Keep the sword by the door, soldier. You'll be needing that again.

And so we've come to the end of the main plot. More about the circumstances in the end note, but for now, before we jump in, let me just say writing this feels weird.

"Why the hell did no one tell us that Bastard Son was gonna be in town?" snarled Snubnose, shoving a Mastered minion away from their position scratching at Snubnose's armor with knives to bowl two others over with the sound of snapping bones, but no screams. That was always the creepiest part about fighting Bastard Son, in Snubnose's opinion: the fact that the only sound was the Master's gloating, his opponent's voices, the normal sounds of a fight and the harsh breathing of his victims.

"Intel said he was on his way to Brockton Bay!" snapped Gasconade, putting bullets through knees and elbows to try and create a chokepoint and narrow the path through of the alley they'd been pinned down in. "Dunno why he'd need to come here!"

"Why the fuck would he go to Stitch in Time's fucking backyard?" asked Fume, keeping her back to the warehouse wall behind her. "The Butcher and the Teeth couldn't take her, what the fuck would Bastard Son think he's got to top them?"

"I dunno, a specific hostage? I'm not in Intel!" Snubnose shot back, firing a spray of sparks to repel the ever-advancing tide of Bastard Son's minions. It didn't do nearly enough, and allowed some to close in and start wailing on her armor with their weapons, denting the steel.

Gasconade, at this point, escalated to center mass and head shots for their improved stopping power, for what little it helped.

After a moment, Bastard Son stepped into view and held up a hand, pausing the advance of his horde of minions. "That's enough. You wanna surrender, or do I have to put you down for good? Heh."

The response he got was one of Fade's bullets, which he neatly managed to sidestep.

"Alright, to the death it is, then. Heh." He flicked his hand forward, and his minions surged forwards.

There was a sound similar to two boulders slamming together and everyone turned to face the source of the sound, even Bastard Son's minions.

"Oh, good," panted Snubnose. "We're safe."

"Sorry I'm late y'all," said Amber, cracking her knuckles. "Got caught up in traffic."

"Ah. I see." Bastard Son sighed.

"You have two options," said Amber, crossing their arms. "Option number one is that you turn off your power and cut the shit, and number two… well, fuck around and find out."

Bastard Son didn't twitch, but his minions lunged for the three Protectorate capes on the ground.

The nearest among them ran into a barrier of green light. "Ah ah ah," said Amber, and then-

The breath whooshed out of Snubnose's lungs as she felt her eyes inevitably drawn to Amber. Dimly, she was aware of Bastard Son and his minions quailing, and her fellow heroes looking at Stitch in Time, awestruck. "Naughty naughty," purred Amber in her languid voice, the blue-white ball of light gathering in her right hand throwing the planes and angles of her face into sharp relief. "Hard way it is," she sing-songed.

Then, the effect vanished, and Snubnose shook her head, blinking away the spots in her eyes left by the light ball. In the time that took, Stitch in Time (no longer seeming supernaturally perfect) swept up Bastard Son's minions in a web of interconnected chains, and left the Master in question with a broken wrist, blindfolded, and restrained around his biceps.

"Should be okay now, y'all," said Amber, descending slowly to the ground.

"Of course it's the big cheese that gets me, heh," drawled Bastard Son.

"Hush, you. The grown ups are talking," said Amber.

"So, what was that… odd sensation? I felt vaguely uneasy, but everyone else looked… more effected," said Gasconade.

"Oh, that. Yeah, it's an aura. It's basically awe or fear. It's pretty similar to a power a cape from Brockton Bay has."

Gasconade nodded. "That makes sense. Good for drawing attention, which really helped."

"How did you know that Bastard Son was here?" asked Fume, frowning. "We didn't get the chance to ask for reinforcements before we got cut off."

"Oh, that. Yeah, Bastard Son isn't exactly a quiet guy when he's actually fighting and some civilians called it in, and I was on shift and available." Amber shrugged. "Who knew."

"Yeah," chuckled Gasconade ruefully, "that would do it."

Amber nodded firmly. "That it would. So, I'm not sure you have the facilities here to hold this man-" they pointed at Bastard Son, here "-so if you don't mind I'm going to drop him off in Vegas because they can probably hold him for at least long enough to properly start the trial process."

"Sounds good," replied Gasconade. "We'll handle things here with his victims."

"Sounds like a plan. Good luck!" Amber vanished in a spray of ceramic shards.

Fume turned to Snubnose. "Hey, is everything okay? I thought you'd have been more… talkative."

"I, uh…" she trailed off.

While Gasconade didn't have a proper face, he still managed to convey the sentiment of a raised eyebrow. "A gay awakening?"

"Shut up."

He laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Come on, we can have a beer and talk things over once we get all the after action issues taken care of."

"So," said Hannah, "is this the big threat you needed to fight before you got therapy?"

Amber nodded. "Yeah. We're standing," she gestured grandly around her at the ruined crystalline landscape around them, "on the corpse of Abaddon, the Wanderer, the Entity that would destroy the planet, Scion, parahumans… everything."

"Hmm…" Maya knelt down and picked up an eye-twistingly dark shard. "What would happen if I ate this?"

"Please, don't," replied Felicia, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I mean… for you, or any other parahuman, not much. It's essentially the same thing that goes into Cauldron Vials, and those don't do anything to parahumans, so…" Amber shrugged. I'd recommend you don't just swallow it, on the off chance it splinters and causes internal damage."

"That is an extremely fair point." Maya dropped the crystal, then brushed her hands off. "So, this is what Scion really looks like?"

"I mean… more or less? I mean, in the same way that looking at you on a microscopic level looks like looking at me, I think." Amber frowned. "Not a perfect metaphor since Scion and Abaddon are very much more different than you and me, so…"

"I mean… I guess that makes sense?" Maya shrugged. "I'm not much of a philosopher, I leave that to you, as well as my lovely wife here," here she planted a kiss on Felicia's blushing cheek, "and the author. I'm much more of a comic relief character, you get me?"

"I… guess?" Hannah shrugged, used to Maya's idiosyncrasies at this point. "Anyways, no dodging the question. You are still planning to go to therapy now that Abaddon has been dealt with?" She fixed Amber with a piercing gaze.

"Yes, yes, that is still the plan. I've put myself in Yamada's queue, I should have an appointment within about a week and a half." Amber rolled their eyes good-naturedly. "You don't have to mother me that hard, Hannah."

The Kurdish woman raised a single eyebrow, and Amber stepped back, hands raised. "Alright, I get your point."

Hannah allowed herself a briefly satisfied smile when Amber stuck her tongue out in mock petulence.

"So, uh… was there any other reason you wanted to come here beyond coming to show off the corpse of the thing you hunted and killed like and old-timey big game hunter?" asked Felicia, crossing her arms.

"Huh? Oh, shit. Yeah, I almost forgot. Doormaker, this is the place," said Amber.

Doormaker's portal irised open, and Contessa stepped through, sensible shoes crunching on ground-up crystal sand as she walked towards the quartet of Brockton Bay capes.

"How's it going, Fortuna?" asked Amber, turning to face her. "Cauldron still acting like a kicked beehive?"

"Not as such," replied the Thinker. "Eidolon is still put out about getting locked out of the fight after you started dimension-hopping, but the rest of the original Protectorate is… more understanding about the situation, although Alexandria hasn't had the chance to analyze the fight footage because she's been stuck doing paperwork for the damage to New York and Aleph Tokyo."

Amber winced. "I didn't realize she had to deal with that much paperwork after that. Should I drop by and take some of it off her hands, or…"

Contessa shook her head. "The portion that could be your responsibility has all been completed based on fight footage. I believe it was Dragon who filled that out."

"I'll have to get her a gift basket at some point." Amber slipped their phone out of their pocket and tapped a reminder into it.

"What kind of gift basket would you get Dragon?" asked Contessa, frowning.

"Handmade stuff, mostly. Stuff that money can't buy. I've got a couple of ideas, but nothing concrete, and I don't want to commit to something by mentioning it before I've got an idea of how I would manage it."

"Fair enough," replied Hannah. "Unrelated question, when's your birthday?"

Amber gave Hannah a level look. "Unrelated, huh."

Hannah responded with her best "butter wouldn't melt in my mouth" smile.

Amber sighed good-naturedly. "It's complicated, since the day I arrived here in Bet didn't correspond with the day I ended up leaving my home world, and my stasis after Ellisburg didn't simplify anything. If you want, I can do the calcs to figure out what day counts later. Alternatively, once I open the connection with my home world, we can go off of that."

Hannah nodded. "We should probably wait until then."

"Makes sense."

"So," said Amber, "any particular reason that the ones coming with me to my home dimension are you four?"

Contessa raised an eyebrow.

"Contessa excepted, she's a representative of the upper echelons of the Protectorate and also the Other Ones." The capitalization of those last words was audible.

"You know, you can just say 'Cauldron'," replied Contessa.

"Yeah, but this is funnier." Amber grinned. "Anyways, why are you three tagging along?"

"Shits and giggles," said Mouse, grinning widely.

"Ignore her," said Backhand, swatting her wife on the shoulder. "She wants to see what's going on in the world you're from. I'm here to keep her from getting too bored and to supervise her in general."

"Sure, ruin my fun, why don't you," teased Mouse. "But yeah, I'm curious, and since I'm not a cat it's not gonna kill me, and even if it does, satisfaction will bring me back."

"That's funny," drawled Amber, "I didn't know my name was satisfaction."

Mouse chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I walked right into that one, didn't I."

Amber shrugged. "I mean, I wasn't gonna say it, but…"

Then, she nodded. "Alright, makes sense. Back to the topic at hand… Hannah, may I ask why you've decided to come with?"

"I just… wanted to see the world you came from, is all." She shrugged.

"That's fair. Fair warning, though: I can't promise that y'all's powers are gonna work over there, so don't be alarmed if they feel weird or vanish once we make the transition. My powers are gonna work fine, so I should be able to share with you just fine."

"We read the waiver, Amber." Hannah put her hand on Amber's shoulder. "Now you're just stalling."

"Can you blame me?" asked Amber, a sardonic grin on her face. "Haven't been back home in either 10 months or 11 years depending on how you count it, so you could understand how I'm a tad bit nervous."

"Yes, we can, but at the same time, we should get moving." Contessa's tone was gentle to offset her words. "Establishing diplomatic relations with another Earth would be quite beneficial."

"Makes sense. Fair warning that I'm gonna be taking us to my childhood home, since that's where I feel most able to make the transition." Amber cracked her knuckles.

"That's fair." With that, Contessa reached out and rested her hand on Amber's shoulder, and the rest of the capes followed suit shortly after.

For a moment, it seemed like nothing happened.

Then, reality rippled, and instead of standing on the helipad on the Rig, they were standing in a small courtyard area in front of a house painted a uniform beige.

"Welcome to my world," said Amber.

She stepped forward, pulling a pastel-bright lanyard out of her pocket. Dangling from said lanyard were two keys, one black at the base and the other copper-coated. Amber selected the copper key and slotted it into the wooden door, then nudged the door upwards with her hip while turning the key. "The door's been misaligned the whole time we lived here."

The door swung open, and out rushed two dogs, one short and brindled and the other larger and darker-furred. Mouse immediately crouched down and began cooing at them, while Hannah merely gave Amber a level look. "And why did you not mention the dogs?"

"Uh… it slipped my mind?" Amber shrugged.

"Who is-" they all turned to the door, where a silver-haired woman a good six inches shorter than Amber stood, gobsmacked.

"Hi, Mom. I'm home."

Here ends the official main storyline of A Hummingbird Feather.

You know, back when I first started this fic, I thought it would be a straightforward curbstomp fic, take about ten chapters, and not have a whole lot of interpersonal interaction. Of course, I should have known better than that just based on my habit of things expanding on me beyond whatever plans I have.

Finishing this feels… kinda bittersweet, not gonna lie. Like, on one hand, I've finally "finished" a fic, and I feel accomplished, but on the other… well, I'm gonna miss this.

I tried to write this fic somewhat ambiguously with regards to pairing (I could see it as either platonic or otherwise with Hannah, for example), and while I might change that in the future, I feel like this is good for now.

I am planning on continuing in this world, at least for like some apocrypha stuff. Not immediately, probably, but it will come, either in the Apocrypha section or in a new fic altogether, I'm not sure. For now, though, I'll mark the fic as complete.

That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!