Atonement

by CeruleanSlane

Taylor died in the locker. In her guilt, Madison triggered instead and became a superhero, to make up for her mistakes. Seen first on spacebattles, archived here for easier reading and for other people to find.

26. Arc 26: Interim

Notes: Kaelas17 – Indeed, Emma triggered with Queen Administrator, applied to machines rather than bugs in this case. And Contessa's growing humanity will come back into play before long. ;)

HellKing666 – Wow, thanks for all that. I do try to intertwine OC's, little-used canon characters, and popular (and not so popular) well known canons all into one big (hopefully interesting and entertaining) pile. Glad you're enjoying it overall, and as to your number 2 point about pulling the rug out, well... keep reading. ;)

And here is the new arc. Remember, guys, this is an interlude arc. Thus, no Madison POV this time. Instead, you get six very different points of view.

26.01

Ethan O'Connell stood in the doorway of the lounge in the Bangor Protectorate building, watching the young blonde woman who sat partially slumped in a leather chair, her gaze fixated on one of several monitor screens that was showing a news report about the situation in their city. He winced slightly at the sight of her. "How long have you been awake?"

Without turning around, Marissa replied, "How long has it been since we were in Brockton Bay?"

Sighing softly, Ethan stepped into the room and tugged another one of swivel chairs to him before dropping his weight into it. Knowing how pointless (and likely hypocritical) it would be to immediately lecture the younger woman, he instead nodded toward the screen that was currently showing an view of the blue-tinted dome that covered the city with a reporter's face plastered into the right side of the screen, going on about population density. "Anything new happen so far?"

"I can't tell." Stretching her hand out toward the nearby desk, Marissa kept her palm flat and let the miniature robot spider that had been perched there climb onto it. "Pandora hasn't been communicating much since... since those two were killed. And the news doesn't know anything. They just keep repeating the same things they already said. I mean god, they made a miniature holographic map of the city and had the anchor just walking through it like Godzilla to point out where all the trouble spots are. Because that's so much better than just sticking a fucking map up onto the screen. Or better yet, shutting the hell up when they don't have any more information."

Cracking his knuckles, Ethan reached out and turned the chair that the young woman was slumped in, pivoting it away from the screen. "Exactly. They don't know anything else. Nobody does. So there's no point to sitting here watching things that aren't going to tell you anything new."

The girl's lips tightened and she squinted at him, though the effect was lessened by the dark circles under her eyes and the way that the hand holding Jalopy trembled slightly from exhaustion. "You think I'm just going to give up and ignore the fact that my... my friends and the girl that I... the girl that I'm in love with are trapped in a city full of super-powered psychopaths?" Her voice had taken on an edge of challenge, an anger born not from genuine reaction to his words he knew, but from her utter helplessness to protect the people she cared about.

He didn't back away, keeping his hand firm on the side of the chair so that she couldn't turn back to the monitor easily. "No, I don't think you're going to give up. I think you're going to exhaust yourself so much that when something does happen, you'll be too tired to participate. Or worse, you'll participate anyway and get yourself hurt so that Madison blames herself for not being there, just like you're blaming yourself right now over not being there for her."

Flinching very slightly, Marissa's gaze flicked away from him. "I'm okay."

"No, you're not." Ethan took a breath before leaning back, releasing the chair now that she had stopped trying to turn it. "Look, Marissa, I get it. I do. You may not believe me, but I do get it. Do you have any idea how often I've had to sit tight and watch Sammy run into danger? Any idea how many times she's come this close to dying, only to go out again the next day anyway? Do you have the slightest clue how tempted I've been to lock Sam in a padded room rather than let her risk her life over and over again?

"I see these monsters. I see what she's up against, what we're up against, and I just want to protect her. A part of me want to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to her, even if that makes her hate me. And when I can't, when I have to stand back and just watch, it... hurts."

Shifting in her seat, Mars hesitated before speaking in a soft voice. "Samantha can take care of herself."

"Damn straight she can." Ethan nodded easily at that. "And throwing herself into danger, risking her life to save people, is a big part of why I love her. I can't love who she is, and then try to change who she is by stopping her from being a hero. It doesn't work that way. I'd never really try to stop her from doing this, because it's who she is. All I can do is be there in every way that I can. I fight by her side when it's possible, and I wait for her when it's not. Doesn't mean I've never been tempted to stuff her in a box where no one can get to her, especially when she's in the hospital waiting for Panacea. But in the end, when you really love someone like that, you don't try to change them. You just be there for them."

"But I c-" Marissa's voice broke slightly and she looked down before taking a breath. "But I can't be there for Maddy now. She's in danger and I can't do anything. So are Noelle and Luke, and I can't do anything about it. They could... they could..." She trailed off, unable to say the words. Finally, she finished with a slightly hoarse whisper, "They could die, while we're trapped out here."

After a momentary hesitation, Ethan gave a slight nod, as much as it killed him to do so. "I won't lie and say that's not a possibility." Marissa's face fell even further while she tried to turn away, until his hand reached out to catch her arm. "But listen to me. Madison can take care of herself, and she still has a lot of friends in there. She is not helpless. Neither are the others. You really want to help them?"

Looking back to him, the blonde gave a short, firm nod. "Of course. I'd do anything to help. I'd give anything to just... to be able to do anything about this, to help them."

"Even if it was the hardest thing that you'd ever done?" Ethan pressed. "Even if it was the last thing on Earth that you want to do, you'd do it if it helped them?"

"I told you, yes." Marissa was staring at him. "I'd do anything. She's... Mads... I love her, Ethan. I.. I told her I loved her just before we left and now..." Her lip trembled slightly before she got it under control. "I need her. I need her to be okay, and I'd do anything to help her. Anything."

Nodding in understanding, Ethan matched her gaze with his. "Then go to sleep." When the girl's mouth opened to object, he kept talking. "You said you'd do anything if it would help, no matter how hard it was. Well, what you have to do is wait. That's all you can do, and it's probably harder than anything else you imagined. I understand that, trust me. Sleeping is all you can do right now, Marissa. You're so tired you couldn't fight even if the dome went down right now. I doubt you could summon your sun even if you tried. If we could go in right this second, you wouldn't really be able to help."

"But I... I have to..." Mars shifted again, looking reluctantly, desperately back toward the screen in case anything had changed. "I have to be here in case... in case..."

"I'll wake you up if anything important happens, I promise." Ethan assured her before straightening. His hand slid down the girl's arm to her hand as he gave her a tug up and out of the chair. "You have my word, Marissa. If there's anything that you can help with, I will wake you up. But right now, you need to sleep. That's how you can help, by getting some rest so you're ready when things do change."

Marissa looked like she was going to argue for another moment, but yawned instead before dropping her gaze with a low sigh. "You swear you'll wake me up if anything changes."

"I swear," he agreed, releasing her hand after giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Now go, get some sleep. Mads wouldn't want you to put yourself through this."

Though she tried to resist the idea for another moment, Mars finally sighed and started to trudge tiredly out of the room. "Please..." She spoke softly. "Don't let anything happen to them."

Ethan had a feeling that she wasn't talking to him.

---

Once he was sure that Marissa could make it to her bed in one of the guest quarters of the building, Ethan made his own way back toward the quarters that he shared with Sam. On the way, he passed a couple of the younger Maine Protectorate members standing together at a window, one of whom he knew rather well. "Carlos, how... ahhh, how are you doing?" He asked before greeting the boy's companion. "You too, Mariko. Are you uhhh, all right?" Ethan winced even as he spoke the words, knowing that the pair was far from all right.

Thankfully, Carlos didn't make too big of an issue over it. He just gave the slightly older man a brief look before shaking his head. "Not really, no. With Dean and Katherine... dead, and now Brockton Bay sealed off, it seems like the Nine just get to do whatever the hell they want to."

Mariko's hand caught the boy's and squeezed it. The two had apparently become close in the past few months, despite the fact that she was a good six years older than Carlos. It was similar to Ethan's own situation with Sam, actually, if reversed. Her voice still held a hint of the accent from her Japanese home. "Do not worry, Carlos. We will find a way to rescue your friends."

"I take it you've already tried your power?" Ethan asked the girl. Mariko, who used the name Asylum, possessed the ability to create bubbles of sizes that varied between barely large enough to fit a single person, and the size of a high school gymnasium. When she made the bubbles, she was able to selectively alter various physical laws within at the moment of creation, such as lower or higher gravity, reduced or increased speed, a slower or faster healing rate for those within, and so on. The altered laws only applied to those who were within the area of effect when it was created, while those who entered afterward were unaffected. The woman used the bubbles in a variety of ways, from enveloping injured people with a bubble that accelerated their healing dramatically, to putting enemies into a time-slowing bubble and then entering it herself so that their movement speed was dramatically reduced while hers was normal, making her appear to them as though she was moving at super-speed.

"We have tried," Mariko confirmed. They had hoped that by finding the right physical law to alter, she could at least make a hole in the dome to allow entrance. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case. "No law that I am able to change has any effect on the dome. I have tried everything I know." Her gaze fell. "I am sorry. I had hoped to help."

"You do help, Riko." Carlos assured the woman. "You help just by being here. I don't know what I'd do, or... where I'd be if I had to handle this without you."

The two exchanged what were obviously private looks, and Ethan decided that he shouldn't be there just then. "Thanks for trying, Mariko. It was a real long shot anyway, but something's gotta be able to break through. For now, I'm gonna see if I can follow my own advice and get some sleep. It's been a long... whatever time of day it is. I don't even know anymore."

After exchanging another few words with the pair, Ethan continued on. At the doorway into the guest quarters, he paused to collect himself before stepping inside. "Well, Mars finally went to bed. Here's hoping she stays..." He trailed off then, at the sight of his wife standing in the middle of the room. Her phone was clutched tightly in one hand, and she was staring at him with a look that he didn't like. "Hey, what's wrong, Puppy?"

"They won't help." Sam's voice was quiet, though the hurt and confusion in it was obvious. "I did what they wanted. She said to take care of her, and I did. I have been. I took her in and now... now they won't help. They wanted her to be taken care of, why wouldn't they let us take care of her now?"

Frowning slightly, Ethan closed the door behind him and crossed the room. "Sammy, what do you mean? Who wanted us to take care of Madison? I thought this was your idea."

A brief look of fear crossed Samantha's face as she glanced up to him, before letting out a long, low sigh. "I... I don't..." She stopped talking, brow furrowed for a long moment as doubt flickered through her expression. Finally, she physically shook herself. "Fuck it. I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of lying, I'm tired of being too afraid to tell you. Now... now after all this, after they made me care about that girl, they won't even... Fuck it. Fuck their secrets. I just..."

Her eyes squeezed tightly shut briefly and when they opened again, he could see a dampness there that immediately alarmed him. "Sammy, Samantha, what..." He reached out for her. "What's wrong?"

His concern redoubled when she pulled back from the embrace. "Just... let me... explain. God. I need to talk, and I need you to just listen until I finish, okay? I need to explain everything. I need to tell you the whole story, like I should've already. I kept wanting to, but I was afraid. I was afraid of what they'd do. I still am, but fuck it. I'm telling you the truth, right here, right now. But I need you to not interrupt until I'm done. I need to get the whole thing out in one go or I never will."

Still concerned, Ethan nodded nonetheless. "I'm here, puppy. I'm right here, say whatever you need to."

At first, Sam said nothing. She just gazed past him, off into some distant location. As worried as Ethan was though, he didn't prod or prompt her. He waited as patiently as possible, fighting the urge to reach out to his wife once more. She was upset, so scared that she was physically trembling. It took everything he had not to pull her to him, but she had asked him to let her get out what she wanted to say without interruption. As hard as it was, he had to be patient.

Finally, she opened her mouth and began to explain. Haltingly, with occasional stops to catch her breath or steady herself, Sam told him about how she had gained her powers from a vial in her attempt to capture him back when he had been a villain. She explained the entire process that she had gone through, all about meeting with the so-called Doctor and what she'd had to do afterward. She explained about the first two 'favors' that she'd had to do for this Cauldron group, and how taking in Madison and caring for her had been the third and final favor.

Once she finished, Sam's arms were folded across her stomach. She looked physically ill, and utterly terrified of his reaction. Tears were still falling freely. "I'm sorry." Her voice cracked slightly, and she could barely bring herself to look at him. "I'm so, so sorry for lying to you. God, I... I wanted to tell you so many times, but they know, Ethan. They always know and they can be anywhere. They have eyes everywhere and I couldn't... I didn't want you to... I didn't want you to be hurt, and I didn't want you to hate me."

"Hate you?" Ethan pushed himself up slowly, moving to stand in front of her. His hands came up to rest on her shoulders, squeezing slightly. "Babe, it'd be pretty fucking hypocritical of me to judge the things you've done in the past when we both know the kind of things that I used to do." He paused before going on. "Sammy, the biggest... mistake that you made through all this was forgetting that we're married."

Looking stricken, Sam shook her head rapidly. "I didn't. I didn't forget that, I wanted... I just..."

He silenced her by pressing a finger gently to her mouth. His tone was gentle. "Babe, you forgot the important part about that whole marriage thing. It means we're partners. It means that whatever danger either of us gets into, the other one is there for them. It means I love you, always. Not just when everything's perfect. Not just when I agree with everything that you do, and not just when I'm completely happy with every choice you make. Always, Sammy. I married you because I love you, period. Am I mad? Yeah, I kind of am. You lied to me, Sam. We're supposed to be partners, and you kept... really big secrets from me for a long time. So yeah, I'm kind of mad. But... we are partners, so I know you. And I know why you did that. And I could never, ever hate you, Samantha. You're my wife. I love you."

Biting her lip hard, Sammy stared up at him with wide, glistening eyes. "I'm sorry." She repeated, voice still trembling. "I love you, Ethan. I'll never lie to you again, ever. Please, please believe me. I'll tell you everything."

Sliding his hands down off of her shoulders, Ethan embraced his wife. He held her tightly against himself, drawing a gasp of surprise from the woman before she returned the hug as firmly as she could. A choked little sob of emotion escaped her, and he felt the dampness from her tears against his shirt.

"No more secrets, okay, Puppy?" He prompted quietly before kissing the top of her head and inhaling the scent of her hair.

Clinging to him even more tightly, Samantha gave a slight nod. He could almost feel the weight of years of emotional stress and uncertainty falling from her, giving her a sort of freedom and release that came only from genuine confession and forgiveness. "No more secrets." Her embrace tightened even more as a shudder of pure relief washed over her while she repeated the words tenderly, as though they were the most important ones she had ever said.

"No more secrets."

26.02

"You didn't have to come with me, you know." Amy Dallon looked sidelong toward the girl who had accompanied her out of the PRT building. "Thanks and all, obviously. But you didn't have to." Not wanting her companion to think that she didn't wanther around, having grown more empathetic toward the feelings of others ever since she realized how badly she had been treating her clone-sisters, Amy continued after a moment. "Seriously, thanks for helping. I just don't want you to feel like youhave to come with me to visit Marquis. I'll be fine and... I know you don't like the idea of being around those guys."

Emma, or Oversight rather considering she was wearing the helmet that concealed both her luxurious red hair and the top half of her face, shook her head. "I'm... I'm okay. With..." She flinched noticeably, her mouth tightened briefly before she took in a breath to steady herself. "With Pandora taking care of themselves for now, w-we shouldn't go anywhere al-alone." Her voice shook a couple of times through that, but compared to the way the girl had been when Amy met her, this was a vast improvement, especially considering the current situation.

It had taken a long time for Emma to work her way out of the pit of self-disgust and sense of worthlessness that plagued her. Apparently Madison's presence and forgiveness had gone a long way toward that. But whenever that girl wasn't around, Emma had still easily sunk into long bouts of self-hatred. Which was understandable, considering the fact that she had been responsible for the emotional torture and eventual death of her former best friend. Being made to accept that fact, forced to realize just how badly she had ruined her friend's life for the sake of popularity and the approval of a psychopath, had destroyed Emma's confidence and sense of self-worth. With the help of Dinah and the others over these past months, she had gradually begun to rebuild her psyche. She still wasn't over it, but at least she had worked her way up to 'do things right to make up for the things I've done wrong.'

After looking around to make sure that they weren't being observed, Amy reached a hand out to rest against the other girl's arm. "Emma, you did good today. You helped catch Shatterbird. That's a big deal." The words sounded awkward and almost false to Amy's own ears, despite her sincerity. She wasn't accustomed to being the one giving encouragement, and didn't really know what else to say.

Emma, for her part, gave a very slight smile. "It's... a st-start, I guess. But Vista's the one that r-really stopped her for good. I..." She looked down, frowning. "Those PRT men died because-"

"Because Valefor and Jack Slash wanted them to." Amy interrupted before the other girl could finish that thought. "All of that happened because the Slaughterhouse Nine are murderous psychopaths, not because of anything you or Tether did. You can't take responsibility for that."

Heaving a low sigh, Emma raised her gaze to look back at Amy and offered a slight shrug. "I avoided responsibility for... everything for so l-long that... avoiding it now seems... wr-wrong."

Thinking hard for a moment, Amy finally responded, "It's about intentions. There were good intentions behind turning Shatterbird in, Emma. You didn't intend for all that to happen, or for anyone else to be killed. Neither of you could possibly have known that it would. It's on them, not you. Not any of us."

"I didn't intend for Taylor to die either." Emma's voice remained steady for that sentence, as though saying the words, giving voice to her own confession, was too important to stutter through. "But it still happened, because of me. Because I... because I fucked up. Because I was a..."

"Bitch." Amy confirmed. "I've heard about it. But now we have to focus, Emma. You don't want to be that person any more, right? You never want anything like that to happen again?"

Emma's head shook firmly. "I won't be that person again, ever. That's why I... I have to help now. I'm s-scared. I'm so scared I can't... I can barely think about it. But I have to help a-anyway. Because I can. Because I have to try to make... make up for all of that. I'm going with you because... because Pandora can't right now. They can't handle it right now, and they need time, s-so I'm here instead. I know I'm a shitty substitute, but... I'm g-gonna try anyway. I'm gonna try to keep you safe."

Amy shook her head slowly. "That's where you're wrong, Emma, on both counts. You're not a shitty substitute. You might not be Pandora, but you've got amazing potential all on your own. And you're not going to try to keep me safe. We're going to keep each other safe. You watch out for me, and I watch out for you. Machines and biologicals, we've got them both covered." Raising her hand into a fist, she held it in front of the other girl. "We watch each other's backs, okay?"

After a moment of hesitation, Emma made a fist out of her own hand and touched it to Amy's. Her voice was still soft, but steady. "Yeah. I like that. We... help each other."

Nodding, Amy dropped her fist and did her best not to let her expression fall as well. Doing that had reminded her of Victoria, which instantly made her heart clutch a little. Even the thought of Vicky still brought tears to her eyes at unexpected times, and losing Rho and Eta like they had, so utterly unexpectedly, had brought back those feelings full force. She had thought of Vicky as being invulnerable, an immortal goddess who could never be hurt. Some of that had transferred onto her new clone-sisters, and now two of them were dead as well. It was enough to make her want to curl into a ball and cry, despairing for the loss of everyone she cared about.

But this wasn't the time for that. She had to shut that feeling away in a tender, private place and push on. Because if she let herself dwell, she'd never climb out of that pit of despair in time to take care of the people that she could still help. Victoria was gone, as were Rho and Eta. But Amy still had people she cared about. She still had people to protect, people who depended on her in every way. And she still had people she could depend on. It was like she had said to Emma, they would protect each other.

That was the way that it was going to have to be. No more depending entirely on others, or letting others depend entirely on her. She couldn't do this alone. As powerful as she was, she was still only one person, and she had her weaknesses. Those were the dual mistakes she had made before, both allowing others to think that she could take care of every problem, and believing that the people she cared about were immortal. She simultaneously allowed others to depend too much on her, and depended too much on specific people herself. It had to be a two-way street. She had to depend on others and be dependable for them. No matter what they ran into on the way to talk to her father, she would handle it alongside Emma. And beyond that, alongside Pandora and the rest of the group that Dinah had been gathering. She would be there for them, and they would be there for her. Whatever happened, she would help her new team deal with it. One step at a time.

---

"Wait, stop. Don't take another step." Oversight warned, putting out a hand to stop Amy just as she had been about to move through the gate of the fence that surrounded the warehouse down by the docks where Marquis had set up his most recent base of operations.

Frowning, though she obediently froze, Amy looked toward the other girl and kept her voice low. "What's wrong?" She hadn't seen anything, but Emma had access to a lot more eyes than she did.

"I'm not sure," Oversight confessed, lifting her hand to point up and to the left, toward a drone helicopter that was hovering about a hundred feet up. "But there's two bodies lying on the roof, and one of the other drones just got a glimpse of something... hang on, let me play back the recording." There was a pause before she went on. "Something big just moved past that window on the west side. I... I think it was-"

"Marquis!" Amy blurted, eyes widening as she saw the man himself come staggering out the front of the building. Even from that distance, she could see that he was in bad shape. Blood stained the front of his normally perfect clothes, and he could barely keep himself upright.

Ignoring Emma's cry for her to wait, Amy sprinted across the lot. She ran full tilt, skidding up to where her father was. "Marquis!" Even then, even at that point, she wasn't accustomed to calling him 'father.'

As soon as he saw her, the man's eyes widened and he looked somehow weaker than he had before. "Amelia." His voice was strained with a worry that she had never heard before. "You can't be here."

"Shut up and let me heal you." Amy put a hand up to the side of the man's face, letting the connection grow between them. The injuries that Marquis was suffering from made her almost stagger, shocked that he was still able to stand at all. Immediately, she set about knitting various bones together and stopping the internal bleeding.

"Amy!" The warning scream came just a second before something slammed heavily into the two of them from the side, knocking them sprawling to the ground. An instant later, a terrifying crash filled the air, and the girl felt her face sting from debris that was sprayed in every direction.

Amy rolled with the blow, bringing a hand up to fend off their attacker before realizing that the thing that had hit them had been one of Emma's flying helicopters. It had spun sideways in the air and crashed into them with its landing skids. In the spot where they had been standing, there was a very different figure. The figure had all but erupted through the wall of the building, slamming himself out and down with a blow that would have killed both of them instantly if Emma hadn't knocked them out of the way with her drone.

It was Crawler. The massive figure so altered by his power of adaptation by that point that it was impossible to guess that he had once been human. At the moment, he was a six-legged beast with a griffon-like head and armored body covered in a chaotic mixture of feathers, fur, tentacles, and especially eyes. Eyes were everywhere on his body, covering every possible angle along his sides and back, even some on his legs and the tentacles that grew out of where his knees should be. He was a monster, in every sense of the word, and he was currently fixated on the spot of the ground where Amy and her biological father lay, still tangled in a heap. Some of Marquis' injurieshad been healed, but the interruption had come before Amy was able to finish, and now the beast was bearing down on them.

For his part, Marquis managed to extricate himself before rising to face the beast. He put himself between Crawler and Amy, raising a hand to wipe away the blood from his suit. From where she was still lying on the ground, Amy could hear the worry behind the forced placidity of his voice. "Come then, if you wish to face me so much. Come away from my people and show me what nightmares have spawned within that shell." He took a long side-step, obviously trying to draw the monstrous cape away from her. "I will face you."

Instead, Crawler made a noise that sounded like a low, ugly chuckle. He lunged forward, not at Marquis but toward the spot where Amy was. Instantly, her father sent a wave of bone to cover her, leaving Amy unable to see what was going on. Rolling backwards and shoving herself up, she lifted her head just in time for Marquis to crash into her, knocking both of them over and down once more. It looked like another of Oversight's helicopters flew down to knock the man out of the way of what had been Crawler's true attack once the feint toward Amy had distracted him.

And now the beast was looming over both of them once more, making that ugly laughing noise.

Grimacing from where he had been knocked, Marquis rolled over. Amy felt, for the first time in her life that she could remember, the truly protective and cushioning embrace of her father as his arms wrapped around her. Bones exploded out of his back, forming a pincushion that protected them briefly before more of his bones could cut through the ground beneath them.

The following few seconds passed chaotically, leaving Amy no chance to think or adjust herself. Marquis used his ever-expanding bones to burrow himself and his daughter through the ground and toward safety.

Unfortunately, Crawler wasn't going to allow that. Somehow sensing where they were, maybe from the vibrations, the beast slammed a single massive foot down through the cement. The clawed limb wrapped around the pair and tore them out and into the sunlight once more. Amy cried out as she felt the claw dig into her arm, drawing blood even as the bone there snapped. She was being pressed tightly against her equally trapped father, unable to move.

A second after she cried out, Marquis erupted in bones once again. They weren't powerful enough to pierce Crawler's hide, but the force did knock his paw open, forcing the monster to drop them back to the ground.

Rearing back, Crawler quickly brought his head forward as a spray of acid erupted from his wide mouth. Marquis brought up a shield of bone that was almost immediately eaten through, but it was enough to block that single spray and give the two of them a chance to back up.

Still, the monster kept coming after them. One bone-shield after another was melted through or simply batted aside as Crawler continued the pursuit, intent on catching up with the pair.

Finally, a half dozen remote control trucks came skidding across the lot. They lined up on one side of Crawler and let loose with a joint concussive blast that would have torn the wall off of a building. To Crawler, it was barely enough to catch his attention. He pivoted slightly, dozens of eyes turning toward what looked like toy trucks.

"Hi!" Oversight hovered above the parking lot, surrounded by a veritable fleet of helicopter drones. "I-I'm the one that helped take down Sh-Shatterbird. You w-wanna play?" More of her drones let off concussive blasts, though none really seemed to do much damage. Still, she had the monster's attention for the moment.

While Crawler was distracted, Marquis caught Amy by the arm. "Go," he instructed. "Take your friend and leave this place. It is not safe for you-"

"It's not safe for any of us." Amy interrupted. "We have to stop this thing. I can stop him, if I can get close enough to touch him. I think."

Marquis paused before nodding. "Do what you must, Ame... Amy. But be careful. The beast has already killed several of my people. I will not allow him to kill you as well. But nor will I take away your ability to choose. I will do what I can to grant you the distraction that you need. No matter what happens, you must-"

In mid-sentence, a solid foot of thick metallic claw abruptly tore out the front of the man's chest. Before Amy's horrified, shocked gaze, he was ripped backward by Crawler's extended paw. In the next moment, the man she had only started to know as her real father was literally torn in half as the monster bisected him with two different claws.

A red haze seemed to settle in over Amy's vision then, while a deafening roar that she only belatedly and distractedly noticed as her own rising scream tearing its way out of her throat and filling the air with her rage.

She ran at Crawler. All strategy was forgotten, all rational thought was gone. There was only her anger, her blind and broken fury. The monster spat acid at her, but she didn't care. Let parts of herself be melted, she could still reach him, and she could survive long enough to end him.

Yet the acid didn't reach her. With every repeated glob that was shot her way, Oversight sacrificed another drone, flying them into the path of the acid to block its spray, allowing Amy another step forward unmolested. One step after another, drone by drone, she neared the beast. Her scream hadn't abated, the pain in her throat only a bare glimpse of the anguish that she felt inside at the sudden and unexpected loss of yet another family member, even if they hadn't been that close.

As she neared the monster who had murdered her father, it lashed out with two front claws, trying to catch her between them. In that moment, however, Oversight's ground-based trucks unleashed a concussive blast that knocked the claws to either side.

In that same moment, Amy felt one of the helicopters latch onto her back. It gave her a shove, boosting the girl up and into the air to give her just enough of a lift to fly up and onto Crawler's armored, scale-covered back.

He reared as soon as she fell on top of him, trying to buck Amy off. Instead of falling, however, she clung tight to one of the scales and shoved herself forward. Hand outstretched, she brought it down on top of one of the dozens of eyes that were pivoted toward her. The eye was hard beneath her hand, more like stone than the gel-like substance it looked like. Either way, however, it was still biological, still vulnerable.

And she was still screaming.

Through the next several seconds, Crawler's body literally attacked itself. His claws retracted backwards into his paws, shattering once they were inside. His spine tore itself apart in more than a dozen places, ripping downward and into his internal organs, which themselves were liquefying. His armored skin grew soft before melting as parts of it were converted to be acidic on the inside. Every pain receptor that he had was flipped on and turned as high as possible, shoving the beast into a state of agony that even his pain resistance and love of what little could harm him couldn't have prepared him for. Parts of his skull tore inward to rip through his brain, slicing and paring parts of it away like ice in a blender. Reaching deeper, the monster's very cells began to attack one another under Amy's direction. His body tore itself apart right down to the molecular level, as she ordered every part of his biology to kill everything else around it.

And through it all, as his body was crippled, torn apart from the inside, and melted, the monster alternately howled with agony and laughed. Its laugh was the sound of madness, the cry of a mind that had long since lost all sanity. He simultaneously gloried in and despaired of this pain that was ripping him apart. He thought himself a masochist, thought himself a true fighter, but he had never known pain like this. It destroyed him, ruined him, tore him apart in every sense of the word. His sanity, what little of it he'd had, was ripped away like chaff on the wind.

It took him over a minute to die, but he finally did. His body caved in while his skin melted. Still, Amy kept up her attack. Even as she lay surrounded by nothing but goop of what had been the monster who murdered her father and so many others, she kept ordering the separate cells to kill each other and themselves.

Soon, there was nothing left. Amy was lying on the pavement. Still, her scream continued. Tears had long since blinded her to everything save for her own internal turmoil, so she was startled by the arrival of a figure in front of her, and nearly lashed out before realizing that it was Oversight.

"Amy..." Emma dropped to her knees and, without hesitation, embraced the girl who lay where the body of Crawler had been. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Amy. God, no, please... I'm sorry."

The words were dull noise behind the massive headache that pounded its way through Amy's skull. Weakly, she returned the embrace, latching onto Emma with what little strength she had left.

Sleep came quickly, after all that she had done to exhaust herself. And even as the darkness rose at the corners of her eyes, taking her consciousness away, Amy could only think of one thing. Crawler was gone, but so was her father. And she had lost yet another piece of her family.

26.03

The place was called St. Mission's United Assembly Church. Over the years it had grown into more of a community event center during most of the week, though every Sunday was still taken up by its original purpose. Now, however, the place was full of people who were too terrified of the current situation to risk being alone, and thought that being around their neighbors and friends would help.

A dull roar filled the church as its frightened and anxious inhabitants all attempted to speak over one another. Some called for silence, only adding to the noise and confusion in spite of good intentions.

"Please, everyone calm down." The priest who stood at the front of the room, near the altar, waited a moment while holding his hands up for silence. Unfortunately, the crowd ignored his plea, continuing to shout to be heard so that the man had to repeat himself several times. Finally, he simply pressed two fingers to his lips and gave a sharp whistle that echoed throughout the church, silencing the various arguing factions and drawing their attention to him.

"Everyone, please calm down," the man repeated now that he had their attention. "I know that things are bad right now, but yelling at each other isn't going to help."

One of the people at the back of the church called forward, his voice tinged with near-panic while he gripped a younger boy by the shoulder. "Then what will?" With his free hand, the man gestured. "It's the Slaughterhouse Nine. We don't have the Protectorate, just some villains and teenagers. We can't even get out of the city. How long do we have until the food runs out, or the water?"

A woman on the opposite side of the room barked out a laugh. "You think we'll have time to worry about food and water? Those monsters'll kill us first! They'll kill us all, every last person. That's what they do. And if they don't, the freak cultists that started worshiping the bastards will!"

"Cultists?" A woman holding her hands over the ears of her young child while the arguing continued sounded confused. "Are they the ones putting up all that..." She lowered her voice as if it mattered. "... graffiti that says Slaughterhouse City? Why would they do that?"

"Because they're stupid, crazy motherfuckers!" Another man blurted out before giving a distracted nod toward the man at the front. "Sorry, Father. But these assholes have been going around killing everyone who thinks the Nine won't hurt them. The Nine don't even pay attention to 'em, and when they do they kill the jackasses just like anyone else, but these guys worship 'em anyway!"

"As if we didn't have enough problems with the Nine, now we've got the Slaughterhouse Groupies?" A man near the front slammed a fist down into his palm. "We may not be able to stop the Nine themselves, but to hell if I'm just gonna let a buncha psychotic nobody wannabe cult shits run wild over my city. I say we arm up, then go out and help the PRT put those fuckers where they belong."

"Please, please, don't talk of murder in this place." The priest at the front of the room pleaded. "We are safe here. No evil may enter this house of peace, but nor will..." He trailed off upon realizing that though the crowd had turned back in his direction, they weren't looking at him. Rather, their attention was directed over his shoulder, while a rising current of confusion came over the room.

Frowning, the man turned to see what had caught his flock's attention. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, merely the stained glass window with the cross in front of it. Then his eyes rose higher, toward the figure sitting on top of the cross, straddling it like a fence post.

"Apologies for the interruption, Father." The man perched on the cross held an apple in one hand and a folding straight razor in the other. He might have been considered handsome at one time, though his face was far too well known now for any to be attracted. Just as the toothbrush mustache had fallen so sharply out of style due to its relation to the despot who had begun the second World War, so too was appearance of the man sitting on top of the cross far too connected to his appalling acts to be considered attractive to any but the most disturbed individuals.

Before the eyes of the congregation, the man sliced off a bit of the apple with the blade before popping it into his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, he glanced toward the fruit in his hand and the cross beneath him before arching an eyebrow. "Ah, well this does provide a certain image, doesn't it?"

The fact that people sat or stood frozen where they were rather than fleeing for the exit spoke toward the man's reputation. He had made no overtly threatening moves, had done little aside from allow his presence to be noted, and yet he commanded the attention of every person in the room. Eyes grew blurry from fear of blinking and somehow being the first one who caught his gaze. This single, lone man who sat atop the wooden cross before an assembly of over a hundred people was so feared that none dared speak directly to him. Not even the one who stood at their head, whose faith in humanity's benevolent overseer had driven his life could bring himself to say a word. For those few seconds, the only sound in the room was the quiet munching of the bit of apple as the man chewed and swallowed.

Eventually tiring of the silence, because what was silence but the auditory manifestation of boredom, the man who called himself Jack Slash dropped easily from the top of the cross to land on his feet. He purposefully eschewed the very concept of a costume, wearing only a simple white shirt that was unbuttoned to show his well-defined chest, and black slacks highlighted by a silver belt buckle. His shoes were old, caked with mud as well as other material that had long since dried into the leather.

"I believe you were saying something?" His blade cut into the apple once more, carving out a thick slice for himself while he looked toward the priest. "Please, don't let me stop you. It was something about evil not entering this place and how you don't want them to talk about killing." Pausing for a moment to consider while he brought the blade up to his mouth and took the bit of apple from it, Jack finally added, "Not much of a priest though, are you? I mean, take killing and death out of the conversation, and how much of the good book have you got left?"

Finding his voice at last, the priest spoke in a somewhat shaky voice. "O-our people here pose no threat nor gain to you, sir. Please be on your way, we can give you no advantage nor can we detain you from your goals. We only wish to gather in peace and be amongst friends."

"Am I not a friend?" Jack adopted a slightly offended tone before underhand tossing what was left of the apple to the priest, who caught it out of reflex. "Don't you talk about me around your dinner tables? Haven't my presence and actions been a part of your every conversation of the past few days? If the amount of time my existence enters your mind doesn't at least merit the status of acquaintance, well then I think I might have no choice but to feel taken advantage of. Here I toil tirelessly to provide each and every one of you with true, genuine entertainment in these boring lives you lead, and you won't allow me the simple courtesy of a spot within your congregation." Using the knife to gesture behind him toward the elaborate stained glass window depicting various biblical vents, he continued. "I'm fairly sure that the big guy back there had something to say about that sort of prejudice."

A voice near the back of the room, apparently bolstered by the illusion of safety in anonymity, finally mustered the strength to call out, "You're a monster, and you're going to hell."

The simple gesture that Jack made with the knife caused a cry of fear to go up from several members of the congregation, though no blood was spilled. Jack simply used the blade to point. "True." He agreed, seemingly jovial in the face of such an admission. "If it exists, I'm sure I'll be there soon enough."

Striding forward, Jack passed the priest, patting him on the arm while the man openly shuddered at the contact. "But there's two secrets about this whole hell thing that your priest here won't ever teach you."

The audience was as quiet as ever, trapped by their fear of the man in spite of their greater numbers. Even as he descended from the raised platform to walk between them, they hardly dared breathe, let alone make any sort of move against him. His reputation, even now, cowed them into silence. None wanted to be the one who made himself stand out.

"Anybody?" Jack asked, flicking his razor blade open and closed absently. "No one wants to guess the secrets that they don't want you to realize, the two simple facts that bring this whole house of cards tumbling down if people would just accept them?" He looked around the room while striding toward the back as though expecting to find a hand raised, and shook his head in disappointment when no one moved. "Ah well, you'd probably be wrong anyway, which would just confuse everyone else."

Once he reached the back of the room, past all the pews, Jack pivoted once more to put his back to the two large wooden doors. Every eye in the room was locked onto him, just the way that he preferred. "Right then, in that case I suppose it's up to me to do the job that your priest should have been doing."

Voice somewhat strained, the man in question raised his hands. "Please, we are no threat to-"

In mid-sentence, a jagged cut appeared in the priest's throat that brought blood gushing forth along with several cries from the gathered audience at the sight of their religious leader falling to his knees. One man tore himself from his seat and ran that way to help the priest, only for another casual swipe of Jack's knife from across the room to open up his side as he stumbled and fell.

Two more stood and were subsequently cut down, their bodies falling back onto the cushioned benches before the audience was still once more, their fear once more outweighing their urge to do something. Packed as they were into the pews, with Jack's attention focused on them, none could move without being an immediate target. Still, an undercurrent continued to spread that told Jack he wouldn't have their undivided attention for long. They would panic and bolt. He'd cut one down after another, of course, but the strength of the mob would be great. He might even have to retreat if enough of them got moving at once.

Or he would, if he hadn't planned for this eventuality. While he still had the crowd on the thin edge between being too afraid to move and too panicked not to, the man simply reached behind himself and tugged open both wooden doors.

As soon as the doorway was clear, a tornado of green dust flew through it, drawing even more cries from the captive audience. The emerald flakes buzzed wildly in circles up the middle of the aisle before splitting apart into over a dozen separate forms, all rising into green figures that looked like ordinary people, save for their glossy jade skin. The figures stood near the ends of each row of seats in order to trap the inhabitants even more, ensuring that they would stay where they were.

Smiling, Jack brought a hand down to ruffle the short red hair of the small girl who now stood at his side. "Why thank you, my dear. I'm afraid that our new friends were thinking of leaving before I finished talking."

"Why were they being so rude, Mister Jack?" The girl asked, nuzzling up against the hand that was stroking her hair. "Don't they know we just want to be friends?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Jack gave a lamenting sigh. "I suppose we should blame their priest, Trixie. After all, he's the one who interrupted first, and they do take their instruction from him."

Trixie shook her head, straightening a little while pulling her head away from the man's gentle petting. Her voice deepened slightly, taking on the vocal inflections of a man who had smoked for most of his life. "Where is this fucking priest then? We'll see how much interrupting he does after I pop his eyes out and make him swallow 'em."

Shaking his head, Jack moved ahead of the girl whose personality had just flipped. "Already taken care of, dear girl. Though I'm quite certain that the next person who interrupts our little discussion would love to have a private chat with you."

Horde bounced a few times excitedly, her voice changing once again to adopt an even younger tone than she'd had before. "Oooh, can we have a tea party? Can we, can we, please please pleeeeeeeeease?"

"Could you say no to this face?" Jack asked rhetorically before nodding his assent. "Of course. Anyone who talks or tries to leave, you can consider them invited to your tea party."

"Yay!" The girl skipped toward the front of the room, her gaze riveted to the crowd to catch the first sign of someone not paying attention to Jack. Halfway up, her skipping turned to a slow walk, while her shoulders hunched slightly with the motion of a very old person whose back had long since grown weak and weary. Still, her sharp gaze panned around the room, finding nothing but a raptly attentive audience, much to her clear disappointment.

"Now then," Jack continued now that he had everyone's complete attention. "As I was saying before, there are two flaws in the idea of hell as a deterrent. First, there's the problem of escalation. Hell's it. You kill one person, and," he made the whistling sound of something falling a long distance. "That's it, straight into the great big bonefire down below."

Gesturing with his blade thoughtfully, Jack added after a moment of silence. "But... what if you kill two people? Hmm? What are they going to do, send you to hell? They already did that. There isn't a Hell Part 2. Hell: The Revenge. They blew their load with the first kill. They've got nothing to escalate to, now do they? You kill one guy, or half of civilization, and it's the same damn place."

While he spoke, another man had entered through the open doors. He wore a very effeminate costume consisting of flowing white clothing lined with silvery feathers, and a mask that looked delicate, decorated with the image of a woman's upper face, her eyes closed.

"Ah, I trust you all know of my friend here." Jack brought a hand down on the shoulder of his companion. "Valefor, I believe your audience awaits."

Thin lips tattooed black with tiny fang-like images in each corner curved into a smile as the masked man gave a short nod. His gaze passed over the room while everyone stared at him. When he spoke, his voice was alluring. "Everyone in the pews, all of you will leave this place and find the one person you care about most in this world other than anyone who is in this room right now. You will find them and then you will kill them. After you're sure that they're dead, you will find the second person you care about most in the world other than those that were in this room right now, and you will kill them in the most brutal, painful and awful way that you can imagine. Go now, and forget everything that happened in this room, including the fact that I gave you this order. Forget that we were here, but do as you were told."

As people began to mindlessly file up and out of the room, Horde sent a pleading look toward Jack. He acquiesced with a nod, and she quickly had several of her emerald automatons pick up two of the departing individuals and cart them off for her own little playtime.

While the two men at the back of the room stepped out of the way to allow the crowd to pass them, Valefor looked toward Jack. "What was the other?"

"Hmm?" Jack knew what the other man was asking, but feigned distraction.

"I heard you from out there." Valefor nodded over his shoulder. "You said there were two problems with the whole hell concept, but you only named one of them. What was the other one?"

"Ah." Jack smiled slightly, leaning casually against the wall while nodding easily to the people filing past. "The second problem with hell is that... what if you go ahead and make this place so bad for everyone alive that... well, whatever higher power might be out there just can't tell the difference between the hell he made, and the one we set up for ourselves?

"Seems to me that, in a case like that, he might just leave us right where we are."

26.04

Into glass partially fogged by the heat of a scalding shower, blue-green eyes stared intently at their own reflection, twin universes stepping outside of themselves to peer through their own enigmatic depths as they searched for answers that would not come, to questions that were only vaguely understood.

Slowly, a finger was lifted to press against the glass, sliding easily over the fogged portion to draw a simple stick figure. The eyes beheld the figure for moment before the finger moved again, slowly tracing three letters beneath it. First an M, then an O, followed finally by a third M.

Through the portion of glass that had been wiped clean, the eyes brightened faintly while the steady hand traced a second figure beside the first. Three other letters were carefully drawn beneath that figure as well, consisting of a D followed by an A and then a second D.

A third figure joined the first pair a moment later, smaller than the others. Below it, the finger traced four letters rather than three. One by one, a D, then an R, a E, and finally a W.

The room was quiet for a few more seconds while green eyes regarded each stick figure solemnly before the hand reached up once more to draw a line under each name. A soft whisper came along with the slight squeak of the finger against the glass. "Mom... Dad... Drew."

For a moment, the reflection of viridian eyes vanished behind pale skin as they were closed, hiding away from the names on the mirror just as their owner had hid from the same names that had carved themselves upon her soul from the moment she had given up all hope of saving them from their fate.

Two words interrupted the silence, words that the girl who stood before the mirror had never been able to bring herself to say within this context, to these names. Words that she had refused to consider, for the implication that they inherently carried within, and the acceptance that speaking them required.

"I'm sorry." Once spoken, the words hung in the air between Riley and the figures that she had drawn on the mirror. Her eyes opened once more, looking upon the names of each as she continued in her soft voice. "Mom... Dad... Drew... I'm sorry I gave up. I..." Her vision blurred slightly from the dampness within her eyes, while the slight crack in her voice reduced her to silence once more.

Hard. It was too hard to do this, too painful to accept what had happened and how much of it she was responsible for. The things that she had done, and her reasoning for it, hurt so much to even consider, let alone speak out loud. The pain in her chest redoubled, pain that she had forced away and thought long gone. It had, instead, simply lain dormant while she covered it with a mockery of false amusement and child-like glee, smothering her true self and feelings beneath the facsimile of innocence that was maintained with a pathological devotion. She'd had to maintain it, or risk allowing the fragile construction to come tumbling down, revealing that pain in her chest once more.

Now, bit by bit, she uncovered that awful hurt, setting it free. She let it rise up once more, clutching her heart within its tight embrace while the force of it all but stole her breath away. Through tears that slid from her eyes to her cheeks, she stared at the stick figures drawn into the mirror, figures that were already slowly beginning to fade away, as if to join the people that they stood as effigies for. And just as before, Riley could prolong their departure, but nothing she did would entirely prevent it.

This time, however, she spoke the words that she could not have spoken back then. Before the figures drawn into the steam could fade entirely, she continued in a quiet voice that did not reach further than the walls of the room surrounding her. "I couldn't... save you... again. I... was just so tired. I tried. I tried to save you, all of you. I swear, I tried. I wanted to save you, but they just... no matter what I did, they just kept... they wouldn't stop... I couldn't..." Words failed her then, and her eyes closed again to flee from the curtain of tears that continued to fall.

No. Her fists clenched tightly, and Riley forced her eyes open once more. She would not hide this time. For once, she would face the pain in her chest, the anguish that she had spent years of her life hiding from. She would face her failure, and would not allow it to rule her any longer. The creature that she had allowed herself to become through her desperation to hide away from the pain was gone, and she would never again let it consume her. As bad as the pain was, she would not allow it to master her. She would no longer hide behind false emotions and a persona that clung so desperately to innocence. From now on, her actions, good or bad, were hers. She would decide what and who she was going to be, and no amount of pain was going to make her surrender any more of her soul.

"I couldn't save you." The anguish in her voice was palpable, the grief trying to once again overwhelm Riley and force her to retreat beneath the shell that she had constructed. Still, she pressed through it, the words coming gradually, but inexorably, a tide of confession that would not be denied. "I tried. I did, I swear. I tried to save you, Mommy... Daddy... Drew... I tried to. I tried so hard and... and they just kept making it worse. They kept making it worse and I was so..." The pain wrapped its way around her heart like a python, squeezing until she was certain that it would burst. Her words continued, muffled through the lump of emotional agony that sat thick in her throat. "I was so tired. Mommy... Daddy... I'm sorry... I'm sorry I was tired. I'm sorry, Drew. I couldn't..."

With a voice as weak and soft as a gentle wind through colored, crackling leaves that had long since fallen to the ground, Riley's confession continued. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't save you anymore and I... I gave up." Renewed tears came, those that she had shut away for so long, going so far as to physically remove her ability to cry until very recently. "I gave up everything because... because it was easier.

"It was a trick, a... a lie. I had to... to... pretend. I had to make it... funny. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Daddy. I couldn't... I couldn't do it anymore. I had to change it. I had to... change everything. Life... it couldn't matter. You and Mommy and Drew... you had to be just... just meat. You had to be empty and life... all of it, everyone's life, everyone's... pain, it had to be... meaningless. It had to be empty or else the pain would come back. I had to hide from it because it hurt so much. They were killing you and Drew and Mommy and I couldn't stop them, and they just kept hurting you and I couldn't make it stop."

A brief silence rose up, heralding Riley's true secret, the source of so much anguish and the true reason behind her continued turmoil. "I couldn't... make the ideas stop." Taking in a long, slow breath, she lifted her gaze and stared into the quickly vanishing remains of her family's stick figures. "I knew how to save you. I knew how to save you over and over and over again. I could... I could have kept going. I could have saved you, I could have kept saving you, but... but they wouldn't stop killing you. Every time I saved you, they'd just kill you again, and I... I wanted it to stop, I just wanted it to stop."

Blinded by her tears, Riley reached out, pressing her hands onto either side of her family's names and figures. "My brain... my power wouldn't... stop telling me how to save you. I knew how to bring you back, how to make you survive. No matter what they did, I knew how to make you keep going. I kept fixing you, but they wouldn't stop. They wouldn't ever stop, and my... my power just kept telling me how to save your lives just so they could hurt you some more. I... I realized that... they could have killed you once, but... but because of me, because I couldn't let you go, they killed you... so... many times. They killed you over and over again, and I thought I was helping you, I thought I was saving you, but I was helping them. I was helping them kill you again and again. I helped them kill you because I kept bringing you back so they could keep killing you and I'm sorry.. I'm sorry Mommy, I'm sorry Drew, I'm sorry Daddy. I tried to save you and it just let them kill you again."

Fingers pressed tightly against the glass, Riley's blue-green eyes stared into themselves as she spoke the words that had been trapped within herself for so long. "My power wouldn't stop telling me how to save you, even after... even after I knew that they'd never stop killing you. I knew... I knew that every time I brought you back, they would kill you again. But my power wouldn't stop. It would never stop, it just kept telling me how to fix it, how to make you better so that they could hurt you some more. So... so the only way I could make it stop, the only way I could... l-let you die and stay... stay dead was if I let it be funny. The only way I could let you go so you didn't... s-suffer any more was if it didn't matter, nobody mattered. I turned it off. I made it so that I didn't care about... anybody. I made myself believe that it was funny, that life was... nothing. I didn't care about how much we hurt people, because their lives didn't matter. Their lives didn't matter, which... meant that yours didn't. You had to be meat, just empty meat that was nothing. Pain and death and... and all of it didn't matter because it was just meat, and as long as I... I let it be meat, as long as no one's life mattered, then losing you didn't hurt so much. Losing you, giving up, letting you stay dead so that they couldn't hurt you anymore, so that my power would stop telling me how to save you, was okay because you were just... empty."

The room was filled with a stillness as complete as the the judgment that Riley had passed upon herself. Her voice had grown even quieter through her private confession, until it was barely audible even to herself. "I hurt people. I killed them. I tortured and killed so many people because.. it was easy. And as long as I let myself be... the kind of person who could do that, the kind of person who didn't care about anyone's life, then it was okay that you were gone. It didn't hurt so much when I was evil. I liked being bad, because... because when no one's life mattered, then I didn't have to be sad. I didn't want to be sad anymore. I didn't want to think about you, so I made it stop. I made it stop and I did... bad things, things that I can never... ever take back and I'm scared. I'm so scared that I'm going to... to be that again. I'm scared, Mommy. You're gone. I did all those things so that I could pretend to be happy and not hurt so much, but now it's... it's back. You're gone. You're gone because I stopped saving you, because I was tired and... and I didn't want them to hurt you anymore. I let you die. I let you die and then I pretended it didn't matter. I pretended for so long that I really thought it didn't. I thought it didn't matter and I did bad things because it didn't matter, but now it does. Now it matters, it all matters. Everything matters, everything I did is... is still there. I remember, and I remember when you were alive. I remember what happened, and that you... you were my family. You were my real family and now you're gone and I have to let you go. I have to let you go, but it still hurts. Mommy... Daddy, it hurts so much. It hurts because... because you mattered. You mattered and... and the people I hurt... the people I killed, they mattered too. They mattered to somebody. I hurt them... I killed them... I took them away from their families. I did so many bad things. I was evil."

Her eyes closed briefly, looking inward once more as she continued. "And now... now I just... I don't know what I am. I don't know what I am, but I know one thing. I can't be what I was. Jack... he's here. He's here and he's killing people. He's taking my family away again, my new family. He's already taken away Rho and Eta, and Amy's daddy. He's taking them away, and it would be so... much easier if I could stop... feeling. I just want to turn it off and stop being so... hurt."

One breath was followed by another, in and out, while she braced herself for her words. "But I won't. It hurts, but I won't hide again. I won't... be that person anymore. I won't pretend that you didn't matter, even if it hurts. You were my family. You were my parents and my brother and... and you mattered. I miss you. I'm always going to miss you. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I had to let you die. But I won't... be... Bonesaw. She's gone. She's gone forever and I will never, ever be her again."

The figures in the mirror had long since vanished, though Riley could still picture them just as easily as she pictured the people they represented. Her mother, father, and brother. For the first time since the night that they had been brutally murdered a dozen times over, she remembered the good times that they'd had. She remembered the reason that she had loved her family so much, and why that kind of love was more powerful than the pain that their absence left behind. She realized that the pain that she felt at their loss, and would always feel to some extent, was nothing compared to the pain that had come when she had been forced to abandon that love. The emptiness that she had invited into herself, the utter absence of morality that she had allowed to consume her, was so much worse than any emotional pain. The allure of not caring, of feeling nothing, was a mirage hiding ruinous despair that she would not fall for again.

"I will never do those things again. No matter what happens, no matter what they do, I won't... be... Bonesaw. Because your lives matter. Everyone's lives matter. And I will... never... forget that... again."

"I love you, Mommy. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Drew. I love you. I miss you. I'm sorry you're gone, but... but... I'm going to let you go for now. I'm going to let you go, and I'm going to go help my new family. I'm going to help my new family stop Jack and the others. But I'll be back. I'm not going to forget you again. I'm not going to hide from the pain any more. It doesn't control me. Nobody controls me, not anymore."

Slowly sliding her hands across the empty mirror where the figures and names had been, she finally turned away while speaking softly, "Goodbye."

Slowly stepping out of the bathroom within the farmhouse that they had taken over, Riley let the light of the sun through the nearby window wash over her for a moment. The pain from the murder of her family still sat in her chest, clinging to her heart, a hollow agony that threatened to overwhelm her.

This time, however, she didn't push it away. She took the ache, letting herself feel the loss without allowing it to destroy who she was. She accepted everything that had happened, everything that she had lost as well as everything she had allowed herself to become.

And in that acceptance, in not hiding from the pain or rejecting her own feelings no matter how awful they were, she had managed the most important thing that she had ever done in her life.

She had beaten Jack.

26.05

On a day at any other time, the neighborhood would have been chaotically bustling, full of cars rushing back and forth, and even more pedestrians working to avoid them while still reaching their ever-so important destinations on time. It lay in the middle of downtown, anchored by a tall, imposing looking bank at one end and the city courthouse at the other. A park lay across the street where many festivals and outdoor art exhibits had been held, while small, privately owned businesses dotted the area in between the bank and the courthouse.

Once, those businesses had all been full, a testament to a steady, strong economy in a prosperous city. In semi-recent years, however, less than half of them had been able to remain open for any length of time. Failed businesses came and went, as each aspiring entrepreneur believed that they themselves had the exact strategy and product to end the downward economic spiral. Inevitably, they were wrong.

Yet the crowded streets remained, because for all the failed businesses, a few survived. More than elsewhere in the city, because this was one of the safest areas in town. Its location stuck it directly near the courthouse and a powerful bank, both of which were heavily monitored by the PRT and commonly included in both Protectorate and Ward patrol routes. Gangs setting up shop in the area didn't generally happen, and most criminals were driven off relatively quickly.

All of which meant that it remained one of the safest neighborhoods to set up a business, which is why so many tried and failed to keep theirs going. In this particular instance, however, they failed not because of rampant gang violence or cape battles, but simply due to the terrible, years long recession.

The Pandora who called herself Alpha was aware of all of these issues. She had taken the time to research the history of the city that she and her sister-selves had found themselves in after the loss of their originator. Over time, her initial interest in Brockton Bay's colorful past had grown beyond that single city, her appetite for knowledge driving her to memorize as many facts as she could. Where Gamma-Iteration enjoyed fictional stories, and Sigma-Iteration preferred poetry, Alpha preferred nonfiction. The stories that she could read in history books, true biographies, and other sources seemed so much more interesting to her than any fictional account.

All of which meant that the history of this neighborhood filled her head while she stood atop the roof of the bank beside two of her sister-selves. Sigma and Gamma had accompanied her on this outing, each of them manifesting within their individual forms. Alpha with her pale, average sized figure and short, spiky black hair, Gamma with her equally pale, smaller figure but white-blonde hair rather than dark, and Sigma, whose individualized form was that of a taller, fit girl. Sigma had been unable to choose which hair color she preferred for herself, and so had gone with both, manifesting with an alternating mixture of brown and blonde hair that had been tied into a tight braid that made strands of blonde overlap strands of brown and so on.

She knew that the area would have been busy on almost any other day, yet now it was deathly quiet. The street below them was empty, and had been through the past couple of minutes that the three of them had been standing in this place. Though they appeared to be silent, the trio of Pandoras had been communicating privately with not only each other, but the rest of their other selves.

Through each moment of conversation and decision that passed, they all felt the painful lack of two of their other selves weighing on them. What had once been eighteen had been reduced by two, and each of the remaining sixteen continually felt the horrible ache of their loss. The silence that lay where Eta and Rho would have interjected, where all of the Pandoras had become accustomed to their interjections, only lasted a second or two. For most, that would have been hardly noticeable. Yet for Pandora, it was an eternity, a black hole of silence and absence that constantly reminded each of them of what they had lost. Two parts of themselves were missing, gone forever and would never be restored. The ache, the loss that they had felt when Victoria-Sister had been killed was made so much worse when it was pieces of themselves that had been ripped away.

They had begun to understand death and the strength of individual emotion with the loss of Victoria. The loss of Eta and Rho, however, had been a blow that ripped away part of who they were.

Into what would have appeared to outside observers to be silence, Gamma-Iteration audibly spoke. "We-" She stopped and then began again, her tone slightly more hesitant as the concept of self and individual remained strange to each of them. "I... cannot wait any longer. Tiberius-Friend may be in danger."

Dinah-Friend had provided Gamma-Iteration with a cellular telephone so that she could maintain contact with the Tiberius-Friend. It had been a message on that device that that had gained their attention. When Gamma had listened to the message that had been left, she had heard the human boy asking where she was staying, trying to make sure that she was okay. Tiberius had told her that he was holed up with some other people inside the bank that they were currently standing on top of, using the protection of the bank itself along with their numbers to drive away any of the Slaughterhouse Cultists that had been roaming the streets.

It was Kappa-Interation who had encountered the cultists before, her knowledge passed on to the rest. During one of her frequent walks for the exercise that her powers meant that she didn't really need, she had witnessed some of these horrible human beings dragging anyone they could out of their homes or wherever they found them to be strung up as an 'offering' for the Nine themselves.

Unfortunately, in mid-message, Tiberius-Friend had been interrupted by a loud crashing noise. Someone had screamed, and then the call had ended.

The fear of possibly losing Tiberius-Friend so soon after the loss of two of their other selves had driven Gamma to insist that they go and rescue him, regardless of the possible danger. Alpha and Sigma had agreed to accompany her, after a brief conversation with Dinah-Friend had revealed that the odds of an encounter with their sister-selves' murderer was negligible.

Still, none of them had wanted to rush straight in. They had taken the time while standing on top of the bank to survey the entrance below them. Simultaneously, their sharp senses had been listening for any indication of what was happening within the building itself. Unfortunately, the security of the bank made the walls soundproof. It was impossible to listen to anything within.

"We still cannot hear through the bank's walls." Sigma-Iteration seemed to take Gamma's lead by speaking aloud what they could have communicated near-instantaneously within their own minds. "We do not know what may be inside."

Gamma nodded while stepping forward to the edge of the roof. "We know that this is where Tiberius-Friend was last. He may be in danger." Stepping off of the roof, she added while starting to fall, "We do not leave friends in danger."

Silently, Alpha exchanged a look with Sigma. Each of them was connected to Gamma, feeling the rush of the wind that past her as she plummeted toward the pavement. They were always, constantly at least on some level aware of everything that their other selves saw and did. When they had attempted to explain it to Emma-Friend, she had guessed that it was similar to having a wall full of televisions, all providing different scenes, and each able to be followed closely or mostly ignored, yet never absent.

Never, that was, until the deaths of Eta and Rho. Now their portions of the connected consciousness, their television screens, as Emma-Friend would put it, were empty. Static had taken over where their thoughts, opinions, and feelings had been.

Stepping off of the bank roof as well, alongside Sigma, Alpha let herself fall to the ground. While she plummeted, the familiar red costume with its half-mask that covered her mouth rose up around her at a thought. Though the Pandoras had given themselves distinct forms, partially to express their growing individuality and partly to make Amy-Sister more comfortable with them, they still used identical costumes when operating in the field. Their separate heights and somewhat different builds made it clear that there was more than one of them, but the uniform equality of the costume itself expressed their connection so that most believed that they were a team of vigilantes.

Sigma and Gamma had both manifested their identical costumes as well, and the three of them stood on the steps of the bank a moment after easily landing. The strength and durability of the bodies that they had created meant that a simple jump off of the bank roof had not been enough to harm them.

"Search for Tiberius-Friend." Alpha instructed her sister-self. She, like the other two, chose to speak aloud rather than use their internal, silent connection. "We will focus on other threats."

Gamma-Self gave a sharp nod, her expression hidden behind the mask. Yet Alpha could feel her fear, the thought that something might have happened to the human boy while she was grieving the loss of Eta and Rho. She also felt Gamma's determination not to let anything like that happen if she could prevent it, as well as Sigma's quiet, yet powerful confidence in their ability to do just that.

They were connected in a way that no one outside of themselves could understand. They had their own thoughts, their own individuality, yet they were also able to constantly know what their other selves were doing. They were part of a larger whole, pieces within the Pandora collective that would never be completely alone. There was a comfort in that, a certainty of being part of something while still being their distinct selves, that could not be explained to those outside of it.

As one, and as individuals, they walked forward into the bank.

What had been silence on one side of the bank's doors, became a mixture of wailing and screams on the other side. As soon as the trio stepped through the doors, they could see blood littering the floor of the lobby in front of them, leading straight to the body of a uniformed security guard whose chest was full of at least half a dozen bullet wounds. Standing over the man, and currently staring at Alpha and her two sister-selves, was a shirtless, massively muscular man who wore a hockey mask with a demonic visage painted on the front of it. He held a bloody machete in one hand, and a sawed off shotgun in the other. Their entrance seemed to have interrupted him while he had been in the middle of severing the dead security guard's head, if the half-finished cut was any indication.

Recovering from the surprise of their entrance, the man straightened. He would have either said something or cried out, but Alpha was faster. Her figure melted into smoke before flying forward to envelop the man, aiming for his face first. Any words he might have said were reduced to a few gurgling noises that were lost amidst the screaming coming from further into the room.

A few seconds later and it was over. The man was gone, his physical material absorbed into Alpha's body and added to the Pandora collective. While Alpha reformed herself, the weapons that the man had been holding fell toward the ground, but were caught by Gamma and Sigma before the noise of hitting the floor could alert anyone else to their arrival. Barely three seconds had passed since the group had entered the bank.

Now able to look around, the three Pandoras took in the scene. To the left, where the information desk and security station were, a crowd of two dozen men wearing a mixture of hockey and ski masks stood facing a crowd of average civilians who had huddled into a corner. Each of the masked men was armed with a large assortment of weaponry, mostly guns.

While Alpha remained focused on analyzing the combat effectiveness of armed men, she simultaneously noted Gamma's search for Tiberius within the crowd of innocents, as well as Sigma's calm study of the opposite side of the bank, where several dead bodies lay scattered in front of and over the counter where the tellers were ordinarily stationed.

One of the masked men had been laughing uproariously while the trio entered the building. "Fuck yeah! You see that shit? Did you see that? That old broad's head just went pfffftttphh!" He made a strange noise with his lips, blowing them apart rapidly and spraying spittle everywhere since the ski mask he wore didn't cover his mouth. "Tell me you got it on video! Tell me we got it, Jack'll love it. Jack'll-"

Two of the younger hostages, a pair of children that Alpha estimated as being no older than ten, continued to wail and sob while huddled over the fallen body that must have been the deceased elderly person that the masked man was gloating about. Finally growing annoyed as their cries interrupted his boast, the man snapped down at them. "Hey! Shut the fuck up! You're lucky we don't... actually... you know, if anything's gonna get Jack's attention and convince him we're serious..." He reached down toward one of the children, the female.

His hand never reached the girl. A cloud of smoke flowed into his path before Sigma reformed herself and caught the man's arm in mid-motion.

All of the noise stopped abruptly. The wailing of the children and several other hostages as well as the gloating laughter and boasts of the masked men were all instantly cut off at the unexpected appearance of the red-masked figure, as though a switch had been flipped.

Into the silence, Sigma spoke. Her voice was as calm as ever, the poetry-loving Pandora's patience legendary even among the rest of her selves. "You will harm no one else."

"You-" That was as far as the man managed to get in his reply before he was interrupted by his own agonized scream as Sigma simply twisted her hand slightly, maintaining her grip on his arm so that a loud crack could be heard through the room as the bone within was broken so thoroughly that a piece of it tore through the muscle and skin to become visible to the open air.

"No one..." Sigma reiterated before giving a sharp yank that ended up hurling the man a good twenty feet before he crashed headlong into the opposite wall. "... else."

By that point, several of the masked men had realized what sort of trouble they were in, and spun around as though to flee. Finding themselves facing two more red-masked figures, they stopped short and seemed aimless, uncertain of what to do. Their confident boasting had given way to muttering.

A new arrival came before any of the men could decide what to do on their own, as a man shoved his way through a door marked Bank Employees Only. Like the others, he wore a simple mask and carried a pistol in one hand, his bearing that of someone that was accustomed to being obeyed. "What the fuck is going on out here, you lazy god damn..." Trailing off at the sight before him, the man looked at his frozen underlings, the civilians who had gone just as silent in the wake of this interruption, and at the three masked figures who had barged in to interrupt all of the fun.

Taking all of that in within a few seconds, the man raised his pistol, pointing it toward Sigma while bellowing, "Fucking murder the cunts!"

---

ALPHA – These men pose no threat. It would be a simple matter to absorb all of them.

SIGMA – Simple, yes. But would the point be made to others who wish to follow their example?

ALPHA – Sigma-Self wishes to do more than simply erase their existence?

SIGMA – Sigma-Self believes that these men have harmed innocents. They have made these ordinary humans feel as we did when our other selves were taken away. And these humans have no recourse, no protection. These men hurt them, and must be hurt in return. They must learn that we will not allow this to happen any more, and some of them must live to tell others of their lessons.

GAMMA – Gamma-Self agrees. And Gamma-Self cannot see Tiberius-Friend here. He must be beyond the door that the man who is their leader came from.

ALPHA – Alpha-Self and Sigma-Self will remove and... educate these men. Gamma-Self will go and search the building for Tiberius-Friend and other innocents. Is this agreeable?

GAMMA – Gamma-Self agrees.

SIGMA – Sigma-Self agrees.

---

By the time that the three of them had concluded their private, silent discussion, only a couple of seconds had passed. The Slaughterhouse Cultists were already throwing themselves into an all-out assault, screaming deafeningly and manically as though to bolster their own courage.

Alpha took a step forward, allowing two of the men to rush toward her with their weapons, a shotgun and a heavy pistol, respectively, raised. As the shotgun bucked in the nearest man's hand with a roar of destruction, she was already side-stepping. The blast tore past her to blow out the nearby glass doors, while Alpha easily caught the end of it. Ignoring the heat of the barrel, she tugged it out of the man's hand as easily as if he had been purposefully handing it to her. Twisting around him while he fumbled, she brought the gun swinging up and over to collide with the second man's outstretched hand holding his own gun. The collision of rifle butt against bone sent the pistol it flying out of his hand while he howled in pain and doubled over to grab his now broken hand.

Leaning sideways, Alpha brought her leg backward into a kick that knocked the first man's leg out from under him while he was trying to reorient himself. He fell back through the space that she had been in before she had leaned away, and she caught him under the arms before giving a shove toward the floor that knocked the second man's legs out, pitching himforward toward her while he was still holding his broken hand. She met his arrival with a derisive backhanded slap that knocked him sprawling to the floor, while simultaneously pitching the shotgun out of the way.

Meanwhile, Gamma had approached the man at the door. He lifted a pistol of what was probably a truly imposing size and aimed it at the smallest of the three Pandoras while snarling, "Wonder what Jack'll give me for mounting your head on the wall of this place."

He fired the gun, but Gamma had already split herself into a swarm of monarch butterflies. They flew forward, enveloping the man before turning back into the girl herself, standing behind him. The man had time to realize where the threat was and start to turn, before Gamma shoved her fist through his back with the ease of an ordinary person punching through wet leaves. Her hand easily tore into his body, caught hold of the man's heart, and ripped it back out again before the man fully understood what was happening.

He collapsed, and Gamma pivoted to continue her search through the building.

By that point, the next three men had come rushing toward Alpha. She met them easily, flowing through the group as though their attacks meant nothing. The few that she allowed to hit her rather than simply avoiding entirely were shrugged aside like water against a stone, while she took them apart with contemptuous ease.

Together, Alpha and Sigma completely destroyed the once-cocky cultists. They could easily have simply killed the men, but they chose to hurt them instead. They chose to break them, allowing them to attack and rewarding them with pain. Even when the men attempted to attack one of the Pandoras from behind, it did them no good. Not only were Sigma and Alpha's senses much too advanced for that, but the fact they constantly saw what each other could see meant that as long as they were facing one another, they were always aware of what was behind them.

Within less than a full minute, all of the nearly thirty men lay broken and bleeding on the floor in varying states of agony, while Alpha and her sister-self Sigma stood on either side of the pile, unharmed, and barely touched.

In the mean time, Gamma had worked her way through the staff area of the bank, locating ten more hostages in various locations, as well as at least that many dead victims. Finally, in a back corner office, she located Tiberius-Friend alongside several others, and was working to free them from their bonds after eliminating the two men who had been standing guard.

Back in the main lobby, Alpha made a point of stepping forward into the pile of fallen men so that her foot came down on one of their injured hands. His howl of agony caught the attention of the others, so that they focused on her as she began to speak.

"You will wait here and allow the human police force to detain you in their prison. If you escape, or ever harm another person, we will find you, and we will finish what was begun this day."

To punctuate her words, she held her arm out to the side, reshaping it into a dark red blade as wide as her own body in order to show them just how relatively easy she and Sigma had been taking it on them. They had formed no weapons, had used no additional powers or abilities aside from their toughness, strength, and prowess. Before their eyes, she brought the blade straight down to sever the arm of the man whose hand was trapped beneath her foot, as casually as if she had been snipping a simple garden weed. His howls of shock redoubled, and she stepped over him while continuing to speak. "We will allow you to live so that you may inform others that there will be no more murder of innocents."

Reaching down, she caught hold of one of the least injured of the men. He let out a screech of fear when Alpha hauled him to his feet, and she saw the wet stain appear in his green camouflaged pants.

"Remove your mask." She ordered, waiting until his shaking hands had obeyed, revealing a relatively young looking face, wet with tears from the fear that they had brought upon him. "You will go and tell any others who play these... games." She gestured to the rest of the fallen men. "Go and tell them that if we find them after this moment, we will not spare any more of their lives. They may either turn themselves into the authorities, or wait for us to hunt them down. But there is no hiding. Turn themselves in, or we will end their existence. After you have told them, you will go to the police station and surrender yourself. If you do not, we will find you."

The man gaped for a moment, mouth working as though he was afraid to test the fact that she was letting him go, at least for the moment.

"If you do not wish to be our messenger," Alpha informed him. "I may choose another."

"N-no, no problem, I'll tell 'em!" The man stumbled a little, falling over himself in his rush to flee. "Right to prison, I will, I swear! D-don't kill me, don't... I... I'll do it, I swear I'll do it!"

Looking away from the man, Alpha put him out of her mind and stepped over to the huddled civilians, who were staring at the two of them in shock. "You are free." She informed them. "Do as you wish."

She had just turned away from them when a sudden weight caught her around the waist. Looking down sharply, she blinked at the sight of the young girl clinging to her. "Please don't go." She pleaded, her voice full of fear. "What if more of them come. Please, please stay until the police come. Please?"

Looking toward the doorway where the masked Gamma was ushering Tiberius-Friend and the others that she had rescued into the main room, Alpha paused before asking, "You do not wish us to leave?"

The little girl shook her head rapidly, eyes welling with tears once more. "Th-there might be more bad guys. Th-they already... k-killed Gramma..."

Unsure of what she was feeling, Alpha gave a slow nod. "Very well... we will stay. We-" She cut herself off in surprise as the girl clung to her even tighter. Beside her, Sigma was enveloped in a hug from the boy-child, while the crowd around them quickly overcame their shock and fear to begin applauding, cheering their own rescue and the defeat of the men who had meant to sacrifice them to the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Slowly, uncertainly, Alpha lifted her own arms and returned the child's embrace with a grip that grew stronger over each passing second, her emotions wavering beneath the weight of what she was feeling in that moment.

"They will not harm you any longer," she informed the child, as well as everyone else. It was a promise that she meant to keep, an urge not to consume and improve themselves, but rather to protect. Whatever else happened, they... she would protect this child and the rest of the innocent people in this room. It had nothing to do with biological compulsion, and absolutely everything to do with humanity, the humanity that Alpha and the other Pandoras had found in spite of everything. "No one will harm you again.

"No one."

26.06

"You know, I'm pretty sure that a pardon doesn't include crimes that you commit after it's issued. In fact, I'm damn near certain 'breaking into a sandwich shop to steal their food' still counts as something that could get us both in a lot of trouble."

From where she was kneeling in front of the doors of the restaurant, Aisha Laborn continued to work carefully with the lockpicks while rolling her eyes at the words of her most recently acquired teammate. "Ballistic, you do know that I'm not a dyke, right?"

She could hear the frown in Luke's voice as he replied, "The hell does that have to do with anything?"

Smirking a little to herself, Aisha finished with her work on the lock and straightened while pushing the door open. "It means I'm not into pussies, so don't be one."

Stepping through the now-open doorway, the masked girl flicked on the lights and proceeded directly to the counter. "Besides, we're not stealing anything. Big bro made me promise to leave money for everything we take. Which is more than I think we really need to do, considering we're risking our lives while the people that are supposed to be working here are hiding out where it's safe. Least they can do is not bitch if we get some food that's gonna spoil anyway before they get back to it. So quit your bitching and help me make some grub for everybody."

Ignoring Luke's reply, she slipping into the back area and opened the walk-in freezer to start pulling out fresh materials for their sub sandwiches, dropping the full metal trays with the plastic wrap over them onto the convenient nearby wheeled cart. "Lessee, moosturd," she deliberately mispronounced the popular condiment. "Spicy moosturd, salami, ham, lettuce, pickles..." Trailing off, she began to hum to herself while loading the tray, doing a little dance there in the cooler for no other reason than because it amused her to do so. Which made up a pretty good portion of why she did anything these days. Life was too short to waste it doing too much stuff that wasn't amusing. She was only fourteen and even she knew that. Any time someone asked why she did something, there was at least a fifty percent chance that her completely and totally honest answer could be, "Because fuck it, that's why."

Before leaving the cooler, Aisha caught sight of herself in the reflective metal of one of the nearby pans. From the outside, her costume hadn't changed too much from when she had started out, back when she had just been desperate to save her big brother from prison. Her mask still looked a simple black full-face covering job with its red mark that looked like a hand raised to slap someone. The inside of it, however, had been upgraded. No longer a mundane ski mask, it contained night vision lenses that adjusted automatically to the light level, hearing protection that would either magnify sound or dampen it as needed, and other things such as a full communications array that allowed all of the team members to talk with whatever teammates they wanted to, anywhere in the city. Plus, maybe most importantly, the costume materials had been upgraded from simple cotton or whatever to some kind of stuff that could supposedly take a bullet from a handgun without breaking through.

Not that she planned on testing that any time soon, but with things going the way they were, you never knew. Things were so... different than they had been not so long ago that she still sometimes had to take a moment to remember where she was after waking up in the middle of the night. Aisha's life had changed so much in such a relatively short time that she often wondered if the her from six months earlier would be envious, start laughing at how stupid her older self was for thinking any of this would last, or be utterly disgusted. Or some mixture of all three.

At times like this, Aisha had to admit that she was rather difficult to predict, even for herself. But at least she wasn't, repulsed shudder incoming, boring. She'd rather be dead than boring.

After loading the cart with a bit of everything, she gave it a kick to send it rolling out into the front area before trailing after it. "You got that list thing with everyone's order on it that Titty gave you?"

Coughing, Luke spread the paper out on the counter while casting a look her way through his mask. "You know Tattletale loathes that nickname, right? As in, keep using it and I'd be nervous about drinking or eating anything she handed me without some kind of food tester."

Smirking to herself, Aisha grabbed a long loaf of bread and shrugged while slathering spicy mustard onto it. "Hey, she can't blame me. I'm just calling her by the name she kept signing her e-mails with. I've got the documentation to prove it. It says right at the bottom, Titty."

"I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be T T."

"Eh, tomato, titty-ahto."

---

One of Bitch's dogs came running up to the car as soon as Luke had parked it in the back lot behind the building that served as the Undersider's base of operations. From the outside, the place looked like a private accounting office, and thanks to Tattletale's insistence, actually did employ a few people in the front area for that very purpose as camouflage.

When Brian had asked why they needed to go through such pains to hide where they were headquartered since they had gone legitimate and the PRT had no reason to come after them, Lisa had replied that just because they weren't the bad guys anymore didn't mean that it was smart to let everyone know where they were all the time. They still had enemies, and there were plenty of people who held a grudge on both sides of the cape scene.

In Aisha's opinion, Tattletale had just really, really wanted a secret lair and was going to make any kind of excuse it took to get one. Not that she objected, of course. Secret lairs were awesome.

Stepping out of the car with her armload of food, she gave the dog a narrow look. "Hey, I tried to give you a treat last time we brought stuff back. I told you to keep it secret and you carried it right to Bitch. I ain't going through that 'don't give my dogs human food' hissy fit again, pal."

The dog just whined at her while Bitch herself approached from where she had been sitting in the shade of the building. She was flanked by several more dogs who had stayed right with their Mistress despite the fact that their ears and noses had perked up as soon as the car stopped.

Silently, Aisha reached into the bag and withdrew a meatball sub, holding it out to the other girl. She and Bitch didn't always get along super well, but they tolerated each other at least. For the most part, they left each other alone and did their own things unless there was a case to work on. The fact was, Aisha liked to mess with people, and Bitch, or Rachel, hated feeling like she was being messed with. In Aisha's opinion, the older girl overreacted even more than most people.

Either way, the two of them had learned early on that they were never going to be best friends, but they were still able to work together when they needed to. Aisha trusted Bitch to watch her back in a life and death situation, she just didn't particularly like to hang out with the girl.

Taking the sub, Bitch unwrapped it and took a large, noisy bite, getting sauce over her face in the process. She chewed and swallowed mechanically before speaking. "Get actual dog food this time?"

"Back here." Luke spoke up for her, lifting the trunk of the car and hauling out two heavy bags of the stuff with a grunt. "Picked it up from that place on Fifth. You're lucky, the dog food aisle was pretty much the only one the looters hadn't already picked clean."

Those two headed over to the kennel taking up half the parking lot where Bitch's dogs slept,trailed by the pack of hungry hounds. Aisha watched them go for a moment before heading inside.

For all its outwardly mundane appearances, the steel reinforced door at the building's rear required a seven digit code that Tattletale had forced Aisha to memorize rather than write down, a thumb print and retinal scanner, and a voice match. When pressed on whether all of that was necessary, Lisa had insisted that they could never be too careful.

Aisha was pretty sure it still fit her 'Titty really fucking wants a god damn secret lair' theory.

Speaking of the devil, she was just raising her hand to put in the code to start the overly elaborate entry process when the door beeped and opened from the other side, revealing Tattletale. She was with Noelle, the two of them obviously on their way out.

"Oh, you made it back." Lisa was in costume, while Noelle was still wearing her civilian clothes. She had decided to take the name of Veritas given her ability to know when people were lying, but they hadn't had a chance to actually find or make her a real costume just yet. When it was necessary to hide her identity from people, the girl was still just pulling on a ski mask. It was cheap, but effective.

"Yeah, got food." Aisha held the bag up for them. "As promised. Where're you going?"

It was Noelle who answered, the smile on her face growing with a note of what sounded an awful lot like pride. "Amy killed Crawler."

Visibly deflating while shooting the other girl what was obviously a hurt look, Lisa complained, "Didn't we just agree that I could tell everybody about that?"

Noelle shrugged, though the small smile that tugged at her face made Aisha like her just a little bit more. "Technically, we agreed that you could tell the group. This isn't the whole group. And Aisha doesn't pay attention during team meetings anyway."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Raising her hands to gesture for them both to stop and nearly dropping the bags of food in the process, Aisha demanded, "What the fuck are you talking about? Who killed Crawler?"

"Panacea," Tattletale replied before elaborating. "He killed her dad and she flipped out, apparently."

"But... but..." Aisha sputtered a bit. "How? He's... Crawler and she's just a fucking healer. What'd she do, medicate him to death?"

Tattletale gave one of her vulpine smiles that suggested she knew more than she was telling, while replying dismissively. "Pretty much. Come on, the Wards want to meet up to talk about what we're gonna do next. We can talk about it on the way." She pursed her lips and whistled toward the corner where Luke and Rachel were with the dogs, waving to get their attention.

Still reeling from the news that Crawler had been killed, Aisha managed to ask, "Where's Brian and Elias?" Her brother had taken to keeping the former Merchant with him most of the time. He claimed it was to stop acting like a dumb thug, but Aisha was pretty sure his main goal was keeping Elias away from her. As if she needed protection.

"Vacate's grabbing a bigger vehicle so we can transport the dogs more easily." Tattletale turned while continuing to point over her shoulder. "Brian's changing clothes. He should be down any-"

That was as far as she got, before a deafening crash from overhead interrupted her words. Aisha felt shards of glass shower all around her, glancing off her costume. Something much heavier than glass hit the ground right behind her, and her surprised backwards stumble sent her tripping over it to sprawl hard on the pavement with a yelp.

Rolling over just as fast, she lashed out with a hand defensively, intent on freezing whatever had tried to attack her. Her flailing hand caught hold of a sleeve, but before she could release her power, her brain caught up with her eyes and realized who she was grabbing.

"Brian?" She asked dully, staring at the fallen form of her older brother. He was lying there on his back, costume only half on, his helmet missing. Dark patches of blood spread out along the pavement from several deep gashes in his chest, and his eyes were open wide while he struggled to speak, only getting out a few sounds here and there.

It didn't register, not at first. The sight of Brian laying there, so badly hurt, didn't compute. For a moment, Aisha just sat there, her brain refusing to acknowledge what it was seeing. It just locked up, like her old cell phone, giving no reaction whatsoever. She just... stopped.

It was Tattletale who knocked her out of it, physically and mentally, by plowing into Aisha, tackling her out of the way just as a figure dropped down where she had been next to her brother.

The two of them rolled a few feet along the pavement, Aisha squirming free just in time to see Mannequin, that creepy fuck from the Slaughterhouse Nine. The crazy fucking tinker was just yanking a blade out of the cement where Aisha had been sitting, retracting it back into his arm. He was faced away from them, but his body was flopped over so much that his head, twisted almost a hundred and eighty degrees on its own, was able to look directly at them.

Aisha's eyes were on the blood that covered the blade he was retracting. Her brother's blood.

Mannequin was just orienting himself, deploying a new blade from his opposite arm, when a loud shot rang out, followed by two more. Noelle, pistol yanked from its concealing holster at her back, was opening up on him. The gun worked with lasers rather than bullets, so there was no ricochet. Still, it had little effect other than to catch his attention.

He started to move on her, but before he could raise that blade, one of Bitch's dogs, already partially grown, came charging up with a challenging bark.

Mannequin, however, was entirely too fast. His entire body and all its parts dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, allowing the first dog to simply sail over him. Before the dog could land and reorient, a small compartment on one of the tinker's arms popped open to unleash a half dozen spikes that shot into its side. The animal let out a howl of agony before crashing to the ground with a whine, twitching a few times.

Somewhere in the background, Aisha could hear more of the dogs coming, while their mistress screamed, "Kill! Rip, tear, kill!"

Lisa too, had produced a laser handgun, adding her own fire to Noelle's from the other side. The two pelted the mad tinker under an intense barrage for several seconds, just before a trashcan lid came slamming up into the figure with the force of a speeding car, courtesy of Ballistic. The distraction of the lasers had served its purpose, and Mannequin took the blow on the chest, sending him sprawling end over end like an old toy action figure.

It didn't keep him down, however. He reoriented in mid-air, feet going down to catch himself. However, taking a look at what he faced, the tinker immediately bent down before leaping up. His arm extended to catch a nearby window sill in order to yank the rest of his body up after it, and he used that to launch himself around the corner of the building.

In an instant, Aisha was on her feet, starting to chase after him. Before she could, however, Lisa caught her by the arm and yanked her back.

"Let me go!" She demanded, flailing to free herself.

Lisa didn't. Instead, she pointed with her other hand, while also hitting a button on the cell phone that she held in it. "Go to Brian!" Bringing the phone up, she shouted, "Panacea, we need a healer! Healer, right now, outside the headquarters. It's Grue. It's Grue, he needs a healer right now!"

Aisha, for her part, stopped listening. She could vaguely hear the sound of Ballistic, Veritas, and Bitch carrying on the chase after Mannequin, while Tattletale called for help. But her eyes were locked on her brother's form, while she dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands lifted as though to cover his wounds, but there were so many of them. He'd been cut in at least half a dozen places throughout his chest even before being pitched out the third story window.

"Brian, bro, hold on." She felt her voice crack and cursed inwardly. "I-it's all right, okay? Don't be a pussy, bro. Healer's coming. Panacea's-" Her voice cracked once again, and she had to close her eyes briefly before pressing on. "Panacea's on her way, so you'll be fine. You'll be fine." If she said it enough times, it had to be true, right?

A hand touched hers, and Aisha opened her eyes once more to find Brian staring at her. His fingers curled around hers while he struggled to speak, finally managing a single word, his shortened name for her. "Eesh..."

"Shut up!" She demanded, suddenly hysterical. "Shut up, idiot. Just shut the fuck up, okay? You're trying to give me some stupid fucking last words, and I'm not listening. I'm not listening to your fucking last words, so you have to stay alive, get it? Stay alive, you fucking pussy. Stay alive because I'm not listening right now, so you can't-" She couldn't say the word. "You can't... you have to stay with me. Panacea's coming, you fucking asshole. You shut the fuck up and stay alive because Panacea is coming! She's coming, she's almost here! You know she can heal you, so don't close your eyes, don't give up, Brian. Brian! You hear me? Are you listening? Don't be a pussy, you'll be okay, you'll-"

His hand squeezed hers so tightly that she stopped talking, staring down at the broken form of her older brother, her protector, her guardian in so many ways even before it had been legally acknowledged.

"Eesh..." He forced out past cracked and bloodied lips. "You... are..."

Silence followed those words. Aisha shifted, eyes widening as she blurted, "What? I'm what?! Brian, I'm what!?" Her voice grew more hysterical with each passing word. "I'm listening, bro! I'm listening, I swear! Tell me. Tell me what you wanted to tell me! Brian, tell me! Brian! Bri-" Abruptly, her voice was overtaken by her own broken sobs, the realization that her brother would never finish his sentence overriding her desperate denial.

"No, no, no. Please, please, no, please. Don't go, don't leave me alone again. Don't leave me! I can't be alone again, I can't be alone, Brian, please! Please! Please don't leave me alone!"

The words, useless as water flung against a windshield, filled the air while Aisha continued to cling to her brother. She held him, shook him, and screamed, all to no avail. He was gone.

He was gone, and she was alone again. Another person had abandoned her. Another person had been ripped away, leaving her behind.

As she lay on the pavement, clinging to her brother's still, silent form, Aisha Laborn's eyes closed, and she knew nothing else, while the image of a massive, all-encompassing creature that dwarfed the stars drifted through through her memory, just as it had once before.

She dreamt, and her power... changed.