A/N: Chap 28 review responses are in my forums.
Now: Trigger Warning-Yuki has a somewhat one-track mind.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dream Lover
Right before she woke up on the morning she expected to reach Brockton Bay, Yuki had a dream about Taylor.
It was, perhaps, the strangest dream she'd ever had involving her lover. Normally, her dreams about Taylor involved lots of sex. Usually preceded by Taylor kicking her Uncle in the head and carrying her out bridal style from the middle of school so all the kids who made fun of her could see that she was loved and protected by the most awesome girl in the world.
And then they'd have sex.
Sometimes she dreamed about she and Taylor single-handedly beating Tekiya and the Sons of the Republic and having Alexandria beg them both to lead the Protectorate, followed by lots and lots of sex.
Occasionally, they both had sex with Obsidian. That was a relatively new wrinkle in her dreams, but as she often told Taylor, she wasn't really into girls. She just liked sex, she didn't care so much about the gender of her partner. Just that they would love her.
Once in a vary rare while she'd even have a nightmare where she realized that Taylor didn't love her, at least not as much as she loved Taylor. In those dreams, the big bad faceless monster would try to kill Taylor and Yuki would save the day by sacrificing herself, and only then would Taylor truly understand just how much Yuki loved her.
And then she'd come back as a ghost, possess Obsidian, and then have possessed ghost sex, like that old movie with Patrick Swayze. Patrick Swayze. He was yummy. Dirty Dancing. Hmmmm.
That's what made the current dream so odd. She and Taylor sat in a café in a city she'd never seen and couldn't focus on with a girl who seemed younger than she looked. The girl looked pale and drugged out, but sat looking around with an awe-struck expression.
"I've missed you so much," Yuki said, feeling it important to get the declaration out. "Obsidian came to kill me, but he couldn't and let me go. I kissed him. He has really hard lips. I wonder if…
"Yuki, children are present," Taylor said, with a sad smile.
"Oh, but…right. Hi, children."
The girl stared at her flatly. "My name is Dinah. This isn't a dream. Taylor's hijacked my precognition and turned it into a telepathic transmitter." The flat expression cracked a little into the hint of a smile. "Which is so cool."
"What does that mean?" Yuki asked.
"It means you're not dreaming, I'm talking to you telepathically," Taylor explained. "You've got to listen. I was captured by a villain named Coil. Say the name for me."
"Why?"
"Because you're asleep, and you'll forget if you don't."
"Oh, okay. Coil. Coil. Coil."
"Good. Coil put a bomb in my head. If I don't do what he says, he's going to kill me. Repeat it, please."
"Bomb in your head. Coil. Kill you. Fuck, Taylor, what can I do to save you?"
"I need you to go to New Wave and tell them. Not the PRT. I don't know why, but if you tell the PRT, I die. Every time. You'll be able to find me when you get to Brockton Bay. New Wave will have to split up. Half of them have to go to the PRT to talk to distract officials there, and half have to come with you. Panacea has to be with you. Repeat."
"Coil. Bomb in your head. New Wave. Don't tell PRT. Split up. PRT and me at the same time. Panacea with me."
"Tell them Coil has hostages."
"Hostages. Got it. Um, can we…"
"Children present," Taylor noted.
Dinah made a face. "God, that's gross."
The dream ended without any sex at all. Yuki sat up, completely dissatisfied with the lack of dream intercourse. Only to remember.
"Huh. Coil. Bomb in Taylor's head. Need New Wave, don't tell PRT, send half of New Wave to the PRT, Panacea and others with me to find Taylor." Her eyes abruptly bulged as the import of the words struck. "Holy fuck, Taylor has a bomb in her head!"
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
Yuki was not expecting a police barricade across the main highway into Brockton Bay. She passed lots of traffic out of the city, but the only traffic into the city were National Guard caravans accompanying big rigs filled with, presumably, emergency supplies.
It shouldn't have surprised her, but it did.
Nor was it just a few cars with cops waiving trucks through. Someone set up a temporary building with bumps across the road that probably had retractable spikes or something. Officers were stopping every truck, even the National Guard trucks, though those got waived through quickly.
Yuki became intensely aware of the fact that she only had her learner's permit from Seattle, before her uncle sold her, and no insurance.
The state trooper waived her forward. He wore a dark green shirt with tan pants, a broad-rimmed hat and a bullet-proof vest. He approached the care carefully, while on either side of the highway two more troopers stood with assault rifles at the ready.
"License and registration, please."
Registration? "Um, right. Ah, here's my license." She handed the card over. "Registration. Registration. Um, what's it look like?"
The trooper looked from the paper Washington state learner's permit to Yuki. She noticed he had a very strong jaw and found herself wondering if his lips were as hard as Obsidian's.
"How old are you, miss?"
"Um…sixteen? I turned sixteen in January."
"Is this your car?"
"My boss's company gave it to me."
He didn't look convinced. "Miss, please park your car over by the tent."
"But…I have to get to Brockton Bay. I need to talk to Panacea! I drove all this way!"
He'd started to take her permit and turn away, but he paused a moment. "And why is that?"
Yuki found a path, then, as clear as if Taylor were there coaching her.
"I…I went to Quintessence. Last month. And she said she couldn't heal cancers. Only Panacea could. I'm a Leviathan orphan, and when I turned sixteen the home kicked me out. I don't have any insurance, and I spent every dime I had to come here. Please, I don't want to die. I just…please. I have to see Panacea. They say she heals people for free, right?"
"What type of cancer?" he asked. He sounded oddly ambivalent, as if he somehow thought she was lying and at the same time hoped she wasn't.
"Ovarian," Yuki said, thinking about Mrs. Whitacre at the high school. She died at twenty-six. "It…it's already stage four. I thought the cramps were normal, until…" It amazed her how easily it was to summon tears.
More amazing was how effective those tears were. The trooper handed the permit back.
"The downtown area is a mess. There's been heavy gang fighting throughout the city. If you see warning signs, follow them. Panacea's been working out of Brockton Memorial, south of the Towers. It's the nicer part of town, and survived mostly intact."
"Thank you! Thank you!"
He waved her through and soon enough she was on her way.
She imagined driving into the landward side of the city was like driving into Seattle from the north or south. Other than the relatively empty streets, it didn't look like the city had been struck by an Endbringer until she crested a hill and looked down into the city proper. From that vantage, with the sun setting at her back, she could see a scar that ran from the horse-shoe shaped bay into the center of the city.
All along the edges, she saw evidence of flood damage, but structurally most of the city looked intact. She continued down the hill into the nicer suburbs, following the instructions on her phone to reach Brockton Memorial.
Once she got into downtown, though, she saw more barricades. Some were police barricades, some were PRT. She spotted a whole stretch of charred rubble surrounded by PRT tape, mute evidence of a cape fight.
When she saw a FEMA notice, it almost felt as if she were back in Seattle.
The road to the hospital where Panacea worked out was blocked off. A little driving found a parking garage that looked mostly empty. As she approached, she saw the gates down and a sign hung on them announcing the facility was closed.
"Perfect," she said.
Her lightsaber cut through the locks easily enough. And though she wasn't nearly as good as Taylor, Yuki was good enough with the Force to lift the gate so she could drive through. She drove up the abandoned structure until she reached the second floor.
Once safely parked, she climbed out of the car and then sat cross-legged on its hood. She closed her eyes and imagined the ocean that Taylor first revealed to her—the vast waters of the Force. She let the waves of it wash over her, until she almost tingled with its soothing, wonderful energy.
And almost immediately she felt Taylor with her mind. She smiled brilliantly and wiped a tear away. I'm here! I'm here! Where are you?
Of course, Yuki had no idea where in the city she was, but with their bond re-established, she could feel a direction. She climbed down, and with her mind only half paying attention, she left the garage and followed the pull of Taylor's presence until she came to another parking garage, this one adjacent to an old brick and steel tower that looked like it was built in the forties.
It was a bank, though the garage beside it wasn't. It took every once of will she had to keep walking past the garage when she could feel her love just under it. So close.
She turned to return to her own garage, and from there to the hospital, when she bounced against the chest of a tall man that had just turned a corner. She stumbled back, finding her feet only because of Taylor's training, and found herself staring at the broad, bare chest of a man who otherwise wore blue jeans and a steel wolf mask. The Force shrieked of danger, though she knew enough to realize he was a cape just from the mask.
"I'm sorry!" she blurted.
Another figure emerged from behind him—a hard, blonde woman with a tightly compact body like a gymnast. In fact, she had a similar build to Yuki, only taller and more powerfully built. Her most distinguished features was a line of scar tissue across her throat and a metal cage around her head.
"Another ABB noob?" the girl asked. She held a small device to her throat, producing a buzzing, artificial voice.
"No other reason some dumb-ass chink would be in Chosen territory," the wolf-mask man said.
Yuki frowned. "AB-what? I'm from Seattle. I just came to try and get healing for my cancer. That's all."
The girl clicked her tongue. "Bitch is lying."
She reached around her shoulder and removed dangerous-looking kama—a handle with a scythe-like blade attached. Yuki scrambled back.
"Kaiser died fighting Leviathan, so we call our own shots now," the wolf-mask man said. "And I'm done playing grab-ass with the fucking chinks. Kill the bitch, we've got more important things to do."
Yuki grabbed her lightsaber and concentrated on it as hard as she could. The kama girl rushed forward, so fast she almost blurred.
Yuki went ghost. She watched as her outer clothes fluttered down to the ground, but to her joy she'd managed to take the lightsaber with her. Taking things ghost was hard, but she couldn't afford to lose her saber.
"Ah fuck, another chink cape," Kama Girl's artificial voice said. She made a barely audible clicking noise. "Huh, can't detect her. Must have teleported, like Oni Lee. We'd better let the others know."
"Right, let's get moving," Wolf-mask man said.
The two continued walking away. When they turned the corner at the end of the block, Yuki reappeared and started pulling on her outer clothes. Her Yurei suit felt more like a swimming suit than a costume.
"Halt!"
Yuki sighed. "Now what?" she muttered.
She turned and then melted at the sight of the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen. The cape floated in the air like an angel, with long blonde hair and the most glorious blue eyes, like the Jesus in the stained glass of their original home. Her white and gold costume ended with a skirt that revealed glorious legs, though Yuki was sad to note she wore biker shorts underneath.
"Holy fuck, are you checking me out?"
"Yeah," Yuki breathed. "You are so fucking hot! Are you a hero? Oh, what am I saying? White costume? Of course you're a hero! Hi! We're you coming to save me from the scary lady with the cage on her head?"
Seeing Yuki wasn't interested in a fight, the beautiful angel floated down to the ground. Her white boots made crunching sounds on the sidewalk.
"Yeah, that was Cricket and Hookwolf. Since Kaiser died they've made their own little team of Nazis. With half my team down, I'm under orders not to fuck with 'em if I don't have to. Hookwolf can be a bitch to handle. But then you just poofed away. So, are you a new cape?"
"Me?" Yuki realized she had no mask, just like the angel. "Um, yeah. I don't go fighting or stuff. I used to work in a clinic, but my…my girlfriend's in trouble, so I came to help. Hey, you wouldn't know how I could find New Wave, would you? They're some hero team here I'm supposed to talk to."
The angel suddenly looked a lot less angelic. She was still intensely cute, and Yuki wouldn't have minded getting under those biker shorts of hers, but she just seemed normal, now. It was only as she studied the other girl that Yuki realized her first impression was a foreign influence.
The girl stared, mouth gaping. "You don't know who I am?"
"I'm from out of town. Should I?"
"I'm Glory Girl."
"Um, hi, Glory Girl. I'm Yuki. I guess my cape name is Yurei. I have a mask around here, somewhere."
"I mean, Glory Girl of New Wave."
Yuki stared a moment before the words sank in. "You're with New Wave?"
"Yeah."
Yuki lunged forward and hugged the girl before she knew what was happening. "Oh, thank God! I thought I'd have to walk around forever to find you!"
"Um, okay? You can let go now."
Hands that were impossibly strong prodded her arms apart and forced her back. "So why do you need New Wave?"
"Well, my girlfriend said she's being held by a supervillain named Coil! And he put a bomb in her head to make her cooperate! And he has other hostages too! There was this weird girl with her, maybe eleven or twelve. And she said that if I went to the PRT, she'd die! I had to go to you, and New Wave couldn't tell the PRT or she'd die!"
Glory Girl didn't look convinced. "Okay, wow. That's quite the story. Who's your girlfriend?"
"Quintessence," Yuki said. "You know, Taylor Hebert?"
Glory Girl's expression went flat. "Well fuck."
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
Carol Dallon couldn't tear her eyes away from her husband's still face. She tried to remember the last time he looked so…peaceful.
Beside him in the shared room, her nephew Eric Pelham lay as equally still. Both men were physically fine thanks to Amy's healing power, but though their bodies were healthy, but suffered such significant trauma that their minds were damaged.
Enough that the only thing that gave Carol hope was something she'd heard Quintessence shout across the hospital floor, when she'd brought her husband in.
"Amy, I can heal their brains!"
Only…
Only Quintessence turned out to be one of the most hated capes in Brockton Bay. And then, somehow, she escaped from the very midst of the Triumvirate themselves.
She'd cried for two days; all that was left now was a numb despair.
The door opened. She looked up and saw her sister walk tiredly into the room. Both women eschewed their costumes while half their team was bedridden. As much as Carol wanted her husband back, she could barely imagine the anguish Sarah must be going through, with both of her children injured. Fortunately, Amy believed Crystal would be fine. But Eric would not wake on his own.
After all, Amy couldn't heal brains.
Carol accepted the cup of weak coffee Sarah Pelham offered with an equally tepid smile. "Thanks."
She took a sip—two sugars and a pack of French vanilla creamer, just the way she preferred. Sarah settled into the chair closer to Eric, simply staring longingly at her son.
"Legend said this was the best showing against Leviathan ever."
"Yeah." She'd already covered it yesterday, looking desperately for something to talk about to take their minds off their damaged family.
Mid-way through her cup, Sarah shook her head. "That girl was not a murderer."
The vehemence made Carol focus on something besides her numbness. "What?"
"Quintessence. Hebert. Carol, that girl was not a murderer. The way she bonded so quickly with that West coast Ward? The one Glory Girl talked about? There's no way in hell she deserves the Birdcage. It's just…it's not right. I know her trigger must have been awful, and Miss Militia's death was a tragedy. But there's got to be more to the story. That girl is not a murderer."
Abruptly Glory Girl ran into the room, followed by a mere slip of an Asian girl. "Mom! Mom!"
"Glory Girl, inside voice! And Aura!"
"Oh, right. Sorry. ThisgirlsaysQuintessencehasabombinherheadandneedshelpfromCoil!"
Carol tried very hard to decipher the jumble of sounds into actual words with meaning. What she heard was 'Quintessence' and 'Coil."
"Vicky, why don't you let your friend explain," Sarah suggested helpfully.
All eyes turned to the tiny Asian girl, who grinned and waved without any trace of embarrassment.
"Hi! I'm Yuki. Or Yurei if I have a mask on, I guess. I'm Taylor's girlfriend from Seattle. She told me in a dream that Coil captured her and put a bomb in her head, but that if I went to the PRT he'd know and she'd die. And if you went to the PRT he'd know and she'd die. I guess he's in the PRT or something. Anyway, she needs you guys to do something so I can get Panacea to her and take the bomb out."
Taylor's girlfriend.
Sarah looked doubtful. "Miss Yuki, is there anyway you can prove any of what you say?"
The girl shrugged. "I didn't even know she could send messages in dreams like that. We were sitting at a table, and there was this kid there named Dinah, so I couldn't dream about fucking her like I wanted to. Dinah said something about Taylor hijacking her pre-cog into a telepathic transmitter, but that was kind of weird. All I know was that she made me repeat everything about Coil, and the bomb, and not going to the PRT."
"I know she's gay, she was definitely checking me out," Glory Girl said, as if somehow that helped.
"I'm not gay," Yuki said. "I just like pretty people. And you are totally hot. You've got awesome legs. Not as nice as Taylor's, but she has that whole supermodel build going on. You've got it up top, though. And I love your hair. What do you use?"
"Well, I use…"
"Girls," Sarah called. "Yuki, what's this about a kid? Dinah, you said her name was?"
"Yeah."
"Dinah Alcott, maybe?"
"Dunno, she never said her last name. But Coil has her too, whoever she is."
The two blonde sisters shared a long look. "No one's ever seen him, but we know he's a power in the underground," Sarah noted.
"The mayor said she'd been complaining of headaches before she disappeared," Carol added.
Abruptly Yuki stiffed.
"Oh, that's so cool!" she said. "I can feel her in my head, like she needs to tell me something new…ah…like a…oh."
And like that, the tiny girl simply folded into herself. All three of the New Wave heroes watched as she collapsed onto the floor silently, too startled to do anything.
"Huh." Vicky summed the situation up succinctly. "What a weird girl."