This counterparts to Monster 5.c.

Note that some formatting has been altered, relative to the Sufficient Velocity version. I... actually think this version might be creepier.

Chapter T.2: Eclipse

Goddammit Cherie, that wasn't Kaiser.

I'm not sure who it was, but you just- you just killed him! For all we know, he's- well- okay, if Cherie's power tracking is right he's got to be an Empire man, so- I mean- but you can't just kill someone you don't even know without even knowing what their crimes are!

... fuck, that isn't actually that different for her than what we've already been doing, is it? She actually blew me off when I tried to explain why I wanted the Dragonslayers dead, she told me she didn't care. We went after someone because I wanted to do it, and... whether they deserved it didn't matter to her.

Fuck.

I shouldn't have this much responsibility for another human being. God, I'd make a terrible parent. I can just imagine wandering through life, training the adorable tyke without even realizing I was doing it until one day they did something completely in line with everything about how I'd raised them and utterly outside what I'd ever intended to be acceptable.

Not that Cherie is a child, but I just... I haven't been thinking about what she's experiencing, I shouldn't be surprised by this outcome. Of course she'd default to killing our target when the situation changed! It's not like I even talked with her about discovering what a mistake it was to kill the Dragonslayers!

I-

A projectile shoots past. Fuck, New Wave is firing on us? I- I guess that's justified. They just saw a man killed, a man they may not have even seen display powers. Murder of a civilian, basically.

We're going to have to leave town as soon as we can. The PRT is already hostile to me for some reason, they'll, they'll probably just assume... I don't even know what they think is going on, but they've got this ugly idea of me and seemingly murdering a civilian is not going to help.

When another projectile goes past, I'm reminded I should be trying to help Cherie, instead of laying in her arms like a lump.

Okay, Glory Girl has a temper. Maybe I can, I dunno, provoke her? Get her off her game, distracted, somehow leverage that into us getting some distance.

I try, and try, and try, and only once even manage to get out her name, and it doesn't end up mattering because she flares her aura and when I'm human my knees are weak and my- I- I feel like I have to get away and I can't because I'm held in a cage of steel known as Cherie Vasil, and when I'm the monster I feel like something is stalking me, something big and hungry, hungering for me, and I need to hide but there's nowhere to hide I'm in the open air all I can do is curl up against the thing I'm up against-

-and then it fades, but the impulse to hide remains. You don't leave the instant a wolf is out of sight, that's how you get eaten. You have to hide some more and wait.

(Or at least that's what I eventually thought was happening. At the time I was just cold and scared even though I'd never been cold or scared as the monster and curling up into myself was just The Thing To Do)

I've only barely started to pull myself together when something hooks on one of my limbs, refusing to yield as Cherie goes shooting past, resulting in me being jarred out onto a random open rooftop. Fortunately, I remain the monster for whatever reason, and I do my best to stab at the thing, but it doesn't work. It's hiding in the roof, stabbing through it periodically, and each time I jab at it I just hit the roof. I'm still not thinking straight, and around the time it crosses my mind that maybe this is Crusader ambushing us what the hell, Glory Girl shows up and- and she fucking-

She fucking calls a truce.

With Crusader.

But- your sister is someone Empire Eighty Eight wants dead! I- what- what is wrong with you I know what this looks like but-

Then Cherie snaps off a shot at one of Crusader's ghosts, and I realize she needs to go. I can't quite form words, the whole situation is insane and I just can't think straight so I'm left with waving my arms frantically at her in hopes she'll realize she needs to back off. He'll be able to stab her right through the suit.

So of course Cherie ignores me and gets speared in the arm for her troubles.

Fuck this whole thing.

Though on the plus side, I guess, the truce doesn't really hold long. Glory Girl comes after me, and I can't do shit, I'm stuck in human form and she's super-strong and super-tough and I'm just manhandled effortlessly by her, but Crusader wants me dead while Glory Girl wants to take me in, arrest me. This is maddening, but at least Glory Girl isn't just snapping my neck and being done with it, she's still got standards. And New Wave shows up, so Crusader can't win this fight, I, I, I'm not looking forward to trying to explain this awful situation but

what happened i

what hurts

can't see right

colors wrong

shapes all wrong

can't connect

what's it mean

sensations meaning what

blue pain

noise, means what

need to move

hand goes to face right

can't tell

can't quite remember what hand is

I what just- what are New Wave looking at? Since when were they around me- no, move, I don't know what just happened but I need to get to safety, flee, before they notice me again, make me human and drag me off in chains. So I dash off, shaky and confused.

Fuck, I, what happened? I can kind of remember... I can... everything was... I tried to move my hand? But it didn't respond right? I think? I couldn't think properly, everything was off. I couldn't see right, there was a. There. I was. Missing... an eye? I was missing an eye, and everything else was there but it didn't make sense? Why was I missing an eye? How did that happen without me knowing? Did- I don't remember- did Crusader stab an eyeball out? That doesn't sound right. Did another cape fuck with my head? Some kind of... illusion? No, no, not an illusion, but... I...

There was... pain... around my left eye and...

...

It takes me a minute to get my mind around the idea, in part because I'm currently the monster and so I can't just touch where I remember the pain being. But.

I think.

I think I was... stabbed right through an eye, through my brain, out the other side of my skull.

I.

No?

I mean, I'm fine, if shaken. I mean okay I regenerate, but a hole right through my head, brain damage? Serious, major brain damage while I was human? Even people with regeneration usually stop if you destroy the head. (That Crawler doesn't is part of why he's so horrible) So. That can't be right. I'd be dead. Right? Dead.

So that can't be right.

I'd be dead.

The situation around me is changing, and I don't really understand what's happening, I can't see most of it because I'm hiding/fleeing, but eventually Cherie drops out of the sky and I haven't seen any of Crusader's ghosts in a while and New Wave is... flying off in the distance?

And then Cherie says, "You were dead!" She sounds raw, like maybe she was crying or screaming just recently.

I was dead.

Cherie says I was dead and I'd already thought in that direction and rejected it but now I'm not dead and she says I was dead.

I died.

I died to fucking Crusader, stabbing me while I was held by goddamn Glory Girl. A C-lister villain and a minor celebrity teen hero killed me, where Nilbog and Dragon and the Dragonslayers didn't. The Dragonslayers weren't even a threat to me, not really.

I died to a C-lister and a newbie teenager.

I died.

And it was to nobodies.

Because being human made me weak and vulnerable, and I was in a cape fight, where you can't afford to be merely human.

...

I have no idea what to do about this. I can't pilot a Dragonslayer suit myself, even though we have the other one.

I.

Is this what people feel when they die in a freak accident? One day, you cross the street, and this time you get run over and die, where every other day you did the exact same thing worked out fine. Only, I guess this is more like you jaywalk a bunch of times and then the one time you use the crosswalk is the time a truck comes barreling in and steamrolls you. The dangerous stuff was safe, the safe thing killed you.

I dunno, maybe I'm just thinking weird because... because I was dead for a bit there. But I'm stuck on how this feels absurd and backwards. Why didn't I die, even temporarily, when fighting Nilbog, but Crusader and Glory Girl could get the job done?

I-

The locker is back and it's opening the door and on the roof and why is the locker back I just fucking died why is the LOCKER BACK

"Oh Monster, I'm so glad to meet you! I'm your biggȇ͇st ̱ͦfa̮n." The locker is talking to me WHY IS IT TALKING TO ME WHY IS IT SAYING THIS LINE LIKE IT'S SEDUCING ME WHILE IT BLEEDS AND THE BULLIES WHISPER AROUND ITS WORDS AND ALL WHILE I'M HUMAN AND CAN'T ESCAPE IT

And then- and then metal wraps around me, but it's not the locker, it's holding tight but it's not the locker and it's speaking to me but it's different, it's, "Shush baby don't you cry, everything will be fine and there's nothing to fear here, it's just a girl, that's all it is, it's just a girl."

And- it doesn't make the locker go away, or make it any less awful, but. It's true. Sophia and Emma- they're just girls. I've been -I've been seeing the locker every day they looked at me, felt it crawling on my skin every time Sophia shoved me, only it was background, it wasn't anything I saw yet it was there in the back of my head and did I really need to give them that much power over me? Did I really need to give them that satisfaction? They did the locker to me, yet... they couldn't do it to me at will. In fact, I'd stopped using my locker anyway, so they really couldn't do it to me at all.

...

BUT I STILL NEED TO GET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING LOCKER!

Especially since it's advancing on me. Oh god why is the locker advancing, why, fucking WHY and then- fuck! The locker reaches out with a hand of bloody tampons and breaks my arm! Snap, broken! Why is today just emphasizing my mortality! But the other, nicer cage of steel lets me loose and I flee, and then- Cherie is holding me for some reason. When did that happen? Actually, she's holding me up by my shirt, it's going to tear.

"You are not dying again."

I grit my teeth. "Not dead." I'm fine. The arm stopped being broken. Cherie, meanwhile, is going to ruin my shirt.

Cherie rotates me about for some reason, I don't even know why, and before I can decide on how to bitch her out for the mistreatment of my shirt the fucking locker is back and its tampon arm starts choking me.

Can't breathe! Can't breathe! Can't escape! I need to be the monster so I can tear out of the locker and run! But it's not happening there's no one around to look at me I'm alone with the locker why am I not the monster-

crunch

-the locker lets go of me, and it leers at me from the ground and no, no fuck this, the-the-the bitches were just girls the locker- it can't be real this is a cape thing it's just a girl I can cut girls.

"Taylor. Please don't tell me you just killed one of my less unpleasant aunts."

Fuck you Cherie. I don't need your shit on top of this whole mess.

It was just a girl. A girl I've now butchered and sent her head careening off... elsewhere. I sort of feel like I should be tying this back to how unhappy I was with Cherie killing that Empire cape, the whole thing of killing someone without knowing their crimes, but while I'm not entirely sure what was actually happening I'm fully confident it was Cape Shit that she was doing to me. So I'm pretty sure she tried to kill me. I have no goddamn clue who she is, but she was trying to kill me and I don't care why, it was self-defense.

And weirdly cathartic, actually.

I have no idea why.

Before I can drag my thoughts back to Cherie, she... well, she grabs me, soothingly mutters, "Shhh it's fine we're all fine everything's fine-" which abruptly turns fierce as she switches to- "-let's get out of here right now," and jarringly drags me into the air, not bothering to ask me or anything.

...

I'm not sure I can really blame her, given what a disaster we were just in.

...

So.

I died.

Or came really damn close, at least.

I think this is supposed to force me to reexamine my life? What I'm doing, whether it's worth pursuing?

I dunno, though. I've already looked up cape mortality statistics, and in particular looked up what a more Brute-type package like mine leans toward. (Short version: either your Brute-ness is really good, like Alexandria's, or you die faster than pretty much any other category of cape. By a lot) I was planning around the idea that reaching my 25th birthday would be A Big Deal, if I reached it at all. That was on the idea of doing the normal cape thing -join up with the Protectorate, spend a few years as Ward, probably live through that and then die as an adult cape fairly early on. Or become a villain -not that I'd do that, mind- and act as either someone else's enforcer and eventually end up dead because I'm always out in the field fighting unfamiliar capes or just try to carve out my own little gang with sheer brute force, and eventually get killed in my sleep because people are tired of my shit. Or become a rogue -I don't see how that would work at all with my powers, but hypothetically- and... have a better survival rate, maybe, depending on how valuable my power was perceived, but also feel like I'm not doing jack. What would I even do? I'm not equipped to move heavy stuff in place of heavy machinery, or demolish buildings that need it, or dig mines, or knock down trees. I can destroy some fairly tough stuff, but... how's that supposed to be useful, aside killing awful, awful capes?

Like the Nine.

I'm mostly on autopilot as we go through the process of getting Cherie out of her suit, me out of her costume -though there's that ffffucking moment where she's grinning so much her eyes are practically closed because I have to strip out of my costume in front of her- and so on and so on, though I drag myself out of my thoughts long enough to make sure Cherie's scrape is bandaged properly. Tie it off tight enough she's only half-joking when she complains it might cut off her circulation.

So yeah. I'm supposed to be reexamining my life, and I guess I kind of am, because even though we were already planning on leaving Brockton Bay because of the... the heat, god, I feel criminal just thinking it... I'd sort of been thinking vaguely in terms of taking on local-ish gangs? Basically continue what we've been doing in the Bay instead of seeking out another Nilbog-esque threat just yet, work our way up. In part because I wasn't sure if Cherie was up for that kind of threat. Regardless, now I'm feeling like... like if relative no-namers have a real shot at killing me where Nilbog and Dragon failed, if any kind of 'power level' concept just doesn't really matter to my life, I really ought to be rolling the dice at big threats. I should be trying to break the Nine, instead of getting myself killed trying to stop the latest iteration of Boston's gang scene.

So yeah. Life re-examined. Conclusion drawn.

Feels like it should be more dramatic than this. Like if this were a movie, I'd spend a week ruminating on some beautiful veranda, contemplating my tea, and make a firm resolution to never run away again.

It just feels like a decision. A decision like any other, no more or less.

I don't know what to make of that.

Regardless.

"We're hunting the Slaughterhouse Nine next," I inform Cherie.

Cherie smiles and laughs like that's no big deal. "Sounds fun, Boss"

I guess she was serious when she said her idea of fun was following me into these pits, and not... clubbing.

Our time on the road is... different from when we went after the Dragonslayers. Cherie is insistent on us using hotels more regularly, and I give in when she points out that my expectations are probably rooted in the fact that my power cleans me up constantly. She needs regular opportunities to wash up, or else some day she's going to come down with something awful we could've prevented, and it will be all my fault.

I think she's laying the guilt trip on a bit thick, but I end up not pointing it out when it occurs to me this might be... self-defense from her own life. Maybe that's just what it took to get Heartbreaker to treat her with bare minimum decency: point out that it's a bad plan and also try real damn hard to make him feel like he's a serious heel because anything less rolls right off him.

The whole thing makes me antsy because I keep expecting someone to get curious about what's in our truck, but when I express that concern to Cherie she- well. She laughs in my damn face, so hard she's clutching at her gut and wiping tears from her eyes and it takes several minutes before looking at me stops setting her into new rounds of laughter.

Finally, she gives me a condescending pat on the head, like I'm a vaguely retarded puppy, and remarks, "Taylor, you way overestimate how much energy most people have to spare on curiosity. Even capes aren't as curious as you think. We'll be fine."

And... things do seem to work out.

I'd assume it was Cherie manipulating people, but she spends most of her time at these hotels asleep. Even when I look out a window in the dead of night as the monster, carefully watching people go past our truck, most of them clearly don't spare it a second glance. In fact, usually when we get looked at it's when we're loading or unloading the truck -a couple of girls in a somewhat beat-up pickup truck is mildly attention-grabbing.

Or maybe it's just that we're two girls alone, period.

... I don't think that thought would've crossed my mind prior to Cherie. I'm not sure if that's me being sheltered and her worldly or her being... her and me being sensible.

There's a few times I find myself strongly tempted to call Dad and let him know I'm fine, but... I'm always stopped by realizing I have no idea what to say. On a very basic level, I mean. Not 'say in a way that won't let the PRT get any clues if they're listening in'. Not 'say so quickly the call isn't liable to be traced'. Not... any number of valid concerns I should be keeping in mind, and that do cross my mind as I'm staring at the phone. They're true, but the real issue is just... I don't know what to tell him at all. When I try to imagine a conversation with him, there's just a big void in my skull, a nothing yawning on unendingly.

I'm reminded of how I insisted on Cherie handling the call back when we were hunting the Dragonslayers.

I just have no idea how to talk to my own father outside of... routine, I guess?

The thought brings a half-hearted anger aimed at Emma, but I long since concluded it's my own damn fault anyway, so... it's a pretty bleh anger.

Overall though, hotels work out... surprisingly well.

I just sometimes wish there wasn't always a phone available to taunt me.

It's always a bit of a relief when we sleep in the woods instead.

The news from Brockton Bay is almost comedic. The Protectorate spins events so that Cherie and I are a dastardly duo of sneaky, cunning evil who exploited security holes and Cherie's power to get labeled heroes. When asked what they suspect our intentions were, Armsmaster... says he don't know what goes through the minds of petty villains, in a manner that implies he doesn't want to know. That prevents any further questions on that angle, and maybe it's just hanging with Cherie affecting me, but I can't help but suspect that was the point. Our actual motive is that I wanted to be a hero and Cherie is sort of... following me around like a duckling. That things have gone so wrong isn't because we had some sinister plot to abuse the label.

How would that even work? What kind of plan could that possibly be?

I dunno, maybe there could be an actual evil plot centered around that, but I can't see it, and given there was no sinister motive I kind of doubt the Protectorate can see one either.

More interesting -and a bit disappointing- is the news of a new gang moving in, taking advantage of the power vacuum produced by the Merchants being wiped away and the loss of important capes in the other gangs. Though they're kind of weird for a gang, as when I go digging around online I don't find anything about them selling drugs or engaging in prostitution or knocking over banks or anything. Just... skirmishing with the other gangs sometimes, not even particularly carving out any particular territory as theirs. It's all really weird, and I can only assume that whatever cape is running the whole thing is a bit fucked in the head. Probably a tinker, given the underslung lasers they occasionally use, apparently.

It's sort of funny to me to learn that the Empire is rumored to have put bounties on Monster and Pride. It's technically threatening, I guess? But mostly it feels like... they're scared? That they're outsourcing in an attempt to deal with us. Were Fog and Locust really that important? Or maybe the... other cape?

On a more positive note... it's good seeing Squealer get a new lease on life. Feels nice to have helped make a villain into a hero, instead of into a corpse. Not... as nice as I was hoping it would feel, but nice. I didn't even realize she could make aircraft, let alone the blimp haunting Boston's skyline now. It's impressively huge.

... it doesn't help when Cherie gets curious about me being happy to see 'Major Zeppelins' and no fucking way am I letting her find some way to twist this into teasing me so I just. No. I say nothing, I give nothing, and just out-patient her. It's easy. Cherie isn't patient, and she's generally pretty tired when we hole up in a hotel anyway.

But I make a point of reveling in it a bit once she's been asleep for a few hours. I can do more straightforwardly positive things, sometimes.

The first time we think we've found the Nine, I get excited. This is it, I'm thinking, and honestly I'm half-expecting everything to come apart and for us to die horribly, and I try to heavily hint Cherie can just bail, this is my thing not hers, but she rolls her eyes at me and tells me she's not going to repeat the speech she already gave me in the Bay.

It's pretty obvious pretty quickly they're not the Nine, though. Fucked-up, yes, but not Nine-fucked-up. Whoever they are, they're occupying a farmhouse at the edge of town, the kind of farmhouse you can tell was growing crops maybe a decade ago, maybe two decades ago, but is now just a fairly private home for some family. Or was, in this case. I find the unlucky family's not-particularly-fresh corpses in the attic, because that's the way I snuck inside. There's... injuries that look to me like they were tortured to death, stuff I very carefully stop speculating about when I see that one of the dead is a girl who was maybe a year older than me before this happened.

I end up listening in for an uncomfortable two hours while Cherie periodically pings me with curiosity and I try to signal back patience, laying nearby the corpses and trying to find a position that doesn't have their faces haunting the edge of my vision. Most of the conversation among the not-Nine is that of a group of people who are relatively comfortable with each other laughing things up. If you ignored the content, you'd think it was an ordinary six fast friends, talking about their favorite shows.

In their case, they're talking about how 'awesome' it was to see a 'pig's' face explode as they were fleeing a bank with their stolen cash, and other lovely stories.

Honestly, I was pretty sure I was going to kill them all before I started listening in, and it took less than fifteen minutes for me to be completely sure. I needed the other hour and forty-five minutes or so to let them slip their powers, so I could know how to approach this.

The short version is that none of them had any passive protection while asleep, or had sensory powers to forewarn them.

So... I killed them one by one in their sleep, leaving alive the woman who could apparently make herself undetectable to people she'd made skin-to-skin contact with. Not because she was any better than the others -if anything, she might've been the most stomach-churning- but because she'd be no problem at all for Cherie to handle in the suit.

I didn't really interfere with Cherie's power-assisted interrogation. My only contribution was wondering if they'd had any direct contact with the Nine, and I'd honestly figured it was a long shot. No surprise when the woman was actually kind of horrified at the suggestion.

I'd originally intended to try to turn her in, but then out came the rape stories...

I don't think I'd have felt bad about her death even before I triggered.

The second time I think we've found the Nine is... bewildering.

I ended up pushing for a more open assault, wanting to get the victims out before the maybe-Nine did their grisly work, and it... went somewhat poorly. It probably would've gotten me killed if they'd actually been the Nine. As was it was... weird. In most respects they seemed to be essentially normal criminals, kidnapping girls to prostitute them elsewhere, just... with powers, and costumes, and a... a... a lair. An actual Saturday morning cartoon lair, colorful and the walls dominated by 'machines' with no obvious purpose. I have literally no idea what that whole thing was about. It was creepy, though, especially when contrasted with the aggressively mundane cages.

Ultimately the main reason things went as well as they did was that the group was nearly at each other's throats on their own, and then Cherie did her thing with her power until their existing grudges turned into a reason to start fighting each other. The survivors figured out that something was being done to mess with their heads, but by that time Cherie had cut the power, and none of them could generate light.

The only difficulty at that point was figuring out how to kill the guy who insisted he was 'invincible'. I'm not sure what the trick was, but eventually my stabbing made progress through his costume and from there he died very quickly.

It was awkward figuring out how to deliver the unfortunate girls to safety without getting ourselves in trouble... in fact, it was difficult getting it done at all, since the pickup truck wasn't designed to carry fourteen people. We actually ended up having Cherie carry two of the braver ones on ahead in flight while I walked the rest to the truck and most of them ended up awkwardly in the back.

I felt sort of like I should be trying to say something reassuring, but I couldn't think of anything and I didn't want to make things worse so I ended up just... delivering them in silence. I honestly thought I'd spooked them, and maybe I did spook most of them, but there was one girl who, when dropped off, squeezed me into a hug and gave me a heartfelt thanks before heading off to hopefully be brought back to her family.

So.

That was nice?

Kinda feels like it shouldn't feel nice, given it required such an awful thing to happen...

And then finally we actually find the Nine.