Amy's phone chirped and chirped with her alarm, waking her at six thirty. Feeling more refreshed than she has felt in ages, she sat up and stretched. She slid out of bed and stumbled towards the bathroom. A morning person she is not. Twenty minutes later, she slipped out of the bathroom and yawned. Then she tilted her head and listened. After that, Amy walked to her sister's door and read a note taped to it.
Out late and had a fight with E88 thugs. Didn't get home until four. Don't wake me until 9AM. At least 9AM.The mousy girl sighed at that. "Victoria, dang it." She grabbed her backpack with her finished homework. The sound of the TV drifted in from the living room. She stuck her head in the door to see Mark watching TV, dark shadows under his eyes. "Dad?"
"Oh, good morning, Amy. Don't wake Victoria up, she and Gallant got into a bit of a fight with the Empire Eighty-Eight at the end of their patrol," he said as he looked over.
"Did you even go to bed?" she asked.
"I'm not sleepy yet. Maybe in a few hours. Thanks for supper, by the way." He gave her a small smile at that.
She nodded, smiling back at seeing him doing better. Then she had a thought. "Say, do you think you could give me a ride to Winslow and then to school afterwards? I need to talk to a student there before she goes to class."
"Sure, I guess."
They quickly had a bowl of cereal each while listening to the weather.
Mark nodded. "That's pretty warm for late January."
"Snow on the weekend though," Amy noted and thought about getting her heavier coat out for later.
Ten minutes later, they headed out into the morning gloom.
"Do you want to drive? It will get you more hours on your learner's permit for practice," Mark asked as they walked to the 'kids' car. Which had ended up being Victoria's car by default.
"Sure!" Amy said happily. Vicky never let her drive.
She took it slow and careful, signalling and impeding traffic. She finally pulled into Winslow High School's front parking lot. The car stopped with a bit of a jerk.
"Can I have you wait here? It's a private cape business matter," Amy said to her father as she slipped her sunglasses on. Anonymity specs!
"Sure. I'll be right here." Mark frowned and put away his phone as they exited the car. He leaned against the hood and tried to look intimidating.
His daughter walked across the front lawn, looking around for Taylor. The coffee shop lay on the far side. While looking around for a couple of minutes, she spotted the distinctive hair of the girl as Taylor got off a bus. She moved to intercept.
"Taylor!" Amy called out as she waved to attract her attention.
Taylor blinked and looked surprised. "Amy?" She diverted from the door to go over to the other girl. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to talk to you before you go and do something you might regret," the healer said.
"What? I mean, what do you mean?" she asked, suspicion layered heavily on her voice.
"You've been emailing me about... bugs. And I don't want you to regret attacking your bullies with your power," Amy said in her most comforting tone of voice. A voice that she had thought lost to herself.
"How- Oh, damn. Shit." Taylor's face turned pale.
"I haven't told anyone. While I can't heal brains, I can detect the Corona Potential. So I knew you probably had a power."
"And I kept talking about bugs because I thought it was safe." Taylor glared at Amy and ignored movement off to her side and slightly behind the other girl.
"And you are safe. I won't tell anyone. But I can tell you are in a bad place here. So you need call the PRT and talk to Director Piggot-" Amy said, only to be interrupted.
"You fucking bitch!"
Amy blinked as she recognized the voice. "Shadow St-" she asked in a low tone of voice as she started to turn around.
"You goddamn fink!" Sophia roared out as she as she turned the girl's shoulder and punched Amy in the jaw with everything she had. "You're spying for Piggot, aren't you?"
Taylor stared at her tormentors in shock as they stood over the fallen form of her new friend.
A couple of minutes previously.
"Sophia!" Emma called out, a smile on her face as she spotted her best friend. "Are you all right?" Sophia did not look alright.
"I've just been up for two days trying to track down an asshole," Sophia almost mumbled. She took a deep swig of a small blue and silver can of her preferred power drink. "I'm going to crash after school." She held her shaking hand behind her back, looking around nervously. The brush of a bald, White kid walking past her almost had her lash out and sock the Neo Nazi. She then clenched her hands even more tightly. Quit jumping at shadows. Everything is all right.
"Hey, guys!" Madison called out as she almost skipped over. Seeing how worn looking Sophia appeared, she subtly moved to put Emma between them. "Oh, my, god! Who is that talking to Hebert?"
A shorter girl stood with her back to them where you could almost see her face.
"Come on, let's go scare the girl away from Taylor," Emma said in a normal tone of voice. Nothing new here.
Sophia smiled as she started to plan how she could trip, elbow or even just shoulder-check the scrawny girl. Too bad they weren't on concrete. "Sure."
Madison giggled and followed behind. She noted a few students that pulled out their phones to take pictures or record the scene.
"-tell you are in a bad place here. So you need call the PRT and talk to Director Piggot-
Panacea! Sophia realized with a start of panic, talking to Hebert about the PRT and Piggot!? "You goddamn fink!" Sophia grabbed the mousey girl by her jacket's shoulder and then laid into her with a full strength cross punch to her face even as she ignored what Panacea blurted out. "You're spying for Piggot, aren't you?"
"Sophia! What the heck?" Emma asked.
Taylor stood stock still, staring at Sophia Hess. Bewilderment for a long second, understanding and then absolute rage filled her. "You're a cape. A hero . A Ward ." She called for insects, everything she could feel out as far as she could. A very low hum started to fill the air.
Madison squealed as she felt something touching her bare feet through her bright blue sandals. She looked down to see worms, ants and beetles crawling out of the wet grass. "Ewww! Ewww!"
Sophia's attention turned on Taylor Hebert. "What are you going to do? Revealing a cape's ID is against the unwritten rules." Fuck! "Revealing a Ward's identity is even worse. The PRT will bury you," she hissed out, barely louder than a calm voice. FUCK! Everything is spinning out of control.
The humming filled the air as they talked, growing louder and louder as blocks of insects awoke and streamed towards Winslow High.
A rictus of hate lay on Taylor's face. "It means that I don't have to just take it any more. That I don't have to hold back because I wanted to be a hero."
Emma blinked, trying to parse what her ex-friend said even as the sun went behind a cloud.
Wait a second!?
It was supposed to be a clear day!
The trio looked over to the east to see the sun just over the horizon to take in a huge cloud of black specks filling the air all around them. Screams from other students sounded out as everyone started running away.
Amy finished tapping a quick message to her dad and looked up, tears in her eyes and barely able to groan. Oh, this was much worse than a basketball sized cloud of insects. Holy shit!
"You triggered-" Sophia said as she surged forward to punch Taylor in the face, only to see her half block the punch that still managed to break Taylor's glasses. Then all of the insects swarmed down (and up from the ground) at her and started to bite. She shadowed through the insects and kneed the other girl in the guts hard. "Powers don't make you strong, Hebert." With a well practiced move, she pulled out a lock-knife and cut a sharp line across Taylor's cheek and a few inches of her neck, only barely missing her jugular vein. She shadow-stepped away to get away from the insects. "You're nothing, Hebert! You're still just a loser-"
Amy reached over and grabbed her by the leg in between her sock and tight jeans. Sophia looked down in surprise, just before a red burst of energy bounced off the ground and hit Sophia in the back and exploded with enough kinetic force to knock her away from the prone healer and to the ground ten feet away in a heap.
"Get away from my daughter," Mark Dallon shouted. "Whoever is controlling these insects, make them go away or I will blast you into next week."
"Tawlor," Amy said as she cradled her hurt jaw as she sat on the ground. "Pwease stop." She sagged back to the ground, trying to hold back the pain so she could think.
Taylor stared at her bloody hands, then the blurry smudge on the ground. "Sure. Um, I'm bleeding." She felt the blood trickling down her face and neck to the front of her torso. She released all the insects after ordering them away. Her neck was bleeding. Was she bleeding out? Taylor started to hyperventilate.
"Hold this against the wound," Emma said, pressing her cashmere scarf up against the jagged cut. "That was... pretty badass, Taylor." She suddenly smiled as she tried to stop the bleeding. "I knew you were strong. I knew you could do it!"
What the fuck? Taylor just stared at the stranger in the form of her ex-best friend.
Mark looked around, quickly checking to make sure that Sophia had a heartbeat and breathed steadily. He pulled out his phone and quickly pulled up the PRT hotline.
"Nawpped her," Amy explained as she caused even more pain when she moved her jaw. "It huwrtz. Bawd." It hurt so much. She was not going to looked down on people being in pain again.
"This is Flashbang of New Wave. There's been a parahuman incident at Winslow High School. I have three injured teens, one of them being Panacea. We need an ambulances and the PRT," he ordered in a very brusque tone of voice. "Recognition code Zulu-Kilo-Kilo-Romeo-Niner-One-Five."
She spotted two paramedic trucks on scene and four Brockton PD cars with their lights flashing. Battery reached forward and silenced the sirens. "Car 10-8-Romeo arriving at the crime scene."
"This is dispatch, Car 1o-8-Romeo. Acknowledged arrival. PRT pacification team enroute, ten minutes," the car radio squawked.
"No sign of combat and no capes visible. I'm moving in to start the investigation," she said as she opened the door. "Over and out."
She walked fast to where the cops had several people to interview. "Flashbang?"
Mark Dallon looked over to see the young Protectorate hero. "Battery, good to see you. You should probably get Armsmaster involved as soon as possible, as this involves a Ward attacking my daughter. And possibly criminal activity against another girl."
Battery activated the record function in her ear headset radio. "What happened here?"
"My daughter, Amy Dallon, asked me to give her a ride so that she could have a private talk with a parahuman that goes to school here. For some reason, this Ward walked up and punched Amy in the jaw. The Ward confronted the parahuman that Amy came to talk to where they accused the Ward of what sounds like very serious bullying. That person then attacked your Ward with all of the insects within sight. Your Ward hurt the new parahuman pretty badly, nearly cutting her throat with a knife. That was when Amy and I both took her down. The Ward is injured, but should recover." Mark showed his experience with the concise report.
"Well... That's not very good." Battery thought for a second. "Why haven't they been evacuated?"
A police officer nodded. "We're trying to see who we need to arrest here. At this point, we're kind of looking at everyone. Including him," he said as he pointed at Mark Dallon.
"Okay, I'm taking charge and we aren't arresting anyone until we get a lot more information. PRT transports will be arriving shortly to escort the ambulances to Brockton General Hospital. This is obviously a parahuman incident, so we have precedence." Battery held up a hand to forestall the officers protests. "Do not make me got to the director to have her come down on your boss's head."
"Fine. Your mess, you can clean up."
She ordered as many PRT investigators as possible. Ten minutes later and afterwards two ambulances showed up. Battery had Sophia Hess loaded into one, while the unknown girl got loaded into the second. Mark Dallon offered to drive himself and his daughter in. And with Battery offering to escort, they all moved to the hospital.
Half an hour later, Armsmaster arrived with a very heavy tromp of his boots. A very strong signal of his unhappiness. "Report."
"Accusations of a Ward bullying a girl, nearly apocalyptic levels of bugs and somehow Panacea all came together to out people's ID in front of dozens of camera phones. One of the BBPD detectives said something about the video of the fight having over a million hits already. PHO is going to go nuts."
" Has gone nuts. The video of Sophia in some sort of freakout cold-cocking Panacea and then using her powers to attack her bullying victim is pretty damning," he replied. "Now that everyone at her school knows who she is and that her victim is a parahuman, they are falling over each other to tell their story to the police and news."
"The only good thing is that she only escalated to using a knife after the Hebert girl unleashed a biblical swarm on her. Of course, using a knife broke her parole..." Battery trailed off, waiting for him to continue.
"At least six month of juvenile incarceration and then we'll see from her shrink's reports if she's at all salvageable. I'm leaning towards not likely. I want your report done as soon as possible," he ordered.
"The problem is that all three of them are medicated and unable to be interviewed. And the other two girls aren't much use. The blonde girl clammed up and demanded her family and a lawyer. The other one is worse, as she's happy that her victim is 'strong' after all their bullying. A realhead case. I don't think she even understands what she did is wrong. It was 'all a prank' and just trying to get Hebert to fight back."
Armsmaster sighed. "Well, she did that and almost got Hebert killed. I've got Miller and Nachezzi from Investigations searching their houses for any evidence."
"Sounds like a busy day for everyone," Battery noted in the last of her good humor.
He just grunted in reply.
Pain and brightness filled Taylor's senses. She tried to look around, but could only see the blurry confines of a hospital room. Panic welled up in her chest, only to be quashed as she realized the differences from her last hospital stay. She tried to open her mouth and pain erupted from her left cheek.
Ten minutes later, the pain lowered back down to a dull roar finally. She squinted as she looked around, finally spotting the call button on its cord where it lay helpfully by her shoulder. She pushed the middle button.
A minute or two later, a nurse appeared.
"Hello, Miss Hebert. How are you doing?" the slightly chunky, middle-aged man asked.
"Hurtz," she said as she tried to not move her mouth.
"Don't worry, it will get better pretty soon. We called in a plastic surgeon to stitch up your face with over fifty stitches. Now you stay here and I'm going to go get your father, okay?" he said with a kind smile on his round face.
"Ukay?" she managed.
Five minutes later, Danny Hebert walked into her room and gave her a tight, caring 'dad' hug. "How are you doing, Taylor?"
"It hurts, dad," she managed as she started to sound more understandable. "What happened?"
"Well, I got to find out that my daughter has super powers and that Winslow High couldn't stop the bullying. If they even tried. They are trying to hush us up, but my lawyer thinks we can get a lot more out of them by suing. I think your college fund is secure. Your mom would be very happy with that if not the reason why it happened, I think," Danny explained.
Taylor nodded. "Panacea?"
"Going to get released here in a bit. She's in a lot of pain, but her jaw isn't really broken. Just bruised really badly," he explained.
"With a hairline crack, actually, Danny. We've been waiting together in the foyer. I'm Mark Dallon. You know my daughters, of course," the muscular, middle-aged man said to Taylor. "Victoria and Amy."
"Also known as Glory Girl and Panacea, of course. I never actually caught why you were visiting my daughter at Winslow this morning," the other father said.
Amy had to talk carefully with her slightly numbed jaw. "I was worried about your daughter possibly using her powers on her bullies. I figured getting her to talk to the PRT and into the Wards might help." She frowned at that. "Now I'm not so sure."
"Yeah, I always knew that Shadow Stalker was a bad apple," Vicky declared. At her sister's disbelieving look, she sighed. "None of the Wards liked her and Gallant thought something was off with her emotions."
Someone rapped on the door. "Hello? Quite the crowd you have here," a woman said. The costumed figure of Miss Militia stepped into the room.
"And how can we help you, ma'am?" Dany asked in a cool tone of voice.
She winced at that response. "We probably deserve that response, I'm afraid. It was inexcusable that we did not hear of Shadow Stalker's actions at Winslow. For that you have my own personal apology and for the Protectorate's apology. Legend said he would try to call you personally to say so. I believe the PRT is going to be sending someone over to say something of a similar matter."
"And what is going to be done with that little psychopath that tried to cut my daughter's throat?" Danny demanded. That caused everyone else to wince in the room except Taylor.
"The Protectorate and PRT will be covering all medical expenses, for one. We will also always hold open a place in the Wards or Protectorate for you. Miss Hebert has had amazing forbearance in not retaliating with her power."
Danny raised an eyebrow at that as he showed how incredulous he felt. "And how do you know that?"
"Our investigation found quite a bit of evidence of the bullying campaign. Text messages, emails and even your daughter's hero journal. That was quite the plan to get physically ready for being a hero, on top of your designs for a bulletproof armor made of spider silk." Miss Militia smiled at that, letting them see that on her upper face above her red, white and blue scarf. "You may even end up with a small Tinker rating for that."
"Erh? I guess?" Taylor blushed at that. "But I don't want to be a Ward." She frowned at that, causing a stab of pain on her face. She looked over at the other two girls. "Since my identity is blown, can I join New Wave?"
Everyone stared at her.
"What?"