Lull 4.04

I'd had time to compose myself on my march through the sewers. I didn't feel better, exactly, but there was something oddly calming about finally facing these bastards with a purpose. I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do, but I had a general plan. I'd just have to get inside the building and do what I had to do and then it'd all be over.

There was a manhole cover right in front of the PRT building. Despite the tumultuous emotions trembling through my body, I retained enough awareness to check for people in the street. I did my best to center myself and sense for psychic presences. Finding no one, I ascended from the sewers onto the street. I didn't know if the PRT had street-facing cameras, but I was pretty confident that they did and between that and the glass exterior I estimated that I had maybe a minute, tops before they knew I was here.

So I sprinted towards the entrance and blew the doors in with a burst of telekinesis, Taking them from their hinges and shattering the reinforced, probably tinker-made glass around them as I entered the building.

This late at night, there were no tourists visiting the PRT and no fans buying merch from the now-closed gift shop. There was just a lobby with a clerk at the front desk and a couple of token guards. The woman at the desk looked at me with wide eyes and then reached for something behind her desk as the guards mobilized, going from "just for show when the tourists are here" to "actual law enforcement operatives" at the drop of a pin.

Three guards came at me. They had full PRT armor but no foam or guns. Just batons and tasers, but they still charged me weapons drawn even though they certainly knew who I was and could plainly see that I wasn't dressed for diplomacy. Good on you boys, earn your paychecks by attacking someone you know could kill you with a thought if she was so inclined. Nobody would ever say that the PRT's ground troops weren't brave or dedicated to the job.

I took a taser dart to my neck and lazily blocked baton with my left forearm when I heard a fourth guard call something in. "Lone Hostile in the lobby, Empress on scene. I recommend that someone move to guard the brownies. I repeat, guard the brownies."

What the fuck kind of code was 'guard the brownies?' I mean, it had to be code, right? There's no way that they were talking about actual brownies. I couldn't feel any interference around him-Armsmaster had yet to share his psychic-jamming tech with the grunts, I guess. I just forced my way in and latched onto his surface thoughts to sate my curiosity and-The fuck?!

I was so shocked by the stupidity that I actually failed to stop a guard's baton from striking me in the face. (Not that that was an issue.) They'd brought the Barneses into protective custody and instead of keeping them at a safe house or sending them out of town, they were keeping them here. Who the fuck was the idiot who thought that was a good idea? The flash drive said they'd have been brought in And the whole Protectorate ENE was here? For reasons that this guy wasn't aware of.

...Okay, that worked for me, but not only is Director Calvert an asshole, he's also fucking retarded.

...And it probably meant that whoever was defending the PRT HQ would think I was after them and not for… Didn't matter, it'd all be over tonight, one way or another. These guards were useless to me, however, so after my token struggle, I grabbed the four of them with my psionic power and gently shoved them towards the wall, each of them immobile but one swearing, before slowly walking up to the woman at the desk.

"Hello," I said as tranquilly as I could manage. "Could you direct me to the stairs? I have an appointment but I'm trying to watch my figure." Actually, I was pretty sure that the elevator was on lockdown. Restrict mobility through the base, keep the invading threat localized while you come around the long way. That's just common sense.

The woman gulped. I suppose that even working for the PRT, that she never expected to see a villain close up. I could read her mind to check, but honestly, I didn't care.

Behind me, another squadron of PRT Troopers had come into the room from the hole I blasted in the front and was taking position. I turned around and saw that they were bunched up in formation and that one of them had one of those fucking foam grenade launchers aimed right at me while the others have sprayers and launchers aimed around me. None of them had regular guns… It kind of made sense that they wouldn't use bullets on me, it was documented that they were useless, but still, only foam?

It was a bit weird how having a purpose and expecting to see them made them… Okay no, I was still terrified of the damn things, but the emotions I already felt drowned it out and allowed me to stay outwardly calm as I rushed them.

A few grenades flew at me, and just before it made contact I pulsed and sent them right back at the agents and a shout of "Shit" was the only sound made before a squadron of PRT troopers was encased in its own foam. I tried to think of a quip but between the frustration that the agents felt and the sounds of their struggling kept me from coming up with anything good.

I turned from them just in time for Mouse Protector to teleport into the lobby and point her sword at me. She sighed. "Real talk?" she began, "I'm disappointed. I was really pulling for you."

I scoffed. "Yeah, well, saw much that helped, didn't we?." I raised my left hand and beckoned her towards me.

She proceeded to hold her form and not move at all. At first, I was surprised by the lack of aggression but then I could suddenly hear rapid footsteps. Then I got punched in the head. Like, not enough to hurt, really, but the fact that I didn't see it coming was kind of irritating.

I refocused just in time to get a brief glimpse of Velocity before he sped off and struck me again. The man was moving faster than I could see and… Okay, he couldn't hit me hard enough to hurt but being hit so many times by someone that I couldn't see was annoying and-ah damn he got me in the nose!

That actually hurt. While I tried to reorient myself, he grabbed me and flipped me to the floor. Then I felt a slash cut through the carapace on my back and I cursed. Armsmaster must have outfitted Mouse Protector with a blade made of the same stuff as his halberd. Mouse Protector flipped me onto my back with a kick and put the tip of her sword at my throat.

I could see Mouse's eyes through her helmet, she did look a little disappointed. "You were this close, kid."

I rolled my eyes. She was Protectorate and the docs said the kill order went into effect two days ago. Whatever pity and disappointment she felt was worthless now.

Then I caught sight of a vent. It was high up, and in a corner out of most people's reach, but it looked big enough for me to squeeze through.

I took a deep breath, and then psionically grabbed the two capes and held them far apart, away from me enough that I could stand up unmolested other than Velocity's sudden yelp and Mouse's sudden piercing stare… She had a rep for being rather talkative and had been so the last time we met, so her being so quiet was actually a bit unnerving.

I checked the flash drive-I'd kept a solid grip on it so that I wouldn't lose it, but I was worried about it having been damaged when I hit the ground. It seemed okay enough, which was good. People needed to know why I was doing this.

I braced myself and with a psychic assisted leap, I burst clear through the vents' grate and… Yeah, the air vent actually did support my weight. Was PRT HQ built by a movie buff? I quickly checked the flash drive again and then started to inchworm my way through the vent, dropping my hold on the two heroes once I was deep enough in.

It was then that I realized that I had no idea what the layout of PRT HQ was like, let alone where the vents went or if they'd even take me towards where I wanted to be, but it was too late to go back now, and it's not like there was enough room to turn around.

I had to climb at a few points and noticed a grate leading into a room full of weights, blocks of ballistics gel, and what looked like a truck. Rather than question its existence, I moved on.

After a bit of climbing around a bit in a twisty bit of vent and startling the hell out of some agents who were trying to suit up in a hurry when they saw and heard me crawl past a grate that peaked into a locker room, I found a long stretch of vent.

My elbows and knees were starting to get numb, so I decided to give my psychic muscles another flex and replicated my levitation trick from the sewers to zoom down. A minute later, I was in freefall as I hadn't noticed the sudden drop halfway across.

I burst through a ceiling grate and hit the floor below me with a thud. I had no idea what floor I was on but past the pain of the impact and the disorientation I felt from the fall, I could feel two bits of white noise and someone with particularly dulled emotions. I managed to flip myself up just in time to see Vista, Aegis, and Weld staring at me before the hallway abruptly started expanding and stretching.

The hall was now twice as wide and tall where they were, half the size where I was, sloped downward, and the three Wards seemed to be at least a mile away. Either Vista was drastically underselling her powers or she was pushing herself to the absolute limit.

So I turned around, and saw that the hallway led directly to the elevator… The door was open, but I was pretty sure that it'd been disabled so I dismissed it as a dead end and turned back around just in time to see that Aegis was flying at me very fast and carrying Weld, who he then threw at me.

I tried to stop him with my telekinetic powers but his momentum was greater than the force I could build up. The way the hall was warped, I had no way to dodge and a heavy metal teenager, who'd moved to punch me mid-air, hit me dead on and knocked me straight into the elevator. I was thus to dazed to react when Aegis landed in front of it and slammed his hand on a button, which closed the door and trapped me inside.

I messed with the buttons to no response. Nothing else to do, I checked to make sure that the fall hadn't damaged the flash drive, then waited. Either I was wrong about the elevators being off, or they'd open up and the Wards would be reinforced with someone from the Protectorate or some agents with more of that fucking foam.

The door opened up and I was shot with about eight darts from Miss Militia at the far end of what looked like a different hall. She had a helmet on that she didn't normally wear. Then Armsmaster with two Halberds, one in his hands and one at his back instead of his traditional one, entered my field of vision with a whirl and stabbed me in the left boob with a colossal syringe poking out of his weapon, with some strange fluid being pumped directly into my body.

I dropped the flash drive as my arms relaxed against my will and fell slack. My vision started to go and I swooned a little.

My head was swimming. "You stabbed me in the tit."

"According to Panacea's notes on your physiology, that's the easiest way to inject something directly into one of your hearts."

"You still stabbed me in the tit!" I said. "Not cool dude." Was the room spinning? I laughed. "You know what the fucked up thing about this is? You were one of my favorites." I kind of started leaning to the right without meaning to. "I even had the Armsmaster brand underwear," I laughed again while Armsywarmsy made a funny noise.

"...Regardless, you should be losing consciousness… now." Despite what he said, I was still awake. I laughed at him.

"...You've just been injected with several doses of varying intensity of a cocktail of parahuman derived drugs and toxins," the blue-armored-jackass explained slowly, "including but not limited to several powerful sedatives, paralytics, muscle relaxants, narcotics, mild hallucinogens derived from research into Newter's power, and an immunosuppressant of my own design that should stop you from adapting to them until well after they run their course." He was quiet for a second. "And just to make sure, we complimented it with a dosage of concentrated carfentanil that should, based on BMI and weight calculations, be lethal to the vast majority of the world's population of healthy blue whales. Quite simply, you should not be conscious. Anyone else would have died of toxic shock near immediately."

"You said that some of your drugs are based on Newter's shit?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm immune to his secttree… sextant… secundus… juices. Swapped spit with him weeks ago. Totally worth the five bucks..." Wait, Lisa'd paid for that.

Mastarmser's was response was a perfectly eloquent "...fuck."

I put a hand on his armored chest and pushed him out of the way so I could stumble out of the elevator and into the hallway, which resulted in him backtracking to be in front of me again and swapped halberds. He pointed the swapped in one right between my hearts with a click the blade got really, really blurry.

"This is a weapon I specifically designed to-"

I poked it and then my finger disappeared.

"...Kill an endbringer," he finished lamely. "And now that you know what it's capable of, don't… don't make me use it on you."

I spread my arms wide, splashing him with some blood from my finger-stump "Go ahead. Do it." He didn't move. "No, seriously, do it. Kill me. It'll be easy. I'm… I'm not even a person. I'm a fucking organism."

He frowned, clearly recalling the incident where he'd gotten my hand. "...That's not what I meant."

"I heard what you fucking said!" I shouted. "Just do it you pussy!"

Armsmaster was silent, the two of us starring each other down, for what felt like minutes. With a click, the blurring turned off. "No." He said. He looked at me really close. "If you want to die so badly, then you can do it yourself. I will not play a part in your suicidal temper tantrum." He changed position, holding his weapon defensively instead of threatening me with it.

No. He didn't get to decide this! These fuckers had burned away any bridge to a peaceful resolution to this there had ever been. The only way this ends is if I do or every last one of them is gone. The only way this ends without my friends, my dad… It had to end tonight. It was the only way it didn't end with everyone I care about going out with me.

I screamed. Not even words, just sound and without meaning to I pulsed. Armsmaster's armored seemed to anchor himself and he moved in a fluid but unnatural way, but the power of my psionics cracked the walls and sent he flying with divots from the floor stuck to his boots. I took my wrist and rubbed the water from my eyes while I marched… Er… stumbled down the hall towards Miss Militia.

Without a word, she shifted her weapon into an automatic rifle of some kind and took fire at me. A hail of bullets knocked the darts from earlier out of me and even left pockmarks and craters in my scales and carapace, but either the drugs or my natural toughness meant I didn't even stumble, let alone feel pain.

After a few seconds, she stopped shooting me and instead rolled a can or something across the floor. I looked down at it and then there was a bright flash and a bang and I was blind and disoriented. I'd probably have been pissed if I wasn't high as balls.

Then I got hit right in the chest by something that exploded and with a hiss, I was sealed in something, something tight and constructing, something that made it hard to breathe, something dark, something…

I screamed and sent out my psychic pulse, vaporizing the fucking foam and stripping the paint from the walls around me. I could see again, and I saw red. I charged Miss Militia down and bowled her over and kept moving.

Sometime later, I calmed down enough to notice the big, fat dart hanging from my neck. I plucked it from my neck and took a second to get my bearings… Where the fuck did my finger go and why did my blood smell like strawberry syrup?

That train of thought led me to the colors and flavors of my various internal parts and after ruminating on just how much I didn't like the color of my new kidneys, I realized that I may have just killed Miss Militia. Before I could panic about that too much, it occurred to me that there was something fishy going on.

A handful of Wards being on base made sense, and them mobilizing when I came in made sense… but why send me to the specific floor Armsmaster and Miss Militia were on? Did… Did they already have a protocol for if I attacked the-

-My thought was interrupted when a blur of red hit me and knocked me down a flight of stairs that I hadn't noticed.

I tumbled, bump bump bump, and I think my left shoulder broke or dislocated or something because when I landed my arm was splayed at a weird angle. I managed to flip up but the room was spinning again and I could make out Assault and Battery coming down the stairs. Then I noticed a handful of Agents armed with foam sprayers, though they didn't deploy them. Then Mouse Protector teleported in and had her sword at my throat. "Look, kid, lets just-"

I grabbed her in my telekinesis and gently tossed her at Battery. The sudden motion made her drop her sword, which I caught… blade first, cutting my palm. Assault and Battery, meanwhile, moved to catch the rodent I threw at them. Being speedsters, they succeeded. Turns out that when super speedsters go to catch a super athlete, you get an impromptu cheer routine. The heroes who were either lovers, siblings, or both set down the mouse who looked pissed from what I can tell

Then with another burst of speed, they moved around me and I was pinned between speedsters and agents. One bit of psionic interference vanished and a quick check indicated that Mouse Protector teleported away. I couldn't read expressions or feel Assault and Battery's emotions, but I didn't think they'd take me as seriously as they should. Seriously enough for this mess to end. There wasn't a vent this time. I looked back to the agents. There were readable. Fear and nerves coupled with… wait a second. I dug into one's head and-Damn it! The room they were keeping the Barnes in was in this hall. Motherfuck. Well, at least they'd be more likely to get serious.

"Okay," I slurred out, "who was the idiot who had the bright idea of taking people into protective custody and keep them fucking here instead of a safe house a few cities over…?"

"It was only for one night before we could move them out," Battery said. That wasn't… The documents said-

-Where'd Assault go?

The next thing I knew, I was being punted over Battery and crashing into the floor on the other side. I screamed and tossed Mouse Protector's sword off in their general direction. An Agent turned to run and the sword pierced his foam canister, triggering an explosion that foamed up the entire hallway except for a tiny part of the stairwell.

Fuck it, I'll take it. I'm either really lucky when I'm high or really good at improvising. Eh, if anyone asks I'll claim I did it on purpose.

Heros sufficiently incapped, I shuffled down the hall, not sure what else to do.

I could feel the mixed fear and determination, intermittent with other emotions, of various PRT Agents and other employees as well as a couple blobs of terror on this floor and the mixture of fear, guilt, self-loathing, and anger that I'd felt from Emma that day in the marketplace… Except for more fear. I paid them no mind and ducked into a women's bathroom as I walked by it, hoping to get a minute to think out my next move.

I caught myself in the mirror. There I was, a scaly blue monster with black tendrils instead of hair and a shell of silver bone instead of clothes. I was cut up, shot to hell, with bloodshot eyes, and missing a finger.

"...What am I doing?" I asked aloud. Even with the… "Why, why did I even come here?"

I knew the answer. I'd found out there was a bounty on my head, that all my worst fears had come true, and just decided to get it the fuck over with and then I lost my nerve the second I saw how fucked up I looked. The next thing I knew I was curled up under the sink.

"I'm so fucking pathetic," I mumbled. I thought I'd made so much progress but it only took one big shock for me to be the same kid I was at the beginning of all this… I'd promised everyone I'd check with Lisa or Brian before I did something reckless and yet here I was… I hadn't even stopped to think of what would happen with the Zerg if… How Dad or the others would feel if… How Rachel would react if she woke up and I was… I can't even bring myself to think the word. "So stupid. So pathetic. So..." What the hell was I supposed to do now? I'd attacked the PRT building… I couldn't back out now, after basically ruining everything we'd been working for, but…

I was breathing heavily and couldn't even see straight. I wiped my eyes. It was the drugs. It had to be the drugs.

Mouse Protector teleported into the room, with a different sword from the one she'd had earlier. That must be what she teleported away for earlier. She looked down at me. "Well, this is awkward."

"Just get it over with."

"...I'll need you to stand up first," she said. She sounded like she didn't know

Of course. Of course, she didn't get it. Did she really think she could just arrest me and the system would treat me like a regular criminal? With the Kill Order… I shoved her into the wall and then got up and stumbled out of the room, looking for either a way out of the building or someone who had the balls to finish the fucking job.

Which… I couldn't tell where anyone's emotions were anymore. Did Armsmaster do something with his psi-blocker tech or was it the drugs getting to me? I just stumbled wherever until I ran into someone or something.

Eventually, I stumbled up to Mister Lion Man, er… Triumph. He was standing guard over a nondescript door. He saw me coming and stepped forward to face me. "I'm afraid I can't let you go any further, Empress."

"What, are they keeping them in that room, or something?" I tried to point to the door he was guarding but then I remembered that my finger had disintegrated.

Triumph was silent.

"Oh my God, they are, aren't they?" I looked between him and the door, "What, did you shove them into an office or something?"

"I can't let you hurt them," Triumph said.

I scoffed. "I'm not after them… Fuck, I used to sleep over at the Barnes house… The bitch was like my sister till she turned evil… If I wanted them dead I'd have done it months ago."

"If you're not here for them," Triumph said, "then why are you here? If you want the PRT torn down, I'd have thought you'd have let public outrage after your interview do the job."

"Shut up, I know what, I know what you're planning..." I lost my balance and had to brace myself against a wall and was forced to look down. Have I always been twelve feet tall?

"...Empress," Triumph asked, "are you drunk?"

"Can't get drunk," I said quickly. "Armster… Armshamster… He and Missile-itia pumped me full'a drugs. Said it was enough to kill a whale." I laughed and slowly shook my head. "I don't think he was joking."

"Well," he said, "you should leave. Before you do something permanent and regrettable."

I waved him off. "Like what? You fucks are never gonna let up."

"I don't know what it is you think we're planning," Triumph began, "but it's my understanding that your father, as well as a team from the Mayor's office, are working towards clearing your name. If you're legally proven innocent, we'd have to leave you alone. We've been radioing in after every encounter. So far you've done a little property damage, but you haven't seriously hurt anyone yet. If you hurt someone here though, you could jeopardize that."

"Bullsshhit Trio… Trumpet... Triumph." I slurred. "I've seen the docs, this isn't gonna end till you're gone or I'm dead... An' bullshit on any of you fuckers thinking I'm innocent, either."

Triumph said nothing. He just did the last thing I'd have ever expected.

He took off his helmet.

I blinked. "...What are you…?"

"My name," he said, "is Rory Christner. The Mayor's son. My father's been working with yours. I've seen some of the investigations into what happened back in January." He took a minute to make sure I was paying attention. I was a bit too gobsmacked by the unmasking to say anything. "My Dad thinks that you're innocent of what you were initially pursued for, and I believe him. And I've seen you. You're not a monster. I think that if you just wait a little longer, everything will work out. But you have to leave now before you do something you can't take back."

Did he know? Did he know the real reason I'd come here? Did Armsmaster tell people, or was this all a coincidence? Still. "No, no way, there's no way you think that." I'd seen the documents. If he'd thought that, he'd have tried to argue against…

"You can read minds, can't you?" He said. "Armsmaster's inhibitor is in the helmet. Without it, my mind is exposed and unprotected. You can dive right in and see if I'm telling the truth or not."

And I did… Or, I tried. It was, it was really hard to focus on my telepathy right now. Even once I got it, Triumphs mind was like a bar of wet soap, almost impossible to get a grip, a read on. I ended up just awkwardly staring him in the eyes for a full minute before I could get a grip on it and pressed in deep.

He believed what he was saying. That much was obvious just from the surface but I wasn't satisfied yet. I started rooting around for everything the PRT had on me… I couldn't exactly get a good read on most of it right now, but it was mostly… Shadow Stalker claimed I attacked her… Cuts on her arms… No, that was why they'd sent people to my house… Oh, that… I can't even call her a bitch because that would insult Rachel. The whole reason the fucking PRT was after me was because the psycho who made me trigger was lying her ass off about it!

I had to stop. I was breathing heavily enough that it was disrupting my concentration.

"Kill Order."

"I'm sorry," Triumph said, "what do you-?"

"Do. I. Have. A kill order?" It was a simple yes or no question.

"Not as far as I know. Why, is th-" I raised a hand to silence him and dived back into his mind… Nothing. As far as Triumph knew, there were talks about a pre-signed order in case I went Full Nilbog and something vague about the Wards at Department Q3.

I sighed. So… either they didn't tell anyone about the Kill Order, or I jumped the gun… Or I'd b-

There was the sound of a gunshot and then I felt to the floor. My right leg actually hurt a little, and it felt like there was something really hot embedded in my shin.

"Bitch! …Sorry, Bitch." I flipped over, noticed a hole in my leg, and saw Miss Militia coming down the hall, gun trained on me. She was limping a bit, but otherwise, she seemed fine… Which would have been a relief if she hadn't just shot me.

So I psycicked the door off the wall and threw it at her. She responded by shooting the door, which was a mistake as the explosion of shrapnel still hit her and probably did more damage than I was intending.

I heard Triumph curse and shove his helmet back on while muttering something about defusing the situation.

Then I realized that someone was screaming and I remembered who was in the room I'd just torn the door off of.

Okay, being high off my ass, badly hurt, bleeding, and now someone screaming… It made it really, really hard to keep my head in the game.

I made to crawl away, trying to decide if the thumping I was haring was real or in my head, but I made the mistake of crawling past the door and someone inside spotted me.

"You!" I heard Emma's broken, terrified but somehow also angry voice shout. I have to imagine she was glaring at me or pointing, but honestly, I was too tired or too high to care enough to look. "It's your fault we had to leave our house in the middle of the night! You're the reason I have to sleep in an office because there were no secure busses out of town! Why can't you just leave me alone, I was never anything but nice to you!"

I heard Armsmaster's voice say "That's a lie." When did he get here? I turned and looked up and saw him stepping out of what looked like a false wall… I think there were stairs behind it? Was that the thumping? I think that was the thumping.

Emma stammered. "I-I don't know what you're-"

"My Helmet is equipped with several features, Miss Barnes," Armsmaster interrupted, "mostly combat or surveillance related, but also including a lie detector feature for use in interrogation or, in combat or hostage situations, to tell if a hostile is bluffing." I heard a man gasp or something. Alan about to complain? "It's not legally admissible, yet, but it's accurate enough, and your statement that you were only nice to Empress registered as a lie."

"What does that matter?" I heard Emma say. "She's there right now. Why are you calling me a liar instead of putting her down or whatever you do to capes as dangerous as her!?"

"Well, for one, she's currently bleeding on the ground and high off her ass," Armsmaster said… Was he prideful about that last bit? "She's currently not a threat… In fact, she probably needs medical attention as she is bleeding quite profusely." I was not. I looked down at my shot leg and-hello. I didn't realize my blood was quite that purple. "However, there's something on this flash drive that she dropped makes that particular lie of yours… rather interesting." He sounded mad and-wait, when did I drop the flash drive? Oh yeah, the elevator.

"Why are the elevators running?" I asked. "Did, did you not have this place put on lockdown when I hit."

"Aegis has a remote key to bypass the lockdown and was preparing to use it to evacuate as per my orders when you dropped in," Armsmaster explained automatically, "now, among several real but edited documents and several other convincingly faked documents, among them a phony Kill Order-"

"IT WAS FAKE!?" I could literally see red. I was going to kill Coil. I would grab him, I would rip off his arms and legs at the shoulder and hip, I would burn the stumps shut, and then I'd lock him in a little cage and make him watch as I butchered and cooked his arms and legs. Then I'd force feed him his own arms and legs so his liver would get nice and fat and then I'd rip it out and eat it with a nice chianti right in front of him and then watch him bleed to death. I'd-

"Of course it was," Armsmaster said oblivious to my wrathful vengeance planning. "It's a convincing forgery, but it takes months to get a Kill Order officiated and the judge who signed it doesn't seem to exist. A ten-minute google search would have turned that-Oh dear."

That was probably a result of my repeatedly bashing my head into the floor at my own fucking stupidity. I'd lost my cool and come all the way here, picking a fight with almost the entire Protectorate… Who were all at the PRT base instead of the Rig for some reason… intent on getting this whole fucking mess over with-intent on getting fucking killed! Because of something that I should have fucking known was…

I felt something gush out of the hole in my leg and I kind of sort of pulsed without meaning to. All of a sudden my head was a lot clearer and-hey, my finger was growing back! I chose to focus on that and not the existential angst that came with realizing just how easy it was for someone to lie and drive me to… That.

I stood to my feet and began staring at my finger as it slowly regenerated. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Miss Militia had stood up at some point. Her scarf was gone but the bruising on her face did a decent job of making her unrecognizable… granted, I didn't exactly have a good look at her, though I could see that her gun was once again on me.

I wasn't sure if Armsmaster was going for his own weapon or what, but I spoke anyway. "Don't mind me. I was never here to hurt anyone. Keep talking Armsmaster."

Everyone was silent for a minute. "...Among other documents was a report that the Barnes family, as well as the Hess family who refused protective custody this evening," Oh yeah. They'd been mentioned too. I'd forgotten that on the way over, "were brought into protective custody a week ago in response to one Emma Barnes and one Sophia Hess confessing to deliberately creating a biohazard and entrapping one Taylor Hebert in it, which would make them responsible for Empress's trigger event and resulting rampage-"

"It wasn't a fucking rampage! I had a panic attack and knocked over one bitch!" Speaking of bitches, my psionics were feeling much better now that my head was clear and… Did my blood turn black for a little bit? There was something black in the puddle of blood I'd been lying in.

Anyway, I could feel presences again… Actually, a lot more than I used to be able to feel at once. Regardless, I felt I was entitled to know why my best friend turned evil all of a sudden. She wasn't going anywhere.

"Sorry," Armsmaster said half-heartedly.

"That's bullshit!" Emma shouted. "We didn't' put her in there."

"See, that's another lie," Armsmaster said… Wait, was he mad? "The Parahuman Response Team and Protectorate have spent quite a lot of time, effort, and money pursuing Empress on testimonies to Agents investigating at Winslow given by you and your friends that she was delusional and dangerously unstable..."

I sort of tuned him out and dived into Emma's head. Deep down, poking around for memories. It was a lot easier than rooting around in Triumph's head, despite her's being a lot more messed up, and… There. A couple of years ago, I was at camp. She and her dad were in an alley and… Oh. Oh…

Oh.

My best friend hadn't turned evil. She'd gone insane because a fucking psychopath had gotten her claws in her when she was vulnerable.

I pulled out and looked into the room, Alan was holding Emma tight and telling her to stop talking. What, did she spill her guts while I was in her head? Doesn't matter, I've just got one thing that I need to ask her.

"Emma," I asked, "did you ever ask Sophia what she'd have done if you didn't fight back in the alley?"

"How do you-"

"Psychic. Also, you need like… All of the therapy."

"Fuck you! I'm not weak like-" I turned her out again. There were a lot more psychic presences than I was used to. A lot further out, too. I tried to focus out on everyone, to see just-Holy shit!

Thousands of people. I could feel the whole city… Some of them seemed familiar… There was Dad at the Dockyard… Lisa, in my room… Panicking. I sent a zergling to charade to her that I was okay but couldn't focus on it for long because there was something else. Someone drawing my attention. Someone afraid. Someone in pain, more than anyone else in the city.

I noticed that Armsmaster had a hand raised. "With all due respect, Deputy Director..." Talking on a communicator in his helmet? Yeah, I remember him doing that after I took out Kaiser. "This isn't the best… Well, if it's that important, patch him through… Hello…" then he grunted a few times. "That last one seems a little excessive… Alright… Oh. Okay. Triumph?" Triumph looked at him while I tried to figure out where, exactly, that one person was. "We're going to have to speak privately later. Miss Barnes? That was the chief of police. Among other things, he was informing me that there's a warrant out for your arrest on charges that include being an accessory to theft and assault and battery, deprivation of freedom, conspiracy to commit murder, and possibly something related bio-terrorism. Apparently, one of your lackeys sold you out."

Emma started screaming, so I tuned everyone out again… I'd talk to someone about her later. See about her getting help instead of the book thrown at her… We could never friends again, but it was one last favor I could give to the girl who'd effectively died in that alley.

I'd almost found whoever it was, the person in more danger than anyone else tonight. They were in a bad part of town… Not that far from the lair actually... And utterly terrified, enough to almost drown out everyone else in a two block radius. If I focused just right I could almost read their thou-

"Get away. Need to get away. Left or right? Which-Ow. Gotta move fast. Odds of getting caught if I go left?"

...Someone was chasing a terrified little girl through the city in the middle of the night.

In my territory.

I started walking away. I heard someone ask "where do you think you're going" but I didn't catch who and I paid them no mind. Someone needed help. I had to get to her. I had to save her, and I had to get out of here and…

And then I vanished.