[Taylor]
I stared dumbly at Amelia, unsure what to say. I'd always known, in an abstract kinda way, that Panacea was a real person under her mask. All capes were, but I'd never really stopped to think about who she might be.
That she was Amelia, the mousy girl I'd randomly met in at the mall was almost comical.
Leaning forward, I rubbed the tip of my horn between my fingers, I opened my mouth to speak, but Amelia held a hand up to stop me.
"Before you get mad," she said quickly, "please remember; I live in a world were masters and strangers are a thing. I've been nearly kidnapped four times in life, the was first when I was only six and I lost my dad. I have to be careful about who I tell, as unmasking puts not only me at risk, but my foster parents, everyone who works at this clinic, my fri-"
Fear and panic were rolling off her in waves, the taste of it sour in my mouth. Crossing the room I put my hands on her shoulders to stop her babbling.
"I'm not mad," I said firmly in an effort to calm her down. "I'm just… surprised… It's kind of hard to imagine that the mousy girl who had spent the day flirting with me was actually Panacea."
Amelia stared at me, her cheeks reddening. "Those jeans did look good on you," she said, her blush deepening as her eyes widened in surprise.
My own face felt red hot, but I tried to act unaffected. "Well, at least you know how I got them on?"
We stared wordlessly at each other for a moment, Amelia's shoulders trembling under my hands. The silence was broken when she snorted as she fought to keep a straight face and we both started giggling.
"Are, are we okay?" Amelia said between gasps once we started to calm down. "I understand if you need time."
With a sigh and a shake of my head, I pulled Amelia into a one armed hug. Of course, given our position, I mostly ended up pressing her face into the side of my breast but I didn't mind.
"We're fine. I was just surprised. How did you even end up here?"
She shrugged and I eased my grip so she could pull away, her face glowing red.
"Got powers, needed to pay the bills. After that, everything just sorta happened."
The relief pouring off her body was literally palpable to me. Letting go, I returned to my seat and picked up my lunch. "Were you really that worried about telling me?"
"I've… had things go badly in the past." Grabbing her own lunch, she took a rough bite. "Friends that were… put off, or worse, started asking for nothing but favours."
"Lotta boob jobs?"
She snorted and took another bite of her lunch. "Among other things. One actually turned out to be a member of the ABB and it ended badly for both of us."
Her mood dropped and tension filled the air. Not sure what I should do or say, we both quietly ate our lunches. I racked my brain for something, anything, to fill the silence, but 'sorry' didn't feel right.
Still lost in thought, I shifted in my seat, the small belt pouch that was attached to my costume was digging into my side. As I tried to reposition it, an idea came to me.
"Hey, wanna see something cool?"
"... sure?"
Reaching into the pouch, I pulled out one of the cards I had stuffed inside.
These were an experiment of sorts, something I'd considered using before creating my wands. Each card was going to have a spell written on it, making them an easy 'one use' magic item. The downside was that most spells destroyed the cards after use, meaning I'd constantly be remaking them and unless every card was the same spell, I'd have to flip through the entire deck to find the one I wanted.
That made them useless in a fight, but they were a good way to test spells before putting them on my wand.
"So," I said, turning the card between my fingers. "One of the books I read said it was possible to create moving images." It also included an example of the spell that I'd copied and modified. "They can't touch anything, but with the right wording, they can do this."
Putting the card on the sofa cushion next to me, I pushed magic into the card.
The lines of the spell glowed faintly before motes of multicoloured lights started to rise from it. They grew bigger as they rose into the air, reshaping into clouds of butterflies that fluttered around the room.
Amelia stared in open wonder as they flew around, landing on the furniture or flying in circles overhead, tiny motes of light falling like dust from their wings and vanishing as it hit the ground.
"Can you control them, how long will this last?"
"A bit," I said, making them circle Amelia's head like a flower crown. I kinda wanted to land one on her nose, but the spell didn't give me enough fine control for that. "The spell should end when I let go of the card."
"Should?"
"The illusion ends when there's no more magic, I'm just not sure if it's-"
There was a knock on the door, making us both jump though I managed to keep my finger on the card.
"It's me!" Karen called out. "Can I come in?"
Amelia pointed to my mask and I shrugged. Karen already knew what I looked like after all.
"Go ahead!"
The door opened and Karen stepped in, stopping as the butterflies swarmed around her, landing on her broad shoulders and making Amelia giggle.
"Well…" Karen said with a raised eyebrow and dry smile, "I'm glad you two are getting along, but unfortunately the Wards are in reception.
"What, why, is something wrong?" Amelia stood up quickly, knocking her lunch to the floor.
"No, everything seems to be fine. They have asked if you could look at a couple of old injuries but…" Karen paused, looking between Amelia and me before sighing and pressing her hand against her forehead. "I suspect the real reason is to investigate Miss Hebert."
"Me? What did I do?"
"Really?" Amelia gave me a flat, unimpressed look, but she radiated amusement and I blushed.
"That's not fair! I didn't cause any of that!" Okay, so maybe I'd been caught up in one or two 'disturbances' but I only actively caused one of them and he was threatening me. "Besides, they can't have linked it to here, I don't even look like a demon right now."
"She's right," Karen nodded with a sigh. "If anything, I suspect they are simply here to investigate the new healer. We should have expected it, to be honest. Capes that can heal are rare and highly valuable after all."
Both of them gave me apologetic looks and I felt my face heat up as I hadn't considered that either.
It made sense they would be curious. Panacea was one of only two well-known healers in the city, with only a handful more across the country and most of them either worked for gangs or other groups.
"We try to stop it when we can," Karen continued, "but patients often try to take pictures of Panacea. Someone caught one of you two together earlier and posted it to social media, which is probably how the PRT found out."
"The PRT pays that much attention to Facebook?" I looked to Amelia in surprise. I mean, you always heard about capes or other criminals getting caught because of something they posted online, but I'd only been in reception for a few minutes. "There can't be that many posts about me already, could there?"
Amelia snorted, "They have an entire department devoted to it and you are very… noticeable," she said with a pointed look that made me blush.
"Photogenic," Karen corrected, making no attempt to hide her grin that only widened when I tried to fold my arms across my chest.
"It's not my fault," I muttered, "You designed this costume."
"Say," Amelia said suddenly, radiating mischief as she reached out to poke one of the butterflies. "How long can you keep this illusion up?"
##
[Gallant]
"I'm sorry," the girl at reception said, flashing him a smile, "Panacea should be with you in a moment."
"It's fine," Gallant replied, leaning forward in a slight bow. His costume, a tinker-tech suit of armour, completely hid his face so he often had to use more exaggerated body language with people.
The girl giggled, her cheeks tinged pink.
"Better take it easy there," Clockblocker said, tapping an elbow against his ribs. "Wouldn't want Glory Girl getting jealous. Seriously, they can't even see you, why do you get all the attention?"
"At least I'm not drooling at the nurses," Gallant shot back, his voice quiet so as not to be heard by anyone but Clock.
He very pointedly did not roll his eyes at his teammate. Sure, Victoria could be a bit excitable, but she wasn't going to kill him just for talking to a girl. She'd gotten past that long ago.
"Oh come on," Clockblocker whined just as quietly, "can you blame me?"
"Pig," Vista, the smallest of the three muttered before looking at Gallant, radiating feelings of admiration and attraction that he tried to ignore. "It's because he actually treats them with respect."
"More like fear-"
"Like you would know-"
Sighing to himself, Gallant blocked out their bickering with well-practiced ease. For all his faults, Clock wasn't entirely wrong. The nurses here were oddly similar in appearance. It wasn't obvious until you actually paid attention.
They were all young, PRT intel put most of them between twenty and thirty years old, female, physically attractive and stronger than they looked. Intel suspected Panacea had been enhancing them but nothing had yet been proven. Not that it was a crime if she was.
He was still thinking about the various reports as Triumph walked into the building, nodding in greeting to people as he passed.
Gallant squinted, looking carefully for the slight changes in build that signified which gender he currently was.
It was, he considered, an impressive bit of tailoring. Designing a costume that contained hidden support and compression to make the wearer look the same regardless of actual body shape.
"Any luck?" Triumph asked as he drew level to Gallant.
"Not yet, they were on lun-"
He was cut off by the ding of the elevator, the doors opening to unleash a swarm of glowing butterflies that swept through the room.
##
[Taylor]
Sending the butterflies out ahead, Panacea and I stepped out of the elevator. I kept the butterflies high near the ceiling, occasionally letting them dip down to fly around Panacea or me as we walked.
Panaceas emotions were a mix of joy, amusement and giddiness, the taste rich and sweet on my tongue and making me smile.
In the middle of the waiting room, the Wards had pulled close together, watching the illusion with a mix of confusion and a little bit of fear. The only exception was Triumph, who stepped forward unconcerned and held out his hand.
"Ah, Panacea, it's good to see you again." He was tall and muscular under his costume and his voice a pleasant tenner and yet there was something off about him. It wasn't bad per-se, just odd.
I tried to keep my expression friendly, Dad had told me Triumph was cursed, was that was I was feeling?
"I assume these are your doing?" He said, glancing over his shoulder as Vista gently reached out for the butterflies.
I smiled, "Just a little illusion to break the ice." And to keep you from looking too closely at me.
Triumph could use magic, I had no way of knowing if his costume had the same damn enchantments as Dauntless or if he would recognise me. If I'd known he was down here, I'd have stayed upstairs no matter the consequences.
"It's impressive, I can't even tell how you're controlling them. Have you been practicing long?"
The card was held tightly in my hand, hidden by my long sleeves which also kept anyone knowing how sweaty my palms were. "A while."
Behind him, the rest of the Wards were starting to relax. Vista was clearly distracted by the butterflies, though she gave me the occasional glance. Gallant, standing proud in his suit of armour, was staring directly at me, and radiating nothing but slight confusion.
The last Ward, however… Ugh.
"Sorry," Triumph said, waving to the Wards. "Allow me to introduce Gallant, Vista and -"
Clockblocker stepped forward, cutting Triumph off and holding his hand out.
"I'm Clockblocker, love the butterflies by the way." He made an effort to wave at them and I took his hand gamely.
Squeezing his hand tightly, I leaned forward with the friendliest smile I could. "Why thank you, but the butterflies are above me."
Behind him, Vista sniggered as a mix of shame and embarrassment poured off Clockblocker, making me feel kind of bad. On one hand, he had obviously been staring at me, on the other, part of me did enjoy the attention.
"No harm done." I said, giving his hand a more gentle squeeze and a genuine smile. Letting him go, I stepped back behind Panacea, who gave me a dry look.
"How can we help the Wards today?" she said.
"Well…" Triumph hesitated, suddenly nervous as he shared a quick look with the Wards.
I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling. Seriously? This was supposed to be a subtle attempt to investigate me? Didn't they even stop to think up an excuse before arriving?
Just as the silence was starting to stretch on, Vista stepped forward with a sigh.
"I've been thinking about that thing we spoke about?" she said, each word almost sounding like it was pulling teeth. "I'd like to take you up on the offer, if I can?"
Panacea stared at her before shaking her head. "Of course," she said quietly. "Do you want to do it now?"
Moving slightly to the side, she gestured for Vista to go ahead of her while she focused on me.
"Are you going to be okay on your own?"
I waved her off, with a smile, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. "I'll be fine."
If nothing else, nobody seemed inclined to attack me and Vista was at least telling the truth about whatever was bothering her. This place was neutral ground, and that seemed to count for something. Not many wanted to get on Panacea's blacklist.
As Panacea and Vista left, Karen took a seat behind the reception desk. She didn't say anything, but having her there did make me feel better.
"So," Triumph said, standing next to me and trying to sound nonchalant. "Have you been in the city long?"
The stupidity of the question caught me off guard and I snorted in my attempt not to laugh.
"Seriously?" I looked at him over the rims of the glasses I was no longer wearing. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
He held his hands up with a smile. "I'm sorry, but my boss will skin me alive if I don't at least ask."
"He's not exaggerating," Clockblocker said. "Not by much anyway."
"Alright, fine. I guess I can answer a few questions."
"Have you been in the city long?"
"All my life," I could do this, it was just an act, just like that day with Parian.
"How long have you been practicing magic?"
"Long enough."
"Okay, you don't have to answer this, but can I ask who your teacher was?"
"You can." Okay, I was pushing my luck, but I was enjoying this too much to stop.
"Did you ever consider joining the wards? The PRT accepts magic users as parahumans after all."
The 'no' died on my tongue. I had considered it once. When I was a kid, running around with my bath towel cape, pretending to be Alexandria. But then Emma turned on me and my dreams of doing anything but surviving another day at school kinda died. Then a member of the Protectorate tried to kill me.
"I did once, but it's not for me, sorry. I just don't like how the Protectorate conducts business."
Triumph opened his mouth to reply, but Panacea and Vista came through the door. Vista was smiling broadly and I didn't need my empathy to see she was happy about something.
"All good?" I asked as they came close.
"All good," Panacea said with a nod. "If that's everything, I'm afraid we need to be getting on with our day."
"Yeah, you still need to show me around the storerooms."
Triumph looked between us, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
"Alright, but before we go, can I ask one more question, alone?" he gave me a pointed look, desperation rolling off him in waves so strong that it made me feel sick.
"I'm sorry, but… my apprentice isn't yet clear to treat patien-" Panacea started, but I put my hand on her shoulder.
"It's okay, I think I know what he's going to ask." I nodded to the far corner, "We'll just be over there, no healing, I promise."
She gave me a suspicious look, nodded her acceptance.
Leading Triumph away from the others, I forced myself not to play with the sleeve of my costume.
"You know about the curse?" He said quietly.
"I suspected… something about you felt… odd."
"I don't suppose you could...?" his voice trailed off as his body shifted. I doubted anyone would even notice unless they were close enough to really look, but there was a bit more 'padding' to his chest and he'd lost a slight bit of height.
"Damn it!" she hissed and I put a hand on her shoulder in an effort to offer some sort of comfort.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I'm new at healing and a curse like yours… honestly, I don't think its something I want to mess around with, not yet. Maybe… if you can give me time I might be able to find something, but it won't be fast…"
The book I had on curses was pretty basic, mostly detecting and removing simple stuff. Maybe Dad's friend, John, would be able to find me a more advanced one?
"It's alright," she said with a weak smile, "I had to ask."
"I'll look into it," I promised, "if I find anything, I'll get in touch."
"Thanks… Oh! Before I forget." Glancing over her shoulder to double-check on the others, Triumph leaned closer, "Are you aware of the incident at Winslow high?"
"Only what I've seen on the news," I quickly racked my brains, trying to remember what the news had said about it. "A teacher tried to sacrifice the students?"
"Yes but…" her voice dropped even lower and I had to strain to hear. "What's not in the news is that there were Succubi in the school. We think they were hurt in the fighting…"
I stayed silent, I couldn't talk even if I wanted, my heart was in my mouth and I was trying not to throw up.
"We don't know where they are, but we're warning every magic-user we can. If you see them and it's safe to do so, can you pass on a message?"
"I… can try?"
"Let them know that the PRT wants to talk. That's all, we need to know what happened in that school and they are the only witnesses."
I stared at her, looking closely for any sign of deception, that this was a trick. Instead, all I saw was honest concern. Triumph genuinely didn't know who she was talking with and her warning was sincere.
"I'll… do what I can."
Her smile as she returned to the others looked a bit more hopeful and with a final round of good-byes, they started to leave, only for Clockblocker to stop them all at the door.
"Oh! We almost forgot! Do you have a name yet?"
Triumph looked to Gallant who nodded and stepped back towards us. I had to wonder if that was how Triumph kept his curse secret, letting the others talk for her when she couldn't.
"He's right," Gallant said, "it doesn't have to be permanent, just something we can put on the reports?"
"Respite," I said, throwing out the first thing that came to mind. "Just, call me Respite for now."
AN:
Beta: Fedorable, WhoAmEye, Angel. (Me, Myself, and Eye). SHOUTOUT TO TAYTAY'S PHENOMENAL ABS!