carry them out. I have your number for when I need to contact you again."
"Yes, sir." Bastion headed for the rooftop entrance.
Strider merely nodded; a moment later, he vanished with a crack of what I assumed was displaced air.
Mrs Pelham looked around the roof. The helicopter that we'd arrived in was still and silent, the crew apparently somewhere downstairs. There were guards at the rooftop entrance, but I figured we were too far away for them to hear what we were saying. Understanding crossed her face as she turned back to Director Armstrong. "She didn't get permission at all, did she?"
"I honestly doubt it, no," he said heavily. His expression was unhappy, and not all of it was because his face fell naturally into those lines.
A thought occurred to me. "Not to be a nitpicker, but did she actually need permission to ask me a favour?"
"Technically she didn't, because we're not under her jurisdiction, or that of any part of the PRT." Mrs Pelham shook her head, her lips tightening. "She asked you to do it, not ordered. Legally, we're free agents. A favour for someone isn't the same as an official act."
"That's a very fine line to walk." Director Armstrong's unhappy expression was threatening to become permanently engraved upon his features. "And I'm not certain many judges would agree that she's on the correct side of it."
"Why the hell would she even do that?" Vicky burst out. "Especially if there's a chance it can go badly wrong?"
Armstrong looked at the three of us. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but she's one of the only two survivors from the original Ellisburg debacle. Those monsters ate her squadmates and ruined her health. She hates Nilbog with a white-hot fury that probably hasn't cooled down at all in the last ten years. If she thought she had a better than even chance of killing him, she'd gear up and parachute in there herself with a knife between her teeth, and to hell with the consequences."
That gave me the clue. "'Better than even'. Director Piggot thinks I've got a more than fifty-fifty chance of dealing with Nilbog once and for all. That's why she asked me to do it."
Mrs Pelham folded her arms and nibbled at her lower lip, her expression pensive. "Yes, but even if you kill Nilbog, it may yet set off some kind of deadman switch. In this particular context, I dislike the phrase 'Trojan horses'. It sounds far too ominous for my taste."
"Yeah, but the PRT haven't got anyone like Wyvern on their side," Vicky reminded her, then seemed to remember that Director Armstrong was part of the conversation as well. "No offense and all that, but it's true."
"None taken," he replied. "However, your aunt is correct. Deadman switches are a distinct risk for this kind of situation. God only knows what Nilbog is able to bring to the table after ten years of being cooped up in Ellisburg. If he's the biological equivalent to a Tinker, the way our analysts suspect he is, he could have anything cocked and ready to fire."
"But you saw what Wyvern did, right?" Vicky was nothing if not persistent. "When those Eagleton robots pushed her hard enough, she went full Smaug on them. They had a deadman switch, and she ended that along with everything else."
"Yes, I saw it." Director Armstrong was being amazingly patient, in my view. "That's the only reason I haven't already declared this conversation over and done. I need to be sure that Wyvern isn't going to go easy on them through some misplaced idea of fair play. You'll get exactly one chance to finish the job, and that means eradicating every last member of the Goblin Kingdom in one fell swoop. No survivors, no second chances, no sparing any of them, even the ones that look too cute to be dangerous."
"Um," I said, clasping my right elbow with my left hand. "You're kinda making it sound like genocide. I thought if I just took out Nilbog, the danger would be over."
"It needs to be genocide," he insisted. "A special type, but genocide all the same. We think all the creatures came from him. They're all basically twisted clones of Nilbog, with different appearances and capabilities. But what if, hypothetically, he's primed them to scatter in all directions if it looks like Ellisburg is going to be overrun or destroyed? There are literally thousands of them, and if each one is infected with a different virulent disease that we've never seen before, he only needs one to make it through the cordon to start an apocalypse."
"Trojan horses." Mrs Pelham nodded slowly, her expression as unhappy as his had been. "I hate to say it, but it fits."
"So, we're just gonna let him hold us hostage like that?" asked Vicky.
Director Armstrong's brows came down and he reared his head back a little. "I'd hardly call it holding us hostage—"
"Well, what would you call it?" She didn't give him time to answer before she kept going. "If he's got the ability to spread exotic diseases all over the region, and all he needs is a reason—or an excuse—to do it, and we're too scared to take him down because he's holding this cocked gun to our heads, then excuse me, Mr Director sir, but I call that holding us hostage."
It occurred to me that she might not have thought the scenario all the way through. There was another potential layer of horror to go.
What if they're all pretending to have different personalities, and it's all really just him in every one of those clones? If just one gets away, then even if the original is killed, he gets to start up all over again, outside the walls of Ellisburg. And meanwhile, we think just because we've killed the original that it's time to relax.
Despite that, I was still no more comfortable with the idea of killing off the inhabitants of Ellisburg than I had been after the fact of wiping out the Machine Army. In some ways, it was even harder.
If I worked at it, I could convince myself that the Eagleton robots had been mere machines blindly following their creator's programming, a bunch of defective things to be shut down and destroyed at the first opportunity. On the other hand, while Nilbog's creatures were vicious and murderous and no longer really human, that last description also applied to me when I was the wyvern. At the end of the day, they were still undoubtedly living, sapient beings. The whole 'gun aimed at our heads' thing was not a point in their favour, but I'd dealt with armed, dangerous people before, without needing to kill them.
"Uh, is it possible to talk to Nilbog? Maybe get him to surrender instead of going all mutually assured destruction on us?" I ventured while Director Armstrong was still working on an answer to Vicky's challenge. Not that I thought she was wrong—for someone who the public saw as impulsive and reckless more often than not, she was smarter than most people I knew—but I had to ask the question. I had to know.
I had to at least try.
"They've got loudspeakers on the wall," he told me. "Periodically, they urge him to turn himself in. The goblins started off with destroying the speakers, but when they were replaced with armoured ones, Nilbog started sending envoys to recite a list of demands, such as setting aside a few thousand square miles for his 'fiefdom', in return for his graciously allowing us to live among his people."
Vicky snorted. "Yeah, watch that not happen."
Director Armstrong nodded sombrely. "The list gets longer each time, and the demands get more bizarre. It would be ideal if we could talk him out of there, but all indications are that he's been drinking his own Kool-Aid for so long that he truly believes himself a king with no rules to restrain him. Even if we reached an agreement with him, it would only be a matter of time before he broke it, or decided that we'd broken it and retaliated without warning."
I grimaced, unhappy with the way this was being reframed. "So, what you're saying is, I've got to hit them hard and give them no chance to send people over the wall or anything like that."
Mrs Pelham came over to me. "Wyvern, if you're not comfortable with this, we can draw a line under what we've already done so far and call it a day. You've already done a magnificent job, and gotten rid of one looming threat." She put her hand on my shoulder. "Nobody could ask more of you than what you've already done."
"But I kinda told Director Piggot that I could do this. That I would do this. She made it sound really important." I looked at her empathetic expression and felt bad all over again. Mom and Dad had rarely disagreed over anything important, so I'd never really run into this before, but I deeply respected the Director and Mrs Pelham (and I didn't know Director Armstrong very well but he seemed nice, and he mostly supported Director Piggot's views) and it was hard to figure out what was the right thing to do when they had different sets of expectations for me.
I caught Vicky's eye, and she looked at me expectantly. I was glad that she wasn't putting her two cents in anymore, but that didn't really matter because I already knew which way she'd jump. She thought it was a good idea for me to go and do it, and her reasoning was solid enough for me not to dismiss it out of hand. Also, I respected her at least as much as I did Mrs Pelham and the Directors.
"And it is important," Mrs Pelham agreed. "But your mental well-being is even more important. Ellisburg will still be there tomorrow, and next week. I'm not saying not to do it, I'm saying to ask yourself if you're up to doing it now."
I knew Nilbog was dangerous, and the wrong move (which could include making no moves at all) could see a breakout, followed by potential plagues ravaging the continental US. Up until now, I'd never heard of a disease-causing cape more dangerous than Rash, a low-tier villain in Miami who could turn her opponents' immune systems against them, so there weren't many precautions set up against such attacks (especially since Rash's ability wasn't contagious). By the time it was over, we'd have safeguards in place, but at the cost of how many lives?
Still thinking it over, I looked at Director Armstrong. "If I decided to do it now, can you call ahead to Ellisburg and let them know I'm coming, and warn them to be on alert in case something goes wrong anyway?" Because Eagleton had nearly gone disastrously wrong, and I liked to think I could learn from my mistakes.
He gave me a short, sharp nod. "I can definitely do that. So, you're going to do it?"
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Mrs Pelham was watching me closely, and I gave her what I hoped was a confident nod. "Yeah, I think so. It's not gonna be any easier if I do it tomorrow or next week, and by then things might've changed for the worse."
Mrs Pelham and I both ignored Vicky's small fist-pump and muttered, "yes!". Instead, she looked thoughtfully at me as Director Armstrong pulled out his phone and made a call.
"You know I'm not telling you not to do it," she said. "I just want you to be sure in your own mind that this is what you believe you should do, not based on anyone else's thoughts on the matter."
"Yeah, I'm certain," I said. "Like I said, it's gotta be done. He murdered the whole town, once upon a time. Doesn't that level of serial killing from a cape usually rate a kill order?" I wasn't exactly trying to talk myself into it believing my own words, but I sure as hell wasn't trying to talk myself out of it either.
"It usually does, yes, but you're not yet eighteen," she reminded me, being vague about my age on general principles. "Trust me when I say that killing someone at your age, no matter how needful it is, leaves a mark that never really goes away."
She wasn't just saying the words. I got the impression that she was speaking from personal experience. For all I knew, she was. My own entry into the world of capes had been so traumatic that I'd temporarily forgotten everything about my life, including my own name. I had no idea what she'd gone through, back when she triggered with powers.
"If not me, who?" I asked quietly. "Killing's something you can't undo; I get that. The robots in Eagleton did their best to kill me before I got on top of the situation, but I still regret that they had to die. Same with Nilbog. I'm not happy about everything that's led up to this point, yet here we are."
The three major events, of course, were that Nilbog had taken over Ellisburg, killing thousands; I'd triggered with powers and been pushed by events into becoming something not too far short of an Endbringer; and Director Piggot had asked me to do something about Nilbog. I could literally do nothing to change any of those things. The one I'd had most control over was the Director's request, and I'd said yes before I really knew what I was getting into. Awkward situation or no, I preferred to bull on through rather than back away from something I'd started.
Story of my life, really.
"Here we are," she echoed with a sad nod. "Alright then, we'll give you all the backup we can, and if you need someone to talk to afterward and you don't feel like sharing this burden with your father, I'll be there to listen."
"Thanks, I appreciate it." I gave her a quick hug. "Seriously, I appreciate everything about New Wave taking me onto the team and giving me all the support."
A smile quirked the corner of her mouth as she looked over at Vicky. "I think we both know who the driving force behind that little coup was, but I can't argue with the results."
Though she could undoubtedly hear us, Vicky said nothing in reply. However, she did buff her nails on her costume and preen a little. I didn't blame her; her decision at the time to rescue me had been the best possible one she could've made.
Director Armstrong ended the call but didn't put his phone away. "They've been alerted and are awaiting your arrival," he reported. "I'll contact Strider now and let him know you're ready to go on."
Mrs Pelham smiled. "That would be appreciated, thanks."
"Totally," snarked Vicky. "Flying to Ellisburg would be even more of a pain than flying back to Brockton Bay." She paused. "Are we gonna need Bastion for this?"
Director Armstrong paused before hitting the call icon on his phone. "I'm afraid that will no longer be possible." To his credit, he didn't look or sound happy about having to deny us. "I haven't been given clearance to send anyone to attack Nilbog, so simply not standing in your way is the most I'm allowed to do right now."
He didn't explain further, but the writing was on the wall. The moment he'd admitted that nobody in the PRT could launch such an attack without permission from above, his hands had been tied. Before, he could have claimed an assumption that Director Piggot had been given such permission; now that it was out in the open, he couldn't do anything of the sort without risking his own career.
"Understood, and thank you." Mrs Pelham's expression and tone gave me the impression that she'd come to the same conclusions as I had. This didn't surprise me in the slightest, given that as a senior member of New Wave, she had to be damn good at cape politics. "I strongly suspect he wouldn't be needed as much as he was at Eagleton. He did well there."
Again, I picked up on the subtext. Even though Bastion had been more than a little whiny after the fact (I was still certain that he hadn't expected me to be able to put a plasma jet through his force field as easily as I had) the truth was that he'd stepped up and done his bit to keep us all safe. We couldn't have done it without him, and that was a fact. Mrs Pelham was just making sure that he got some kind of attaboy from his boss after we left.
"Thank you. Excuse me a moment, please." He hit the button to call Strider and half-turned away from Mrs Pelham in that subconscious privacy move that most people use.
"It'll be fine," Vicky said encouragingly to me, though in truth I hadn't been worried about that. As Mrs Pelham had said, Bastion's force field would be less useful where we were going than where we'd been. My dubious expression was entirely due to my less than total enthusiasm about wiping out Nilbog and his multitude of critters. "We're New Wave. We got this."
"Oh, totally," I agreed. "Just, uh … keep in mind that we didn't expect anything big out of Eagleton, either. For a bunch of machines that had all of five minutes' warning, they ramped up fast. I'm not saying Nilbog will be able to do the same thing, but … well, he has been behind those walls for ten years, waiting for someone to kick the front door in and start shooting."
"No, true." It was times like this that she showed just how smart she was. Most people would've held onto their preconceptions and insisted that everything was going to be okay. "I'll make sure to keep an eye out for anything that looks even remotely hinky."
"You and me both, trust me." In my regular Wyvern form, the one that breathed fire, I could see pretty far into the infrared part of the spectrum. Among other things, this let me detect heat signatures through thin barriers, as well as normal smoke. If any of Nilbog's clone-minions tried to sneak up on us by going chameleon, I would see it before it got close enough to be a problem.
Director Armstrong joined us, sliding his phone into his pocket. "Strider says he'll be a couple of minutes. Are you okay with waiting up here?"
Mrs Pelham glanced at Vicky and me, and we gave her virtually identical shrugs. Sure, the wind was brisk and made Vicky's cape flap sideways, but she had her skin-level force field and I'd been more capable of handling cold temperatures since I got the ice upgrade. I honestly didn't care where we waited, so long as we got it over with sooner rather than later.
"It appears so," she informed him, then created a force field that combined shelter against the wind with a bunch of chairs. "Let's get comfortable, shall we? We can use the time to devise a strategy to use against Nilbog."
Vicky claimed the nearest chair and leaned back in it. "I thought the strategy was going to be 'rawr, fear my terrible flame' or something similar. I mean, a dragon—sorry, wyvern—attacking a town of goblins? Have you never read a fantasy book in your life?"
"More than you have, I bet," I retorted. "But this isn't a fantasy book, I'm not a fantasy dragon, and Nilbog absolutely isn't a fantasy goblin of any description. So, we need to forget any preconceptions about fantasy books and movies."
"Best not to use flame at all," Director Armstrong put in. "During the Ellisburg debacle, there were reports of some of his creatures using fire and heat to create more of themselves."
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on," she mock-complained. "What's the fun in being able to turn into a wyvern if you can't just toast the bad guys into a greasy smear?"
I nudged her with my shoulder. "I do have other options." More than I'd started the day with, even.
"Oh, right, yeah." She brightened. "There is that."
"Whichever one you choose," Director Armstrong warned, "don't do it piecemeal if you can help it. If Nilbog's creatures realise that you really do have the wherewithal to destroy them all at once, that will almost certainly trigger whatever doomsday protocol they've got saved up."
I nodded. "Got it. Don't use fire, do use something that will get them all at once." I still wasn't totally on board with the idea of killing them all at once—or at all, honestly—but I knew enough to understand that Nilbog would absolutely kill me if he saw me as a threat and he had the opportunity to do so. While I was less than thrilled at Director Piggot for putting me in this situation without giving me all the information I needed to make an informed choice, I had made the decision and I did see her side of things.
Strider made his usual entrance just about then, with a muted crack. We got up from our chairs, and Mrs Pelham dismissed the force field.
"Three to go to Ellisburg," Director Armstrong said to Strider. "Afterward, take them on to Brockton Bay."
Strider nodded. "Copy that." I was just thinking that he was taking it all in his stride (pun intended) when he looked over at me with rather more respect than when we'd first me. "Going to do an Eagleton job on them?"
"Well, that's the general idea," I said awkwardly.
"Good." He gave me a definitive nod. "Ready to go?"
Mrs Pelham looked from me to Vicky, and put her hands on our shoulders. "Ready."
We arrived at the centre of a helipad, surrounded by yet another PRT encampment. This time, as Strider had noted, there was no elevation change and thus no sudden need to pop our eardrums. An officer was standing by with a trooper in attendance; as soon as we appeared, he started in our direction, but stopped at the edge of the helipad circle. Basic safety precautions, I figured.
"Wyvern?" he asked. When I nodded, he continued. "Pleased to meet you. Major Holden. Director Armstrong gave us the heads-up."
"Ah, good." Mrs Pelham looked around. "Did he tell you to back the men off from the walls, and to put them on alert?"
Major Holden frowned. "He did, but I didn't get an adequate explanation for that. Would you mind clarifying?"
She glanced in my direction, and I realised this was my show, so I needed to step up. "Sure," I said. "When I hit them, I'll be hitting to destroy them. If they get any kind of idea that's about to happen, and I'm sorry but there's a good chance of it, then they might just put whatever dead-man switch into operation that they've been brewing in there for the last ten years." I knew I was just saying what other people had already said, but it really did bear repeating.
Major Holden frowned. "Why are you so sure they'll know that something's about to happen?"
"Um, because I need to be big enough to cover the area all at once, and I can't get that big on the ground, and when I'm that big in the air, I'm not exactly subtle." I paused, suspecting I knew where we might be getting off-track. "You have seen the footage, right?"
"Of your power test? I know of it, but I haven't viewed it yet." His sideways glance at the trooper with him was almost too fast to notice. "Sergeant, have you watched it yet?"
"Yes, sir." The sergeant was wearing the standard PRT faceless helmet so I couldn't see where he was looking, but I would've bet good money he was looking at me to try to discern the wyvern within. "It's kind of impressive. And when she says she's not subtle in the air when she's that big, it's nothing but the truth, sir."
"Well, then." He knew he'd fucked up, and we knew it too. Fortunately, it seemed his mistake lay in not having given the orders yet, rather than refusing to give them. "Sergeant, everyone has their orders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Make it so."
"Roger that, sir." The sergeant took a step to the side, and I thought I could hear a vague murmur coming from his helmet.
The effects of the orders, though not immediate, gradually became visible and audible all around us. Men shouted, engines revved, and troopers ran here and there at the double (or at least, what I assumed was at the double). It seemed that, belatedly at least, the PRT in Ellisburg had decided to take me seriously.
"Uh, one more thing," I said, drawing the officer's attention back to me. "I'm going to need a place to change. Got a barracks free or something? It'll only take a couple of minutes."
"And I'll go with," Vicky added quickly. "Someone needs to grab her costume until she wants it again, and that's me."
"Ah, yes, of course." Major Holden conferred briefly with the sergeant, who (as had happened in Eagleton) pointed the way to where I could Change. We headed that way, ready to do this whole thing over again.
When I got home, I decided, I was going to collapse for a week.
<><>
Glory Girl
Only someone who knew Taylor like Vicky did would've seen it, but she could tell her bestie's heart just wasn't in it as she stalked out of the barracks in all her wyvern glory. Oh, sure, there was the the bared teeth and the slightly-outspread wings, but Vicky could see under it all to the drag in the step and the limp crest. She'd faked enough enthusiasm herself over the years to spot it every time in someone else.
Somewhere along the line, Vicky realised, this had gone from 'fun' to 'work' for Taylor. She wasn't doing it because she wanted to do it, she was doing it because she figured she had to do it. There was no doubt that Taylor was going to do her best, she just wasn't going to enjoy it.
They paused outside, and Taylor chirped interrogatively. Major Holden looked to Vicky for a translation; fortunately, her association with Taylor had also made her good at being a Wyvern whisperer. "She wants to know if you guys are all set up and ready to roll if things go south."
"Thank you," he said. She caught his dubious glance at Taylor, but figured that was due to him trying to see the teenage girl where the wyvern now stood. "We're as ready as we're going to be."
Taylor nodded, then spread her wings for takeoff. Vicky and Aunt Sarah took to the air at the same time; Taylor's costume and mask had already been stashed in the belt pouch Vicky was using for that purpose, so they were ready for action.
Well, ready for Taylor to get really ready for action, anyway.
Vicky stayed level with Taylor as the latter flapped her wings hard for altitude. Aunt Sarah stayed just a little lower, spreading out a broad force field between them and Ellisburg, just in case. And as for Taylor … she just kept getting bigger and bigger.
A smirk played across Vicky's lips as she imagined the look on Holden's face when he realised exactly how much of an understatement the sergeant had made when he said Taylor's full Changed size was 'kind of impressive'. Already, Taylor was Learjet sized and still going for altitude; the bigger wings meant she could go even higher with each prodigious downstroke. And you ain't seen nothing yet, Vicky silently promised the man.
Turning her attention to Ellisburg, she noted they were now well above the walls, and thus in plain sight of any of Nilbog's minions that might happen to glance their way. As the thought formed, she heard the mournful sound of a horn echoing over the rooftops from a ramshackle tower. Either this was totally unrelated and they had the best timing in history, she decided, or that was a watchkeeper sounding the alarm.
Taylor still hadn't sized up to her full capability yet, so Vicky started looking more closely at what lay within the walls of Ellisburg. While it would take an anti-aircraft gun to make a dent in Taylor right now (maybe several), Vicky didn't quite put it past Nilbog to have constructed the medieval equivalent just for such an occasion. Trebuchets, or whatever the things were called.
No siege engines appeared to be waiting on Taylor to swoop overhead, but those cute shingle roofs could conceal anything, so Vicky didn't relax quite yet. That alarm horn had been there for a reason, so there had to be something Nilbog thought he could do. Whether it could do anything against Taylor at full strength was something else altogether, but Vicky figured it was safer to assume that Nilbog had something nasty up his sleeve than to discount the idea altogether.
And then Taylor looked downward, squinted, and said, "OH, SHIT."
At that size, her voice was audible to everyone in the surrounding area, so the trick wasn't so much hearing her as not being deafened by her. Still, Vicky had no idea why she'd said that; before the question could be asked, Taylor folded her wings and dived, downsizing even faster than she'd upsized before.
Vicky shared a confused glance with Aunt Sarah. "What's she doing?" she asked. "What did I miss?"
"I have no idea." Sarah started downward. "Keep an eye on Ellisburg. I'll ask her."
"Right, yeah, okay." Vicky maintained altitude, even as Sarah threw up an aerodynamic force field then rocketed down in Taylor's wake.
Far below, Taylor had gotten down to about Learjet size again, but Vicky still couldn't figure out what was going on. Jaws gaping wide, Taylor was flying parallel to the ground, belching huge volumes of fire downward. Vast swathes of otherwise unoccupied ground—they'd evacuated everything and everyone from the vicinity of Ellisburg for miles around—were being scorched to cindered ruin, but Vicky didn't know why.
Aunt Sarah got close enough to Taylor to ask her what the hell was going on (though Vicky suspected she'd be more polite about it); Vicky didn't hear the question, but she heard the answer. "Get back! Disease spores!"
And that explained everything, all at once. They'd thought that Nilbog might have his creatures run in all directions carrying disease within them, but he was being sneakier than that. How Taylor had seen them at all, Vicky wasn't sure, unless they were visible in a part of the spectrum her wyvern form was equipped to see.
Personally, Vicky wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find out that was precisely the case. Taylor's Changer forms were bullshit squared on a bullshit sandwich.
The fire breath was hopefully scorching the spores to ash, which sounded like a win to Vicky. All Taylor had to do was kill the spores faster than Nilbog could make them. Vicky was sure that she and Aunt Sarah could go into Ellisburg if they had to, and punch out Nilbog once and for all.
Then, ahead of Taylor, she saw the real problem. The cordon around Ellisburg had been unbroken and still was; they'd just pulled back a ways and prepped for trouble. Unfortunately, the trouble coming their way was an intangible cloud of spores, and the only method Taylor had to deal with it was just as problematic to humans as it was to spores.
She had no doubt they were equipped with air filtration equipment; on a duty station like Ellisburg, that would be a given. But while the standard PRT uniforms were fire-retardant (because fire and other heat energy effects were horribly common among villainous Blasters), truly fireproof gear was probably something they hadn't anticipated needing. The solution, unfortunately, was likely to be far more problematic than the cure.
Taylor was a lot closer to the situation, so her grasp of the dilemma was likely to be even more comprehensive than Vicky's. Breathe fire to eliminate a mass of the spores, and kill a bunch of troopers who were just trying to keep their small patch of America safe, or skip over them and let the disease spread even farther? Vicky wasn't sure she could make that call.
Not only could Taylor make it, but she also acted on it. And, in typical Taylor fashion, she took the third option.
Going from a fast glide to all-out flight in just a few wingbeats, she powered ahead of where Vicky imagined the rolling cloud of spores to be. As she passed over the men and women in the path of the spores, she bellowed, "Get down!" Then, in a move Vicky wouldn't have been able to emulate if she lived to a hundred, she dropped one wing straight down and pivoted around it, losing all her lift and forward motion at the same time. Dropping out of the sky, she landed on her feet, wings spread wide for balance and facing back the way she'd come.
The vast cone of fire she blasted outward barely grazed the ground this time, even as she swept it sideways to cover the oncoming cloud of spores. Under it, the PRT troopers hugged the earth as they'd been told, making use of every dip and hollow they could find. They'd be real warm, Vicky figured, but they'd survive with one hell of a story to tell.
The fire reached far back along her path, no doubt destroying the offending spores in their millions and billions. "Don't use fire, my ass," muttered Taylor, no doubt forgetting for the moment that her slightest utterances at that size were audible to all and sundry. Then she flapped her wings once and took to the air, gliding forward over the PRT troopers and their singed surroundings.
That was where things went wrong for her. Vicky felt the breeze freshening where she was, a little upwind from Taylor, but her shout of warning came too late. Taylor, inhaling in preparation for another devastating roil of flame, was caught on the back foot when the spores got to her too soon.
If she'd been able to breathe flame before they went down her throat, Vicky was sure, there would've been no problem. But it didn't happen that way. Taylor inhaled, and promptly started coughing and hacking like a fifty-packs-a-day smoker. Smoke indeed gusted out of her mouth and nostrils, and a little flame, but not enough and far too late.
To Vicky's alarm, Taylor began dropping in size, even as she doubled over and made sounds like she was doing her best to hock up a lung. Her claws dug at the incinerated ground and her tail whipped from side to side, all while she heaved and convulsed and choked. The harsh coughing sounds made Vicky fear that she was about to start bringing up blood.
Aunt Sarah clearly had the same idea, because she encased herself in no fewer than four layers of force field and swooped down toward Taylor. "Hold on!" she shouted. "I've got you!"
And then Taylor grew again, to what Vicky privately called 'Armsmaster' size. It was the smallest size at which she could form speech, but she didn't bear the red and gold markings anymore. Nor was she in the blue and black, or any of the other colour combinations Vicky knew of. Now, her scales were an unhealthy green fading into a dirty yellow. "No," she rasped, almost in a continuation of the prior coughing fit. "I've got this."
She took to the air, upsizing steadily as she went, and flew downwind. Vicky expected her to breathe out some exotic stream of energy to neutralise the cloud of spores—pattern recognition was a thing, after all, and Taylor had pulled this shit more than once before—but instead she inhaled deeply. And for the first time, Vicky saw the spores.
It was a vast, spreading cloud, so big that Taylor would've only had the barest chance to contain it all before it got past her. When Taylor breathed inward, every last spore popped into visibility as it was drawn back toward her. The cloud collapsed in on itself, concentrating as it neared Taylor, vanishing into her nostrils or down her throat.
It had to be some bullshit power thing, Vicky decided, along the lines of how Taylor had inhaled fucking electricity to depower the Machine Army. Even at the size she was, there was no way that much air could fit into lungs of that size. As the last of the cloud around her vanished, she should've been ten times the size she was just from the air she'd breathed in, but that simply wasn't the case.
Then, when she finally breathed out, it was different from every other breath effect she'd pulled so far. Almost twisting and twining through the air, her exhalation strongly resembled the fibrous tendrils of a fungus network Vicky had once seen under the microscope in science lab. As they reached the ground wherever the spores had touched down, they flared brightly, then went dull again.
Taylor flew toward Ellisburg, unleashing her new breath weapon again. The tendrils scoured the land, flaring as (Vicky guessed) they neutralised the spores that had settled and were digging in. More than a few were destroyed around the PRT troopers, but they seemed none the worse for the experience.
She had to pause to inhale twice more, drawing the spores into herself, before she'd sterilised their spread all the way back to the walls of Ellisburg. Vicky could see the inhabitants of the Goblin Kingdom running through the narrow streets: whether in panic or in anger, she couldn't tell. Monsters flung what looked like bony spears at her, but she gained altitude and only a few hit her. None penetrated her hide.
As she ascended, she performed that impossible inhalation twice more, each time catching a cloud of spores on the way out of the Goblin Kingdom. She also increased in size, until she was as big as she'd been over Eagleton. At least this time she hadn't gotten a size increase, Vicky mused.
"THAT," she informed Nilbog, the PRT camp, and anyone else within about ten miles, "WAS NOT NICE. I GET IT. YOU WANT TO SURVIVE. THAT WASN'T THE WAY TO DO IT."
And then she Changed, into the purplish-red and gold form that she'd used to finish off Eagleton, and breathed a vast wave of annihilation, straight down.
Ellisburg … vanished, along with the Tinkertech wall that had been containing it all these years.
So did a good three hundred feet of ground underneath it, including the bedrock.
When Taylor let up, all that was left of Nilbog was subatomic particles on the breeze.
She was already starting to size down as Vicky flew in alongside her head. "Well, dang," Vicky said cheerfully. "That'll have to put a smile on grumpy-pants Piggot's face, don't you think?"
Taylor turned to look at her, now back in her red-and-gold form and just big enough to talk. "Nothing against you, Vicky, but right now I don't give a shit about what makes Piggot happy."
Yup, Vicky decided as Taylor glided back down toward the PRT encampment and Aunt Sarah flew up to meet with them, she's definitely over this.
She'd come around in time, Vicky knew. Taylor always bounced back. But if Director Piggot knew what was good for her, she wouldn't be asking any more favours of New Wave for a while.
End of Part Twenty-Five