Bonus Content #1
And now for something completely different! Here is some extra content from the main thread of this story over on SpaceBattles, made at the request of various commenters. Be sure to check out the latest main story chapter out if you haven't already, this chapter is strictly bonus material only loosely related to the main story, and only some of these side-stories are canon. The ones that are canon are called snippets, and the ones that are not are called omakes, just to clear up any confusion in future. Unfortunately, FFN does not allow pictures, so to peruse the fan-art gallery, be sure to check out the mirror of this bonus content chapter over on Archive of Our Own to see some cool artwork when you're done here! Simply type in archiveofourown (with a at the front and a dot org at the end), then on the end of that URL, type in /works/24500767/chapters/74862063 (making sure that the whole URL has no additions if you paste it in) and it'll take you right to the chapter.
Canon Snippet—Detective Emerson's Death Notifications
Death notifications were the worst part of the job, in Angela's opinion. Bodies stank, criminals spat, lawyers yapped, big shots complained, she could deal with all that. She was inured to it by now. But telling people their daddy or daughter or husband wasn't coming back? It was always ugly. Always. It left Angela feeling ugly and used-up too, like one of those dried-up erasers that couldn't even erase properly and just spread a bigger mess everywhere.
"Can't believe they're making us do this shit," Angela said under her breath. "Fucking PRT. Fucking Assmaster."
"Look on the bright side—at least we won't have to deal with them after this." Lee-suk said drolly, taking the lead to knock on the door of the ratty apartment building. There were voices coming from inside, but they had to wait at the door and keep knocking for what felt like a minute before it was answered.
The woman who opened the door was obviously some kind of addict, and definitely high. She could have been anywhere between thirty and seventy. Her pale hair managed to be both wispy and matted at the same time, and her blotchy, reddened, craggy skin seemed half-mummified and shrink-wrapped to her bony frame, even as her baggy clothes seemed to swallow her up. She leaned on the doorknob for support and peered at them blearily, as if she was half-blind to the people standing two feet in front of her.
Angela resisted the urge to hold her nose as the stench of sour body odor and cigarettes wafted out the open door. She could already tell this was going to be a productive conversation.
"Hello. I'm Detective Kwon Lee-suk with the BBPD, and this is my partner, Detective Angela Emerson. Are you Mrs. Brandy DeWitt?" Lee-suk said, enunciating his words slowly. His poker face was up in full, which was one reason he was in the front and Angela was hanging back. The other reason was that he had about a foot of height and a hundred pounds on her, which dissuaded most bullshit.
Brandy scowled at him, but she made a sleepy noise of affirmation. At least, it sounded like an affirmative.
"The fuck d'you want? I'm busy." the woman slurred in a raspy, two-pack-a-day voice.
"May we come in?" Lee-suk asked.
Brandy went quiet for a few seconds, but then she looked over her shoulder and hoarsely hollered, "Trev! C'mere! It's the fuckin' cops!"
A few moments and some shuffling later, and a middle-aged man, presumably Trevor DeWitt, appeared at the door. He looked and dressed shockingly normal in comparison to Brandy, but from the way he seemed unsteady on his feet and smelled like a distillery, he was in the midst of his own brand of chemically-induced stupor. His lip curled in disgust at the sight of Lee-suk, baring his teeth.
"I know why they're here. Go inside, hon. I'll take care of this." Trevor snarled at his wife, who obediently slunk back inside.
"May we come inside to talk?" Lee-suk repeated, his face and tone betraying nothing of how he felt.
"No." Trevor practically spat the word. "You're too late, anyway. As fuckin' usual. I heard from—I heard from my son's friends that—they already told me he's gone."
Three guesses who those 'friends' are, Angela thought to herself.
"We're sorry for your—" she began.
"I don't wanna hear it, pig cunt," Trevor interrupted harshly.
"—The case has been determined a homicide," Angela continued doggedly, skipping to the next part of the script. "Furthermore, due to suspected parahuman involvement, your son's case is going to be transferred to the PRT and Protectorate. Any further—"
"Protectorate?" scoffed Trevor. "They can't protect shit! Gooks and fags and freaks, all of you! Fuck off!"
Trevor slammed the door in their faces, and he could be heard stomping off further inside.
"That went well," Lee-suk said dryly, staring at where Trevor had been.
"Heaven fucking forfend that we interrupt their bender," Angela said with a sneer. "Mom and Dad of the year, those two. Can't even imagine how their kid got mixed up with the goddamn Nazis."
"Come on. One down, one to go," Lee-suk said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Best thing I can say, at least they had the decency to make it quick," Angela said as she went with Lee-suk.
Their next destination was a building almost as old and poor as the last, but which markedly didn't reek of piss and cigarettes.
Just like last time, Lee-suk was the one to knock on the door.
A few moments later, the door was swung open by a tall, narrow-framed young woman whose sandy-colored hair was tied back in a ponytail. She caught sight of Angela's and Lee-suk's badges, and her eyes widened.
"Oh my God. It's Marcus, isn't it?" she said before either of them could get out a single word. She looked torn between fear and anger, though it didn't seem directed at them.
"I'm afraid so," Angela said, stepping forward on instinct. "May we come inside?"
"Um, sure, sorry," the woman said distractedly, shaking her head and opening the door wider to let them in.
"I'm Detective Angela Emerson, and this is my partner, Detective Kwon Lee-suk. Are you Lena Fahy?" Angela prompted as she stepped into the living room of the clean yet old and somewhat disorderly apartment.
"No, I'm Cassandra, Marcus's older sister. Hold on, let me get Mom," Cassandra said, hurriedly rushing into the adjacent kitchen.
Angela and Lee-suk stood somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the room while a hushed conversation went on in the kitchen, which was blocked off by a partial wall. Lee-suk removed his police hat, a small gesture of respect and condolence. Angela met his aside glance, and followed suit. This was a whole different ballgame than the previous notification, and they both knew it.
Cassandra reappeared with her mother in tow. Lena Fahy was a woman with long hair that was mostly silver, with a few remaining streaks of dark blonde. She was a bit shorter and stockier than her daughter, but aside from that, they were the spitting image of each other, like pictures of the same person two or three decades apart.
Lena froze in place, blanching at the sight of the pair. Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes filled with fear and certainty.
Angela exchanged another look with Lee-suk, then took a step forward. "Mrs. Fahy, we're here to inform you that Marcus is dead."
Blunt delivery. No sugar-coating. That's what they all said to do. Like ripping off a band-aid. It still made Angela feel like absolute shit to watch as the mother crumbled before her. Cassandra reached out as if to catch her mom, and they both ended up latching on to each other like they were drowning.
The next twenty minutes were interspersed with words rendered incoherent by sobbing, hollow reassurances, and the detectives' wooden, stilted explanations and condolences.
Where Lena was a whirlwind of grief, fury, horror, and denial, Cassandra mostly just seemed shellshocked by the news, repeating variations of her shock over and over as she held her mother on the couch.
"I don't understand. I don't get it. We did everything they said. We reached out. We tried the counselor, we tried Life After Hate, we tried the therapist. This shouldn't have happened. If we had more time—I just don't get why he wouldn't listen." Cassandra said, shaking her head.
Angela knew that Cassandra wasn't even talking to anyone but herself, but she still felt compelled to respond. "I'm sure you did everything you could. As we speak, Armsmaster and the Protectorate are investigating this case, and they will bring this monster to justice for Marcus and your family."
God, the words were like bitter ash in her mouth, but it's what the family needed to hear. It wouldn't help right away, but it would help later down the line.
Now if only Angela herself could have any faith at all that the PRT and Protectorate could get their thumbs out of their asses and do their damn job.
Angela and Lee-suk left shortly after, and damned if she didn't feel like she'd aged ten years from the ordeal. It wasn't even that late in the evening, and she still felt like she could sleep for a week.
Once they were safely in their car, she heaved out a heavy sigh. "Is it shitty of me to wish they were godawful racist druggies like the DeWitts?"
"I get it. Easier to hate 'em than feel sorry for 'em. Perfectly natural. You're shitty for other reasons." Lee-suk said flatly.
Angela punched Lee-suk in the shoulder. "Asshole."
"Urovennuhalk," Lee-suk muttered.
"Fuckin' what? Quit mumbling. You know I hate that shit." Angela said with an exaggerated huff.
"I said, you're one to talk." Lee-suk said with the ghost of a grin.
Angela changed the subject. "Ugh, I feel violated for talking up the Assmaster. It's like promising kids that Santa will read their letters. God, I could just gag. You won't see that wannabe robocop parking his shiny metal ass on that couch and doing the dirty work. Nooo. Fuckin' glory hound."
"Maybe if someone didn't keep getting in fights with the giant blue dildo, the Captain wouldn't keep foisting these shit jobs on us," Lee-suk said airily.
Angela rolled her eyes. "God, why do you keep kissing his ass? You hate him just as much as I do!"
"Yeah, but I know it's not productive to antagonize him," Lee-suk said, clearly not happy to be retreading the old argument. "He's not a fucking cop, you're right, but everyone sees him as the future and us as the past. Obsolete. We can catch the mistakes better if we have a seat at the table and don't rock the boat."
Angela gave him another jab. "Metaphor-mixing motherfucker."
She wasn't really angry at him, of course. In fact, she was grateful that he was trying to take her mind off things with their usual flirting, which to all outward appearances just looked like abuse and bickering.
Still, Angela couldn't help but dwell on the dark turn things had taken in the already-bleak city. Cops were starting to disappear, too, here and there—just hours ago, the PRT had graciously deigned to tell the Department what was really happening to the missing officers, just a few minutes before it was announced on the goddamn local news.
Lee-suk started up the car and began driving them back to the precinct, and Angela stared moodily out the window.
"Do you think we really are obsolete?" Angela asked after a few minutes of silence. "Nobody respects us anymore. There's all this horrible danger and these deranged parahuman monsters on the loose, and there's more and more of them every year."
Lee-suk kept his eyes on the road, almost as if he hadn't been listening at all, but the lines around his mouth hardened. After a moment, he spoke. "Things change. They always do. There'll still be a place for good policework. Proper investigations. The good reasons we do the things we do aren't going to just disappear because of capes."
Angela grunted in acknowledgement. "You're probably right. I'm just not looking forward to the changes wehave to make to adapt. It only ever seems to get worse."
Truthfully, Angela didn't want any part of it anymore. She fantasized about retiring to Guam or some far-off tropical island with no capes and no stress, but then she'd have to kidnap Lee-suk and keep him locked in a box to get him to go along with her. There was no way in hell he'd leave the job willingly. Not even if she begged him.
Sometimes Angela felt like she was drowning in the words that were left unsaid.
She wanted to tell Lee-suk she liked him for more than just his cock. He'd become more than just a partner and then a bed-warmer to her, no matter how much she pretended to be aloof, even to him. She wasn't getting any younger, and she couldn't imagine ever running across another man who would put up with her. Not one that was worth her time, anyway. Contrary to her relentless taunting, Lee-suk wasn't some pansy doormat, he was more like a stubborn rock, and that was what she liked best about him. She lost her temper at him a lot more than she cared to admit, but she didlove him.
So much stood in the way, but at times like this, it was hard to find any fucks to give. So what if they risked exposing their tawdry workplace relationship? So what if it proved right every snide insinuation of her nosy coworkers and every crass insult thrown at them by racist criminals? So what if her deeper feelings undermined her carefully-constructed image of being a hardass bitch?
In the end, though, her fear of losing Lee-suk as a partner and lover always outweighed her fear of going unfulfilled.
Fucking stereotypes. If there was one thing that really got under Angela's skin, it was confirming the stereotypes people pigeon-holed her and Lee-suk into. She hated giving the fuckers the satisfaction, yet here she was, living out every dumbshit mouthbreather's argument that men and women couldn't work together as partners. Damn them. Damn her.
And damn Lee-suk, too, for being worth it.
"After we get off work, we're heading back to my place," Angela said on impulse.
Lee-suk didn't argue.
Non-Canon Omake: The Card Game
"I call," Panacea said, tugging her white hood lower to cover her face. It didn't accomplish much—her freckled cheeks were red and flushed, and her eyes were darting nervously around to the other players at the card table.
"Of course you do," Revenant scoffed.
"You shouldn't be rude," Bonesaw chirped. The little girl kicked her feet back and forth in the air, having used one of her spider-bots as a booster seat so she could reach the card table. "After all, you're the one who wants our advice."
"I still can't believe you'd ask one of the Slaughterhouse Nine for help," Panacea muttered.
"It was either that or asking Leet, and I'd rather bite off my own tongue than ask that sniveling waste of skin cells for anything," said Revenant.
"Hear, hear." Blasto said, knocking on the card table. "That little pendejo gives the rest of us a bad name."
"Hey! Don't swear!" Bonesaw chided. After a moment, her frown abated and she thoughtfully pressed a finger into her dimpled cheek. "Leet is pretty little, though, isn't he? I wonder if he'd fit inside one of my chassis if I cut off enough pieces. A spider-bot with powers could be fun."
"We're getting off topic," Revenant said warningly.
"Yeah, it's your turn to go, Bonesaw," Blasto added.
"That's not what I mean. What did you find out about this symbiotic virus I'm infected with?" Revenant asked.
Panacea reached out and poked his hand. "I've never seen a virus even remotely like it before, I can tell you that much," she said, cringing away from the contact. "It even has something like its own nervous system. It's more like a colony of parasites than a virus."
"I bet it's some kinda blacklisted government bioweapon," Blasto said, lighting a blunt and taking a drag through the hole in his living mask of fleshy fungus. "Y'know, population control or ethnic cleansing or some shi—something. Your virus is keyed to only attack certain people, and someone encoded it to ignore you specifically. Pretty sloppily, too. It's already mutated to break those restrictions."
"If this virus were a bioweapon intended to assassinate certain targets, then why isn't it airborne? Near as I can tell, transmission requires extensive blood-to-blood contact," Revenant said flatly. "Besides, I'll believe the government is capable of creating such a thing when pigs fly."
"Pigs can fly," Bonesaw said with a self-assured nod. "Do you have any tens, Panacea?"
"Why would I even tell you if I did?" Panacea asked, drawing her hand of cards closer to her chest.
"Well that's not fair," Bonesaw pouted. "I guess I'll go fish."
Bonesaw reached over to the deck and drew a card, then smiled and placed a king of hearts and a king of spades onto the table. Beside her, Blasto also drew a card from the deck.
"Twenty-four, I bust," said Blasto, slapping his hand of cards down on the table. "Dealer takes this round."
"Yay!" Bonesaw said, quickly scooping up all of Blasto's cards.
"Can we focus, people?" Revenant said irately. "Bonesaw, what do you think?"
"Well, it's pretty obvious," Bonesaw said, sorting through her cards and removing any pairs she found. "Panacea and Blasto aren't wrong, exactly. All you have to do is put the pieces together. Someone who clearly isn't a Tinker tried to turn the virus into a weapon, but originally it was a symbiotic organism that makes its host stronger. I wonder where they got it from...?"
"Every answer just leads to more questions," Revenant grumbled.
"Sucks to be you, I guess. Are you going to bet or not?" Panacea asked, attempting to project confidence.
"I'd bet all I've got that my hand is better than yours," Revenant drawled.
"Wha—but you only have three cards!" Panacea objected. "Let's see them, then!"
Panacea put down her hand—a five of hearts, a two of spades, a four of spades, a seven of diamonds, and a three of hearts.
"That's even more pathetic than I thought," Revenant said with a snort of amusement. "I have three trump cards. Read 'em and weep."
Revenant placed his three cards facedown in a row. He turned over the first, a tarot card with a skeleton in black armor riding a white horse. "Death," Revenant announced. "Of course, it doesn't make any sense for Death to be the card representing my past, but I shouldn't have to tell any of you that tarot readings are complete bunk."
Over Panacea's sputtering indignation, he turned over the second card, an upside-down crowned figure wielding a sword in one hand and scales in the other. "Justice reversed," said Revenant. "I don't see how that's relevant to my present at all, but whatever."
On the last card, Revenant hesitated for just an instant, then turned it over, revealing a tower being struck by lightning, with figures falling from the peak. "The Tower. Not that it matters. All this fortune-telling bullshit will eventually come true if you just wait long enough."
"Hey! I said no swearing!" said Bonesaw, waggling a finger at Revenant.
"Wait, wait, wait—so then, who won the game?" Blasto asked.
"I did!" Bonesaw proclaimed. "I have three pairs, see?"
Panacea put her head in her hands. "And here I thought I'm the one that sucks at playing poker."
Non-Canon Omake: Alex Mercer, Protectorate Hero (Alternate Universe)
Director Emily Piggot sat at her desk. She'd been seated there too long already, causing her legs and back to throb with that dull, restless pain, but there was no such thing as real comfort in her world anyway. It was always a choice between the dull ache of stillness and the sharp agony of movement.
At that moment, though, chronic pain was the least of her worries. It wasn't the pain of her battered, bloated, sickly body that was making her heart pound and her hands shake with sheer nerves.
Fate had cruelly twisted the knife when it delivered the thing calling itself Alexander James Mercer into Brockton Bay. The prevailing theory was that it was what remained of a virus-specialist Tinker that had run afoul of his own creation, and ended up being consumed by it, losing almost everything except its name. It was as if the man-eating creature had been specifically designed to dredge up all the old traumas that had marked Emily so deeply, that had been the ruin of her body and soul, if not her career.
As if that wasn't enough, the thing was a walking testament to every single negative stereotype of a parahuman, even if it technically wasn't one. It—or he, as it wished to be addressed—was arrogant, selfish, devious, petty, power-hungry, and sadistic. Just in terms of personality, it was perhaps the most singularly unpleasant being Emily had ever worked with, which was a truly stunning accomplishment.
The worst part, however, was that it was powerful. Horrendously so. And not only was it keenly aware of how powerful it really was, it understood the leverage that its power afforded it. The monster had turned itself in, and after only a few hours of questioning, had confided that it required human flesh to sustain itself. Emily had no legal recourse but to accommodate the thing's repulsive urges, with help from the Protectorate's stock of Tinker-made cloning vats.
After days of quarantine and testing, which all determined that the virus was lethal yet functionally blood-borne and actually less contagious than HIV, it had been released from custody with heavy restrictions and allowed to apply to be a probationary Protectorate hero. Emily hadn't even tried to oppose it, in the face of overwhelming pressure from her peers and the Chief Director. The psychiatric evaluation had placed it at the borderline of sociopathy, but it had been deemed fit for duty regardless, and had completed all the power testing, training, and public relations branding with flying colors.
And now, Emily couldn't put it off any longer. She would be meeting it face-to-face for the first time, after communicating with it through video screens and teleconference.
Emily had tripled her normal protective detail and had called Armsmaster to escort the new 'hero' to her as well, not that it would do any good. Everyone already knew that it was powerful enough to devour every single person in the PHQ if it decided to, and everyone also knew it wanted to. The rumors of its cannibalistic urges had spread like wildfire, and morale was at an all-time low as a result.
The trembling was getting worse. Emily interwove her fingers together in front of her to stop them from shaking, and stared at the elevator doors, trying to focus on her breathing and futilely push thoughts of Ellisburg out of her mind.
At last, the elevator doors parted with barely a whisper, and she saw it emerge alongside Armsmaster.
Just looking at him, it was hard to think of the virus as an it and not a him. He was six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered, and stunningly handsome. His kind, intelligent green eyes were framed by roguishly-styled straw-blonde hair, which fell to just above his shoulders. The lower part of his face was encased in a silver-and-black metal mask that did nothing to hide his sharp cheekbones and chiseled jawline. His costume consisted of a white leather longcoat set with largely decorative armor bands of brightly polished steel, over a red formal shirt, black tie, and white slacks.
It was all a lie. His default state was that of a much smaller black-haired man with cruel, icy blue eyes and a perpetual look of disdainful arrogance, and its true form was a mass of black-and-red tendrils with silvery, bladelike spines. Even his mask was secretly designed to prevent the remote possibility of aerial dispersal of the virus, but she wished it could have acted as a muzzle too. Emily hated him for the pretense, and a dark, hidden part of her despised the fact that he could be so beautiful while she was consigned to be scarred, crippled, fat, and ugly. It was a disgusting unfairness that was literally staring her in the face, hiding behind a mask of polite interest.
"Greetings, Blacklight," said Emily, letting only the barest hint of her true distaste show. "It's a pleasure to finally be formally introduced."
He lifted a hand. "Likewise, Director. Please, though, when it's just us, call me Alex."
Emily arched a single eyebrow at that, casting an aside glance to the half-dozen guards and Armsmaster that were in the room with them. "Well, you'll have to forgive me for sticking with the formalities. I don't intend for us to have anything but a strictly professional working relationship."
"That's a shame," said Blacklight, and she could tell that he was smiling under his mask, judging from his eyes and the subtle movement of his cheeks. "You're much nicer to me in person. I wonder why that might be."
Damn him, Emily thought. He was taunting her. Possibly even flirting with her, which was something that didn't even bear imagining, much less had he actually been serious about it.
"Let's get down to business," Emily said in her most commanding tone. "You have completed all the steps to become a probationary Protectorate hero save one: you have yet to convince me that you're worth the risk. I could easily have you transferred to the Eagleton Containment Zone or Ellisburg should you prove a danger to others. What guarantee do I have that you won't betray the frankly immense trust being placed in you, to say nothing of providing value commensurate with the ruinous expense of feeding you?"
"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" Blacklight asked, folding his arms behind his back.
Emily scowled. She hated it when civilian capes adopted the pretense of military discipline, but if Blacklight wanted to dig its own grave, she would allow it to do so. She gave him a tight nod to continue.
"You don't trust me, even though I've done absolutely nothing wrong, and never hurt so much as a fly. That's good. You shouldn't trust me. I certainly wouldn't, if I were in your position. So instead of protesting my own innocence, and begging for a chance to prove I can be a real hero in spite of my tragic circumstances, which we both know is a twee load of horseshit, I'm just going to appeal to pure pragmatism," said Blacklight, starting to slowly pace back and forth.
Emily pursed her lips. "Go ahead, then."
"Your city needs strong heroes. Desperately. I won't deny that I'm dangerous, but you also know I can exercise self-control for extended periods of time. I'm roughly four times more massive than I was when I first came here, half-starved, and even then I was able to avoid attacking anyone. I know it's in my own best interests to behave, and you know that I can be relied upon to act in my own best interests, even when I'm heavily tempted. Right now, I have every incentive to be the perfect hero for you, lest I return to being a prisoner," Blacklight stated matter-of-factly. The sinuous way he paced around the room reminded Emily of a jungle cat; confident, lithe, and predatory. He almost seemed to slink around Armsmaster, sliding just close enough to be disrespectful without being provably provocative.
"I'm sure Armsmaster here can corroborate what I'm saying. I gather that he must have some way of discerning the truth, or else he wouldn't have been a silent confederate during all of my interrogations," Blacklight said, his eyes glittering with triumphant, gleeful, barely-concealed mockery.
It wasn't a very impressive deduction, considering Armsmaster was genuinely terrible at hiding his tells, but regardless, Emily inwardly winced. It was obvious that Blacklight was trying to score points against her, challenging her dominance as a rival instead of begging for her permission and thereby accepting his role as a subordinate. She knew instinctively that she had to put her foot down, hard.
"I've heard enough. Armsmaster, a word, if you please. Blacklight, you may go." Emily said, dismissing Blacklight with an offhanded wave and breaking eye contact to look down at her paperwork as though completely unconcerned with him or his presence.
Predictably, Blacklight just had to get in the last word before he was all but forced into the elevator by flanking PRT officers. "Goodbye, Director. I hope you come to the correct decision with the same expediency that you ended our little chat."
When the elevator doors slid shut and Blacklight was several floors down, Emily let out a sigh and finally permitted herself to fully breathe. Now that it was over, she at least didn't feel much fear, anymore. It had been replaced with hatred and anger. She centered herself, and returned her attention to Armsmaster.
"Your thoughts?" she asked him.
"He's an asset, no question, but I'm not convinced he'll be worth it." Armsmaster said, his mouth hardening into a thin line.
"Nor am I," Emily said lowly, drumming her fingers on her desk. "He was playing games with us. I don't like that one bit."
"Me, either." Armsmaster said flatly. "I thought it couldn't get any worse than Assault, but here we are."
"Well, that's a bit uncalled for," Assault chimed in. "Honestly, though, I can't say I disagree. Be careful around that guy, boss-lady. I can't tell whether he wants to eat you or fuck you."
"You are way out of line," Emily snapped, cutting off whatever Armsmaster had been about to say.
Assault raised his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying what we were all thinking!"
"Congratulations. You've just earned yourself yet another week of sexual harassment seminars. I'm sure Laverne will be simply delighted to see you again." Emily said coldly.
Assault wilted slightly. "Is that really necessary? I wasn't even harassing you, I was only pointing out someone else was being so creepy you could cut the sexual tension with a steak kni—"
"Two weeks." Emily interrupted him, and mercifully, Assault's mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth. She turned back to Armsmaster, hesitated for a few moments, then continued. "I want surveillance on Blacklight 24/7. If he's to be a member of the Protectorate, he'll be the most monitored one in existence."
"I take it that means you'll be approving him to make his public debut and start field assignments?" Armsmaster asked.
Emily heaved out a huge breath. "Yes. Against all good sense, yes. We can't afford not to. Literally and figuratively."
God fucking damn it, Emily thought to herself. Blacklight was constantly infuriating, and at times truly terrifying, but he might have been the most honest cape she'd ever dealt with, and try as she might, she couldn't deny that some part of her respected him for it.
This was going to be a disaster, she just knew it.