A Waken 13.11

The stuff moved in streams. It looked like mercury in appearance, with veiny bits here and there. It spilled from the figure at the center, forming pools that rose and shot out like limbs. Limbs that kept absorbing guns from all the stupid guards pointlessly shooting at it!

"Stop shooting it!" I snapped.

I grabbed one of the guards and pulled him back. He screamed as the spikes piercing his ankle yanked free. I'd feel bad about that but he wasn't helping himself or anyone else.

I threw him behind me, shielding him with Exia as another volley fired throughout the room.

Lafter raised Kyrios' GN shield, holding her position by the main doors as people escaped behind her. The bullets pinged off the field, but for the life of me I wasn't sure what it was aiming at. A few pinged off the ceiling or tables. One hit a man in the shoulder. Another hit Exia's stomach.

Was it even aiming?

Stepping right, I bashed a twisting limb with my shield. As soon as it connected, the stuff shot out at a perfect angle to strike my arm. I spun as the pointed protrusions pushed my left side back, bringing the longsword down on the blossoming limb. The blade cut clean through the fluid material.

The stub again shot in my direction, diverting away from the woman on the ground. She grabbed the man beside her and ran.

I shot right, avoiding the spike-like protrusions that drove from the stub and kept going till they hit the wall, floor, and ceiling. Every time the Silver touched or hit something, it exploded outward. The spindly limbs blasted out into spikes and stakes aimed in a wide arc targeted at whatever hit it. They kept exploding too. They'd keep spreading and changing direction down to the point the spikes became needles.

The only reason I wasn't a pincushion was my armor.

Perfect time for my headache to come back in full force.

Where the fuck did Noelle go?

"I don't think this is working!" Lafter shouted.

It wasn't.

Each new limb that exploded blocked off more and more routes of escape. Half the room was a damn maze, a silver forest with roots spreading out wildly all over. There were people trapped inside and I didn't know how to get them out. Some were pinned by spikes that stuck them to surfaces, while others couldn't find a way to an exit.

I tried not to think about the bodies.

"We need to move the fight."

I focused on the center, the vaguely human shape that screamed and flailed. The Silver kept pouring off of them and spreading.

It was nothing like Aisha's trigger. When hers broke it just knocked everyone out by hitting all of them with an overpowered effect. Then it calmed down...

"Push it outside." Fighting in an enclosed space would only get bloodier. "StarGazer, we need somewhere to put this thing."

"One moment."

Exia came about at my command. My longsword opened, and I fired the carbine inside at the Silver's center. The figure reacted immediately, rolling away from the blast and scrambling on several legs of Silver.

"Laughter!"

"I got it!"

Kyrios raised its shield and projected a full GN Field. Lafter charged, slamming into the core as it started to rise to chest level. The Silver reacted instantly, projecting spikes and limbs at Kyrios that shattered and scrapped across the GN Field.

I swept in behind her, firing the carbine and my pistol at any that started to reach around the field. The blasts deflected the protrusions toward me, and Kyrios' thrusters flared.

"Here we go!"

Lafter pushed and the figure was yanked free of the pool of goop beneath it. Almost instantly, separated from the parahuman creating it, the Silver stopped moving, hardened and started to appear rusted.

Good to know.

Lafter kept pushing, driving the figure into the wall. She kept going, forcing it into the next room, and then the next.

"Pull right!" I said, noting a crowd on the other side of the next wall with the sonic camera. "Right through the window."

Outside the building, Veda brought Queen around and landed on the road. Cars came to a sudden stop, and the crowds began moving around the Fangs as they swirled. It wasn't much but at least it was outside.

I started shooting ahead, stopping the flow of people through the hall just before Lafter plowed through it. Kyrios threw its feet forward and flew up, letting the core tumble and splatter across the street outside. Veda swung around and avoided the crash, then turned the Fangs on the Silver that immediately began flailing abo—

Flailing.

"We have forced the trigger outside the convention center," Veda announced.

"Begin building a cordon," Armsmaster ordered. In the distance I saw a familiar flash as Strider appeared on the road. Armsmaster stepped past him, followed by Hannah and the rest of his team. "Dauntless, Prism; start evacuating civilians. Militia and Triumph with me. Stratos, see if you can keep the trigger under control. Dragon will coordinate the police. Recoil, prepare to deploy."

"You're sure?"

"This situation is uniquely suited for Weaver's abilities."

Weaver? Don't get distracted.

I thought back to the notes. Page upon page on configurations of agents, how they bonded with their hosts and how that bond related to the power that came out. Whoever wrote them might know more about this situation, but if I were to make an educated guess…

"It's not attacking," I said.

The lack of guns in the Silver were also of note. Weird that it absorbed the guns but didn't try to do the same with the Gundam. Maybe it preferred metal?

I dove Exia down and kicked a car out of the way as a silvery limb hit the ground where it once stood. The arm exploded, spreading over the ground and weaving into the asphalt. Another spread back toward the convention center. Lafter intercepted it, catching the limb in a claw and severing it. She spun her suit about, avoiding the splinters that responded.

"It's just flailing about," I explained. "It's not actually attacking anything."

It's reacting to stimuli? That was in the notes. The agents used stimuli from the host to help configure themselves. This agent was wrecking the place and killing people by accident, not out of malice or self-defense. It has no idea what it's doing.

"Isolate the trigger," Armsmaster said. "We'll prioritize evacuation. Property concerns are secondary."

I fired my weapons, and then a GN missile at the ground. The GN beams weren't very effective outside of damaging or redirecting the splinters. The missile hit the ground and obliterated two limbs, severing them entirely and leaving the cut sections to die.

"Limbs severed from the parahuman stop reacting," I reported.

"Stratos."

"I'm on it."

Dauntless picked him up at his request and carried him into the sky. Lafter and Veda fell in beside me, firing GN beams and cutting with blades as limbs spread our way. People ran in the opposite direction, but I could see others watching from inside the buildings. We needed to get them out or they'd become trapped.

The Silver was like a bullet ricocheting around. In the street we could control it. In a building it would tear things apart.

Another flash and Strider dropped in with five capes. I recognized Lightning, Recoil, and Weaver. The Ward looked my way for a moment, then at Recoil as the older cape pointed. How did controlling a horde of bugs uniquely help in this situation?'

Stratos started firing.

Black spheres enveloped the Silver near the base, cutting the limbs before they even started moving. Unlike those cut by a sword or shot with a GN beam, they didn't react at all. No splintering.

We can control this.

Strider flashed in again, bringing a team of capes from New York. I grit my teeth at that, unable to not wonder why they were really here. New York was Legend's city. Noelle had vanished. I saw her for a moment when I came through the floor, but just once.

Did she decide to hightail it away? That could be easier, or harder. I wasn't really sure.

"There is a problem," Veda revealed. "The parahuman at the center is moving."

I moved left, firing at another limb and then darting back to avoid the response. It was hard to see through the growing forest of dead and moving Silver, but I did see something moving. The core—the parahuman—at the center of the silver was moving.

She was starting to run.

With a chill in his voice, Stratos stated the obvious. "It's crawling toward the buildings."

"There are people inside," Weaver noted. "Forty-two."

Oh. That made sense. Bug girl sees through bugs. Use her to track civilians in a crisis. Okay.

"Public safety holds top priority," Armsmaster said solemnly.

And I realized they were talking about killing her. I'd only gotten a glimpse, but she wasn't tall. Maybe ten or eleven. She probably didn't know what was happening anymore than her agent did. They weren't trying to hurt anyone.

Objections died in my throat.

They were hurting people. That they didn't mean to... It mattered, but more than the lives we were losing? No.

It still felt wrong.

I focused on the limbs. As the trigger started to move, the Silver seemed to come faster. One long arm swung up and swelled in size. I fired a missile at it, blowing the limb apart and sending shards fanning into the nearby buildings. Windows shattered and glass showered.

To my right, a side door opened down an alley and a swarm of bugs swirled. People followed after them, following the swarm down the alley and away from danger.

Points to Weaver.

Stratos' aim shifted. He started popping black spheres closer and closer to the trigger. The figure responded, stumbling back away from the power as it hemmed her in.

I thanked him quietly, for trying to convince one victim from making the situation worse and creating more.

It worked at first.

Then the trigger fell to her knees and screamed.

The limbs changed tempo, moving at different speeds and angles. One caught me in the side, and Exia was thrown upward as a spike pushed into and around my armor. Lafter swung by and cut through the Silver while Veda fired a trio of Fangs and severed the limb. Swinging an arm and slamming an elbow, I broke my way free and fired my carbine at a limb sweeping behind Veda.

Another set of them swelled into top-heavy clubs and crashed into the street, blasting Silver roots into the road and the surrounding buildings.

"I've lost line of sight to the trigger!" Stratos snapped.

"At least it's not moving anymore," Prism said.

I could see the girl with the sonic cameras. The Silver blurred the image but she wasn't trying to move anymore. She was holding herself in a fetal position, flinching and clawing as more and more liquid metal spilled from her body.

"I have line of sight on Façade." I flinched and darted back. That was Hannah's voice. "She's moving south across the parking lot east of the convention center."

"I'm on my way," Armsmaster said. "Triumph, with me. Lightning and Prior as well. The Chief-Director has authorized lethal force if Façade refuses to surrender herself."

Again, I wanted to object.

I couldn't.

Noelle knew how this would end for her, and she'd accepted it. Cauldron or Teacher—neither would let her live and keep talking. With the Simurgh in the mess, how did I know what was or wasn't supposed to happen?

I could already see the fallout.

This was too high profile. Case-66, the reality that some triggers can go horribly wrong, would be impossible to hide now. People would panic and Blue Cosmos would rally them. Others would turn against the Protectorate and the PRT because of the Case-53s and the accusation that Alexandria and Rebecca Costa-Brown were the same person.

That one was still throwing me.

They did look a lot alike. Similar builds and hair, but the same person? How did no one notice that in the past fifteen years?

"Taylor?" Lafter asked.

"You can't do anything now," Dinah offered. "Noelle knew what she was doing to herself."

That didn't mean she deserved it. So who was really at fault for everything she'd done, including this?

Which was the perfect moment to realize the Simurgh could precog trigger events. How else could she have arranged this? As if we needed the situation to get even worse.

"Keep shooting," I said. "Armsmaster's right. The innocent come first."

Isn't Noelle innocent if she can't control herself?

Where does she end and the Simurgh begin? If we didn't know, how could we call her guilty? No one deserved to die, especially not when they weren't in control of themselves.

I fired my last GN missile, using it to obliterate a group of limbs reaching for the convention center. Another group broke past Lafter, and Veda fired on it with the Fangs moments before someone with laser beams hit it from another angle.

A curse escaped my lips. I spun about and fired while Veda covered my back. I severed some of the splinters, redirecting them my way. The stream of fire continued as I dodged, drawing more of them back toward the rest of the mass as I moved towards the sky.

The Fangs dove and fired a volley.

The spikes twisted in the direction of the beams and hit the ground. It wasn't enough. A full fan of splinters slammed into the convention center, piercing the walls and windows from top to bottom.

"I'm directing people away," Weaver announced. "They're still spreading inside."

"On it," Prism said.

I saw her in the distance, jumping over a car with one body while another ran around. A couple cops followed her, plus some men in suits. Volunteers? I turned and fired at another arm before it could hit a corner store.

It kept growing. The Silver had taken over basically the entire street from one end of the block to the other. A lot of it was dead, but that just caused it to splinter more and more. The mass obscured the spread, made it hard to see where limbs would emerge or how they'd move. Stratos kept trying to clear a way to the cape at the center of it all, but the Silver was growing faster than he could blow it away.

It was inevitable.

Another arm got through—this time after one knocked Queen off to the side, destroying a Fang in the process—and drove straight through the front doors of an office building.

"I got it!" Sonic flipped in the air, kicking her power out to cushion her landing.

There were already police and some civilians helping people out the windows and side doors. I could see the Silver spreading inside the building, bouncing from walls to floors to ceilings and piercing people in between.

I rose up, taking aim at the limb. Behind me, Lafter severed the limbs cutting into the convention center with Stratos. Severing it at the base would pin it to the street. We'd have to contain it to the corner but that was better than letting it spread through the building.

I'd just lined up the shot when I found myself aiming at the ground somewhere else entirely.

"Newtype and Triumph have switched places," Veda announced.

I turned around, looking at Armsmaster. He grimaced and turned, blocking a large sword that swung toward him.

Blasting myself away and spinning about, I took note of him, Hannah, and Lightning in the parking lot of the convention center. They were fighting two of Noelle's clones; Chevalier, and a monster cape with oversized arms and bony growths jutting out from them.

The explanation for how I ended up there was standing behind Noelle as she took cover.

Magic Hat.

"She ported Prior away," Armsmaster said. She did? "Newtype, return to—"

His voice cracked as the Chevalier clone swung back at him and got under his guard. He rolled away from the blade, a few scraps of his armor shearing off and sparking.

I took aim and fired.

The clone fell back, losing its balance as the shot hit him in the chest. I caught Armsmaster with one hand and punched the clone with the other. It popped out of existence and the man beside me grunted.

"Militia, smoke."

Hannah rolled, avoiding a large bony hand that cut gouges into the ground. Her power shifted into a grenade launcher and she turned to Façade and fired. The canisters clattered over the ground and spewed white-green gas into the air, quickly obscuring the Magic Hat clone's vision.

Grabbing a khatar from Exia's leg, I dove for the Case-53 and stabbed it in the jaw. Gruesome in theory, bloodless in practice. The clone didn't bleed. It tried to throw me, but I flipped over it and fired Exia's thrusters into its back. The clone slammed into the ground and Hannah's power switched into a rifle.

She turned and fired, eliminating the clone as it vanished.

"Newtype," Hannah called.

Why did Noelle swap me with Triumph? Did she have some plan to escape that I fit into? Did I even want to help her escape?

I'd been avoiding thinking of that. No matter what choice I made, there'd be consequences to live with. Serious ones, chiefly giving away how much I knew and where I stood.

Lightning zapped through the air, using his power like skates and hovering over the ground on visible dancing bolts of energy. With a swing of his arm more lightning fanned out. Noelle jumped in the smoke, leaping onto the back of a car as electricity coursed over the ground.

"Move!" Lightning pointed to a woman in a car. "Get out and go. It's not safe here!"

"What happened?" I asked.

"She attacked us on sight," Hannah answered.

"We are not being offered a choice," Armsmaster added. "You should not be here. Militia, Lightning; keep her contained. Reinforcements are on the way to deal with her permanently."

Permanently.

Noelle might be the one who set everything in motion, but I was involved too. I told Armsmaster. I got everyone moving to do something. I was responsible for indulging Noelle in the first place.

Right or wrong, innocent or guilty. I couldn't run.

"I'm here now," I stated firmly.

I turned my pistol on Noelle. Unlike the others, I could see her in the smoke. She favored her right side as she moved. Vaguely, I made out some kind of wrapping over her left shoulder. Cloth torn from a jacket or something.

I took aim and fired as she jumped down from the car.

The shot hit her on the left and she stumbled back from the blow before rolling over the trunk and taking cover on the other side. Behind the vehicle, she held her hands out and two clones popped into existence.

Another cape that wanted to die, just like Othala.

One of the clones turned toward Hannah and held its arm out. Vaguely, I saw the movement of the threads in the smoke. They snapped around Hannah's neck and shoulders, pulling her off balance.

"That's Parian's power!" I snapped. It struck me as deeply wrong, Sabah's power being used that way. She didn't like violence.

I took aim at the clone and fired, but the second clone blew a blast of wind into the air. Another monster cape, one that roared and sent ripples of energy through the area. It flipped cars and tossed debris. The blast felt weird as it impacted Exia's armor, and I only found out how weird when my sense of balance began to flip.

I'd already gotten used to that after Oni Lee and Bakuda.

I skated Exia over the ground, grabbing a car out of the air and throwing it back as the wave passed. The clone caught it in the chest and toppled while my knee hit the ground hard and my sense of balance flipped the other way.

Holding in the taste of bile, I raised my weapon and fired.

I aimed for the threads. I couldn't see them exactly, but Parian never seemed able to use her power on something she didn't touch first. If she was twisting Hannah's scarf, it was because she'd connected her own threads to it.

Sever those and maybe—

A shield rose, deflecting the beam.

"Bastion," Lightning noted. He started to move, only to vanish and be replaced with a motorcycle. I saw him flip and crash into a bike rack about twenty feet behind me.

Where did Magic Hat go?

I searched quickly, but didn't see her. I actually hadn't seen her since Hannah fired the smoke grenades. Had the clone swapped itself somewhere before being blinded? And that roaring clone cleared the smoke.

I shot again, peppering Bastion's shield with fire. The field held, and Noelle and her clones drew closer to Hannah. Hannah swung a leg out as they got close, catching Bastion in the knee and knocking him back into Noelle.

Holding her scarf with one hand, she took aim and fired her gun, only to have Bastion take the bullets and vanish.

Noelle threw herself back, projecting another copy of the shield-making cape. I charged forward, firing and hitting her in the thigh. She gasped and dropped to one knee, but my second shot was blocked by another shield.

Hannah's wrist twisted and yanked her body up into a sitting position. Her scarf began twisting, constricting over her skin.

"Façade!" Armsmaster swept his halberd in front of himself, running toward the shield while Lightning came around my other side. "Let her go!"

Unable to break the shield, I grabbed another car and heaved it overhead. The vehicle flipped end over end, crashing into the barrier and shattering it. The clones and Noelle stepped back, dragging Hannah with them.

I watched the scarf tighten enough it slipped from Hannah's paling face. She gagged hoarsely, pulling at the cloth while Parian's clone turned it into a noose.

In what looked like a practiced motion, Hannah switched her power to a knife and swept it blade down over her head. The blade stopped abruptly, Parian's clone capturing her other hand and wrapping the limb in strings. Strands strung around her fingers one by one and pried them open.

Hannah's power clattered to the ground and the scarf twisted tighter as her body contorted at an odd angle. Her eyes began to glass over and I started trying to think of how long she'd live with a vice around her throat. She couldn't breathe. Blood couldn't get to her brain.

While that was going through my mind, Noelle reached down and took Hannah's power in her hand.

She's going to kill her. "Noelle!"

She stepped behind Parian's clone, who pulled Hannah into a standing position to use as a shield.

I charged as I drew my short sword. I went right with Lightning as Armsmaster moved left. Noelle couldn't face both directions.

Flanking her, I swung my sword and detached the blade from the hilt. The tip dove for the Parian clone but clacked and spun off as the barrier went up again. Noelle raised her head from behind Bastion and patted Parian's back. Hannah's arms began to twist at wrong angles and the woman screamed hoarsely.

Lightning's power fired, a solid bolt of current cutting through the air only to split around Bastion's shield as the clone dropped another dome over the first. Armsmaster called for reinforcements from New York. He had to know they wouldn't arrive in time.

I pulled to the side, drawing my blade back as Exia flipped around. Pulling my pistol up, I fired at the clone's back over Noelle's side. Bastion's shield became a dome, projecting around Noelle and Hannah completely.

Bastion layered a third dome down. I didn't understand, and there wasn't time to puzzle it out. Hannah started going limp, her arms bound up in Parian's power and her boots kicking at the ground.

I got through one shield with the Buster sword before, but it threw the blade off. I wouldn't break three without a stronger strike.

While I wavered, the scarf around Hannah's neck kept tightening. It was more than strangulation, it was starting to look like a beheading.

Exia's feet scarred the ground, and I fired the thrusters again.

I saw what Noelle was trying to do. She wanted to force us to kill her. She wanted to die, just like Othala. Except she wasn't Othala. The Butcher drove Othala to madness, broke her. Trying to end her own life was the only power she had anymore.

Noelle didn't have to end that way. She could be quarantined, locked away where she couldn't hurt anyone.

So that's what I'd do. I'd grab her and fly away if that's what it took. To hell with the consequences. She'd survive a concussion.

I just needed to save Hannah first.

I swung the Buster sword up and pointed it forward. Holding the blade out, I aimed for Parian's clone and hoped Sabah didn't take it personally. I'd break the barrier and destroy the clone in one go.

"Burn red!"

TRANS-AM

The GN Drive exploded with crimson light, blasting Exia forward with a cry.

Exia snapped forward in blink-speed motion and the tip of my sword began to pierce the shields and keep going for Parian's clone.

Just as the blade reached my target, the clone and Noelle swapped places.

She closed her eyes and smiled.

Bastion's barrier shattered like panes of glass, and my sword ran Noelle through.

Her eyes popped open, and she made a sound I can't describe—like all the air hissed out of her at once, with water filling its place. Her head snapped forward. The blow knocked her from her feet and more and more of my weapon passed through her ribcage.

It all happened so slowly, and I realized I'd never seen anyone die before. Cranial went so quickly, mercifully even. She didn't suffer. I saw her die, but I didn't watch her die.

I didn't watch all the little emotions on her face. The way her eyes focused and unfocused. How she hacked for breath but only blood came out as she choked and wilted. So much blood.

I tried to blink the tears away. It didn't work.

It didn't have to be this way.

it has to be this way.

We could have done it together.

you don't need me.

No one deserves to die.

everyone dies.

Her eyes unfocused and focused again. Her cheek rested on the blade, body hanging in the air like meat on a stick. She looked into Exia's eyes and smiled again.

so many mysteries.

I hate you.

no you don't, you don't hate.

Noelle rested, her shoulders going slack.

that's why it has to be you, and it can't be me.

Fuck you.

David won't stop because you beg.

No one deserves to die!

he won't stop until he dies.

I wanted to hate her.

I thought I knew hate.

I didn't.

My life taught me sorrow, rage, and bitterness. Not hate, I realized.

Noelle knew hate. She felt it so rawly, all the way to her soul. It consumed everything within her. Her hate for Cauldron's inhumanity. Her hate of David's cruelty. Her hate for herself, and how she made her friends' lives worse, losing the man she loved, and had to die because she couldn't be trusted.

Hate is a roiling, writhing thing. Cold to its core and cruel. I'd never felt it in my life.

There was thanks there too; relief. Love. Not kissing and stuff, love. Something more profound that I couldn't think of a better word for. An unyielding compassion. Gratitude that it was done, and she could go now. There was someone to keep going… She didn't die for nothing.

take this, use it… it's okay with me.

I didn't want to use anyone. No one is a tool. Everyone mattered.

one last Q&A.

The tears wouldn't stop, no matter how much I blinked them away.

who's your friend?

Friend?

The pain spiked again as I felt the awareness. The presence within a presence inside me. Beyond me. A mirror within a mirror. I turned, looking back and seeing her there, across the void. She watched, waiting. Waiting for me.

Nine Eyes.

The moment passed in an instant, and the pain faded.

Her hand held mine, fingers weakly hanging from Exia's. Noelle wasn't there anymore.

I screamed.

Hitting the release, the Buster sword ejected and pulled Noelle to the ground. I swung my short sword over my chest and drew my longsword up in paired motions. Parian's clone severed up the middle, and Bastion's head went flying. Both bodies vanished into nothing.

Hannah fell forward, choking for air and scrambling to her feet. Her power returned to her in an instant, forming a rifle as she clumsily jumped up and turned. It didn't matter. The fight was over.

In the distance, atop a roof, I saw Magic Hat fade away on her own. When she made Magic Hat, she set herself up to die. It was trying to get her killed, and it wanted me to do it.

That's how Noelle wanted her life to end.

Hannah grasped at Exia's arm as Trans-Am's light died.

She coughed, looking at Noelle for a moment as she lay with my sword still impaling her. Her eyes were open. Empty.

Hannah patted Exia's shoulder. She coughed as she spoke, a hand massaging her neck. "Get out of the suit, Taylor."

By reflex my thumbs pressed the controls. Exia stepped back and dropped to one knee. The head lifted from my own, and drew back while the chest pulled open. Hannah slipped under the arm and put an arm around me as I stepped out, eyes fixed on Noelle's.

She pushed me to the side, walking me away from Exia as Lightning passed us. He rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment and she nodded to him. He kept going, and she urged me to sit.

"It's okay," she said. "You did the right thing. It's not your fault."

That was a lie, though the sentiment was pleasant. Two wrongs didn't make a right.

Armsmaster came up behind us. "You should see an EMT."

"I'm okay," Hannah said. The bruises and swelling around her neck disagreed.

"Newtype?"

"I'm okay," I lied.

I remembered the tears. I lifted my visor up—not like everyone didn't know my face anyway—and quickly wiped them away. No one commented on it. When was the last time I'd cried?

Turning my head, I looked past Hannah and Armsmaster. About ten feet away, Prior and Lightning flanked Noelle's body. Not sure when Prior got back from wherever Hat put him.

Armsmaster watched me. His head tilted one way, finger tapping at his halberd. Warily, he said, "You were in an impossible position."

I found that mildly amusing. Impossible, he said. Can't be impossible if I found myself charging in, can it? As a point of fact, the position is completely possible. It just sucks!

I could have swerved at the last second, maybe. Or maybe pulled Exia around to attack from another angle. Maybe I should have hunted down the Magic Hat clone and destroyed it. Come up with a better damn plan. Something.

Maybe, maybe, and maybe. All the while, Parian's clone crushed Hannah's neck. No impossible about it.

I made a choice. I charged. Noelle died. I ended one life to save another. It's not the outcome I wanted, but it's what I got. I had to carry that, or responsibility didn't mean anything.

Hannah gave Armsmaster a worried look and he repeated his order. I think what he really meant was 'get Newtype to an EMT, and see them yourself while you're at it.' Hannah offered no protest.

I didn't need an ambulance. Other than a bruise from some sharp and fast turns, I was fine. Though, my head fucking hurt.

What was that? It only lasted for a moment, but I thought I heard her. Felt her. And that was Administrator, wasn't it?

Did I imagine that—Why did Trans-Am end so soon?

I could push it to a few minutes now. Yet it had ended after a few seconds. A few seconds from my perspective, where things seemed to move slower under the effect of the system.

Hannah stopped leading me once a pair of PRT troopers found us. One took Hannah by the arm and helped her stand. The other looked me over and flashed a light in my eye.

I flinched. "Don't do that." It made the pain in my skull worse.

"Your mask, ma'am," the other trooper pointed out. Hannah quickly tugged her scarf up over her face, and she grimaced as she did it.

The area around the convention center was isolated. Police barricades and capes guarded streets and corners, holding back crowds that were gathering on the edges. Along the streets, police and EMT's tended to the injured. Firefighters swung axes to batter their way through the dead forests of Silver here and there.

Bodies lay in lines along the street, some covered and others with bits of Silver still stuck in them. I didn't bother counting.

It was at least a hundred and they weren't even done yet.

sys.v/ Taylor?

"M'fine."

A whole two teams worth of capes surrounded Queen as the troopers got us close to one ambulance. Kyrios stood nearby. Lafter was ready to jump in at a moment's notice, but she was watching me. I saw Weaver too. She stood with Recoil and pointed out places people were trapped.

I'd lost track of the whole deal with the Case-66. While I'd been killing Noelle, it had stopped moving entirely. Stopped reacting. The trigger calmed down like I guessed it would.

Completed configuration and handed control to the parahuman.

Veda and Lafter cut their way through the Silver after everything stopped and pulled the parahuman out of the center. The girl wrapped an arm around Queen's leg after that and refused to let go. A few capes debated prying her off but Veda talked them out of it.

She wasn't hurting anyone anymore. The trigger itself was one massive extenuating circumstance. She never had any control over it. Did her power even have control of it? Either way, what point was there in terrorizing her now? It wouldn't change anything.

From my seat at the back of the ambulance I could barely make out the parahuman. She'd lost her clothes obviously, and her skin had a silvery color to it. Hair and eyes too. She looked a lot like Weld actually.

I couldn't imagine what that girl's future would be like. Her parents might be dead. Friends too. They were related to Blue Cosmos, so was she even prepared for being a parahuman?

All across the street, metal spread out like the roots of a tree still. They pierced the road, buildings, cars, and there were still bodies in the mess. News crews started roaming the area, or just reporters with phones. News helicopters flew overhead.

This would be all over national news soon, if it wasn't already. The horde of Troopers who kept teleporting into the area wouldn't be able to stop the story now.

That's what the Simurgh really wanted. Expose Case-66. Accelerate Blue Cosmos' revolution. Instill fear. Break us. Make us lose hope. She used Noelle and that poor girl—maybe her agent too—to do it.

Murrue took a seat on my other side.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I was in the middle of something. Didn't know what was happening until it started."

"It's fine," I replied. "Not much you could have done in the situation anyway."

Murrue glanced at Hannah. The older cape had an arm around me while a medic looked at her neck.

"I heard about Façade." Murrue turned her attention back to me. "How are you?"

"It is what it is."

"I know you're not going to listen," Murrue continued, "because I know you. I still feel like I should start this with saying you don't have to go."

"What is it?"

"Sonic." I turned to look at her. "She asked for you. Robin's going to a hospital and she doesn't want to be surrounded by strangers. There isn't much time"

She was right.

I didn't care that I didn't have to go.

I rose up and Murrue put a hand on my chest. "You're going to talk to someone about what happened today. Someone. Your father. StarGazer. Me. You have to talk to someone."

With a grimace, I nodded. She was probably right. This was… This was different.

After that, I followed her to a forest of steel.

The corner store. The Silver had kept spreading when Magic Hat switched me for Triumph, and the entire street corner looked like the roots of a tree.

Stratos was there, crouching by some rubble with Prism and a cape I didn't know.

As I got closer, Stratos scowled and looked at Murrue. She shook her head. I ignored the small disagreement.

I kept a straight face when I saw her pinned to the wall. Spikes peppered her entire left side, with smaller needles stabbing out from under the skin on the right. The stake impaling her right eye and temple felt malicious on top of all that. Even if we cut her free, she'd bleed out instantly.

The Silver piercing her body was the only thing holding it together.

"Hey." Gloria grinned, a small trail of tears rolling down her left cheek. "Sorry, 'bout this."

I settled myself down between her and Stratos. "It's okay."

I looked past her, noticing a familiar corpse deeper in the mess.

"I know he was a dick," Sonic whimpered. "But he's my dad. I wanted to…"

"It's okay," I repeated. Reaching out, I took her hand in mine. "I understand."

She tried to save him and got caught in the splinters when they exploded.

"It would have been nice," Sonic whispered. "I really wanted to join the team."

I hid my hand behind my back so she wouldn't see the fist. "I know. It's gonna be okay."

"Liar."

Yeah, I was. I laced my fingers with hers and squeezed. The tears I shed for Noelle barely had time to dry and I was fighting back more. "Still."

Pointless.

It was all so pointless. The bodies in the street. Gloria. Noelle. The poor girl who'd have to live with all of this even though she didn't do anything wrong.

I kept playing it over in my head. There were things I could have done a little differently, here or there. It wouldn't have changed much. People would still die, and there wouldn't be any point in it.

It seemed almost cruel in Sonic's case. I hesitated because I didn't want to put more lives on the line. There were already so many I'd dragged into my crusade. Now she was going to die anyway. What good did my hesitation do her?

This wasn't like Brockton Bay. I could rationalize it there. The people who got hurt, the people who died. It wasn't pointless. The city was getting better. The gangs were losing ground. Anything was better than the day-to-day hopelessness of life, so take responsibility and act.

This was different. It wasn't even like Boston. We fought a monster there, one that lashed out and killed without care. Is that why the Simurgh appears the most human of them? Because she was the most human? The one that could kill from malice or callousness rather than just because?

"Taylor." Murrue settled in next to me and pried my hand away. "It's okay. She's gone."

I let go and rose to my feet. I didn't look back.

Walking past the growing line of bodies, I couldn't stop thinking of how they all died for nothing, and Noelle… I wanted to hate her, like she hated David. I couldn't. I knew her too well. We were far too alike. I understood her.

I understood loneliness too.

"Taylor?"

I ignored Murrue's call and marched straight toward Queen Gundam. One cape started toward me only to stop when Kyrios' GN Drive flared. I went right past him without waiting. Veda turned her head toward me as I came up to her.

Squatting down, I reached out and gently took one of the girl's fingers. She flinched, eyes darting to me for a moment and gripping the armor harder, so hard her fingertips dug into the frame. Not enough to damage the internals, but enough to earn the girl a minor brute rating.

"It's okay," I whispered. Tugging at the girl's fingers, I gently wrestled them off of Queen's leg. Pulling her hand away, I wrapped an arm around the girl and pulled her to my chest. "You'll be okay."

Cradling her head, I settled onto my knees as she started crying. Stupid that holding her was the only thing I could think to do that mattered. No one deserves to be alone.

There was that, maybe. Noelle died, but she wasn't alone when she did. I was there with her, somehow.

"Her parents?" I asked.

"I am still working to identify her," Veda answered.

If the girl heard us, she didn't show any sign of it.

I raised my head, watching the last rays of red bleed out of the sky. She was up there somewhere, watching. She had to be.

Well, the Simurgh could make her peace. Noelle thought Teacher had to die. If I had my way, the bitch in the sky was going to hell first.