Snuggles the Symbiote
"People died?" Ashley asked in a heartbreaking voice.
Things had quieted down a bit. Everyone, excepting the squad of agents who had lost their lives against the Poison Red Queen, had come back in one piece, which led to a debriefing with each of the heroes who were deployed, the extratemporal consultant, all be supervised by Director Piggot. Normally she'd delegate it, but with everything that happened in just a few short hours, she felt that her personal touch was appropriate.
As Miss Militia, currently icing her head, had been rendered unconscious, she'd asked the Wards who'd been present to recount what happened. They'd all been testifying at once, providing information and filling in holes where one faltered, but before the director could ask a follow-up question, the child, Ashley as she wasn't wearing her mask, interrupted.
"Yeah," Vista answered sheepishly. "The whole squad we had backing us up went down. It... I'm probably gonna have nightmares about it, but..."
The youngest Ward shrank into her seat, with tears welling in her eyes. "Uh, uh..." She seemed unable to vocalize her thoughts.
The consultant from the future was immediately in front of the child, kneeling before her. "Ashley? Look at me." The child obliged. "You don't know me, not yet, but I know you. Very well. This? Was not your fault."
"But, the Poisons were after me, and I... I couldn't fight them. The little ones could have killed me in one touch and I wasn't strong enough to fight the big ones, and... So that means that it's my fault, right? That people had to fight my battles and got..." The child started hyperventilating.
The mystic sighed. "You've always been a bleeding heart and you always will, won't you?" She shook her head. "No. Sweety, to start with... Brockton Bay is kind of like New York where you're from, way too many villains per capita and not all of them follow the rules. Those men and women knew exactly what they were getting into when they signed up to help protect the city. What happened to them is not on you, it's on the Poisons." Ms. Mystic turned to glare at Director Piggot, as well as the adult capes sitting near her. "And the idiots who threw away the lives of good men because they wouldn't listen."
"Tell me this," Miss Militia asked as she adjusted her ice pack. "You say that this is a stable time loop, your history exists because you came back in time to make sure that it happened. That must mean that either you knew that those Agents would die no matter what because otherwise, their future actions would disrupt the loop. Alternatively, your warning us not to deploy agents was done specifically to engineer the deaths. In either case, whether on your head or the result of predetermination, such responsibility is not on the PRT."
"Oh, how perfectly on-brand for you, Subcommander Kiss-Butt," Ms. Mystic replied. "Yes, I knew that they'd die ahead of time. I knew that you'd deploy them regardless of what I said. I still warned you, out of moral obligation. Because, despite what you think, you law-breaking, responsibility dodging, hypocritical bootlick, predetermination isn't an excuse and free will still exists. Just because I knew you fuckers wouldn't listen, that doesn't mean that you didn't choose to ignore my advice. No one forced you to ignore my advice. You chose to ignore it, and that leaves you fully responsible."
"The same way that Director Piggot is still a raging bitch for her plans to punish Cuddlebug's potential future quote disobediences end-quote by punishing the other Wards in her place in the hopes of making her suffer by proxy even though I know about it ahead of time."
This prompted a lot of yelling and screaming that was cut short by Ms. Mystic whistling. "Incidentally, Cuddlebug's contract means that she's legally within her right to buy out the other Wards' contracts for a pittance and place them as her direct subordinates remaining in effect even if she quits, which would give them the same immunities she has... Honestly, that whole thing is blatantly one-sided in her favor, if I didn't know better I'd say that a Trickster God laid a blessing down on the lawyer that negotiated it."
This prompted Ashley to snort, seemingly cheering her up from her earlier guilt.
"So, basically, nipping the Director's bullshit in the bud by making sure everyone knows that Bleeding Heart can easily shut it down."
"I'm going to kill the lawyer who handled our side of the negotiations," the Director said while pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm going to kill him, then I'm going to have the rest of the legal division pick that contract apart line by line because there's no way in Hell that it's legal."
"You know that you just confessed to planning a murder in a room full of people with the authority to arrest you, right?" Ms. Mystic pointed out with an audacious grin. This prompted Shadow Stalker to standup... Only to be forced back into her seat by the full-body binds of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorack. "Not now, psycho."
"You," the sorceress said while pointing to the Director whose mouth was open, "were about to say that there's a war going on in this city and how can you be expected to make any headway into curtailing it if the Wards are allowed to do whatever they want without you having the means to discipline them and bring them into line. The answer, of course, is that the Wards are supposed to be a Scouts-type organization where kids learn to use their powers responsibly and prepare for a future career in heroics. they're not meant to be your little soldiers and it's the fact that Miss 'I-Was-A-Living-Mine-Detector' hasn't murdered you for treating the Wards like child soldiers that is the biggest proof that she's a hypocrite."
Ignoring Miss Militia's glare, Ms. Mystic gestured to Weaver, and Vista, and Gallant, and Ashley. "These kids have a destiny. And the obstructive, bureaucratic, disrespectful, abusive, incompetent, authoritative bullshit that you all are used to isn't part of it. I've got years of your dirty laundry, Piggot. I can have you out of the job... I can have you in prison, with a snap of my fingers... Literally, even. But for as much of a bitch that I can be, I'm going to give you the chance to mend your ways. Give up on the political goals, start treating the kids right—get them the therapy, training, and meetups with other Wards teams that they're all entitled to instead of throwing them into the grinder and in general do your actual fucking job instead of worrying about politics and PR... Or get the Hell out. Because, in this story, incompetence and abuse of authority to hurt people aren't part of the plot."
And then Ms. Mystic sighed. "And yes, I already know what you're going to pick. That doesn't change the fact that it's still your choice."
"Can we get back to the debriefing?" Ashley asked, wide-eyed and sounding frightened.
"Yes," the sorceress said as she immediately changed posture. "I'm sorry, I lost my temper. I..." The woman pulled down her mask so that it covered the bottom half of her face while exposing her eyes, which were revealed to be bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. "I've been awake for weeks straight. That's not an excuse, that's an explanation. What I just said needed to be said, but I lost my temper and could have done it in a better way. The stress of all of this is making me slip back into some old bad habits and all I can say is sorry. Everything I said stands, but that wasn't the best way to handle it."
"I'm sure it happens to everyone," the Director said with gritted teeth and rage clear in her eyes. "Apology accepted."
A moment was taken to allow tempers to cool and composures to be gained.
"Gallant," the Director began once she'd calmed, "you claim that seeing the hammer that was recovered from the Gesselschraft Tinker Donar triggered some kind of deja vu and that once you touched it and transformed, memories not your own came flooding in... If I had my way you'd be in M/S quarantine right now, but our... Esteemed consultant insists that you're safe. Can you change back?"
"I... I know not if it can be done," he said. "Nor, why I am speaking thusly."
"Becuase you're Thor," Ashley said. "Thor always talks like that. If that Mjolnir is anything like mine, and I'm pretty sure it is, then tapping the handle on the ground or on the wall should change you back... Only tap it the once though, otherwise, you'll summon a storm."
The boy-turned-God adjusted his grip on the hammer so that he held it by the head and tapped the base of the handle against the floor. With a Flash, Thor was Dean Stansfield once more, with an old fashioned walking stick in his hand. "Huh? That's convenient," he said.
"Do you still have the foreign memories?"
"Kind of?" Dean said as he pulled off his helmet. "They were fuzzy to begin with, but... Now it's even more so. I've got, I've got the image in my head of someone I think was my... Whoever the memories belong too's brother taking a hit from some enemy I can't quite describe and dying in my... His arms. Ashley is that normal for people with... This?" He said, holding up the walking stick.
"No," Ashley said. "You get the powers of Thor... Honestly, not even that, it has energy and weather powers and turns you into a God if you're not one already but Thor has his own powers separate from Mjolnir—he's the God of Storms and Thunder, not the God of Hammers... Maybe, maybe you're not just Worthy? Maybe you're actually Thor?"
"I'm, I'm sorry, what now?" Dean asked, confused.
"Gods can't really die," Ashley explained. "Supposedly they have souls, like mortals do, supposedly, and have an afterlife, but it never lasts and eventually they come back in a new form. When the Asgardians die, especially if they die in a way that they werren't 'supposed' to, they reincarnate. When Loki died he was reborn as a human who then quickly grew up and inherited his original self's memories and powers..." She got a confused look on her face. "At least, that's how he explained how it was legal for him to run for president and that his American birth certificate was real."
Several people in the room took turns raising hands or opening mouths to ask follow-up questions only to think better of it.
"So maybe when whatever happened to Thor that left Mjolnir stranded on earth ended with Thor dying and you're his reincarnation? Maybe that's why you're getting memories and stuff? You're remembering who you were before you were you?"
"So, Gallant may or may not be the reincarnation of an ancient Pagan deity," the Director said, her fingers returned to the bridge of her nose. "...I'll, I'll let PR deal with that trainwreck latter. Armsmaster, report on the situation at City Hall?"
"There wasn't much to report," Armsmaster admitted. "Shortly after our arrival, Uber and Leet declared that negotiation had ceased and made to activate their mech's weapons, only for something to malfunction. They began to panic, while I searched a database of well-known videogames to try and identify the mech, matching it to a machine called the TX-55 Metal Gear. Per the database," the hero continued, "the weapon in question had a vulnerability in its feet and that attacking the feet with a powerful enough weapon in a specific sequence could destroy it completely." The man's tone was clinical. "I directed Dauntless to fire a blast from his lance at the feet while I read off the sequence, counting on Uber and Leet's dedication to their 'art' to lead to them to choose authenticity over practicality, but by the third blast, something went wrong. The weapon seemingly exploded in an eruption of blue-white light and both it and the two villains vanished without a trace."
"A quick scan of the area showed evidence of the same energy signatures found in the area where Bakuda tore open a rift between this universe and another, leading me to suspect that the two villains are lost in the multiverse."
"A giant robot equipped with nuclear weapons and apparent extradimensional technology is far beyond the capabilities that Uber and Leet usually demonstrate," the director acknowledged. "Someone gave them a handout or a leg up, and we need to find out who."
"It was the Poisons," Ashley added immediately.
"What?"
"So, uh, I guess this counts as mine and Rose Red's part of the debrief?" Ashley asked. "We'd just got the message to head to either HQ or the panic room office, and we were on our way down when we got ambushed. I asked the Poison Bonesaw a question, partly to distract her until help could get there and partly because I'd asked about Bonesaw before and Armmaster told me that they weren't sure about whether or not she killed her family." Ashley gestured to the man. "But Rose Red ripped her off of me before I could finish and then when she managed to stab me any way she uh..."
"I panicked and crushed her," Rose Red added apologetically.
"After I started to get over the shock from being stabbed, Mister Snuggles told me about this thing that symbiotes can do where they basically eat a piece of another symbiote to get its memories, and... It's not something I ever want to do again, but..." Ashley shivered. "I spaced out and basically saw this Bonesaw's whole life. They had a Hybrid Uber and a Scorn Leet in their group when the Poisons took them, those Poisons got destroyed, but the Poison Skitter gave that Leet's notes and some tech from my world to this Uber and Leet and asked them to do something big as a distraction."
"Is there anything at all in your contract that forbids me from lecturing you on how absolutely stupid trying to absorb a serial killer's memories via alien cannibalism is?" The Director asked, seemingly resigned to the new status quo at least for now, though she clearly still felt it was ridiculous.
"I'll have to double-check and get back to you," Ashley said without a hint of sarcasm or irony. "But I don't think I need it. Losing my breakfast and passing out was enough of a lecture on that. But, while I'm talking about it... I don't remember everything, Mister Snuggles does but everything that wasn't important leaked out of my brain like water in a sieve, but there's something that I remember that I think is really important: Riley Davis did not kill her family. She got her powers that night and was trying to save them because Jack Slash convinced her that he'd let them live if she saved them enough times and... and..."
Ashley had to stop and take deep breaths. she closed her eyes even as tears managed to squeeze out. "Jack Slash did to Riley Davis what the Soviet Union did to Bucky Barnes."
"For those of us who don't live in your fantasy land," Shadow Stalker, still wrapped in the Crimson Bands, asked.
"Sorry," Ashley quickly apologized. "See, the Soviet Union was—"
"We had that here," Armsmaster quickly interrupted.
"It'd take me hours to explain the whole story, but Bucky Barnes was Captain America's partner and a good young man who went missing and was presumed dead during World War II." Ashley stopped to swallow a lump that was forming in her throat. "However, unknown to the Americans, he was rescued by the Soviet army, who identified him and then, as a cruel joke, kidnapped him and tortured him and brainwashed him and made him forget who he was so they could make him into a remorseless killer who did exactly what they wanted him to do. But it didn't work all the way, they had to keep re-brainwashing him," Ashley explained slowly, "and they eventually started putting their 'Winter Soldier' in cryosleep between missions to buy more time between re-uping the brainwashing."
"Bonesaw is like that. Riley Davis didn't choose to be a killer. If even half of what happened to the Bonesaw that got eaten by the Poison happened to this World's Bonesaw, then Bonesaw isn't a killer, she's a brainwashed child soldier being used as a murder weapon." Ashley took a deep breath, tears openly streaming down her face. "And Jack Slash is constantly reinforcing the conditioning because if he doesn't she starts feeling guilty about it and thinking about what really happened and even when... when... What she wants to do is like, super messed up but even with the full brainwashing she still wanted to make something that could stop those giant monsters that no one's been able to beat. How she wanted to do it was messed up but even after everything part of her still wanted to do something good and... She was five! Or six!" Ashley was yelling at this point. "She was an innocent little girl! Who... What kind of monster does something like that to a little girl!?"
It was at this point that Weaver moved to her foster sister's side and pulled her into a hug, letting the younger girl cry into her shoulder.
"Unfortunately," Miss Militia said clinically, "barring a miracle, that doesn't change anything. Bonesaw is too dangerous to capture alive and has been given an active kill order."
"Technically," Ms. Mystic interrupted, "the Nine are motivated in part by their ideologies which makes them terrorists. It'd be possible for someone to argue that Riley Davis is protected under international laws regarding child soldiers."
"Even if it doesn't change anything and she still needed to be..." Ashley couldn't bring herself to say 'killed.' "People should know the truth. The innocent little girl that she used to be deserves at least that much justice, right."
No one answered Ashley, as that was a hard question to answer. The debriefing more or less over, everyone went their separate ways after Ms. Mystic stated that she'd be returning to her own time soon and then allowed Shadow Stalker to get up.
Snuggles the Symbiote
"I don't know, my body just moved on its own."
After the debriefing, Dean had gotten a change of clothes and was now just walking, trying to get used to supporting himself with an old fashioned cane or walking stick and wondering if he could pass the disguised Mjolnir off as an old family heirloom, but his thoughts kept coming back to the one memory of Thor's that was still crystal clear.
Loki Laufeyson, the adopted brother and enemy of Thor, The God of Evil, Lies, and Chaos... Throwing himself in front of a golden beam of energy fired from the mouth of some great worm or wyrm and, receiving a wound meant for Thor, dying in his brother's arms.
Dean shook his head. He'd have time to think about that later. He really should be getting home. Back to his family... His family who only cared about him in so far as he obeyed their wishes, who forced him to drink a vial of strange chemicals because it would give him powers that would help him cheat in business... Not that he ever wanted to. Made him lie about where his powers came from. His family who betrayed his trust again and again and again.
Not for the first time, he wished for a better family, and his thoughts turned to Vicky, the only person he'd ever opened up to who had never betrayed him. He hadn't seen her since her sister's funeral... He'd visit with her. He'd make time for her, and if his parents complained, well, he was a God now and the insurance on his father's fancy new sports car didn't cover acts of God.
It was then that he realized that, in his wandering, he'd found himself in the Legal department. He turned to leave, not wanting to disturb the clerks and lawyers, but then he met the eye of a handsome man by a water cooler. He wasn't the same, but that black hair. Those green eyes...
The man looked at the old fashioned walking stick that Dean was using to compensate for his bad leg, then looked him right in the eye and mouthed "Hello, little brother."
Snuggles the Symbiote
It was a simple enough spell, really. At least as far as time magic went. As a joke, she'd even worked it into the dress slippers she wore with her tux. A click of her heels and Lisa vanished from PRT ENE Headquarters in the year 2011 and reappeared in Avengers Mansion, Bet, in the year 2016.
More specifically, the living room. The room she most thought of when she thought of home these days.
No sign of Taylor or Dean, but Missy was sitting in the recliner, seemingly having been starring directly at Lisa's arrival point with a massive shit-eating grin.
Sprawled out on the couch in her casual wear (gym shorts and a tank top, a far cry from the more traditionally feminine outfits of her youth,) was the practically giant, musclebound sixteen-year-old Ashley. And sprawled out upon Ashley was Gremlin. The petite, reptilian girl's batlike ear flapped while her spaded tail flicked. Clearly she'd crawled upon the napping Ashley to warn her cold blood, as was the young mutant's arrangement with her best friend, and fallen asleep while leaching her friend's excess body heat. Or maybe they'd laid down together, there was an empty cookie jar not far from the couch. Either way, one of Ashley's arms was wrapped around the smaller girl.
Grace was older than Ashley by a little over a year, but Ashley had always been rather protective of the reptilian mutate and Lisa didn't need her original Parahuman powers to know that the unfairly muscular girl's arm was placed as much for protection as it was a gesture of platonic affection. That it also showed their twin handprint tattoos side by side was probably unintended.
"Lame," Missy said. "We were expecting you to show up pissed that no one told you that it only took Ashley a few seconds to figure you out. We were waiting for you but then they fell asleep."
"Sorry to disappoint," Lisa snarked, "but I'm utterly exhausted. I'll yell at Bleeding Heart when she and snuggle-lizard wake up. I can't bring myself to interrupt them when they're like this."
"Love you too, Lisa," Ashley mumbled.
Lisa headed off to her room, to change out of her suit and get some much-needed sleep, but she couldn't help but give a genuine smile. It was good to be home.