Leaf
Chapter Fourteen
"You, kid." Bakuda looked down at Lift as her men entered the room. They split up and grabbed some of the other captives, but Lift didn't know what for. "You're coming with me. It's time you prove your worth."
It had been, what, an hour since she had been left here with the others, listening to their cries? Lift had tried to come up with a way out, but everything she thought of led to a dead end. Run away? Her head explodes. Try to remove the bomb herself? Her head explodes. Maybe she could survive the explosion if she had enough to eat, but she wouldn't try it unless she had no other choice. She couldn't run, she couldn't fight, and she didn't even know what to steal. All she could do was wait for an opportunity to ... do something. She wasn't sure what, but the fact that she couldn't do anything made her want to try anyway, bomb or no bomb.
"Good luck with that, Splatter Face," she said, getting up. "I'm worthless and I'm proud."
"Don't sell yourself short." Bakuda began walking away, knowing that Lift would follow her or risk ticking her off. "Worth is more a matter of construction than constitution. Do you know what the bomb in your head is worth? It's a few grams of zinc, iron, cadmium, silicon, and a few other metals, maybe twenty dollars tops in raw materials. But because of how I put it together and where I put it, that twenty dollar bomb is worth your life."
Lift felt the back of her head. She had healed over where the bomb was, but it still felt ... tight in the wrong way. "What's your point?"
"My point," she said, glancing over her shoulder, "is that I am happy and willing to take you apart and put you back together to make you explode in the perfect way, if that's what it takes to get what I want. You may turn out to be useful to me as you are, or you may require training. Either way, I win."
They kept on walking. Wyndle whimpered as he trailed along the wall beside her, and in the distance Lift heard someone scream. "So what do you want?" she said. The people they passed backed away in panic when they saw Bakuda coming. "You got lotsa people that gotta do what you tell 'em, but you always gotta tell 'em what to do. Always. A starvin' headache, that."
Bakuda walked on in silence for a moment, and Lift almost thought she was ignoring her when she replied. "I've never been good with people ... before. Never saw the point, didn't want to waste my time. It was only after I got my powers when I realized how much fun they could be. They have so much potential energy in their seemingly boring lives, so much pressure. All you need to do is pile it on until they reach critical mass, apply the right trigger, and ..."
Leaf flinched, but no one blew up. Instead, Bakuda let out a sigh. "It's beautiful, and even more true in the case of us parahumans. They even call them 'trigger events.'" She fell silent for a moment, and when she continued she seemed to almost be speaking to herself. "I exploded that day, more brightly than I ever could have dreamed. I'm still exploding, and I want to see how far I can go." She turned to Lift. "Worth a little headache, don't you think?"
Lift mulled through that in her head. "So ... it's 'cause you're bored?"
Bakuda let out a laugh. "Sure. It's because I'm bored. I'm bored and I bomb cities for fun. But enough about my hobbies. It's time for your test."
Bakuda led her into a room. A large table was laying on its side by a wall and chairs were scattered throughout. A man Lift didn't know was tied to one of them. There were two other men, one with his feet up and another leaning his chair against a wall, but they stood up as soon as they saw Bakuda walk in and did their best to look smart..
"Have you ever killed anyone? Don't answer that, I know you haven't. But like I told you earlier, we're down a monster, and you need to prove your worth. Besides, this is the Azn Bad Boys, not the Azn Good Boys."
Lift stared at her. "You're gonna turn me into a boy?"
Bakuda stared back. "Cute. No, I'm trying to turn you into a killer."
Lift turned from her to the man tied to the chair. He struggled and whined through his gag. On the floor, Wyndle whimpered. "Oh."
"You're hesitating. Everyone hesitates the first time. It's best to get that out of your system before I'm depending on you to get the job done. Now's the time to ask all the stupid questions like, 'What will happen to me if I refuse?'"
"You'll blow my head off."
"Freeze you in time, but it's the same idea."
Lift blinked. "What?"
Bakuda hesitated for a moment, and then she laughed. "Did I not ... no I didn't. You're a Brute, so I gave you an anti-Brute bomb. I based it off of Clockblocker's powers, but it ended up more like Grey Boy's, and that kid? That's fun. Some capes can survive a small explosion in their skulls, but the four-ten doesn't kill you, so what you can survive doesn't matter. When I detonate it, you get stuck in a bubble of frozen time that never wears off. You'll be a statue as your friends and enemies grow old and die around you, the human race goes extinct. When the world ends and the sun explodes, you'll still be there, forever, a permanent warning to the next person who gets in my way."
Lift stared at her, her mouth open. When the world ends and the sun explodes—when everything else is going wrong—and you'll still be there—I want to be the same—forever.
It was exactly what she had asked for, the boon she had gone all the way to the Nightwatcher's forest to get. And it was wrong. It was all wrong! This wasn't what she had wanted at all! It would be like being trapped, like being dead.
But I'd always be her little girl.
What a joke. It was ... it was just like those stories she heard when she was younger about the Nightwatcher where the moral was to never ever go there. You always got what you asked for, but never what you wanted.
She summoned Wyndle into the form of a rod, as much to have something to hold onto as to talk to him. Hey Wyndle. If ... if I kill this man ... you die, doncha?
His words came into her mind as clearly as if he had spoken them. I do not know for certain, but I believe so. I ... I would not wish to put you into this position, but such an act would violate your oaths and break our bond. That would ... you've seen the Deadeyes, Mistress, spren of the last Radiants before the Recreance, their minds broken by the weakness of those they once trusted. That would be me. Mindless, lost, alone, and worlds away from any who once knew me. I am sorry.
And he hadn't even chosen her to begin with. Some spren committee had done that, and he had been forced to go along with it, whining all the way, because he had never been in control.
The man tied to the chair in front of her wasn't in control either.
Life before death.
No one made her say those words. She had chosen them, accepted them, because they were true, and they were hers. She never regretted that. But that didn't leave her with a whole lot of options.
Strength before weakness.
She said them in her mind, if only because she might not get the chance to say them again.
Journey before the destination.
And finally ... she understood. There was no way for her wish to be granted. There never had been. Even as a child she had been growing, and if she stopped growing she wouldn't be the same any more than if she kept growing. It had been a silly thing to ask for from the start. She might as well have asked for the world to not go wrong in the first place.
She took a deep breath, and let go of a burden of resentment that she had never needed to carry.
I will remember those who have been forgotten.
Will anyone remember me?
Yeah, sure. As a warning.
Unless ...
Unless I get lucky.
Hey, it's happened before.
But no matter what ...
I'll always be me.
She reached out to the man and touched his gag, making it fall loose, then she cut him free.
"Interesting choice," Bakuda said.
Lift shrugged. "Don't feel right beating up someone who can't fight back." The man cautiously got to his feet and rubbed his wrists. "You got a name?"
He stared at her and glanced at Bakuda, looking for some trick. "Eric. Eric Dime." He was older than her, thin, with pale skin and a shaved head. He seemed like he was about Gawx's age, and puberty had left its mark all over his face.
"Could we get Eric Dime a weapon or somethin'? Make it a fair fight?"
Bakuda let out a laugh. "Kid, unless you can give the man super powers, nothing's going to be a fair fight."
Well, that was an idea. She summoned Wyndle into a shardblade, maybe smaller than what they had back home, but blades bigger than people just looked awkward. Four feet long and two fingers wide was plenty. She held Wyndle out and dropped him, letting him sink into the floor up to the hilt, and stepped back.
Mistress? I do not like this.
Ah, hush. You can blunt yourself when you need to. But that would be cheating, and she needed to put on a good show.
"Cocky, kid," Bakuda said as Eric slid the sword out. "There's a joke to be made about falling on your own sword, but it's beneath me."
Eric stared at the Wyndleblade. They didn't have stories about shardblades here, but who needed stories when the sword could cut through stone like water and weighed less than silk?
"Ready?" Lift asked. Eric swallowed.
Then he swung at her. It had plenty of power behind it, but it was jerky, easy to see coming. Lift sprang out of the way and began circling him. He let out a shout and continued to swing wildly, chasing her around the room, hacking his way through chairs and anything else in his way, but coming nowhere close to actually touching her. Lift was pretty sure he didn't really mean it. That was nice, but kinda inconvenient.
A moment later he missed her with an overhead slash that left him off balance. She slicked herself and slid behind him, popping up to give him a good shove that sent him stumbling forward. He drove Wyndle into the floor to keep himself from falling. She got a running start and then jumped onto his back, climbing up until she could wrap an arm around his neck as though she meant to choke him.
Exit? Wyndle had been free to explore the building when she had not been, and hopefully he had kept track of how to get out.
Out the door, turn right, down the hall, left, down the stairs.
"Out the door, turn right, down the hall, left, down the stairs," she repeated into Eric's ear. "Run."
He pulled Wyndle from the floor and flailed about, cutting through one of the ceiling lights with a shower of sparks. Lift wasn't sure if he was actually listening to her or not. In her experience, people with swords didn't listen too good.
"Don't kill nothing but walls, or the sword will disappear. Run."
The man finally pried her arm off and hurled her from his back. She landed on her butt on the floor in front of him. If he tried to finish her off now ... but he didn't. He did the smart thing and ran away. He didn't even try to cut through either of the guards, though those guards did a good job of giving him some space. They looked to Bakuda for orders.
"I got him!" Lift jumped to her feet. She darted after him. Bakuda might be mad if he escaped, but accidents happened. Lift would say she was sorry and ...
There was an explosion, like one of Oni Lee's grenades but with a bit more ... squelch? And then Eric Dime was lying face down on the floor.
Or at least he would have been, if he still had a face.
Lift stared at him, at his body. Could she heal that? She could reattach a head, but growing one back? Either way, she had to try. She knelt down next to him, and breathed.
A cloud of white light came out of her and swirled around the area above his neck. Lift watched as the cloud formed an outline of where Eric's head once was, and then, miraculously, the flesh began to regrow.
Then a baseball bat hit her in the face. She somersaulted backwards into a wall and found herself staring upwards at the ceiling.
"Strike one," Bakuda said, sauntering toward her. "Really, how stupid do you think I am? The only chance you would have had was if I didn't think you were dumb enough to try something like that, and I have no reason to suspect that you could outwit a block of cheese." She stopped on top of the puddle of the man's blood, her boots making a small splash, and she let out a dramatic sigh. "Honestly I don't know what's so complicated about this. Do what I tell you or die isn't that hard. Five hundred complete nobodies have been able to figure it out, but every godforsaken cape I catch is convinced that she can find a way out of—"
Eric groaned.
"Sonofabitch!" Bakuda screamed, and she jumped a good foot in the air and pressed herself against the wall.
"What the hell!" Baseball Bat said.
"Zombie!" Crowbar said.
Lift's face broke into a grin as Eric pushed himself groggily to his feet. "Run!" she said, pointing. "That way!"
Eric stumbled forward and slowly broke into a jog down the hallway. No one stopped him.
A moment afterward Bakuda began to breathe again. "Alright, that was pretty good. I'm not too proud to admit that. Um ..." She cleared her throat, then snapped her fingers at her two goons. "Take the kid and put her with the other healer. I ... I need to process this."
WWW
Vista took a walk to the ocean front, bending the rooftops together and shrinking them to make a path for her. It had been a long night, but it was almost morning. She'd stayed out this late already; she might as well see the sunrise. Afterwards she'd go back and face the fallout.
Her team was probably worried about her after she had basically disappeared. They'd think that she ... what? That she couldn't handle herself? How much did that really matter? She didn't know if she could handle herself. She had killed Leaf and had watched herself die. Maybe a nervous breakdown was called for, and that was nobody's business but hers.
It was a short walk to the Bay with nearly everyone in doors. She wasn't in costume so she'd get yelled at if Piggot found out she was using her powers so blatantly, but she couldn't bring herself to care. What was the point? Following the rules wouldn't undo what she did. At this point nothing would.
As she walked her mind turned to that man's story, if only to avoid thinking darker thoughts. Everything about that encounter had been surreal, as though she had dreamt the whole thing while sleepwalking. There was a chance that he was a parahuman with some Thinker power, but she wasn't planning on writing a report about it. What would she even say? A strange man with a potato flute talked nonsense to me while I was having a breakdown, and then he told me a poem. Yeah.
What worth do you discard?
That question irritated her for reasons she couldn't really explain. Most things were worthless, and if you didn't throw away your trash you'd be buried in it.
But that wasn't what Hoid had said the story had meant, that was what she had said it had meant. She wouldn't have come up with that answer if it hadn't connected with her.
Parts of the story reminded her of middle school drama. Compared to her cape life, her school life bored her to tears so she never got too involved, but she got the filtered version anyway. Basically a girl would pick out a boy and play hard to get with him, he would chase her for a while, they would get together for about fifteen minutes, and then he would lose interest immediately. It was dumb, juvenile, and exactly like the people in the story who didn't want any sunlight as soon as they could get it for free.
Not that she ever got into that. Again, it was dumb. She worked for things that mattered, like being a hero and saving the world, at least her tiny piece of it.
Vista shook her head. No, that was just what she liked to tell herself. She cared more about the friends that she spent nearly every day with than the few hundred thousand strangers she had never met. If she was honest, she cared an awful lot about how her friends saw her. So yeah, maybe she was a little insecure, but the Wards was the last good thing in her life, the last real family she had since her parents had all but abdicated the role.
She shook her head and trudged onward. Lots of couples separated, lots of kids grew up in messed up homes. Vista didn't want to pity herself for it. She hated pity. Most of the reason she was out here was because she was an emotional wreck and she didn't want her team to see her like this. And she had put in a ton of work to earn their respect, and they would say they respected her, but they just didn't want to hurt her feelings which was patronizing.
She frowned thoughtfully as she sat down on the edge of a derelict building overlooking the bay. Her power flowed into it, making it taller and the building in front of her shorter to give her a clear view of the eastern horizon. If ... if I didn't have to work for it, would I still care what they thought of me? No, she realized, and that thought bothered her. If everyone from Carlos to Director Piggot had treated her like an equal instead of like some tagalong kid, she would have taken their approval for granted. And that ... that was pretty dumb.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there, stewing in her thoughts, waiting for the sun to rise, but a scraping sound against concrete interrupted her. Turning around, she saw a claw reaching up onto the rooftop, pulling behind it a monster that she had seen before.
Oh crap.
She never would have called the thing a dog if she hadn't known about Hellhound's powers. It looked more like a dinosaur than anything, and she had seen what it could do to Aegis, but on its back rode something even worse.
Tattletale smiled at her, criminally smug and looking like she knew far more than she ought to. "Hey kid. Fancy meeting you here."
WWW
Amy took great solace from the fact that she was about to die. It wasn't a depressing thought, it was freeing. There wasn't much left she could do to screw her life over now that it was about to end. She wouldn't have to feel guilty about every hour she didn't spend at the hospital, she didn't have to worry about becoming a supervillain like her mysterious father, and most of all, she didn't have to worry about losing control and hurting her sister.
Because she would, with enough time. She knew that now. Amy wasn't a cheerful person by nature, but there were two things in the world that made her happy. The first was Victoria, a burst of light in an otherwise dreary world. The other ... she thought back to the villain Tattletale, lying on the bank floor, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, her face already swelling like a balloon. Amy had touched her then, not to heal her, but sense her pain, know it, savor it. She had done the same thing to her first set of guards, leaving them in agony, guilt free because she had been so sure they had deserved it.
Two things. Two things that made her happy. How long would it be before she combined them into one?
Longer than she had, fortunately. Now that Bakuda knew the full extent of her power, she wasn't worth the risk of keeping, even as a hostage. Honestly she wasn't sure why the villain was still wasting people guarding her.
She glanced up at them. Two of them, a man in his twenties and a woman about her age. Career criminals, both of them. She might have been able to convince forced recruits to work with her, but these two? People who had "passed initiation" back when ABB members had had a choice in the matter? They hadn't seemed interested. Power and money with the risk of getting blown up by Bakuda or twenty to thirty years in prison?
Well, Amy had offered, and that was really all she could do. It was more than she had done before.
She thought back to her first set of guards, wishing that she could forget them.
I left you alone for an hour, and you already killed three people.
It almost made her glad that she'd never see Victoria again. After all the times she chewed her sister out for going too far, for losing control ... but you couldn't control powers. You could ... you could unleash them and pray, or hold them back and die, but either way ... either way ...
Her mind wandered aimlessly as Amy sat there half asleep. She should have been planning an escape or she should have been resting or something, but instead she was only feeling sorry for herself. As soon as she realized that she felt guilty for feeling sorry for herself, which only made her feel sorrier. More sorry.
Ugh. I don't want to die. I just want to sleep.
But when she closed her eyes, she saw a head explode, jerking her back awake. Normally when she had trouble sleeping she'd head over to the hospital to at least make the most of her insomnia, but that was what had gotten her into this mess. And honestly she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since Thursday. Since the bank. Since Tattletale.
Another perk about dying. Ever since that day, Amy had felt like she'd been coming apart at the seams, dreading the moment that villain regained the ability to communicate, wishing that she had either killed her or healed her instead of coming up with the worst, cruelest option. Then when Tattletale had somehow recovered and escaped, she seemed to be lurking around every corner in Amy's mind, ready to reveal her darkest secrets to the people she loved most. Now? Now Amy didn't have to worry about that at all.
And yet, despite all the advantages of her situation, a thought echoed in the back of her mind that she could not silence.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die and there's no way out.
The door opened, waking her up from her half-slumber. Two men walked in, carrying a girl who was little more than a child. Her clothes were burnt and she seemed to be unconscious. They set her down almost gently before taking a seat next to the other guards, and the girl sat up.
"Oh, now she wakes up," one of them said. "A lazy sack of crap, that's what you are."
The girl shrugged. "You were gonna either drag me down here or carry me, so I picked the one that let me take a nap. Had a weird dream that Bakuda screamed like a little girl and nearly wet herself."
"What?" one of the old guards said. He had a round face with a mouth that seemed to be in a perpetual sneer, and he was wearing a sleeveless shirt with a dragon tattoo on his left arm.
"Don't ask," said one of the newcomers. He had a lean, narrow face with his hair tied back in a short ponytail. He sat down and cradled his crowbar in his lap.
"Fine, fine. Anything we should watch out for?"
"She can make a sword that can cut through anything."
"What, like that Brandish lady?"
Amy glanced up at that, but said nothing.
"Close enough. She can heal too, or make zombies or something. Doesn't seem to be working on herself."
"I need a mirror first," the girl protested. "I wanna see the mark your buddy gave me."
Amy glanced at her. Besides her clothes, her hair looked like it was burnt too, much shorter in some places than others and not in a way that looked intentional. She had tan skin and looked vaguely Hispanic, or possibly Middle Eastern or South Asian. A large purple bruise covered nearly half her face, but it didn't seem to dampen her spirits. "It looks pretty bad," Amy offered.
"Hey!" said the guard with the dragon tattoo. "Don't talk to each other."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Or else what? You'll blow us up?"
"I will." He turned to the newcomers. "You got the girl's number?"
"Yeah," said one of them. He wore glasses that had more than a few scratches on them and an ugly scar on his forearm that looked like an old burn. He leaned on his baseball bat as though it were a cane as he pulled out his phone. "You want it?"
"Yeah."
Each of the now four gang members carried weapons, but they could kill Amy with the push of a button. Bakuda could apparently trigger her bombs with her mind, but they also had phone numbers that her henchmen could call.
The girl settled in, leaning her back against the wall lazily and turned to her. "So, what are you in for?"
"Hey!" the guard barked. "What did I just tell you about talking?"
"What did I tell you about having a face like a dog's butt?" the girl asked.
The man hesitated, taken aback by the shear audacity of the comment. "What?"
"Nothin', 'cause I'm bein' polite. But it looks like you're waggin' your tail every time you shake your head."
He stood up. "Alright, that's—"
"Enough? Then sit down and shut up, 'cause you may be ugly but I'm bettin' you ain't stupid."
"The hell you mean?"
"Your boss is crazy. You know she's crazy, killin' people for no reason at all." She pointed at herself with her thumb. "But not me. I'm one of the only people she's chosen not to kill."
He made a face. "She's chosen not to kill all of us. That's hundreds of people she's chosen not to kill."
She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. That's people she hasn't bothered to kill yet. That's different. If you end up killing me? She might not kill you for that now, but she'll remember it next time she's bored." She turned to Amy. "Anyway, I'm Leaf. Who are you?"
Amy blinked. Did ... did that work? Even without killing them, the guards could have bludgeoned them senseless, but they seemed content to stay back. "Amy. Well, Panacea in costume." Victoria always got irritated when she used civilian names. "You don't recognize me?" Her costume had seen better days, but it should still have been distinct.
Leaf rubbed her nose. "Nope. And with a face like that, I would've remembered."
Okay, jerk. "Hey, I just rolled out of bed and I've spent the whole time since being blown up and dragged around and ..." Splattered with blood. She turned away.
"Hey, I didn't say you were bad ugly," she said, as though trying to console her.
"So I'm good ugly? What does that even mean?"
The girl looked at her and held her gaze. Her eyes ... they weren't a natural color. Her irises were whiter than even the whites of her eyes, and they caught the light like a diamond ring. "It means that when you're gone, you won't be forgotten." Silence hung in the air as her words sunk in, then she broke the tension with a friendly smile. "They put me here for kicking Lung in the face. What about you?"
"This isn't a prison—wait, you did? How long ago ... never mind. Um, Bakuda wanted me to heal Oni Lee, so she attacked the hospital I was working at."
"You're a healer?"
"Uh, yes? That's why my cape name is Panacea." Most of the time people recognized her as Panacea even when she was in her civilian wear. It always annoyed her, but she had gotten used to it. Either this Leaf kid was new in town or completely oblivious.
"So that's not like pancakes?"
She blinked. "What? No."
"Oh." Leaf looked up at her after a moment. "Did she try to eat your soul afterwards?"
Amy blinked. "What?"
"Bakuda. She eats souls, y'know. Tells you that if you don't kill for her, she'll blow you up. But if you do ... you won't be you no more. She do that to you?"
Oh, that. Amy looked away. "Yeah." That was one way of putting it.
"But you won."
"Hmm?"
"You won. You didn't let her take you from you. No matter what happens, you beat her."
She won? She didn't feel like she had won. She felt like—You've already killed three people—she should have done better. She should have been a hero instead of a coward. She should have been kind instead of cruel ... though if Victoria were here, she'd probably have said the same thing. Something encouraging to help her lie to herself.
"You don't think so?" Leaf asked.
Amy shook her head. "No. I could have won ... if I had been better. I could have gotten out."
Leaf shrugged. "Same here. I could've sent Wyndle for help, or chopped off Bakuda's arms and legs and left her an angry torso if she didn't let me go, but you only come up with that kinda stuff after it's too late to try it. But what if it ain't about gettin' out at all?"
Amy looked up. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, the hardest part of a heist ain't gettin' out, it's gettin' in, and we're already here. And pretty soon, she's going to have breakfast."
Amy stared at her, trying to understand the non sequitur, then latched onto the first part of her statement instead. "Heists? What do you know about heists?"
Leaf gave her a flat look. "I'm a master thief."
Amy rolled that thought around in her head. "No you're not."
She raised an eyebrow. "You've never heard of me?"
"No, I mean I don't buy that you're a villain." Idealistic, innocent, and encouraging? And that she had failed Bakuda's test (or passed, depending on one's point of view)? Amy tried to stay away from combat when she could, but she knew what villains were like well enough.
Leaf shrugged. "It's always who you least suspect."
Amy rolled her eyes. "Right. So ... we're here. Now what?"
"We find out when Splatter Face's having breakfast, then we take it first. 'Cause I am starvin' somethin' fierce."
That was ... about the level of depth that Amy had expected. A criminal mastermind you are not, kid. But before she could say anything to that effect, one of the guards laughed.
"You kids are adorable," she said. She was the only girl out of the four of them, still in her teens with red highlights in her black hair. Amy might have thought her to be attractive in her own way if it weren't for her cold, distant stare. "Playing pretend. Acting like you're going to get out of here alive."
Amy's face fell as reality came crashing down on her. Leaf might be able to smile and laugh in a place like this, which was a miracle in itself, but that didn't change where they were, or what was going to happen to them. It didn't change that she was going to die, only that she wasn't going to die alone.
Leaf merely shrugged. "So're you. You know starvin' well that you ain't gettin' outta here neither. You know that with all the folks she has doin' what she says, Bakuda's gonna use you up until she's got no more use for you 'cept to blow you up to show the rest. The only difference is that when your boss nothings me, I'll still be me. Amy'll still be Amy. But I don't know what you'll be when Bakuda's done with you."
It shouldn't have worked. Amy knew enough about field work to know that sometimes you could scare a criminal into submission (especially if you had super strength, invulnerability, and a literal fear aura). And someone like that villain Tattletale could talk her way around you and get inside her head (if it weren't for her glass jaw). But pity? And there was real pity in her voice. Sympathy? Anywhere besides the Protectorate Pals cartoon show, that only either made them angry, or they used that to get you to lower your guard
But ... the ABB girl looked away, and none of the other three guards were able to make eye contact.
If Leaf even recognized what she had accomplished, she didn't show it. "Anyway," she said, half to Amy, half to herself, "back to scheming." She snapped her fingers, as though just coming up with something. "Denny's! Hey Pancake Girl, wanna rob a Denny's when we get out?"
"What?"
"Yeah, a Denny's. They got a breakfast menu I've been craving fierce, and if you don't actually have pancake powers, then—"
"Okay," Amy said, annoyed. Well, maybe she wasn't annoyed, but she was pretending to be because reality was being horrible and she deserved a break. "First of all, it's not Pancake Girl, it's Panacea. Short of the first syllable, those words have nothing in common. Second, I will neither help nor condone you robbing a Denny's, or anywhere else. IHOP has better pancakes anyway, but that's besides the point. Third, if I wanted to, I could make pancakes. I could make magic beans that grow into pancakes with nearly-maple syrup. Hell, I could make beans that grow into trees that grow lunch boxes like in the Wizard of Oz."
"You can what?"
Amy found herself taken aback as Leaf leaped to her feet. The girl was staring at her, eyes wide with an intensity that, in anyone else, would have frightened her.
"I could make beans that… that grow into trees that grow lunch boxes?"
"Do it."
WWW
This was the third time in a week that Vista had run into Tattletale. She wasn't in costume, but when facing a mindreader, a mask wouldn't do her any good. Vista instead put on a brave front that ... also wouldn't do her any good.
Behind her on the same monster dog rode Regent. His powers weren't very strong and his file aroused more disgust than fear—as long as he wasn't in a position to capture you.
A second dog climbed onto the roof carrying Hellhound, and a third dog carried someone whose costume she didn't recognize in a motorcycle helmet. Grue, she assumed. So the whole team was here.
All but one.
Don't think about that. A futile command. As though on autopilot, her brain went through the list of everything she shouldn't be thinking about.
"You better have a good reason for this detour," Grue said. Clouds of darkness swirled around him, and his voice had an echo to it.
Tattletale rolled her eyes. "Of course I do. Don't you recognize her? I mean, she's not in costume, but the only one who's been able to keep their mask on recently is Regent."
Regent gave a shrug behind her. "What can I say? I'm the master of the masquerade."
Grue gave her a brief, disinterested glance. "Yes, Vista, I know. I noticed the warped building too, but we don't have time to go picking fights with the Wards."
Warped building? Oh. Crap. Of all the goddamn stupid ways to put a target on my back. But she had been here a while and her power had seeped into the area around her. She could wall herself off, all but bury herself alive, and wait for help. She was not yet absolutely screwed.
"Oh, right," Tattletale said. "You weren't around when Vista here ..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes suddenly grew intent, as though they were seeing right through her. Vista felt her heart stop. The villain's smug smile twisted into a snarl. "What did you do?"
Vista took a step back. "I ... I didn't mean to ..."
"You didn't mean to," she repeated coldly. Then, strangely, she smiled again. "You're lying to yourself. If you try hard enough, do you think you'll start believing it? You didn't mean to? We both know exactly what you meant to do."
The masks of the other Undersiders covered their faces so Vista couldn't read their expressions, but she knew she wasn't going to get any help from them. "I didn't have a choice," she forced out. "If Lung had gotten out ..." Any number of people could have died. But that argument wouldn't win any points with them. The casualties would have been strangers, while Leaf was their teammate.
"Yeah, but was that what was going through your head at the time? Or were you thinking about how it would look when you could tell your friends that you held back Lung? That you made the tough call and saved the day?"
"No!" Yes. The villain's words rang true to her, painfully so. She had imagined meeting up with the team and telling them what had happened and seeing their reactions. They'd be impressed with her, they'd compliment her, and for a moment she'd be one of them in a way she had never been before. It was a stupid dream for a stupid child.
"Tattletale," Grue said. "We have more important things to do than bully a little girl."
Tattletale didn't take her eyes off of Vista for a moment. "Even one that trapped Leaf in with a flaming monster and left her to die?"
The heads of the other Undersiders snapped toward her, and the mutant dog Hellhound was riding began to growl.
"And that was after Leaf stuck her head back on and brought her back to life."
Vista's throat clenched in shame and her eyes began to water. "I didn't know. I didn't know!"
"Should it have mattered?" Tattletale shouted, her false smile gone. "It didn't matter to her! She should have left you dead!"
Vista remembered how weak Leaf had looked in the video after healing her. The girl had seemed drained, barely able to stand, but she had gone on to face Lung and Oni Lee anyway. If Leaf hadn't saved her, would she have been strong enough to survive?
She should have left me dead. I don't deserve to live.
"I know," she whispered, and she felt the fight leak out of her. That ... that was their plan, she realized. Beat her down with words so she wouldn't fight back, and it wouldn't matter how strong she was.
It was working.
"That's enough," Grue said. "We don't have time for this. Let's go."
Tattletale hesitated for a moment. "Yeah," she admitted. "This was a waste of time."
"Aw," Regent said behind her. "Just when it was getting good."
She heard the clawed paws of the mutant dogs turn away from her, but she couldn't raise her eyes from the ground. Should have left me to die. Waste of time. It was disgusting how easily Tattletale had torn her down, but that was who Vista was. She always needed validation from others because there was nothing inside of her.
But in her mouth she kept a piece of fire.
She blinked, feeling her mind grab onto something. There was nothing inside of her. Why not? Because she threw it all away. Self respect. Worth that she had discarded.
That's why she had left Leaf to die. She had made the choice that she thought would impress others instead of what would be easier for her to live with.
Stop it. Stop throwing yourself away. Stop ignoring what you want to please others.
Because my opinion matters.
I matter.
I always have.
Vista looked up again. She didn't feel better, but she felt like she would feel better eventually, which was more than she'd had for some time. "Wait," she said. "Why did you come up here? What did you want from me in the first place?"
If they decided to ignore her and leave, there wasn't a whole lot she could do, but Tattletale and Grue shared a glance. "She doesn't leave much of a mark." Grue said, his voice soft. "There's nothing to tell you that you were dead at all besides a few holes in your costume and the bloodstains. There's no mark at all, on the outside. We're going to pay her back a bit of what we owe her."
Vista frowned, not quite willing to believe what she thought he was saying. "What?"
"She's alive," he said. "Captured, but alive. We're going to set her free."
Her eyes widened. Alive? Alive? It's not too late. I haven't killed anyone yet. It's not too late. "And you wanted to ask for my help."
Tattletale scoffed. "We were willing to let you help. Not so sure that's a good idea anymore."
"No!" she said, sounding more desperate than she wanted to. "You need me. I ... my powers can help. If I know where she is, I can get her out through an air vent, I can lock down the rest of the building so no one else can get to us, I can ..."
Her voice trailed off when she realized exactly what she was offering. If Leaf had been captured, only one organization could have done it. Leaf had brought her back to life, and the PRT had arrested her for it.
She swallowed. "I can get into the Protectorate Headquarters without raising an alarm."
Tattletale raised an eyebrow. "You'd do that? Break the law? Betray your team?"
Vista hesitated. What would her team say if they found out? And they absolutely would find out. Her powers were too distinctive for her to even entertain the possibility that she would get away with this if she provided anything more than intel. Would they understand? Would they be disappointed with her? Angry? And what about the PRT? Would they send her to juvie until she turned eighteen, or just put her on probation?
She didn't know. She did not know. But ... What do you value most? What should you value most?
Being a hero wasn't about enforcing the law, or at least it wasn't supposed to be. It was about doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. Normally the consequences were closer to a violent death than a disciplinary committee, but if she could handle one she could handle the other, right?
She straightened her back and looked Tattletale in the eye. "I owe her."
Tattletale smiled as though at an inside joke and glanced at Grue. "Should we tell her?"
"She wasn't arrested," Grue said. "She was captured. The ABB took her hostage, same as Panacea."
Panacea had been captured? When had that happened? Was it recent or did people just decide to stop telling her things? On a more immediate note, she glared at Tattletale. "Why'd you let me think my side had her?"
Tattletale shrugged. "I wanted to see how far you were willing to go. And you were willing to betray your team the first chance you got. Bravo, kid."
Okay, yeah, Vista hated her now. "This doesn't change anything," she said, trying to ignore her. "You still need all the help you can get, even more now that the ABB is more likely to try to kill you than take you alive." And I'm not risking a disciplinary committee anymore. Just a violent death. Oddly, that seemed easier. More in line with what she was used to at least.
"You know what?" Tattletale said. "Let's do this democratically. Bitch?"
Surprisingly, Hellhound answered without even acknowledging the insult. "Don't know her, don't trust her, don't like her."
"Yeah, thought as much. Regent?"
"You know what? I missed Oni Lee chopping her head off before. Let her tag along, and I'll keep a closer eye on her this time."
Tattletale turned to Grue. "That's one to one. Care to break the tie?"
"You're not voting?"
Tattletale shrugged. "I think I've said enough for now." There was ... something in her tone that Vista hadn't expected. She had sounded almost sad or regretful or something, but maybe Vista was reading too much into it.
"First time for everything," Regent said behind her. Tattletale elbowed him.
Grue stared at Vista for a long moment. Unlike Tattletale's mask, his helmet covered everything, making his expression unreadable. "The ABB won't hold back. If they get the chance, they will kill you."
"I know." She had died before. It wasn't even the worst thing that had happened to her that night.
"And you'll have to look after yourself. We won't stab you in the back, but we won't risk anything to keep you safe either."
"I know," she said again. That was the most she could expect from this sort of teamup.
"We might have to kill people tonight. Oni Lee, if we can. Maybe Bakuda too. You don't have to do it yourself, but you'll still be involved."
She hesitated, but it wasn't like they were asking her to kill anyone. Her powers weren't suited for that sort of thing anyway, and besides, in a fight with Oni Lee she was more likely to die than he was. She knew that from experience. She took a deep breath. "I know."
He nodded slowly. "Alright then." He extended his hand, and Vista realized that he was inviting her to climb up on the mutant dog with him. A night of firsts. "Let's ride."
WWW
A/n Alright! I know a lot of people weren't thrilled with the darker tone of the last few chapters, but things are finally looking up.
Thank you all for your kind words and support. This story wouldn't have gotten as far without you. I would especially like to thank my patrons, Exiled Immortal, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Apofatix, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, and Svistka! Exiled Immortal gets a special shout out for taking time from his busy schedule to edit this. Some scenes needed to be added, others changed, and others removed entirely from the initial draft, and he's the guy who takes the bad scenes to the chopping block when I don't have the heart to execute them.