Hello, my Lords and Ladies.
Fair warning: this is un-beta-ed.
Reviews are always welcome! ^.^
xXx
Piggot sat in her chair, and it was only the incessant pain of her kidneys reminding her of her dialysis appointment that kept her from leaping to her feet in fury.
"You mean to tell me," she bit out through gritted teeth. "That we have a nascent Nilbog in Brockton Bay, and you let one of his things just slip through your fingers?"
Velocity snapped to attention. "Ma'am, I don't exactly think that we could have brought her in against her will. Not even with back up …No offense."
Miss Militia shook her head. "I decided that it was better to return with this new information, rather than risk our lives attacking a dangerous new cape that hadn't expressed an open hostility towards us." Only the Merchants.
"It," Emily Piggot snarled. "That thing is not a person, no matter how lifelike it might seem."
It could have been worse. They could have extended an offer to join the PRT –not that she would have ever allowed that, of course. Monsters like Nilbog were too dangerous to keep around.
It would have been like keeping a rabid wolf leashed, just in case a burglar came trespassing.
Emily Piggot turned her harsh glare towards Miss Militia. "Two weeks on Console duty for gross negligence of your authority as senior PRT cape. After those two weeks are done, another week will be spent reeducating the Wards to follow our guidelines to the letter." A punishment normally reserved for the Wards.
Miss Militia made sure to nod solemnly, while she internally sighed. Director Piggot was overreacting and everyone in the room knew it. This new cape's particular skillset hit a little too close to home for the Director and she was panicking.
Albeit, controlled panicking, but still panicking nonetheless.
"Director, with the level of sentience that Guinevere Black has expressed, it might very well be that her creator has been around for a while," Velocity chimed in –the Mover no doubt thought that he was helping. He wasn't.
"So why is he openly active now," Piggot growled to herself, carefully rising out of her chair to pace the room restlessly. "Why is this... Gywn revealing himself now?"
Silence reigned uncontested over the room.
xXx
Tattletale caught a glimpse of a tall, vaguely feminine silhouette walking confidently through the night –appearing to all the world as though she were strolling down to the store, rather than through the Merchant-held territory by the Docks.
The tall figure's legs moved strangely. It was as though they had been broken backwards at the kneecaps, and then left to heal. But the mystery-woman's stride was too graceful, too fluid, to allow for any injury that serious.
Insatiable curiosity piqued, Tattletale flicked her power towards the woman.
Digitigrade legs with a strong, too-flexible tail to maintain balance. Not a normal cape. Not a Case 53 –too much confidence to indicate the associated memory loss. Possible Changer or projection. Dense armor might mean otherwise. Intricacy of the armor is of professional make. Tinkertech?
The silhouette stilled, and twisted oddly in the shadows of the alley. Violently vibrant eyes gleamed out of the shadows with a passionate curiosity that Tattletale recognized all too well.
It was the tone in Regent's voice when something actually managed to draw his interest.
It was the look that she read in Coil's body language when he drilled her for information.
It was the delighted glint that she had seen in the mirror too many times before.
Intensely curious about her surroundings. Nonnative. New to Brockton Bay. Too curious –never been away from her hometown? Young. Curious like a child but confident in her ability to handle danger. Either naive or highly trained. Likely a teenager.
Tattletale blinked in surprise. Teenager? That tall, armored woman was a teenager? If that were true, she would eat her shoe.
Dangerous! Tattletale's power screamed at her when her eyes met the cape's. Unnatural iris color. Danger! Biology is illogical for a non-Case 53 cape. Dangerous! Body has an unnaturally perfect symmetry –likely an artificial thing by design. Danger! Genuinalle curiosity means sentience and sapience at human-like levels.
Run! Tattletale's power began to wail in agony. Her power had poked something and something had poked her power back.
Fuck Coil's scouting mission, she wanted to live! Tattletale turned on a dime and sprinted as quickly as she could in the opposite direction, ignoring the blood that ran in red rivulets from her nostrils.
Oblivious to her concern, vibrant eyes watched Tattletale's fleeing form with a surprised confusion.
xXx
It was early morning, and Daniel Hebert stood facing the building that housed the DWU.
His job didn't matter, not really.
Every day he would try and find jobs for good people, but Danny rarely found more than a few. It was a losing battle in a town like Brockton Bay, with more and more of his employees turning to hiring themselves out to villains like Uber and Leet –or worse in some cases, the Merchants.
It was all that Daniel Hebert could do to bring himself to work, to try and eke out a living for himself and other innocent men and women at the Docks. It was all that he could do to pay the bills, to take studious care of his hygiene –he was the only breadwinner in the house, so Danny forced himself through the rote motions of self-care out of a mix of paternal duty and mechanical habit –and put food on the table. Often the meal was just something quick and delivered, eaten at a too-empty table with silence filling the distance between him and his daughter.
Through the pain of living in the Bay, Danny still couldn't bring himself to move away from this shithole of a town; it would hurt more to leave than to stay.
This was where he had met Annette. She had been a fiery woman, even then. Filled to the brim with a righteous indignation at the treatment of women and the widespread discriminatory practices that were commonplace in America during their youth.
She had been a member of Lustrum's movement –before the violence began, according court documents –and they had met at a protest. Danny had been smitten instantly, though Annette had taken a while to even give him the time of day.
But she had.
Eventually, Annette chose Danny just as much as Danny had chosen her, and they were married soon after.
They had Taylor, and things were perfect for the longest time.
But then…
"Greetings," A low, gentle voice interrupted Danny's thoughts. Not that he had been thinking about anything in particular at that point –more just staring into the middle distance, his mind smothered under the blanket of apathy.
The whispered word echoed unnaturally in Danny's ear, and made goosebumps rise on his arms. This was a cape.
Slowly, with an exaggerated care, Danny turned to face the woman who had spoken to him…
Shit.
Towering over his own impressive height was the slim figure of a young woman in silver plated armor that reflected the weak rays of the rising sun in a brilliant display of artistry. Her pale golden hair was plaited into a utilitarian braid and vibrantly curious eyes glinted from underneath what Annette would have described as a rather plain Venetian mask.
"Hello," Danny hesitantly returned her welcome. "How may I help you?"
The young cape contorted into a regal curtsy –and Danny noticed then that her legs were twisted around like a colt's, but were plated with interlocking scales –with one hand fisted over her heart and the other swayed out to the side. "I have chosen the name Guinevere Black as my own. I am the firstborne daughter of my lord Gwyn. I am, by far, most favored of his children."
Rising out of her curtsy, she looked at him expectantly, her scaled tail swaying back and forth with all the flexibility of a cat watching a canary.
Struck by the oddness of it all, it took Danny a moment.
"Oh! Sorry, erm. I'm Daniel Hebert –call me Danny, please." He awkwardly hastened to add, distantly feeling the light burn of embarrassment. "I am . . . husband of Annette Hebert and father to Taylor Hebert."
It hurt too much to say "the late Annette." The mere thought of it tore his heart asunder, piercing through the miasma of numbed indifference that pressed against him. Some emotion flickered in the cape's violet eyes, but it was gone before Danny could muster the energy to even consider deciphering it.
"You mourn far too well," Guinevere Black echoed with a bitter understanding as her tail flicked to the side, twisting farther than Danny would have thought anatomically possible. "You have become too well traveled in grief's void."
Danny Hebert felt a spark of indignation at the youth's blunt observation, but a quiet, darker side of him whispered that she was right.
When was the last time he had talked to Taylor? When had she wanted to visit Emma last? Surely it couldn't have been long ago, but Danny struggled to remember. How was her school going, again? Annette had once had concerns about Taylor going to Winslow...
Before he could say anything, though, Danny heard Curtis shout from inside the building.
"Boss! I just got a call, the Merchants are heading our way!"
Blood slowly began to pound in his ears, and Danny bit back a string of profanities –no way was he expanding this poor girl's vocabulary like Kurt and John had done to Taylor a few years back. This was no doubt retribution for snatching away some of their crew. Lately, Danny had been able to secure a few legitimate jobs for some former Dockworkers that had been forced to turn to the gangs for income.
As long as they were still clean, Danny would vouch for them. Had vouched for them. That policy, however questionable, had kept good men and women off the streets more times than he could recall.
And now, it would seem that Skidmark didn't approve of the DWU thinning their numbers any more than the coked up idiot appreciated the PRT doing the same; unlike the PRT, the Union didn't have any capes, and was thus vulnerable. An easier target.
The thought infuriated Danny.
"Come," Guinevere's voice was no less commanding for its softness as she marched towards the Union building. "As their liege, you must protect your men."
The young cape turned back to face him. "For your Taylor's sake, I will protect her father. Then you will act in a manner better fit for your fatherhood."
Danny only hesitated for a heartbeat before adrenaline began to clear his mind and strengthen his body. These scum wanted to break this town and tear down everything that he had worked so hard to build.
No more.
Any mindless animal can break and destroy, but it takes something else entirely to create, to build a better future. And these gangbangers dared to try and corrode Danny's efforts further?
No more.
This town does enough of that passively. A mayor that is too busy whoring himself out to campaign donors to bother deigning to look down upon the very city that he manages. A PRT that's too busy with pageantry and bureaucracy to clean out Brockton Bay's flood of human filth.
No more.
Danny refused to allow this to go on anymore. If he was going to live here with his daughter, then Daniel Hebert was going to mold Brockton Bay into a place worthy of his daughter. The pounding heartbeat in his ears suddenly seemed like a war drum, marking his steps towards battle.
xXx
I tried to characterize Guinevere a little bit more through other characters, since her own POV would bring major spoilers for the story down the road (though you will see through her eyes eventually… maybe. Eh, just not right now).