A/N: Chap 49 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks for reading!


Ascension 6.5

Sergeant Tonya Oppenlaender knew Exeter.

Like both her parents before her, and their parents before them, Tonya was born in Exeter Hospital. She went to high school with the rest of the kids of her generation at the old, overcrowded "Tuck" building, originally built in 1912 and showing every one of its years.

She did four years in criminal justice in Boston and thought briefly that city life was exactly what she wanted. She joined the BPD and served five years in the gang-ridden city. Over those five years she received five citations, two bullet wounds, and mandatory psychiatric and master/stranger counseling after a terrifying run-in with the Fallen.

She could remember as if it were just that morning when Tony crashed into her small, ratty apartment and the couch where she'd spent most of her leave in socks, boxers and her dad's old plaid button-up, and hugged her until she couldn't breathe. Her old on again/off again high school sweetheart had driven all the way from Exeter the day after she was released from the hospital and cleared by the PRT master screening after her run-in with Valefor of the Fallen

"I've got a ring," he told her, breathless as if he'd just run a marathon. "Got the house, Grandma willed it to me. Come home, Tonya. I don't care if you wear a badge and a gun. I don't ever wanna receive a call like I did this morning from your mom. I just…please come home, baby. It's where you need to be."

A marriage, two kids and six years later, she admitted to herself that he was right. She was right where she needed to be.

She wasn't just a veteran cop, she was native. She knew the people of her small town as neighbors and friends, and could spot an out-of-towner in a second. She could spot trouble even faster. The four she watched at that moment were about as troubling a group of out-of-towners as she'd ever seen.

An African-American male, approaching seven feet and three hundred pounds easy, stood out in Exeter like a unicyclist in a clown suit. He was accompanied by a well-built African-American female and a petite white female, all of whom looked like they were in their teens. Having served in Boston, she half expected them to put on masks and costumes.

The strange kids sat in a Ford Suburban registered to Amanda Hugginkiss at 1666 Liberace Blvd, Brockton Bay. Even if the registry itself weren't so obviously fake, the fact that the three were parked in a quiet residential area at night eating McDonalds and watching the recently sold Oldenmaier house set off pretty much every alarm bell Tonya had in her mind.

She started to reach for her car radio when she felt something on her hand and froze. A very large black widow spider crawled on the back of her hand. She started to carefully move to swat it when she felt something crawling on her neck. Suddenly she felt half a dozen more spiders crawling over every inch of exposed skin. Not all were black, either.

"That one's a brown recluse," a young, cold voice said. She turned to the figure who suddenly appeared at the passenger's side of her patrol car and stared at a face she'd seen on her television at night and in APB memos from every federal agency in the country. The fourth figure from the car.

The broad, thin-lipped mouth and high cheeks set in a long face looked striking and memorable, though not what most would consider attractive. Her hair was shorter than it was in the APB notice that adorned Tonya's cubicle at Headquarters.

"Skitter. Taylor Hebert. What the hell…?"

Hebert opened the door and calmly climbed in. Tonya noticed the pistol in the girl's hand immediately. Smith and Wesson, .32 revolver. The teen villain didn't even bother aiming it, though. Why bother when she had lethal spiders covering every exposed inch of Tonya's skin?

"Here's what's going to happen," Taylor said. "You're going to drive us to 811 Bittersweet Lane with your lights on. You're going to knock on the door and tell whoever's inside the house that there's been a report of a rabid dog on their property."

"What makes you think I'm going to cooperate with you?"

Skitter's stare looked empty and dark. "Your husband just put your youngest son to bed. The boy's name is Timothy Andrew. I know because your husband used his full name when he slipped out of the tub and ran naked all over your second floor just now. His room is covered with soldier ants. They can eat him down to his bones in an hour."

Tonya's eyes grew hot with rage and terror. "You bitch."

"You can't even begin to imagine," Skitter said. "If you cooperate, we leave and you hopefully never hear from us again. But understand this, Sergeant. I control every insect in this town. I don't have to think about making them do things any more than you think about scratching your nose. And once I give an order, they continue that order even if I'm unconscious or dead. Do you understand?"

Tonya ground her teeth. "Yes."

"Then let's go.'

Tonya fought back the old familiar shakes in her hands as she started the car and flipped the lights. She drove right past the Suburban, but in doing so saw that it was empty. The three odd teens inside were not there.

"There are twenty-two men in that house," Skitter said in a low, intense tone. Not a whisper, but quiet regardless. "They are heavily armed and will not hesitate to shoot a uniformed police officer. There is also a twelve-year-old girl, and possibly a second girl fourteen or more. Most likely the twelve-year-old has been tortured with drugs. Once you get the door open, you're free. Get the hell out and don't stop running until you're with your family."

"What the fuck is going on here?" Tonya demanded.

"We're rescuing one of the most powerful precogs in the world from a real monster," Skitter said. "Do you understand? Get the door open for me, then get the hell out."

"Right."

Tonya had to fight against every instinct she had to keep from looking at her own house, which was just across the street and one house down from 811 Bitterwseet. She tried to remember when the current owners moved in after Old Man Oldenmaier finally died and his house was sold as part of his estate.

She saw curtains flick aside as she pulled up to the curb. Whoever was in the house knew she was there, though with her lights on everyone on the street knew she was there. She noticed how the villainess beside her scrunched down out of sight in her seat.

"If you hurt my son, I will kill you," Tonya said simply.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, then," came the laconic response.

Tonya climbed out, adjusted her belt, and started walking toward the door. Once out, she pulled her collar receiver. "Dispatch, this is Oppenlaender. Be advised…"

Spiders. They covered her hand in a living fabric. Could the little bitch even hear her? The difference between a rookie cop and an experienced cop was pragmatism. Not worth the risk. "Be advised possible rabid dog in the area."

"Copy. I'll let animal control know."

"Copy. Out." She let the receiver fall back to her collar and continued toward the door. The spiders crawled to the back on her shirt. It wasn't a cold night, so she'd left her jacket off and could feel every one of the little monsters.

She lost the battle with the shakes but hid it by rapping on the door three times. "Police," she called. Even her voice shook.

The door opened to reveal a tall, well-built man with a cleft chin, short-cropped blonde hair and eyes the color of the arctic. He wore jeans like they were a pressed uniform, and a heavy wool shirt and jacket that barely concealed the bulge of a firearm. If she weren't scared out of her sights, hopelessly in love with her husband, and a consummate professional, she would have admitted the man was ridiculously hot.

He even sounded sexy. A controlled, smooth baritone voice. "What can I…?"

That's all she got to hear from that sexy voice of his, though. Before he finished his sentence, the air around Tonya exploded as a Biblical plague of insects swarmed into the house. Their passage was so intense it created a tunnel of wind that pushed her into the stunned man.

She was not expecting him to respond by trying to knee her in the crotch while yanking a large K-bar from behind his back even while he fell. While it wouldn't cause the same level of debilitating agony a man might experience, Tonya knew from harsh experience that a knee to the crotch hurt women too. She pulled her thigh enough to intercept the kick and instead concentrated on the more immediate threat of the knife, even as the two of them fell back into the house.

She didn't have to fight long. At least a thousand insects, from flies and mosquitoes to biting cow flies, slammed into his face much like they might slam into a windshield of a fast moving car. He lowered his knife as he reached with the other hand for his face. While it'd been a while since her last defense refresher course, she remembered enough to twist his wrist, free the knife and stab it down.

She scrambled back, her heart thudding so loud it made her ears ache, as blood gushed out of the man's neck wound. Loud steps forced her eyes up and she saw five men in heavy, black tactical gear just as good as anything their local Special Response team could have rushing toward her, automatic carbines already pointed right at her.

I'm sorry, Tony.

The shot that made her jump didn't hit her, though. She stumbled back from the man she killed as one of the new attacking men fell in a flash of blood momentarily lost in the swarming insects.

Hebert walked in, gun arm extended, with her revolver barking off shots without hesitation. Insects swarmed the faces of each agent within sight until they fell, one-bullet, one kill. Tonya stared in shock as this gangly teenaged girl snapped off shots like something from a movie set, perfectly aimed. When her revolver ran empty, she holstered it and removed an automatic.

Tonya was so caught up in the sheer impossibility of the teenager's marksmanship that she didn't hear the fight in the back until another heavily armed man flew backward into the floor of the living room to her left. She began climbing to her feet when the outer wall of that living room abruptly, inexplicably split in a series of straight lines until it formed a perfect square. The sides glowed bright red before the entire three square meter section of wall blasted into house.

The petite female from the Suburban rushed in, a tactical vest thrown over the blouse she wore earlier. She froze and looked up at the ceiling. Tonya started to run toward her as another hostile arrived, but the air in front of her suddenly blackened as a swarm of bugs blocked her path. "NO," the bugs seemed to say in a chorus of chirps and buzzes.

Abruptly the ceiling over the living room cracked just like the wall did. The hostile cried out and tried to scramble away only for the three square meter piece of ceiling to crush him to the floor. Resting squarely on the collapsed ceiling was a heavy four-poster bed. On it was a young girl who bounced boneless from the mattress, as if heavily asleep or…

Drugged.

The cape caught the girl in her arms and started to rush back out the hole she made, only to find her path blocked by two more hostiles.

One managed to get two shots off as the cape cried and tried to shield the girl with her own body. Bugs collapsed on the hostiles, followed a split second later by the unerring bullets of Taylor Hebert.

"Schism, you good?"

That was Hebert.

"Just need new shorts," came the shaky response. "Dinah's out of it."

"Everyone report!" Hebert again. "Anyone have eyes on Imp?"

"I have her. She asks why you took so fucking long." A high pitched, youthful male voice.

"Clear!" Female, a southern drawl in her words.

Tonya tried to register where the voices were coming from, but as she turned to move she felt her right leg give. Momentarily confused, she looked down to see blood spilling from her gut. "Oh shit, not again," she muttered as she fell.

"Fuck!" She tried to secure her sidearm as Hebert caught her head before it hit. "Schism, Little Man, portkey out! Qiana, help me!"

Tonya caught the briefest glimpse of the petite female clutching a girl not that much smaller than her disappear with a pop. Moments later the thick-set African American girl was by Hebert, both looking down at her.

"Fuck, gut-shot," the newcomer said. "Skitter, short of a cape there ain't no healing that."

She sounded Texan. Tonya fought an insane desire to ask her to say 'ya'll.'

"She has kids," Skitter said. "I'm not going to let them lose their mom."

"She worth getting caught?"

"Yeah."

Even as shaken and cold as she was, Tonya expected the new girl to fight. Stress was often what made criminals turn on each other. Instead, the girl named Qiana shrugged. "Your call. What'd you gonna do?"

Hebert removed a tinkertech phone of some kind and made a call. "They back yet?"

Tonya couldn't hear the response, only that Hebert nodded. "I need Mage here, now."

Not a second later, Tonya heard another pop and suddenly Harry Bailey, the slayer of Leviathan, stood beside his girlfriend, the slayer of Legend.

"What's…is that a cop? I thought we weren't going to hurt any cops?"

"I didn't shoot her, doofus," Taylor snapped back. "It was an opportunity. She got the door open and pulled attention to the front so Little Man and Smolder could take out the back. Schism came in the side under Dinah's room and got her out. Little Man got Imp. Tattletale okay?"

"Oh, yeah, that was easy," Harry said. "The bomb Coil put in her head was organic, so Panacea had it gone in a second. Tattletale's back home asleep. Panacea said she'd check Dinah and Imp for us, no cost. So, how'd the cop get shot?"

"Coil's men."

"Right. So…"

"Hurry, Harry. Her husband and eldest daughter are coming along with all the neighbors and more cops to see what's wrong. They don't need to see her hurt."

Mage knelt down and with a wave of her hand, Tonya's Kevlar vest and shirt were gone. "Wow, they must have been using those armor piercers," Mage noted. "Officer, my healing magic is touch based. I'm going to have to touch you, so please don't slap me."

"Boy, just fuckin' heal her," Qiana said.

Harry grinned, and then with surprisingly gentleness placed both his hands on her lower abdomen, his left right over the scar from her last C-section, the other over her navel. Abruptly a near painful heat, like a too-hot sauna, washed into her stomach. The heat burned away the pain and acid in her stomach, then continued north.

"Oh, fuck, she's had a run in from another cape," he said.

"What?"

"I can sense something fucked in her head," he said.

"Harry, we need to go!" Hebert snarled.

Mage shrugged. "If we let shit like this stand, we're not any better than Alexandria or the other fucks who murdered Legend. If we're going to heal her, then let me heal her."

"Hey, what are you…?"

Tony. Tonya caught a glimpse of her husband's horrified expression as he held their daughter in his arms. God, get Kimberly out of here!

Tonya's husband and oldest daughter cried out in alarm as the air between them and her solidified into a wall of living insects.

Mage let go of her bare stomach, leaving it cold from the absence of his hands. "Officer, there's a block in your memory. The kind that can fester until it develops real, physical consequences like an aneurysm. You run into any capes?"

"Valefor," Tonya whispered, too stunned to fight or move. "In Boston."

Mage nodded, frowning. "Look, I know some magic that should be able to restore the memory and remove the block. But it's not something I'm going to do without permission, not to you or anyone else who isn't trying to kill me or mine. But I should warn you, you're not going to make it past fifty if that thing stays in your head."

"You threatened my family."

Mage frowned, then scowled at Skitter. "Really?"

"It wasn't like she was going to cooperate," the villainess said. "Besides, there aren't any soldier ants in this town. It's not my fault she doesn't know her insects."

Mage snorted before looking down at Tonya. She was healed, she didn't hurt anywhere at all, but she was also surrounded by three deadly capes. "Why are you offering?"

"Because Taylor and me are orphans," Mage said. "And it sucks. No kid should have to see their mum die. Ever. So, will you let me heal you?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Tonya simply nodded. Mage grasped both sides of her head and looked into her eyes. She had a feeling as if she were falling, and then…then…

Moakley Park. Police and PRT agents took shelter as best they could as the Butcher's Teeth fought the Fallen, while Accord's army of capes sewed chaos into an already impossible situation. Officers and agents alike were shouting. One of the PRT agents was screaming for Protectorate Capes to come. Another screamed that Reynard was en route.

Tonya clutched her assault rifle to her chest as she squatted down behind Denny's patrol car. Denny himself lay in front of the car, unmoving and bleeding out. Giving all the capes involved in the fighting were villains, all officers on scene were 'weapons free'.

Not that a gun could do anything to Butcher or her pet capes.

She took a series of deep breaths to calm herself and get ready to go for Denny's body, when she abruptly realized someone was kneeling in front of her. The figure was slim and effeminate, but from the shape of his chin and Adam's apple not a woman despite the fairy-like mask and the blue lace dress he wore.

Despite Latin-brown skin, his eyes were an indescribable shade. Not black, not brown, not blue, just…perfect.

"Hey, you're pretty hot for a cop. Show me your tits."

She did, pulling off her tactical gear so she could unbutton her shirt and lift her bra. She didn't even think twice about it.

"Nice. Too bad we don't have more time, love pussy in uniform. So, how 'bout this. Get naked. Because I wanna see your body. Then take that gun of yours and shoot every cop you can. If you survive, and get married and have kids, I want you to wait until your oldest kid graduates high school, and then fucking shoot him or her in the head. Sound good?"

"Yes."

A corner of Tonya's mind screamed and raged even as she stood up, braving flying bullets and knives and all the other weird powers, and stripped naked. The horrid cape, Valefor, smirked as he stared at her body. When she was fully nude, she lifted her assault rifle and walked toward the nearest patrol car. That would have been Sergeant White, her immediate superior.

Like she'd been, he was huddled behind his squad car for protection, along with a rookie and Officer Michaels. The rookie saw her first. "Holy shit, is that Parks?"

Parks. Her maiden name. Before Tony came and shared his with her. She nodded to the rookie, then shot him in the head. The kid was just two years younger than she was, but two years in Boston was a lifetime.

"She's mastered!" White shouted. "Where the fuck's the containment foam?"

She lifted her gun, aiming at White's head, when her time ran out. Michaels shot her, upper right shoulder, a second in her thigh. She dropped with a scream of anguish and pain, abruptly released from Valefor's power, and didn't move again until….until…

She found herself blinking up at intense green eyes. It stunned her to see that Mage was teary eyed. "Fuck," he whispered. "I'm sorry, Tonya. It was still there—the compulsion. Twelve more years, you'd have had to shoot your daughter."

Tonya reached up to wipe her eyes. "It's gone?"

"Yeah, it's all clear. You're healed, completely. Went ahead and took care of the keloid scarring, too. My advice, stay out of Boston. Place makes Brockton Bay look…nah. Take that back. Brockton Bay's still worse." He stood before swaying a little.

"Harry!" Taylor's voice held real concern, like Tonya's herself when Tony collapsed because of his appendicitis. It was the tone someone in love used when their loved one was hurt.

"Fine, just…was a bit harder to do than I thought it would be. We need to go."

"What about the Surburban?" Qiana asked.

"I can apparate us to it, then we drive," Harry said.

He nodded down to Tonya. "Live a long life, Officer. Make sure your kids know you love 'em. And stay away from Capes. We're nothing but trouble."

Abruptly all three were gone. The wall of insects separating her from the rest of the house collapsed, revealing almost the entire Exeter police department, two county deputies, firemen, and bodies from all the hostiles they killed.

There were also six PRT agents in full gear with containment foam dispensers on their backs. "Sergeant Oppenlaender, your record suggests your familiar with Master Containment protocols. Will you cooperate?"

Tonya looked down at her bare stomach. Her C-section scar was gone. She glanced up at Kimberly, six and teary-eyed to see her mother on the ground amidst the carnage. Tony held her in his arms on the edge of the broken home, stricken with worry.

But they were alive. "Yeah, I'm fine, I'll cooperate," she said. "Tony, sweetie, I'm fine. Take Kimberly back to the house. The protocols take two days, then I'll be home. I promise, I'm okay. Better than okay."

Because her little Kimberly was NOT going to get shot on her graduation day. Fuck you, Valefor!


*This chapter was heavily inspired by the first season of the Netflix series Jessica Jones. Tenant's Purple Man was one of the most insidious villains I've seen portrayed on the small screen. He is my inspiration for Valefor.