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Shadow 2.b

Gallant was suffocating.

Dean Stansfield was suffocating.

The miasma of negative emotions that had flooded the Ward common room was almost enough to make his head spin. Dean honestly couldn't name a single member of the team that wasn't somehow affected by the story being blasted out on the news channels.

A mere hour ago they had been united, they had been a team. When Miss Militia informed them that Shadow Stalker had been attacked and hospitalized they had been ready to head out and hunt down the villain who thought they could get away with mauling a Ward by themselves. Not that the Protectorate or PRT were going to let the Wards go anywhere near the cape that had done this to Sophia.

Sophia Hess had never really been a teammate. She was a team member out of legal necessity, but certainly not by choice. She had been a rolling ball of anger and resentment and made very little if any effort to integrate herself into the team. She was loud, rude, insulting and disrespectful in almost every way imaginable, but she had still been a Ward. She had still been a hero, even despite her apparent brutality prior to joining the program.

So Dean tried to bridge the gap, to use his power to try and get to know the person behind the walls of anger that she had placed around herself. But he had always been sure to back off when he felt he had been pushing too hard. Now he wondered if he should have pushed harder.

Dean supposed the news that Sophia had been bullying her classmates hadn't been all too surprising. She had always taken potshots at her teammates, particularly Missy, but Carlos and he had always stepped in before it could get out of hand. And while Carlos had always taken the responsibility of reprimanding Sophia, Dean would comfort Missy and tell her that Sophia didn't really mean what she was saying and that she just needed to be patience to get through to the angry girl. He had thought he had been helping her at the time, but now that he knew the truth, had all he been doing was enabling her?

To see that she had been actively engaging and leading what surely amounted to psychological torture Dean couldn't help but feel sick. He had seen gang members cause less pain and damage than what Sophia had been doing. What was worse was that no matter what Carlos or the Protectorate members said, he couldn't help but feel responsible for what she had done. Sophia's resentment and anger had always weighed heavily on him whenever they were in the same room and he had tried to help her deal with it once, to find an outlet for her negative emotions. She had rebuffed him at the time, claiming that she already had a well-tested outlet that she had been using and had faith in. There had been a flashing of something that warped its way into her anger that he didn't make out, but it had been so fast and fleeting that he assumed that it had been his imagination.

He had been somewhat concerned at the time, but Sophia had been new to the team and he didn't want her to feel as if they weren't trusting her, so he let it go. He kept what she told him to himself and assumed that Sophia would come to them if she really needed help. When she never came, he assumed that whatever coping mechanism she had was working and he never brought the subject up again.

"Some hero I am," he muttered under his breath, too low for any of his teammates to hear. Intellectually he knew that he wasn't entirely responsible for Sophia's actions. A great deal of blame rested on the PRT handler and the school, but that didn't lessen his burden. The fact was that if he had just pushed Sophia a little harder they might have been able to avoid this situation entirely.

His helmet rested to the side, unused and unattended. The knight-like facade had been a request on his part. He had always wanted to be a knight like those in the fairy tales, rescuing the princesses and people from the monsters at the doorstep. Whenever he became Gallant he felt as if he was accomplishing that goal, protecting the people from those who would wish them harm for their own selfish desires. He was a hero.

Now the helmet stared at him as if it were mocking him and his efforts. As if it had known this entire time that they had let a villain into their midst. Dean could feel another wave of guilt overcome him, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out if it was his or someone else's.

"Turn it off," Dennis muttered as the television blared out another report of Shadow Stalker's bullying campaign. The redhead was a twisting, churning bowl of anger and self-loathing as he glared at the screen as if he could somehow change what was happening through his willpower alone. Dean had always known that Dennis wasn't nearly the happy jokester he liked to portray himself as but to see him in such a state was more than a little unnerving.

Missy wordlessly clicked the button, shutting the reporter off midsentence. The young Shaker was absolutely livid, and even knowing where all that anger was being directed at, Dean still couldn't help but feel concerned for her. Space around her twisted and bent in small pockets no bigger than a golf ball as she used her powers to vent off some of her rage.

Chris hadn't even bothered to look up from whatever he was working on as he screwed in a bolt with more force than he really needed to. Dean knew that Chris never liked to talk about his school experience before he had triggered, but Dean had heard and pieced together enough to understand that being bullied over his dyscalculia had been a pretty big part of his trigger event. To see that once his teammates had been committing the very act that made him what he was had to be hitting it pretty close to home for him. Dean made a mental note to try and talk to Chris later to see if he could help stem some of that growing anger.

Carlos was still in a meeting with the Director and Armsmaster as they tried to figure out how to deal with the situation, but even without seeing him Dean knew that his leader would be tearing himself up on the inside. He always tried to be the best leader that he could, but something like this was going to shake his trust in himself. He might even request to step down from his leadership position if he thought that it might help the group.

Dean hoped that he would be able to talk some sense into Carlos and calm him down a bit before he decided to do anything rash. He knew that there was no way that Carlos could have known about Sophia's actions. Really, there was no way any of them could have known about what Sophia had been doing in her free time. With the exception of Missy who was still in middle school, everyone else that was on the Wards team went to Arcadia High. Outside of the occasional Ward event none of them had ever been to Winslow.

To them, Winslow had always been that place on the edge of the map, shrouded in mystery. They had always heard the rumors that the school was nothing more than a recruiting ground for the gangs and that half the teachers were on drugs, but Dean had always taken those rumors with a grain of salt. He had never thought that it would have been possible for a teacher, someone who was supposed to nurture and care for the next generation, to allow their place of work to fall so far. He had never seen any outright gang conflicts when they did Ward events at the school, and while it certainly looked far worse for wear than Arcadia it didn't look all that bad.

Now he wondered how much of that had been an effort on the faculties' part to mask how far their school had fallen.

Dean was broken out of his thoughts as a new emotional signature entered his range mere seconds before the door to the Ward's common room slide open to reveal Miss Militia. He could feel her anger and frustration at everything that was going on just as clearly as his teammates, but the elder heroine's was focused, controlled. Her bandanna was down, revealing a heavy frown marring her features. A huge glowing green blade was strapped to her back. Her power seemed to flicker every few seconds as if it wanted to change forms, the only real outside indication to the internal turmoil she was attempting to hide.

"Miss Militia," Dean said, sitting up a little straighter in response to his superior's presence. He could feel his fellow Wards sit up a little taller as well as varying degrees of surprise flowed through him. He managed to avoid twitching as a dark undercurrent of anger and resentment flowed out through Chris' aura. He did his best to keep his face from showing any signs of discomfort at the Tinker leaned back in his seat with a dark look on his face. "What's going on?"

Miss Militia rubbed her eyes and for a moment Dean wanted to ask her if she had gotten enough sleep. He supposed it said something about this whole mess that he had forgotten that she didn't need to sleep. She sighed tiredly, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders, "As of this moment we're still trying to figure things out."

"Is it true?" Chris asked harshly, his angry voice cutting through the room. Dean turned to give his fellow Ward a motion to back down, but either Chris didn't notice it or simply didn't care to stop. Dean sincerely hoped that it was the former. They didn't need another internal conflict while all of this was going on.

He could feel Miss Militia hesitate as a mixture of anger and regret flowed through her, though her expression betrayed none of that. "While we're still trying to get all the facts into place, it does look like what the media is saying is true."

Dean flinched as another wave of anger and betrayal washed over the room like a tidal wave of negativity. He was sure he saw Miss Militia's eyes flicker towards him for a moment in concern, but he tried to keep his expression neutral. What was his suffering compared to the victims of Sophia?

"So, what's going to happen?" Missy asked in a quiet, subdued tone. The young Shaker had curled in on herself in a defensive posture and looked small and childlike, a far cry from the competent hero that Dean had known all these years.

"At this point, we're not entirely sure," Miss Militia said in a comforting tone as she tried to sooth the angry mess of emotions that the team had become. "We're going to do our best to try and sort this out, but we'll all need a bit of patience."

Dean nodded slightly. He honestly couldn't begin to imagine what the Protectorate and PRT leadership were going through right now. Not only had one of their Wards been traumatized to the point that she was contemplating suicide if whispers from the PRT grapevine were true, and then on top of that they discovered that she had been flaunting her probation under their noses for months with them none the wiser. And to add even more insult to injury everything had been revealed to the public in what was likely the worst way possible. The PR department was running around like headless chickens as they tried to do damage control, but even a fool could see that it was a futile effort. All of it orchestrated by one new cape.

Boogeyman.

Dean wasn't sure where he stood on the new parahuman. One hand he found the dismantlement of the Merchants to be a commendable victory on her part, yet the sheer brutality and viciousness with which she had done so left his gut churning in disgust. No hero should have the right to decide who should live and die, and yet despite this he had heard more than a few supportive whispers from his classmates towards her vicious methods.

Why?

It was something he couldn't understand, why would people support her as a hero? She was brutal without cause and killed without mercy and remorse. How could her actions possibly be considered heroic? His opinion of her had only been solidified even more so with what had happened to Sophia. Brutalizing a Ward was something that only a villain would do, an action that only one without care for life or the well-being of others would undertake.

Like Sophia did, the traitorous voice in the back of his mind whispered. The revelation of what Boogeyman revealed about what Sophia had been doing had shaken his certainty in what she was to him. Shaken, but not broken. She was still a villain, there was no doubt about that in his mind, but he supposed that didn't mean she couldn't do occasionally heroic deeds. Though such actions would always be tainted by the brutality and viciousness she had demonstrated, and as such she could never be considered a true hero.

"That's it!?"

Dean winced at the harsh grating tone of Chris' voice as he finally rose from his seat, fists clenched in anger and rage. Dean didn't even have to use his powers to know that his teammate was angry beyond belief.

The Tinker's face was twisted into an angry snarl that was so unlike the friendly boy that Dean knew. "Sophia does this…this shit and you just tell us that we have to wait? What about the people that have suffered because of her, will they have to wait too?" Chris asked caustically. Dean couldn't help but reel at his teammate's angry words as his aura churned with rage. Apparently, this entire bullying situation was hitting a little too close to home for Chris.

Miss Militia gave the Ward a compassionate frown as she held her hands out in a placating manner. "Chris," she said in a gentle but firm tone, "Once we investigate and have all the facts I promise to you that every single one of Sophia's victims will receive justice. But I need you to stay calm. As much as you don't like it Sophia Hess is still considered a Ward and entitled to the protection that comes with it."

Dean could feel Chris' anger abate somewhat as he gave the Blaster a sharp look before sitting back down with a grunt. He didn't make eye contact with anyone, instead focusing on his half-finished laser pistol in front of him as if none of them existed.

It was days like these that made Dean hate his emotional detection. It was bad enough to see the hurt and anguish made evident on his friend's faces, but to have to constantly see and feel what they were trying to hide from the world weighed heavily on him. He wanted to say something to comfort his friend, but anything that he would say at this point would be nothing more than empty words. He supposed it was ironic really, his power gave him the ability to understand the suffering of others but left him nearly incapable of actually dealing with the issue short of blasting them with happiness.

Miss Militia sighed again. Dean could feel her guilt and frustration at the whole situation welling up behind her friendly mask, desperate for release. "I understand that you're all upset and confused, but right now, charging in gun-ho isn't going to accomplish anything," she said in an effort to calm the rest of the Ward down. Dean winced as another wave of resentment flashed over Chris' aura in response to the elder heroine's words. For a long time, none of the Wards said anything as Miss Militia stood at attention with a hopeful gaze.

"So, what does Piggy want us to do?" Dennis asked hollowly. His attempt to insult the Director with her less than flattering nickname would have usually bought him a few scowls or laughs, but it was an empty joke without any emotion or feeling behind it. Miss Militia looked and felt like she wanted to reprimand the Striker for it, but apparently thought better of it.

"For now, you're all going to stay in the base - at least for the time being," she added hastily at the disbelieving and disgruntled looks from the rest of the Wards. "If Boogeyman is targeting the Wards we need to be prepared."

Dean understood the reasoning behind the Protectorate Blaster's order. If a villain was deliberately targeting Wards then going on patrols would be a very bad idea, but it did little to stem his own irritation. He wanted to go out there and help, to try and mend the damage that Sophia had caused and to show the city that not all of the Wards were like her.

"Why? It's not like any of us are psychopaths," Chris spat out, not even bothering to look up from his creation as he fiddled with a pair of wires. Dean frowned. While he understood that Chris was angry, that didn't mean that he had to take his anger out on Miss Militia. He could tell she was just as upset and frustrated by this whole situation as they were, maybe even more so.

"Chris," Miss Militia said in a soft, chiding voice, "Even if Boogeyman released this information with the best of intentions, the fact still remains that she traumatized a Ward and broke several laws regarding cape identifies at the same time. We're waiting on Thinker confirmation of her threat level, but we have no idea what the limits of her capabilities are or what her plans are. For all we know she could hold the rest of the Wards and Protectorate accountable for Sophia's actions and decide to target you as well.

Therefore, we're going to request that your family members come into protective custody for the time being, at least until we ensure that your own identities haven't been compromised," the Protectorate hero said. Dean could feel the sudden spike of fear in his teammate's auras at the thought of having their family targeted. Missy was concerned, but it was far more subdued than the others. Dean knew that she had an estranged relationship with her parents at best. Dennis did his best not to show it, but he was panicking underneath his cool façade. Chris was concerned as well, but it was still tinged with his anger.

"You don't think that she's going to go after them, do you?" Dennis asked in an obvious effort to maintain a calm expression. It didn't fool Dean who could feel his worry building to a crescendo.

"Personally, I don't think that Boogeyman is going to go after them. Everything that she has done has been targeted specifically at Shadow Stalker. That said, my feelings on the matter aren't a guarantee of their safety, which is why we are choosing to be cautious and bring them under our protection," Miss Militia explained. Dean could feel and see some of the tension leaving Dennis' shoulders at the Blaster's words, but he still felt very worried about his family members being at risk.

Putting those you cared about in danger was always a concern of being a cape, it was something that had been drilled into Dean's head at a very young age, even before he had triggered. There was always the risk of being unmasked and having those around you targeted by your enemies, but it was something that rarely happened. The Unwritten Rules prevented such things by making the rewards of exposing others identity too risky. Knowing someone's identity wouldn't help with a dozen heroes gunning specifically for you.

The fact that Boogeyman had not only chosen to expose an identity of a hero, but that of a Ward at that meant one of two things. One, she didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions and this was all a misguided attempt to stop Sophia's abuse. Or perhaps the more troubling situation, she did understand what she was doing and just chose not to care.

"With some luck, we'll be able to get this whole thing sorted out quickly and everything will be back to normal," she said in a rather obvious attempt to maintain some level of normalcy. Dean knew that even if this entire thing eventually blew over nothing would ever be the same. The Brockton Bay Wards would always have the shadow of Sophia hanging over their shoulders, a taint on their records. Nobody would ever look at them with the same amount of trust that they had before knowing one of their teammates was a chronic abuser. Once this hit national news then Ward teams all over the country would be looked upon with the same suspicion as them. Hearings, investigations, Dean knew that more than a few governmental agencies would be looking to take a bite out of the PRT's massive budget, even if it meant putting civilians at risk from lack of proper funding. With some luck, the Protectorate might manage to emerge from this crisis unscathed since Piggot had placed the Wards under the PRT's purview instead of the standard practice of having the Protectorate take responsibility of the Wards. Even so, the local heroes would be looked upon with distrust by the local population, wondering if they had dark secrets of their own to hide.

Even on a more personal level, nothing would ever be the same. The Brockton Bay Wards would have to deal with the knowledge that someone they had trusted their lives and identities to had betrayed that trust. Anyone that sought to join this team would be looked upon with suspicion and doubt. The PRT agents that they had trusted with their lives would be kept at an arm's length, as the doubts of their authenticity lingered in the back of their heads.

Judging by the sorrow on her face and in her aura Miss Militia knew exactly what they were thinking. The worst part was there was nothing that she could say that could possibly make the situation any better.

Miss Militia opened her mouth to say something but cut herself off as she brought her hand up to her earpiece with a frown. Dean couldn't hear what was being said on the other end of the line, but whatever it was made Miss Militia's blood drain from her face. He could feel the rolling mixture of fear, panic, and rage as her pale face turned into a stony scowl. Her weapon flickered from her back to her hand, reforming into an extremely large pistol that Dean didn't know the name of.

"What's happening?" Dean asked as the Protectorate Blaster raced towards the door. Miss Militia paused once she reached the door to the common room and turned around.

"Sophia's family is being attacked by the Empire," she said as she pulled her bandana over her grimly set mouth. Dean could feel varying degrees of shock and surprise from his teammates, even Chris, as angry and sullen as he was couldn't help but feel a brief pang of concern for the Hess family.

"We ca-" Dean tried to say, to explain that they were more than ready to help. Even if they didn't like Sophia that didn't mean they were going to stand by and let her family get slaughtered for her crimes. Because that was exactly what the Empire would do if they go their grubby hands on them. While Kaiser didn't usually stoop down to the same level of brutal slaughtering that Allfather had been known for during his time as the Empire's leader, he was more than capable of putting a family to the pike if it served his purpose.

"No," Miss Militia said, cutting off his offer with a tone that brooked no disagreement. Dean felt his face contort into a disgruntled look as he clicked his jaw shut in reluctant agreement. They couldn't afford to have any conflict in the ranks at this point or the media would jump on it like a pack of starving vulture, and that was the last thing that they needed on top of the PR crap that was already happening. Miss Militia gave him a look that conveyed her understanding of his frustration and feeling of helplessness. Nonetheless, she remained resolute in her orders.

"Stay here," she ordered as the door slid shut, cutting the Wards off from the rest of the world.

The cold silence that followed her departure was almost deafening. Dean slouched back into his seat as he stared at the tiled ceiling. This feeling of helplessness grated at him. He hadn't felt this useless since his trigger event, and judging by his friend's auras they felt the same way.

"What are we going to do?" Missy asked. Her face was purposely blank, a mask that she had mastered to hide her true feelings. It saddened Dean that one as young as her was so good at hiding her emotions from the rest of the world, but to him, she might as well have been an open book. Her twisting maelstrom of sorrow and anger was almost sickening for him to look at, it was a strange and unnatural turn from the cheerful kid that she usually was.

"I don't know," Dean said with a helpless sigh. He had no clue how they were going to fix this mess that Sophia had made for them. He had no idea how they were going to stop Boogeyman. He didn't' know how they were going to convince the world they were still heroes.

"I have no freaking idea."

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