AN: This story was originally posted on SpaceBattles & Sufficient Velocity and is being cross-posted here for reader convenience. If you want to see the advanced formatting that's been automatically stripped out this version, you'll need to read it on one of the other sites.
My name is Taylor Hebert, and I'm a hero. I think. I mean, I know I'm a hero―I have no doubt of that. I'm just… not sure it's me. I mean, I don't black out or anything when I go hero, but I'm not 100% certain it's me in the driver's seat, if you know what I mean. You see, I act different, think different, when I'm in that form. So, is it just me with my mind a bit different or am I, like, tagging someone else in? I suppose the fact that she knows what I do and I remember what I do as her makes it likelier it really is me, but... You know what, let me start at the beginning.
"Congratulations," exclaimed the doctor, "It's a girl!"
Ok, let me start in the middle…
"Ah, what a beautiful Brockton Bay night!" exclaimed the woman as she cheerfully strolled down the dark street littered with broken glass and assorted trash. "Smell that wonderful fresh air!" she declared shortly before walking into the smoke from a smoldering dumpster and breaking into a coughing fit. Staggering out of the cloud and leaning against a wall, she wheezed, "Listen to the peaceful sounds of the city at rest."
"Get out and stay out, you cheating fuck!" screamed a woman's voice in the distance.
"Look at that charming … ok, I've got nothing," she admitted as she carefully avoided stepping in a murky green puddle. "But this is my city and I love it!" she declared, posing dramatically under the only working streetlamp. The harsh light revealed a tall young woman with light blue skin and voluminous jet black hair with white lightning bolt shaped highlights swept back jaggedly. She wore a red bodysuit with a gold F! emblem on a black oval on her chest, white boots and gloves, and a small black domino mask that looked painted on. After holding the pose for a moment, she walked on.
"Well, it looks like tonight was a bust," she sighed a few minutes later. "I guess even in Brockton Bay, you're not going to just wander into a crime every night…" Suddenly her ears perked up. "Wait—sounds of suspicious activity! This looks like a job for Freakazoid!" she exclaimed quietly. Creeping further down the street, she cautiously peered around the corner.
Clustered in the next street was a mass of people, each wearing red and green to varying degrees. Behind them stood a large shirtless man adorned with dragon tattoos and wearing an ornate metal mask. Lung, the most dangerous cape in the city, and members of his gang, the Azn Bad Boys. As she took in the scene, his words carried to her.
"…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"
"Not on my watch, mister," breathed Freakazoid! as she leapt into action.
"Children? I'm not messing with kids—they're vicious!" exclaimed a voice from the mass of gang members.
"What?! Who said that?" demanded Lung.
"Yeah, my brother decided to push around some kids one time. He came back with only one ear!" cried a voice from another spot in the crowd.
"He was lucky," cried another voice, "two of my friends tried to take some cookies from a girl scout and they still haven't found them!"
"What are you idiots saying?!" growled Lung, starting to look a little larger and much more dangerous.
The gang members glanced around nervously, suddenly unsure about their mission, or if they'd even survive the briefing if people kept pissing off their leader.
"We'd have to be crazy to take on children!" exclaimed Freakazoid! from another part of the crowd, crouched in the center of a small ring of gang members who had quickly backed away from her.
"You stupid fuck," snarled Lung, glaring at the revealed hero, "did you really think that would work?"
Standing up, Freakazoid! merely shrugged and pointed at three gang members who were quietly trying to sneak away into a nearby alley. At Lung's bellow of rage, they ran for their lives.
"I'll deal with them later. Kill her."
Standing back with his arms folded over his chest, Lung stood and watched impassively, as brutally and efficiently, his foot soldiers were beaten to a pulp. It was now time for him to crush this challenger himself. She'd displayed exceptional strength, agility, and awareness, but she would soon learn how useless those would be against a dragon. As she finished the last grunt and turned to face him, Lung charged.
Freakazoid! dove to the side, and landing on her hands, slammed a heel into the side of his knee in a vicious kick. Lung stumbled forward with a pained grunt, and before he could recover, a knee to the chin sent him staggering back and another foot slammed into his stomach. Bellowing in rage, he lashed out blindingly fast with both fists, striking only air as his opponent jumped back but giving him some breathing room. Straightening, he stood nearly a foot taller and showed no sign of injury.
"I'm going to take my time with you," growled Lung as he stared menacingly at Freakazoid!.
"Yeah, I could tell. It makes you real easy to hit. Thanks!"
With a roar, Lung leapt forward, throwing punches, kicks, and at times even his entire body at the annoying hero who somehow managed to dodge or deflect each of his attacks. He himself received a number of blows during his relentless assault, but the damage healed almost instantly, and they hurt less and less as he grew larger and more powerful. No, he may not have landed a hit yet, but he had no doubt of the outcome of the fight. And then as he let loose a mighty roar, a punch strong enough to take off her head connected—with a fire hydrant—as the annoying flea jumped to the side at the last moment. With the resultant surge of pain and rage, he grew even larger and felt his jaw twist and shift as his face took on more draconic features.
"Irr ill ooo!" he roared.
"What?!" replied Freakazoid! as she leapt back and opened some distance.
"irr ill ooo!" screamed Lung.
"What?!"
Lung paused, took a deep breath, and putting great effort to enunciate clearly, said slowly and carefully, "I'll kill you."
"Oh," said Freakazoid!, "well, in that case…"
"Hold up," Tattletale said to the rest of the Undersiders as they paused on a nearby rooftop. "It sounds like someone's engaged Lung for us."
"Do you think they'll be able to handle him," asked Grue as he peered in the direction his teammate was looking, now able to discern roaring and crashing that was quickly getting louder as the source approached their location.
"I … don't think so…." she slowly replied.
A moment later another sound was added to the noise, an annoying wail, like a siren that went on and on. A few moments after that, a few blocks away, a blue woman in a red bodysuit rounded a corner and ran down the street as if the hounds of hell itself were after her.. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
A second later, an extremely large, extremely angry Lung crashed through the corner in pursuit. "Um ack ere!"
"What?!"
"Um ack ere!"
"What?!"
Lung paused, took a deep breath ... and bellowed in rage as his quarry ran around another corner without slowing.
"Damn, he's really pissed," commented Regent as he watched the action below, "I wouldn't want to be her when he catches up… So, who's for pizza?"
"Wait, she's about to try something," said Tattletale, staring intently as the woman grabbed a lamppost, and with a mighty heave, ripped it off its base and raced back toward the corner.
"Now, what's she going to—oh, dear God, no!" cried Tattletale as she quickly turned away and covered her eyes.
Trusting the visor of his helmet to protect him from any sudden flash, Grue watched as Lung raced around the corner. The woman dove past Lung, rolling to her feet, and before the huge dragon-man could turn around, she thrust the lamppost forward and—Grue quickly looked away, feeling rather queasy, as the loudest roar yet echoed through the night.
"Oh my God," breathed Regent, "She… she just shoved a lamppost right up…" and then he started laughing so hard he had to lean against a nearby vent.
"Is… is Lung still going?" asked Grue, not wanting to look again.
"No, he's down," replied Tattletale, "I think he lost the will to fight… and possibly live… after that. I'm going to go down and talk to… Freakazoid, I think it is. Wait here."
"No problem," said Grue.
Regent just gasped for breath, still laughing. Bitch silently petted one of her dogs, still not quite sure why they'd stopped and seeing no reason to join the conversation now.
The roar of his motorcycle's engine subsiding to a quiet purr, Armsmaster slowed as he rode between the dying patches of flame and came to the spot that was clearly the endpoint of Lung's rampage. A quick glance around confirmed this assessment as he saw the fallen gang leader, and a longer one revealed…
"Oh, it's you…" stated Armsmaster resignedly as he pulled to a stop.
"Armsy!" cried Freakazoid!, lighting up as she greeted the Protectorate hero.
"Do not call me Armsy," said Armsmaster, dismounting his bike.
"Armsmaster!" Freakazoid corrected herself, taking a step toward him, arms spread wide.
"Do not attempt to hug me!" exclaimed Armsmaster in alarm, drawing his halberd and defensively bringing the business end to point at the other hero, only lowering it when she raised her hands and took a step back.
"Thank you. Now, what happened here with―dear God! Why is there a lamppost lodged in his posterior?!"
"Ah, well, he kept regenerating as he got bigger, so I figured, he may be able to heal damage but will that help against a foreign object? Turns out it didn't!"
"Why didn't you remove it when he returned to normal size?!"
"Well, first, I wasn't sure he wouldn't recover and start growing again if I did that, and second, eeeeewwwwwww!"
Armsmaster felt the overwhelming urge to massage the bridge of his nose; unfortunately, the design of his visor prevented it. "Fine… We'll figure something out," he sighed as he went over to Lung and injected the fallen man with a powerful tranquilizer. He figured it was as much an act of mercy as a safety precaution. And then Freakazoid! said something that turned his blood to ice water in his veins.
"So, what are the Wards like?"
"Oh, horrible!" exclaimed Armsmaster quickly. "They're required to abide by a strict diet that's 90% broccoli―"
"I love broccoli!"
"On alternate weekends in December, the rest of the time they mostly eat… how do you feel about Spam?"
"Bleeeurgh!"
"The rest of the time, they mostly eat Spam. It makes up 80% of their diet."
"Well, I guess you must have professional nutritionists on staff and if they say it's an appropriate diet, who am I to argue..." allowed Freakazoid!, looking a bit queasy. "They get specialized combat training, right?"
"Absolutely! Three times a week, the Wards go up against seasoned Protectorate heroes who beat them black and blue to give them invaluable combat experience."
"I'm already blue!" exclaimed Freakazoid! proudly.
"Of course, most of their time is spent walking to and from school—six hours each way, uphill the entire time."
"Uh… wouldn't that take up the entire day? And how can it be uphill both ways?"
"An unfortunate power interaction between Vista and Clockblocker, and it's only six hours subjective time; to the rest of the world it looks like it takes half an hour."
"Then … why have them go together? And wouldn't they go to different schools anyway, what with Vista being so young?"
"They do, but regulations require the Wards walk to school as a group. It'd definitely make much more sense for them to go separately, especially with that power interaction, but regulations don't take sense into account. You get used to that pretty quickly in the Wards or Protectorate—there are so very many regulations."
"I do like walking…" mused Freakazoid!. "I'm not so sure about some of the other stuff, though. Where could I find out more?"
"Your interest is appreciated, hero, but I'm afraid there are no openings in the Wards roster right now. Normally, you'd just have to wait for one of the current members to get killed—about a week or two, they die all the time—but recently, we've taken to cloning the more effective members and just swapping in the replacement before anyone's the wiser. Confidentially, we're already on our fourth Vista. Don't worry, though, the next time there's a problem with the cloning process, we'll call you."
"Um… ok. Do you even have my number?"
"We'll find you if we need you."
As Freakazoid! sighed and walked off, Tattletale lowered her phone and quietly stepped further back into the dark alley. Clutching her phone to her chest, she quietly whispered, "I'm the happiest girl in the world!"
Armsmaster pulled his motorcycle into the spot reserved for him and triumphantly strode into PRT ENE headquarters. He may not have personally taken down Lung, but he was the one to secure the gang leader and bring him in. Suddenly the voice of Emily Piggot, Director of the branch, boomed through the building, "Armsmaster! My office! NOW!"
His keen intellect working swiftly, the hero was quickly able to deduce that he was in trouble. First, there was the fact that the Director had summoned him the instant he entered the building. Second was her curtness and tone of voice. Finally was the fact that while she had apparently summoned him from her office several floors above and on the other side of the building, her near-deafening voice had not come through the intercom system. The way other people gave him a wide berth in the halls and elevator assured him that his coworkers also had keen intellects, or at least strong survival instincts.
Entering the Director's office, he did his best to withstand her rage and hate-filled glare, the disappointed look of Deputy Director Renick, and the predatory gaze fixed on him by the unattractive middle aged woman wearing a saccharine smile and a pink shawl over a green blouse. As he noticed the display on the far wall bearing a paused video of himself talking to Freakazoid, a cold knot formed in his stomach.
"Armsmaster," growled Director Piggot, "Allow me to introduce Miss Delores Umbridge, from the Youth Guard. She has some ... questions for you."
"Hem hem," interjected Umbridge, "questions and concerns―and not just for Armsmaster. Let's start with the Wards' menu for each week from the past year, along with documentation of input from nutritionists and child development experts."
Armsmaster longingly eyed the office's open door, mentally sighing as the Director's receptionist closed it from the other side, eliminating any hope of escape.
Many hours later, Armsmaster wearily staggered down the hall intent on reaching the sanctuary of his workshop now that the meeting from hell was finally over―at least until tomorrow when they picked up again. Walking on autopilot, he was abruptly jolted into full alertness by the sound of nearby women's screams and curses, quickly explained as he looked around and suddenly realized he'd somehow ended up in a women's restroom. He hastily apologized while backing out of the room, promising that he'd pay more attention and that there wouldn't be a repeat of the incident.
Shaking his head at himself, he resumed his walk, turning a corner―and abruptly finding himself walking back into the restroom. Fleeing amid a new round of enraged shrieks, thrown objects, and more than one promise of complaints filed with HR, Armsmaster stomped a few feet down the hall before shouting, "Vista!"
When the only response was a distant angry cry of, "I am not a clone!" he sighed and decided he really needed to redesign his visor to allow him to massage the bridge of his nose.