The PRT worked fast, or maybe they just felt they owed me a favor. Suing them was a real option, since my age meant I could not be held responsible for my own injuries two days before. The blame fell partially on Ubiquity, who hadn't immediately escorted me to a safer area, and mostly on Armsmaster, who had send me right into the fires and collapsing buildings.
Personally, though, I held myself responsible. Armsmaster hadn't acted the way adults were supposed to, but I would probably have attempted to save people without the Protectorate's support if he had rejected my offer of help. Things might have been even worse.
I hadn't actually told them that much, which was probably why they still acted as though I was on the verge of contacting my lawyer.
I had a costume! Skintight without looking inappropriate, and extremely light yet tough. Specifically, fireproof. Let it be said that the Protectorate learned from their mistakes, maybe.
It felt odd to wear something like that suit, as comfortable as it was, and even odder to see myself wearing it. Somehow, despite still being myself, I looked like a hero, like someone who would appear out of thin air to disarm the bad guys and stop a robbery, or fight feared villains mano a mano.
The thought was a little scary without the adrenaline high that had pushed me to participate in the post-Lung cleanup operation. My power thankfully suited recon and communication much better. Carrying a weapon was simply not a possibility, no matter how light and small our Tinkers could make them. It was me, the clothes I wore, and the mini headset if truly necessary. Even that much slowed me down considerably, although I had of course never tested my maximum speed.
No streaking Brockton Bay for me, even at hundreds of miles an hour.
I sped around the training room a few more times, turning into a light blue streak on the screens they'd set up for the heroes to observe their own performances. Each one also displayed my current speed in mph.
Two hundred, and nowhere near my maximum. They'd need to build a bigger training room to find out how fast I could go.
The monitors flashed yellow, coming on and off every second for ten seconds. I took that time to ease myself into a normal walking speed and the double sliding doors came apart with a quiet hiss. Considering how efficient the rest of the building was, they could definitely have made them silent.
A man in a rust red suit walked in, smiling brightly, followed by a girl dressed in green. She was much shorter, with a skirt and a visor.
"Rapid, is that it?", Aegis asked. He extended a hand towards me, and I shook it.
"That's it. Glad to meet you, Aegis, Vista," I responded. My own voice sounded calm to my ears, which only meant that I was successfully hiding how nervous I was. The fact that my costume, or at least this first draft of it, covered my face up to the bridge of my nose helped to conceal my expression.
I went to shake Vista's smaller hand but she came closer than I expected and gave me a quick one armed hug. "I'm happy to meet you too! Can I see your power?", she asked seeming excited.
Aegis settled a hand on her shoulder, and I could see how he cocked his head to her side. "Be good, Vista. Maybe Rapid doesn't want to."
I shook my head. "I'll show you, but you have to show me too. Deal?"
She nodded, and I disappeared. The counters on the monitors that tracked me, some of the others having repurposed themselves to follow the room's new occupants, shot up to a hundred and fifty in a few seconds, and I simply ran laps around the room pushing myself to the extent of my power.
Vista reacted in slow motion, her head and Aegis's sometimes jerking left and right to try and follow me.
Two hundred, two hundred and fifty.
I stopped, taking a few seconds to dissipate my momentum until I stood where I had not a minute earlier. This time, Vista had a different look on her face.
"Not bad at all," Aegis commented. "I don't think I could have taken you out, there."
"To be fair, I couldn't have done anything to you. When I use my power, I punch about as hard as a baby."
I wasn't quite that weak, but the truth wasn't too far from the exaggeration.
Vista spoke up. "Do it again, but this time I'll use my power too!"
Over the course of the next few minutes I discovered that while her power acted too slowly to stop me, the terrain becoming jagged and distorted could cut my speed in half. It was still very impressive to see Vista's power in action, especially since she was said to be one of the most powerful parahumans in the city, fated to enjoy a successful career as a Protectorate hero.
After a while, just as I was beginning to feel tired from the running, Aegis asked us to stop so we could have the conversation they'd been sent to have with me. He was friendly, as well as very handsome in his costume, but clearly concerned with being an effective team leader.
My team leader, soon. If I went ahead and joined. There was still time to say I changed my mind, and they would even let me keep the costume in case I still considered suing, most likely.
He led us outside the training room and past the changing room I'd used to squeeze into my light blue costume, into a kind of rest room. It had three metal tables with four chairs each, a coffee machine and a vending machine. We sat at the closest table, and Aegis picked a seat that had a corner of the room behind him.
"Nothing to worry about, Rapid, just some news the higher ups want passed on to you. I wasn't given a lot of details, just about your volunteering for the search and rescue."
Vista seemed more distracted now, and I saw she was staring at the vending machines with loving eyes.
"Also," he continued, "I heard that we were to expect some tension between Shadow Stalker and you."
"That is true," I said, "and maybe even an understatement. I know who she is, she knows who I am, and we've had a lot of issues before."
He nodded. As professional as he was right now, I could tell that this kind of situation was what he disliked about being team leader.
"Precisely how it was described to me. Now, my question is: are you willing to put it all behind you?"
"She's not going to just, get away with the things she's done," I said, feeling my patience already lessening. What were they trying to do?
"No, she won't," Vista butted in. "She's already sort of not officially suspended because they're looking into things she's been accused of."
Aegis nodded. "I'm sorry, I should have phrased this differently. Assuming Shadow Stalker can put her personal problems with you aside and treat you like any other teammate, assuming she's been reasonably punished for what she may have done, could you do the same and do your part in keeping the peace?"
That sounded better. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Aegis. I just thought you were going somewhere else with this."
"Not a problem, Rapid. We all have personal factors that make us tick, and being a Ward involves learning to be tolerant of these individual sensitivities."
He was smiling warmly. It sounded like something he'd heard at a seminar and later rehearsed, but the promise it made was actually something I appreciated.
"I get it. The higher ups reign her in, and I reign myself in. The Wards have peace within the team, everything runs much more smoothly. I can do that, as long as the other half of the job gets done as well."
There was relief in Aegis's posture now, his shoulder dropping from where they'd been tensed up. "Thank you. I think everyone in this building will be happy to hear that."
"So when is she joining us for patrols?", Vista asked her older teammate.
"That was the other part of this conversation. Rapid, how soon would you feel ready to spend a day in a Ward's shoes?"
I thought about it. My father wasn't expecting me to come back at any specific time, waiting instead for an official phone call to let him know I was being processed back to the PRT building. If he got worried, he could call and get a status update immediately.
"If we can do it today, that would really be best."
It turned out Vista hadn't been ordered to come talk to me with Aegis, she'd only chosen to tag along out of curiosity. Now she was really excited to see me in action during my first semi-official Ward patrol.
It was still only the three of us, only this time we were running across rooftops, Aegis sometimes taking off for an aerial view before coming back down for conversation. I did much the same, darting to the street below and back up the fire escape in a blink or checking either side of the roof we were on to see what was going on before returning.
He flew, I sped, she bent the world around her to cheat her way into being a Mover like us. I imagined we must have been an impressive sight to behold, and it was difficult to reconcile the way I saw myself out of costume with how easy it was to belong with the other heroes.
It answered an old question: "How do they run around in skintight costumes, how do they take themselves seriously and pull it off?"
Very simply, actually. Find other weirdos to do it with and enjoy it.
It was a quiet day in Brockton Bay, particularly as it was a Tuesday during office hours. Even villains and gangbangers could hold day jobs, after all. For me, it was yet another day without school and associated drama to spoil it. The Wards program had mandatory school attendance, but I'd heard a possible transfer to Arcadia mentioned the day before.
Things were looking up. I still had yet to run into Sophia again, and I was feeling some dread building up in anticipation, but I was having a nice day otherwise. Using my power always came with some satisfaction too, like scratching an itch my hands couldn't reach.
Aegis came back down from one of his scouting flights, pointing back as he spoke, his voice carrying effortlessly through the air.
"Suspicious activity over there, I'm guessing E88."
With that he waved us to the right direction and flew ahead. Vista shrank the space in between, making her every step into a giant leap, while I caught up with Aegis in a second. I had discovered earlier that my speed made it possible to jump extremely long distances, so I easily made my way to the street Aegis had spotted. I stopped at the edge of the roof overhead, leaning over just enough to gauge the situation.
Aegis landed beside me after a few moments, keeping his flight low towards the end. Vista reached us soon after, and I noticed that none of her distortions would be visible from street level. The two were clearly much more experienced in this than I was.
I could see some sort of deal happening below us. There was a heated conversation I couldn't quite understand, one man sounding more pleading and another who sounded firm. Quickly the pleading relented and pulled his wallet out of his pocket, before counting dollar bills with shaky hands.
He handed the money over, which was counted by a third, and a fourth stepped through a door, into the building we were on top of.
Four men, the three sellers built like stacks of bricks. All had their hair cut short. I assumed they were armed, possibly with guns. I looked to Aegis, who was still focused on the street below.
He whispered. "I heard heroin. It changes hands, Vista disrupts, I fly in. Rapid, be ready for runners, lookouts, reinforcements, anything."
I nodded. The fourth came back out with a package tightly wrapped in brown paper, something the size of his fist, holding it out, and Aegis shot down into the street.
I had wanted to state the obvious, but he was gone before I could have opened my mouth.
The package is too big. This isn't a regular deal. There will be reinforcements. We need reinforcements.
The four men were distracted by a growing bulge in the wall behind the buyer, and Aegis slammed into the two biggest guys. They were thrown to the ground immediately, the impacts loud enough that I doubted they'd get up before the fight was over, and he turned to the one with the one with the firm tone.
The buyer was running away already, the package clutched under his arm. I accelerated and nearly flew down a fire escape, reaching street level before he'd taken another ten steps.
As a skinny teenage girl with little affinity for sports, I wasn't about to just fight the guy, and my power made it hard to do more than poke him.
I waited patiently as he ran in slow motion, until his legs were in the position I needed them to be in. I could see from his facial expression that he'd only just noticed my presence. I kicked his back foot as hard as I could, and it didn't do much to hurt him.
It was enough that he kicked himself in the ankle mid-run, and he tripped into slow-motion flying. Confident that I could leave him be for a minute of my time, I turned back to the others and saw Aegis flying towards the last standing man.
Somehow, it looked like the man was about to successfully dodge the inhumanly fast hero, despite Vista's obvious influence shrinking the distance between the two and marbling the ground under his feet.
I took a few seconds to push the still falling man's hands where they were more likely to protect his face once he hit the ground, and ran over to help Aegis corner his target.
He was already clear of my teammate's charge, slowly shouldering open the door one of the fallen men had used to enter the building in a long leap. No matter how fast the man was, I was faster, and with my subhuman strength, I had few options left.
With all the strength I could muster, I repeatedly punched the man in the crotch until he was through the door. The normal delay that occurred before the pain reached the brain in humans would have him screaming around the same time he hit the floor, and he was now more likely to crash than he was to drop into an expert running landing. At that point Aegis was swerving in mid-air, either very much at ease with controlling his momentum or simply not burdened by that particular phenomenon, and so I trusted him enough that I returned to my runner.
He had hit the ground already, weird waves in his skin rippling upwards from the point of contact. It seemed to me that he was mostly successful at catching himself, so I tried to pull at the package he was still clutching under his arm.
Impossible to move it. Too weak. On the other hand, his fall had revealed the gun he kept in his waistband. I put a hand on it and started yanking, then turned off my power mid-yank. Time resuming its normal speed, he finished crashing down while the gun came out of his waistband.
Then I accelerated again and positioned myself six feet in front of him, gun clearly in hand, and slowed down again.
The starting and stopping was slightly disorienting, although more so for him than it was for me.
He finished falling flat to the ground and immediately scrambled to start running again, until he noticed me pointing his own gun at a point between his feet and mine. He stopped.
"Throw the package in the trash over there," I said in my best commanding voice. It sounded off to me, but the actually complied, and tossed the brown pack.
"What now?", he asked, shaking nervously. I could also see how he'd skinned his hand, and was thankful I hadn't made him fall on his face. I aimed to be a cruelty-free hero as much as possible.
"Now, -", I started and stopped immediately.
Something inside the building to my left roared. Aegis was alone in there, fighting an opponent I had assumed was down."
I accelerated again and rushed to help, slowing down slightly to change the trash container that the package had landed in. The buyer hadn't turned around yet when I ran through the door and left him alone in the alley with only Vista overlooking him, and I saw she had started sinking the ground around his feet.
Once inside, I needed a few seconds to understand what I saw. The man whose crotch I had done my best to smash was up - although his face seemed very tense - and dodging a punch from Aegis, who himself had started turning around to see a growing mass of metal descending on him.
That was Hookwolf, already transformed from the feet up to his shoulders, and he had managed to sneak up on Aegis. Another second and he would be engulfing the hero, who was tough but maybe not 'being ground up inside Hookwolf' tough.
This left me with a few seconds in my own time to find a solution. Not much.
I couldn't use a tool. I couldn't shove Aegis. I couldn't reason with the enemy. Using the gun was a last measure, and there was one other option.
Gathering all the strength I had in my weakened, slender frame, I forced my fingers into Hookwolf's eyes and sidestepped before I was crushed in between his metal and Aegis, who was doing his best to initiate a dodge.
Hoping that would be enough, I ran around to the man who should have been crying over his mistreated genitals and kicked his foot into a position that had him trip himself.
He started stumbling backwards, and where his skill had him adjusting so he would fall down in a favorable position, I nudged him out of balance again. Somehow, I had to intervene this way three times before he was close enough to the floor.
No visible powers, an exceptional fighter from the Empire. I remembered reading about one such cape, although the name escaped me.
As he was currently falling, his back would take most of the impact, which wouldn't be sufficient to take him out for any length of time. I needed the freedom to devote some of my attention to Aegis, who was half-escaping a blinded, howling Hookwolf with nudges here and there.
I sat down, my knee positioned just below the falling fighter's head.
Then I slowed down and he smashed his head on my knee, which had him rolling on the floor. What I hadn't expected was how much it hurt me as well, even though I was ready for the impact. Still, I got him.
I accelerated again to go help Aegis after giving Headknee another kick between the legs.
My fellow hero was covered in blood, the left side of his body absolutely mangled, but he was mostly clear of Hookwolf's rolling blades. The villain himself had one human hand pressed to his face while he lashed out blindly around him.
We simply didn't have the firepower to take him out. I set to work using my nudges to edge Aegis closer to the exit whenever possible, and soon enough - minutes in my perception of time - we were clear.
The man whose gun I'd taken was nowhere to be found, but I was able to retrieve the package before rejoining Vista on the rooftop. Aegis flew up and landed next to us a second later.
"We're leaving", was ell he said, and we did what we had done earlier, flying, speeding, bending the laws of physics as we fled, only faster this time. Aegis was calling for reinforcements, describing the address of the alley.
I could have reached the PRT building much faster, but I chose to remain by my teammates.