Chapter 20

-Brian-

Panacea's healing was certainly an… odd... experience. There wasn't even a mark where the bolt had hit, though there was a phantom itch insisting there should have been. I'd figure out how to cope, though. Besides, it'll likely go away soon enough on its own. I still felt a bit weak, but that was blood loss - Panacea just said I'd have to eat food with iron in it. Apparently her healing required mass to work with - I was still trying to figure out where the "few pounds of fat" she burned to heal the wound came from, since I didn't feel any different.

We drove back to the loft in a sort of baffled silence. After somehow arranging for Panacea to heal me, Taylor had simply wandered off into the night on her own almost the instant she'd agreed. It was agreed, even by Glory Girl, that it wasn't worth trying to figure out if she'd meant it literally when the crazy girl said she had a butterfly to catch.

"Alright, first things first." After parking the van in the agreed upon spot for the boss's– for Coil's men to pick up, Lisa nudged me on the shoulder as I climbed out. Looking me up and down, she gestured at my stomach. "Everything all healed up right?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "At least, I think so. I—" I paused to glare at Alec as Aisha climbed onto his back, demanding a piggyback ride to the loft. He rolled his eyes at me, spreading his hands out in front of himself as innocently as he could manage while holding her up. I was going to have to… deal with that… later, I was sure. "But," I turned back to find Lisa smirking at me as we set off towards the loft, "I think we both know that's not the real problem of the night, is it?"

"Ah," she sighed. "You noticed that too, huh?"

I stared at her with my best unimpressed face. "Be pretty hard to not notice the girl flinch when she touched me."

"Yeah, okay, that's… fair. Her reaction when she touched you was… noticeable." I kept staring at her, and she rolled her eyes. "Yes, she might have figured out that you're a parahuman. But! She also might have just noticed the…" She trailed off, gesturing up and down at me. "Wear-and-tear you got as a kid while... training with your old man?"

I opened my mouth to dismiss the idea when I realized that a lot of the little aches and pains I'd learned to consider normal were currently… missing.

"Ooh!" Alec chirped up, lifting up his shirt to point to a scar on his chest. "I have those too!"

"Niiice." My heart nearly skipped a beat again when Aisha was just suddenly there, walking right next to me. "Are we doing show and tell?"

"No!" I spun right around and pointed straight at her, as I remembered where she'd managed to burn herself that one time. "You keep your pants on!" She groaned in response, but stopped fiddling with her belt as she skipped over towards Alec to examine his scar.

"Speaking of pants coming off…" Grin widening, Lisa waved her finger in my face. "If I recall, I do believe Glory Girl actually suggested another possibility, hmmm?"

I groaned. Yes, she had, much to Aisha and Lisa's amusement and Panacea's embarrassment.

"I don't think we're that lucky," I said, shaking my head.

"Yo!" My sister called, her and Alec having noticed we'd lagged behind them. "You two lovebirds coming?"

"Yes, yes, we're coming. I'd tell you to hold your horses, but Alec needs the exercise." Lisa stuck her tongue out at them as Alec neighed. "We're just discussing Amy's... reaction to your brother."

"Oh." Aisha frowned. "Wait… what reac– oh, shit." Her eyes widened. "You think she's going to out him?"

"I… don't think so, actually," Lisa said thoughtfully. "Even if she noticed, which, by the way, isn't certain, and was going to make it an issue, she'd have probably done something there and then. We didn't give any of them our real names or even appearances, so…"

"She can probably still figure out who he is, no?" Aisha cut in again. "I mean, as far as black guy capes here go, it's my bro and Skidmark, and even Panpan can't guess wrong on that one."

"Thank you for the compliment," I said dryly. She stuck her tongue out at me.

"I mean, I don't think anyone actually knows Grue is black? Not like your costume leaves any exposed skin. Then there's the various other small-timers, and it's not like new capes don't crop up regularly, but okay; let's plan for 'she'll figure it out', just in case," Lisa nodded. "That still leaves the question of whether they'll do anything about it - New Wave takes this kind of thing seriously after Fleur, even though some people have called it karma for…" she trailed off, one of her trademark grins slowly stretching across her face. I shook my head.

"Go on, Lisa, say it. I know you want to."

"Marquis! That's where they adopted Panacea from!"

Okay. That was a new one.

"You're sure about that?" I asked, shoving the back door to loft open.

"'Cause this sounds like something the tinfoil hats on PHO would come up with," Aisha added as we walked inside. "In fact, I think I read that exact theory." She paused on the stairs, her face lighting up like it usually did when she was doing something she shouldn't. "Posted by Void Cowboy, no less!"

"I'd…" Lisa looked a little distressed, but rallied quickly. "Okay, I'd have to check for Marquis' old photos, I think there were a few that went public when he got Caged," she admitted, "but I'm as sure as it gets with this sort of thing. I mean, I know it's a bit of a stretch and it is kind of all based on something our… sanity challenged… roommate said..." Aisha looked ready to start a fight on her friend's behalf, but I shook my head and gestured pointedly at Lisa who was clearly off in her own little world at the moment. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before shrugging as Lisa returned from her little mental jaunt. "...Fine. It's interesting, but it doesn't help us much. We can't exactly try to blackmail her to keep the secret, she'd probably do something stupid and dangerous," she noted.

"Yeah…" I nodded, glad to move on to safer topics. "Let's all just agree to not upset the local healer and her family, two of which can probably bench press the lot of us," I agreed. "I just got my guts fixed, after all."

"So… are we just ignoring the part where Taylor knew about this whole thing a week ago?" Aisha asked, holding up a finger.

Lisa rubbed her forehead. "I don't even know what to think. Do you know that a precog is considered powerful if their power offers things like 'the next hour will be purple'? Meanwhile she just… ugh! Rachel and Hookwolf, she could've done without precog, just awareness of the present. Same for most of her stunts. But this… this just doesn't. Make. Sense!" she complained, shaking her head as she started to pace.

"She's going to be stuck on this for weeks, isn't she?" I asked, turning to Alec.

He looked at her for moment then shrugged. "Probably." Answer given, he flopped down on the couch, stretched out, and turned on the TV. With one last glance at Lisa, who continued pacing about the apartment, he turned up the volume until it drowned out her muttered ranting.

A couple of days later, Alec approached me once Aisha was at school, Lisa was out in town, Rachel was… wherever she was and Taylor was asleep. He looked unusually serious as he sat down next to me, which was a cause for alarm.

"Brian. Do you remember how Lisa went off on a rant after Taylor said that bit about not needing to see the future?"

"...Yeah," I answered after a brief delay. That moment wasn't very Lisa-like, but I'd figured it was just her power devolving into nonsense again. But… "What about it?

"I don't think it was normal. Well, as much as anything is normal lately," he corrected himself after a pause. "The thing is, I don't think she simply lost her train of thought there. I could see her brain - it was definitely something else."

There weren't many good possibilities for a "something else" screwing with people's brains.

"You think she was Mastered?" I asked.

"It…" I raised an eyebrow at the very un-Alec-like expression of concern that flickered across his face. "It looked sort of like what some of my family does," Alec shrugged. Huh. He'd never even acknowledged having a family before. I tried to think of who his family could be that he'd… Hm. Canadian, family of Masters...

"...You're not one of Heartbreaker's kids, are you?" I asked jokingly. Alec frowned. I stared at him for a few seconds, looking for some sign that he was joking. None came.

Well… shit. I guess that just fucking figures. "Okay. First off, if you do anything to Aisha, I'll—"

"Toss whatever's left of me after Taylor's done into the Bay - and she'd probably get to it before I even did anything, I get it, I get it," he waved me off.

"Right." I nodded, my mind still trying to wrap itself around the idea of Alec being his son.

...Actually no, that made perfect sense in a twisted sort of way, which… Heartbreaker. Twisted doesn't even scratch the surface.

"Still…" Undeterred by my distraction, Alec poked me in the shoulder. "You're seeing the problem here, right? I'm saying what happened in her brain was weird, even by my family's standards. Even Cherie wouldn't explain it, if she somehow got here - oh, fuck, that's right, I only told Lisa," he facepalmed. "According to Taylor, one of my sisters ran away from home the other day. I don't think she can find me, but, you know."

I decided that wasn't worth arguing about right now, or even thinking about, and got back to the more immediate problem.

"Yeah. If your power doesn't work that way, somebody else's…" Oh, damn. It doesn't get more obvious than… "Taylor. You think she did it?"

"Well, the trick she pulled on your mom was anything but subtle," he answered, "but that doesn't tell us if it's because the power isn't subtle or if it's just because she's crazy."

"And even if she's been helpful so far, we don't really know what's going through her head."

"Yep, that pretty much sums it all up," Alec nodded. "Let's keep an eye on her, shall we?"

"I can do it this time, Brian, I know I can," Mom said from the passenger seat, breaking the silence as I pulled onto Broadway.

I said nothing. It wasn't the first time she tried rehab. It never stuck for long.

"I mean, it's a lot easier to stay away when I'm still seeing things if I even think too much about drugs," she shuddered for a moment, "but I can't exactly go around telling people that, can I?" she finished with a forced chuckle.

My mind went back to that conversation I'd had with Alec as I glanced at my mother and forced myself to smile. I'm not sure how I should feel about that apparently helping her… if it's even helping her.

"Any luck finding a job?" I asked after a brief silence.

"I'm looking, I'm looking. It's not easy, but I think I found something."

"That's… good."

A short while later, Mom spoke up again.

"Speaking of work, you're feeling better?"

"...What?"

"The flu didn't cause you too much trouble with your job?"

Good thing I wasn't making a turn, I thought as I gripped the wheel again. It wasn't the first time I had to lie to my parents about injuries I picked up as Grue, but it's been a long time since either of them remembered the excuse I used.

"The boss was understanding. I'm fine," I answered.

"That's good," she repeated my earlier words. "And… thank you. For being there for me and Aisha."

"...Anytime."

My life just keeps getting weirder...

Later that evening, after Rachel returned from a walk with her dogs, we sat down to discuss what we were going to do against the Empire in earnest. Lisa set down the laptop with locations of Empire property Aisha tracked down on the screen.

"We're doing this, then," Aisha smiled. "So what's the plan, guys?"

"We can't go toe to toe with the Empire's heavy hitters - we can maybe take some of them if they're alone but it's still dangerous, and the rest, just no," Lisa said, "and we're not going to run them out of people with Othala around. If you're still sure about this…" she looked at me, and I nodded, "then I say we hit them where their money is. We really have two ways to go about this. First…" she tapped one of the numerous blue points on the map, "drug and weapons caches. Good money, and the boss offered to buy any supplies we manage to 'liberate'. The prices are a rip-off, of course, but it's not like we paid for the stuff."

"And the red ones?" Rachel asked.

"Dogfighting rings," Lisa answered, mouth not quite twitching into a grin again. Rachel was too focused on the screen to notice.

"I want to go after them."

"Less money in it, and transporting the dogs out might be an issue. However," she quickly added as soon as Rachel glared at her angrily, "there is another benefit. We haven't attacked Empire safehouses before, so that's likely to draw much more attention. How many dog fighting rings have you hit since you started working with us, Rachel?"

"Three, I think," the latter answered.

"My point exactly. If we're helping, it's still a change, but a less obvious one - might take longer for the Empire to recognize us as a threat. Huh… actually," she grinned again, "if we make it look like a dog-saving crusade, there's even less chance of anyone connecting this to Aisha and Taylor."

"Even if they buy it, that still makes us predictable," I pointed out. "How long do you think it'll be until they try setting an ambush for us?"

"Who cares?" Aisha asked. "I can just go in first to check, there's nothing to worry about."

"Aisha, no. You have to be more careful than that," I warned her. She tried to mouth "be careful" in sync with me while rolling her eyes, but didn't quite get the timing right.

"Come on, bro, it's not like they can stop me from going in to snoop any more than you can," Aisha sighed.

"You can't use your powers to get out of everythi—"

Huh. What was I doing again?

"So when do we hit the dogfights?" Rachel asked, shaking her head.

"I think it might be the best if we start off with them," Lisa spoke in that 'I-actually-already-thought-this-out-but-am-pretending-to-think' manner she used sometimes. "Then when they're planning to defend the next dogfighting ring, we sweep a safehouse or two. Once they switch gears, we go back to hitting dogfights. What do you guys think?"

"I think that works," I said, not seeing any problems with the idea. Rachel nodded reluctantly.

"As long as I get paid and not shot," Alec said and slouched back in his seat once again.

"Right," Lisa grinned again. "So, to pick our first target…"