"It's done?" Merlin asked.
"Yes," Contessa replied.
"You wanted to ensure Trollhunter saw the deaths," Rebecca said.
"And those who were left bereft," Merlin replied, frowning as he did… something to a cauldron vial. His powers were clearly unrelated to those the entities granted. Rebecca had brought up the possibility of training others, but Merlin had warned her that such training would take far to long to be any use against Scion.
"Fair Claire and those like her aren't a one in a million find when it comes to talent," he'd told her. "They're far less common than that."
"Why?" Rebecca asked. "We could—"
"Keep lying to them?" Merlin put the vial down. "They will find out about the Case 53s. And they will find out at the worst possible moment. That is how these things work. No, when we speak of this matter to the Trollhunter and Claire, it will be to tell them everything. Why their memories were wiped, how they were used, even the idiocy of the Nemesis program. We cannot, after all, assume that Scion doesn't have something like your so-effective Path, and if he did, the only solution is to eliminate all the weaknesses we know he could exploit." He paused. "Especially since Fair Claire will be forced to examine not simply Cauldron vials and capes but natural triggers."
"That could alert Scion," Rebecca said.
"Perhaps, but we are far beyond being safe in our choices," Merlin replied. "We must learn how the Entity thinks. Fair Claire believes it to be implacable, but is that the truth? I have a weapon that I might use to end it, but I need to know more. Is it behind the Endbringers? If Tattletale is right, they are not exerting even a fraction of their power. Why? So many questions and far too few answers."
"And when you have your answers?"
"Well in the best case, we will have our solution."
"To Scion?"
"No, my dear. The solution to all the Entities."
Good news, working with the Protectorate means I get to do more stuff…
Bad news, Jim thought as he dodged Hookwolf, I get to do more stuff. The Empire was moving, trying to show they were still relevant. While Jim and Claire were in New Orleans, Armsmaster and Velocity had taken down Cricket and Stormtiger—and without a certain snake ensuring that the bad guys had their itinerary, their transport to prison (neither one had a birdcage order) had gone without incident.
Hookwolf had been pissed, and so he'd decided to show the refugees that they "weren't welcome in the Bay."
Dauntless and Glory Girl were dealing with Purity, and the rest of the Protectorate was occupied elsewhere. The Empire still had a lot of capes, after all, including a couple of new members.
"Where's your girlfriend?" Hookwolf asked.
"Cramming for tests," Jim answered, blocking a blow with Eclipse and jumping back. He was barely holding his own—like Armsmaster, Hookwolf wasn't just tough, he knew how to fight and had more experience than Jim. "Willing to surrender, or least leave?"
"Kaiser wants the dregs to know that they're not welcome here."
"Well, I mean if you guys want to l—yikes!" Jim spun, avoiding a paw full of blades, then started driving Hookwolf back.
A week after a city got obliterated and we're back to this bullshit… Jim jumped onto a building, then jumped down, kicking Hookwolf so hard he flew back down the street. He was going to—
Fog covered the street. A fog that burned Jim's eyes.
Shit. He took a single leap, up and out of the fog, barely missing a half-glimpsed talon that lashed out at him. Then the fog was vanishing, no sign of Hookwolf. Jim looked around, growled.
"Console, this is Trollhunter. Tell Probability she was right. We stopped'em before they got to the convention center."
"Understood. Purity also disengaged."
"Understood," Jim said.
"Also, don't forget you're due in for your meeting in one hour."
Man, I wish they'd forgotten that…
"Understood," Jim said with a sigh.
Mom's going to be happy. She was wanting me to see a shrink.
Claire had been studying in the college library. Intro to Theater Arts was a lot different then it had been back at Arcadia and she couldn't coast on this—the test was about how parahumans had changed media. And the teacher graded a lot harder than Ms. Janeth did.
She'd dropped Calculus. Merlin, surprisingly had been on her side.
"If your mother desires to protest, I'll simply ask her to do a differential equation in her head," he'd mentioned.
Come to think of it… Hadn't Mom graduated with a polisci degree?
So now she just had the classes at Arcadia, the college courses, Merlin's work and her job with the Protectorate.
And of course the matter of the omnicidal monster everyone thought was a hero.
Easy-peasy.
"The return of the Western in the 2000s can be directly tied to a desire to escape to a time when, even if only in movies, mortal men and women could make a difference…" She noted that, because that would definitely be on the test.
Then her phone rang. The Protectorate ring-tone. She grabbed it and held it up to her face. At least they weren't in the silent study section, but once again she was getting attention.
Shadowdancer, need you at 4th & Main. No likely combat, come in civvie clothes if you want. Probably for the best. Velocity."
Civilian clothes? Why… Claire shook her head and put her study material into her backpack. Leet if this is you, I will bring your body to class to explain my flunking grade.
A few moment's later, and she was standing on the sidewalk, Velocity and Dauntless waiting for her.
"Hi, what's up?"
"We got a phonecall," Dauntless said. "From a lady named Kiyoko. Seems that she got suspicious about her daughter, and did a search while she was at school. Guess what she found."
"You know," Claire said.
"Yep," Velocity told her. "Orb Weaver got her ID and was working with you to calm her down."
"With some limited success." On the other hand, she didn't violate the truce and has been around patrolling with no body count so… success?
"Yah," Dauntless said. "But her mom knows and was going to confront her at Arcadia." He shook his head. "Look, I know you and Jim are open capes, but having their parents find out can be a big, big deal for a new cape and not in a good way. Kiyoko didn't sound… Happy. She's been under a lot of stress as well."
"Sarah and Amelia situation?"
"Hopefully not, but that's why we're going in now to try and calm the mom down before the kid shows up."
"Let me get someone else." Claire quickly sent an email to one of Taylor's email addresses. Hopefully she'd check it and let Claire know she could bring her in soon, since Claire had given Taylor a beacon.
"Orb Weaver?"
"Yah."
"Good," Velocity said. "Now let's go. We have a PRT agent talking to Ms. Sato, but if you could portal us into the apartment, we can have a meeting without bringing her into the HQ."
"That'd be better for Ann," Claire agreed. "But if things go bad…"
"Portal all of us away so nobody clues on to it." Dauntless paused and then muttered something that sounded like "But if her mother already knows…"
Other people might as well. Claire thought about how terrifying it had been when they'd walked into the living room to see all their parents there…
"Yeah."
Nobody was saying anything. But there were some whimpers. I was happy, since this was my first full-scale deployment of my Japanese Giant Hornets. I had put some hives in the warmer parts of the city, in basements, and dedicated other insects to feeding them.
I now had a total of approximately 10,000 giant hornets, which wasn't actually that many, but I had to keep closer control on them, as opposed to the native species.
But the five hundred flying around in the room evidently were more than enough. Spiders were swathing the five forms in web, immobilizing them for when the cops arrived.
I reached down and picked up a playing card. With an Orb Weaver on it.
Not one of mine.
"You need to understand something," I said. "As parahumans, our identity is very important to us. It is who the world knows us as. More people will know us by that identity than will ever know us by the identity that our parents gave us." I paused, and suddenly several hornets were hovering right over wide open eyes, their stingers extended. "We take damage to our reputation very poorly. And when someone starts printing out cards with my name on them, telling refugees who have lost everything that they have to pay 'me' or be harmed…" Slowly I let the hornets and other fliers start to rumble, their "words" echoing with mine. It wasn't hard. I was pissed. "I take it very personally indeed."
"We—we won't, we promise—"
"Shhh…" I looked down at then through my mask. "Of course you won't. I know who you are. I know where you will be. The courts get one chance—but if you decide to backslide later… I'll see you again. Just once."
My phone buzzed, and I took it out. The bugs keeping watch picked up the BBPD car heading towards the little apartment they'd been based in.
I could use this. Moths and gnats buzzed around me, filling the room, cutting off their view of me. I sent the giant hornets back to their resting places or into my backpack.
"Remember. I can be anywhere…" I said as Claire's portal appeared where only I could see it. Then I stepped through, the insects scattering at my command, for all the world looking like I'd just turned into the swarm.
And then I was walking out to see Claire, Dauntless and Velocity.
"We have a problem," Claire said. "Ready to confront a pissed-off mother?"
I had not expected that.