2.2

I felt like the walking dead slinking into school. All the adrenaline had taken a toll, and the social stress of the morning hadn't helped. First the Wards, and then dad.

I hated lying to him. Always had, no matter how small the lie, and this one wasn't small. This was using my bugs to sneak past him, to hide my costume and pretend everything was fine after a night of near-death experiences, assaulting a major Brockton Bay hero and being arrested by the PRT.

But it was true what I said to the Wards. He had always been such a rock for the family, before mom died. Afterwards? He seemed stretched thin, fragile. He didn't need the kind of complications my life was.

And it wasn't like anything had changed. I had been keeping him in the dark about my life for over a year now. If anything, last night was an improvement compared to my usual day to day existence. At least I was doing something.

So you could say that I was feeling a bit fragile myself today, physically and emotionally. And when I saw Emma, Madison and Sophia waiting in class, I just couldn't face it. At least they hadn't seen me.

There didn't seem much point in minimising my guilty conscience right now, it already had a long backlog to work through, so I hightailed it out of there. Slipping past the hall monitors was child's play with my power, no harder than sneaking into the basement at home while I knew dad was upstairs. Easier, in some ways.

I really needed to go somewhere quiet to think anyway. And I needed information. Both of which were available at the Brockton Bay public library.

I logged onto the public terminal. First thing I needed to do was see how last night was playing out in the news and online. Offers of support and help were well and good, but I doubted the heroes and PRT would be so forthcoming if the media was gunning for me. It would also be interesting to see how the Protectorate were spinning the event, considering it was only a few hours ago that I found out exactly how strongly the PRT influenced public information about capes.

There wasn't much in the mainstream media, which was hardly a shock. The news channels had been lagging behind the blogs and citizen journalists for years now.

That wasn't to say they weren't trying. 35 butchered corpses was big news, even in supervillian riddled Brockton Bay. The press were howling for information, running the usual talking heads calling for martial law with the usual unconvincing fear-mongering. People were so used to capes now it took something pretty earth-shattering to whip up an angry mob.

There was a brief statement from the PRT stating there had been "an event" in which a Brockton Bay hero and a heretofore unnamed cape "interceded" in what appeared to be a gang "conflict". They said the two capes "acted to prevent further bloodshed". They also made very clear that they had "taken Lung into custody".

So nothing useful there, just sanitised PR fluff. I guess they were keeping my identity quiet, for now at least.

The next stop was the forums. Parahumans Online, the leading place for information and news related to capes in the continental US.

I wan't disappointed, there were already dozens of threads about what had been dubbed "The Massacre at the Docks". Not very original. Several had argued for some pun based on the Everett massacre, but the consensus was that comparing a violent police action against dockworkers to a gang war was not cool.

There still wasn't a lot of information. People were throwing around ideas ranging from the Empire 88 to the Slaughterhouse 9 or even an Endbringer attack (which was laughed at long and hard). But there were people who had seen Lung's fireballs, and almost everyone rational was in agreement that Lung had caused the deaths.

There were also a number of threads hypothesising about the unknown cape that aided the Protectorate. No-one really seemed to know anything, but buried in the guesses were a few references to a "bug-girl" which in turn lead me to an oddball discussion in the "Connections" subforum, the meet-up and meat-market area of the message boards.

I had to double-check to see I had read the OP right. Subject: Bug-girl. Saw you last night. Impressive takedown. We should talk, I have information you need. Meet up? Tt.
I sat back in the chair, reeling. Someone else had been watching.

I scrolled down. It was a massive thread already, with wild guesses being thrown around like confetti. The regulars had quickly twigged onto the possible connection to the massacre, and "bug-girl" was being held up as the likely unknown cape in question.

There was no consensus about who had posted the message, but a quick search of local parahumans starting with 'T' lead me to Tattletale, a relatively unknown cape who worked with small villain group called the Undersiders. I opened the related Wiki pages in new tabs.

The Undersiders seemed to be teenagers, and pretty small fry in the villain game although they recently hit a big casino in town. I guess they were trying to expand. The members were standard fare, the same mix of fighting and hiding powers that any gang needed to survive.

The one standout was Hellhound, also known as Bitch. She could empower dogs, mutating them into giant monsters under her control, making her a Master with Brute and Mover capabilities thanks to her pets. The important note, highlighted in red, was that she was a killer. Wanted for several murders ranging back to when she was fourteen, she had a flee-on-sight recommendation to all civilians from the Protectorate.

Pretty big black mark against the group.

The page on Tattletale was almost blank, a blurry photo of a teenager in a lavender bodysuit and no mention of her power at all. Even the few threads on the boards were nothing more than outlandish guesses.

Huh. So a villain wanted to talk to me to trade notes?

That was totally a bad idea. She probably just wanted to try to recruit me after seeing me incapacitate Armsmaster, which was clearly a non-starter. Being a villain was not in my plans.

But what was in my plans now? The Wards? I still wasn't sure. Most of them seemed nice enough, in a highschool kind of way. I still couldn't help feeling like hanging out with them this morning was like sneaking my way onto the same table as the popular kids, like I was just waiting for the other boot to drop and someone to realise that no, I wasn't one of them and I didn't belong there.

I can't say my first exposure to the Protectorate was entirely positive either. My brief meeting with Miss Militia involved a shouted threat over a megaphone and her boot between my shoulderblades. And Armsmaster was … less heroic than I expected. Or more like a real person and less like a story, I guess. Flawed.

Which they all were, weren't they? They all triggered, they all went through something horrible. Even Legend and Eidolon. Even Alexandria.

It felt a bit like learning Santa Claus wasn't real, or that your parents didn't actually know everything.

But Dragon had been nice. She promised to keep my real identity a secret, even from the PRT. She believed me when the others seemed ready to lock me up. She even gave me space when I needed it.

And Vista was cute, the little sister I never had.

I guess I had time to think it over. I was going to meet Vista next week and see what being a Ward was like. I could decide after that. All I had to decide right now was what to do about this Tattletale.

What did they see last night, what did they know? And what sort of information did they have that I might want? I didn't even know what I wanted, so how could they?

I shook my head and logged off.