Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

42. Ff

The first wave of my insects died abruptly in a swirling flash of flame which told me exactly who had just walked in on the scene of my victory. The high I had been riding just a moment ago? Gone. I suddenly aware of the throbbing in my thigh and the bruise that was no doubt forming the right side of my rib cage. My right hand was pretty much useless. That's what happens when you try to catch a bullet without the necessary durability. It felt like all the bones in it were broken and I tried not to think about it. The only thing I really had were my bugs.

You do not fight Lung with bugs. You do not fight Lung, period.

I only knew about her from what I had heard on the news and read online, but I recognized her immediately. She was a bit shorter than me from what I could tell, standing even with most of the gang members I had just put down. She had an ornate metal mask over her face and was wearing one of those silk Chinese half dresses despite the chill, dyed crimson with a gold dragon snaking up her side. A lick of flame hovered around her head as a reminder of what kind of power she could bring to bear with a thought. And the ABB was her gang.

I was in so much trouble.

Lung came to a stop at the other end of the street and looked around. She didn't look like she was growing or sprouting scales so she must not think I was much of a threat. And I didn't want to be because Lung crushed threats. I wanted to get home alive.

"You did this." It wasn't a question. Her voice was accented and higher than I thought it would be given her reputation. I thought about not answering, but her men were covered in bug bites and I was standing among them injured. It was pretty obvious that it was my fault. The only hope I had was to be polite.

"Yes. Sorry." I winced. Why did I apologize?

She nodded. "They all live?"

"Yes!" I gasped, appalled. I just wanted to stop them, not kill them. I said as much. "They were going to kill kids! I couldn't just - " Then I remembered who I was talking to and shut my mouth with a click.

Lung actually chuckled. "Short sighted." I don't think she was addressing me with that because she seemed to home in on the defacto leader of the small group. He'd gotten a face full of pepper spray and had gone down cursing. He, like the others, had gotten very still and quiet once Lung had started speaking. "You do not burn down house to get rid of pests." Her mask turned back to face me. "You poison them." Her flame flashed out and atomized a fly I'd been trying to sneak by her. "Or you crush them."

This was Lung. Undisputed ruler of the Docks. She could and has faced down entire teams of heroes, handing them their asses and then there was me, with my bugs.

"The Undersiders would have defeated you or fled," she raised her voice. "Look! This one embarrassed you! One!" She hauled the leader to his feet with a swift move, not bothered by his weight. "Where is Oni Lee?"

He mumbled something back.

Lung's head tilted. "I will." Then she dropped him. "You."

I pointed at myself unsure.

She nodded and started walking out of the alley towards me. "Come."

I opened my big mouth. "But I just took down your gang members!"

"You stopped them from being stupid. With bugs." Lung confirmed. That was about when it hit me that for some reason, I wasn't in trouble. Lung had, in a round about way, praised me. Twice. I honestly wasn't sure how to feel about that. "I saw." She stopped in front of me. "What is your name?"

I stared at her. My voice caught in my throat before I was able to get the words out, "I don't...I haven't picked one yet."

Lung looked me over. The metal dragon face was intimidating in the circling light of her flame. "Hachi."

My brain stalled. "Um, what?"

"Bee." She began to walk past me. "You wish that the ones who wronged me live? You will come."

I slowly began to follow her, wary of doing anything that would upset this strange situation I had found myself in. I went over her words in my mind, realizing what she was implying. She was giving me a chance to stop her. No, allowing me to stop her. That didn't make any sense. It was like one of those loaded questions where every answer was the wrong one. What was her game?

Lung's purposeful strides quickly carried her away from me and I hesitated. I could refuse the invitation and not cooperate with a notorious criminal but that would also mean walking away from multiple murders. I couldn't do that. I wouldn't do that.

Lung looked over her shoulder at me and I picked up the pace.

Last edited: May 4, 2016

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Firefly 1.2

The ABB was the biggest gang in Brockton Bay with the second highest number of people with powers if the internet could be believed, just barely beaten out by the E88. Not that there was any real contest, not when Lung was Lung, rumored to get stronger the longer she was in a fight with no upper limit. It was how she stomped all of the smaller gangs at the Docks until they fell in line. ABB stood for 'Asian Bad Boyz' but that was an artifact of one of the larger sub groups, and it really said something about the leadership that the gang included Philipinos, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, even Indian and didn't splinter. ABB meant Lung.

It also meant Oni Lee, a scary sociopath who could teleport or create doubles of himself – I wasn't a hundred percent sure on the details – Aswang, a shape shifter that turned into a horrible dog like monster and a woman named Snake. No one knew what her power was, just a lot of speculation, but everyone agreed she was terrifying. Kali was not someone you want to meet in a dark alley either, specializing in blades. There were less notorious capes but those were the big four.

I honestly wasn't sure if Lung showing up was the best of five or not. Meeting her was still bad news but she didn't have the same kind of vicious reputation her lieutenants did. With them, it was guaranteed you were in for a world of hurt. But Lung didn't need to garner that kind of fear or intimidation. It was more a matter of inevitability. You lose.

I'd been gathering insects as we walked, replenishing the ones I'd lost to Lung's flame. Not that I was thinking of trying again, I was not suicidal, but having options made me feel a bit better about this whole thing. My hand had starting screaming in pain as the adrenaline wore off, but I kept quiet about it. A second ball of flame had joined the first around Lung's head, which was now dead even with mine, and in a few steps, taller. Her hair was bound in a tight bun with a vicious looking needle through it and she was barefoot.

A couple of feet back she had stepped on a piece of broken glass and she didn't even flinch, the bloody glass ejected from her sole mid step as a testament to her regeneration. She was anticipating a fight and it was showing.

Her head turned suddenly. "I hear..."

That's when she grabbed me and tossed me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

You don't properly appreciate what superhuman strength means until someone carries you in a leap from the sidewalk to the second floor of a building on the far side of the street. She didn't make it all the way to the roof, but then she didn't need to. She just punched with her free hand into the wall and used that as a foothold to make a smaller hop to the roof.

Her hand was mangled but visibly and audibly straightening itself out with pops. Pain wasn't a thing for her apparently. She leapt from that roof to the next one over and then again, before I heard the gunshot. Lung sped up and the very air around her began to heat.

She threw herself over the edge, hoisting me up. "Lee!" And tossed me like a football.

Before I could scream, the distinctive yellow outfit and oni masked man caught me roughly and set me down on the ground hard enough to jar my knees. I didn't go splat, so there was that. The Oni Lee beside me crumbled into ash and I saw him again down the street, gun in hand and I saw the Undersiders.

A man wearing what looked like black motorcycle leathers and helmet cursed, backing up and black smoke started to pour off of him. A blonde haired girl wearing a domino mask was at the back, directing a vaguely female shaped suit wearing a gas mask that spit out flames. The fourth wasn't really wearing a costume, unless a cheap plastic Rottweiler mask counted standing by what looked like monsters, bloodied bone tips sticking out and gashes in their fur.

Lung crashed in front of them like a meteor, literally exploding in fire, detonating like a bomb of roiling fire that set her clothes alight and leeched the water from the air. Underneath the fire eaten holes, silvery scales were sliding out of her skin.

I didn't know what to do. Run? Attack? Attack who? Lung? I was supposed to stop her from killing, wasn't I? But she was on fire and somehow fireproof. What was I going to attack her with?

Rottweiler girl snarled loudly. "Hurt!"

The huge nightmare leaping towards me with its mouth opened wide made up my mind for me.

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Firefly 1.3

I scrambled backwards and immediately called on my bugs. I had the vague idea of stinging where the skin was split, hoping it was at least a little sensitive, and that led to my current plan: taking advantage of the wide open mouth heading my way. My bees and hornets surged forward ahead of me aiming for the tongue and soft gum tissue.

The monster yelped as stingers sunk into soft flesh in its mouth and in the vulnerable gaps in its skin, sounding a lot like a dog. It shut its mouth with a snap, skidding to a stop. I pressed my advantage. The bugs I'd gotten onto it's back didn't seem to be doing much so I relocated them to it's face, specifically the eyes and nose. If it was anything like the dog it sounded like, those were vulnerable areas.

They were.

It whined as it's paw reflexively came up, trying to brush off its face, sending it crashing to the ground. I felt a vindictive thrill go through me. I wasn't helpless.

As soon as I thought that, a thick cloying darkness swept the street stealing my vision, even the sounds of Lung's fire were muted and up/down seemed to warp. Almost as a reflex I reached out to my insects and I could feel them. And through them the ground they were standing on.

Lung's throaty chuckle echoed quietly. "I can hear you..."

There was a whump sound and the darkness dissipated. The man with the helmet had been thrown bodily into a wall, a streak across his midsection of burned leather. Unconscious, I hoped. Just because I wasn't sure what it was I was supposed to do, didn't mean I liked the thought of failing.

The woman with the gas mask went ballistic, spewing a large wall of flame as the blonde dashed off her mount to grab their fallen team mate. I'd already gotten to my feet again, running forward. Lung was at least seven feet tall now and wreathed in flame. I spared a moment to question whether or not she needed to breathe before I got close enough to really feel the heat. I didn't know the exact temperature but papers on the ground were simply igniting.

Oni Lee blinked to the other side of the napalm wall and was instantly tackled by a dog monster. A second later all it had was a mouthful of ash as he reappeared on the roof of an adjacent building with a torn sleeve. It threw itself at Lung instead and instead of meeting it head on, Lung swayed to the side, grabbing on to a spike of bone and helped it swing past her. Really helped it. It crunched into the dumpster down street and lay still.

Rottweiler girl didn't appreciate that, screaming.

"Bitch, no!"

"She -" the girl – Bitch? - couldn't get the words out.

The blonde shook her head harder.

Gas mask spit out more flames, hot enough to eat through the concrete at Lung's feet. The gang leader simply took a step. Yup, fireproof. Gas mask back pedaled.

"Shit shit shit, guys! Need to go!"

Bitch whistled and a crushing weight crashed into me from behind. The dog, I'd forgotten about the one I'd fought! I panicked, lashing out with everything I had, feeling my breath being crushed out of my lungs and drool drip into my hair.

Then the weight was gone, replaced by stifling heat. I rolled over.

Lung.

She'd dropped the aura of flame just enough to keep from singing me. I couldn't see the expression on her face because of the mask but she didn't look at me for long. I tried to wrap my mind around what had just happened. She turned her head and I could see her scales receding. "Lee."

Oni Lee blinked down to the street. I could vaguely make out the Undersiders making their escape on foot, the man draped over a dog. The one that had been knocked off me slunk to its feet, growling but retreated.

"Let them go," I coughed.

Lung studied me. I couldn't see her expression through the dragon mask but I was getting that impression from her quiet stare. I, on the other hand, tried to ignore just how much of her clothing had burnt off. Not an easy feat considering I was still on the ground and she was standing over me. I sat up.

Thank god for my mask.

"Ah." She said, a drawn out sound. Then she walked past me in the opposite direction of where the Undersiders had gone, and was shrinking steadily in height, her wreath of flame becoming three balls of fire, then two. That was a yes then, I thought. And in spite of this being the outcome I wanted, Lung actually listening to me, the fact remained that Lung listened to me. I didn't have to bodily hold her back from caving in someone's head, not that I could have even if I had tried to.

But now this was really not making sense.

Oni Lee crumbled into ash, popping back up on the roof once more, then popped down. "Militia."

Lung stopped walking and chuckled. "Hachi."

I wanted to scream. Hachi was not my name! And I was pretty sure that was a number, not an insect! However, what I wasn't about to do was accuse Lung of bad Japanese. I just pointed at myself again to be sure.

She nodded.

Great.

I rolled onto my feet, biting back a scream when I accidentally put weight on my broken hand. And it was definitely broken. I had no idea how I was going to explain to my Dad how I managed to shatter my dominant hand while I was supposed to be home asleep. I was going to have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

By the time I reached the end of the street, Lung was back to baseline and Miss Militia's jeep came roaring around the corner, a stylized American flag prominent on it's hood. I knew what this looked like. Me, in my dark costume not attacking nor being attacked by Lung and Oni Lee. And Lung could say with complete honesty that I had helped her fight off a rival gang.

This was...this was just what I needed tonight. Really.

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Firefly 1.4

Miss Militia left her jeep running idle as she climbed out of it and the pistol at her side transformed with a flash of shaped green light into what I think was a kind of Asian sword, complete with a yellow threaded tassel hanging off the pommel and a dragon's head as the hand guard.

Her "street level" costume was a simple camo uniform tailored to emphasize that she was a woman, a sash with the red, white and blue pattern around her waist and a matching scarf covering the lower half of her face. She had shoulder length dark hair and expressive eyes underneath furrowed eyebrows. She'd always struck me as being personable on her interviews, I could only hope that carried over to real life.

Miss Militia was one of the Superheroes, capital S, part of the largest superhero organization in the world called the Protectorate. Brockton Bay's team was government sponsored, officially 'The Protectorate East-North-East,' and were headquartered in the floating, force-field shrouded island you could see from the Boardwalk. They were also the last corner on the triangle of power between the E88 and Lung.

The reality of it all was that Brockton Bay was in the middle of an arms race between the major parahuman groups, and when that happens, there isn't a lot of room for the little guys. The Merchants had been the first to go. They used to infest the really poor parts of town and were heavy into the drug trade but they had a habit of, well, poking the sleeping dragon.

Said dragon took offense.

And if it wasn't that, it was Nazis. I was sure the only reason the Undersiders lasted this long was because they were good at the smash and grab, but if tonight told me anything, was that they had definitely bitten off more than they could chew. Either they learned or they were gone.

I'd wanted one night before I was forced into a group, one way or another. Just one.

But I got this instead.

Miss Militia approached, nodding politely. "Lung."

"Militia."

I could see faces in the windows, looking out and a few civilians, Asian, trickled onto the street. Lung adopted a particularly lazy posture with not a care in the world that she was beyond half naked in front of a crowd. I assumed modesty was a pipe dream when your powers had the habit of depantsing you. Not like anyone was going to arrest her for public indecency anyway.

Some of the tension bled out of the hero's eyebrows. "We got a disturbance report with the key word being 'fire.' Would you mind telling me what went on here?"

"I told Aswang to keep control of his men, did I not?" Lung commented idly, completely ignoring the hero's question. I didn't get the feeling that it was a rudeness born of disrespect, as strange as it was, more like she was leading up to something.

"Yes," Oni Lee said.

"He already received his warning." Lung pointed at me. "Hachi stopped them from hunting down the Undersiders." There was an alarming grinding sound until I realized it came from my own teeth. This was not the way I wanted to receive credit for my heroics. "I would handle it but his fear is to be caged. I will give him to you."

Miss Militia sighed. "I understand. Where?" Lung stared and she rushed to clarify. "So that we can be there for the pick up to make sure that he..."

"You misunderstand. He will not be moving."

The silence after that was a bit awkward.

Miss Militia coughed once. "I see."

Lung nodded. "And you can tell Armsmaster that he need only ask for a fight and I will give it to him."

"That..." Militia pinched the bridge of her nose. "That really won't be necessary."

"So he would rather provoke me into one."

"He was not trying to..." Militia visibly thought about her next words when Lung's floating flame switched directions. This was actually a lot more cordial of a meeting than I had expected but it also made a depressing amount of sense. It was the exact same thing I had done: Be polite. It really said something when a government sponsored hero used the same survival tactics a complete rookie did. "He's been under a lot of pressure lately. I am sure he meant no offense."

"That is why they send you now."

Militia sighed again. "No comment."

That got an amused snort. Lung held out her hand and Miss Militia drew her sword and placed the handle in the upturned palm. Lung inspected the weapon in silence. She hefted it lightly, bringing the blade up to the mask before handing it back. "The blade needs more flexibility, but better."

The corners of Miss Militia's eyes crinkled and I felt like she was smiling. "Thank you." She cleared her throat and shifted to face me. "Do you mind if I speak with Hachi here?"

My dreams of choosing my own cape name died a fiery death.

Lung waved magnanimously and Militia's eyes crinkled again. "So..."

"I'm not actually ABB," I blurted out immediately.

"Appropriated?" Militia finished for me with a slight laugh to her voice. "You should have seen Vista after she was temporarily recruited."

Vista was the name of a Ward, a junior hero in the Protectorate several years younger than me but the only thing I could think was: Jesus, she even did it to heroes?

"Were you planning on joining the Wards?" Militia sobered, dropping the volume of her voice. I wasn't sure if her efforts meant anything, not when I remembered Lung's amused proclamation while cloaked in darkness that she could hear.

"Eventually," I admitted. Escaping the stresses of school by throwing myself into a mess of teenage drama, adult oversight and schedules seemed counter productive, but what choice did I have? "I just wanted one night to myself, you know?"

Miss Militia hummed and I was struck by how nice she seemed. Understanding, like I could tell her anything and she wouldn't judge me for it. How much of that was my hero worship and how much of it was her I wasn't sure, but it was a really nice feeling.

"Lung has her eye on you."

I swallowed hard. "I figured."

"Call me at the PHQ," she offered. "If you would like any advice or just to talk, alright? I can make the time." I nodded, not trusting myself to respond around the lump in my throat. Her eyes crinkled happily again. "I only ask that you make an informed decision." She nodded to Lung, turning to walk back to her jeep. "Lung."

"Militia."

"Are you going to make a pitch too?" I said bitterly as the jeep drove away.

"I do not compete." Lung said harshly.

Shit. I backpedaled. "I mean, what would you want with me? I...I control bugs. I'm not strong or fast or can build things," I was rambling.

Lung cut me off. "You wish for strength?"

My favorite heroine Alexandria came to mind, invulnerable and physically the strongest cape in the world. At one time I had wanted nothing more than to be like her, tying towels around my neck and pretending to fly. Then I get super powers and not only did it send me to a psychiatric hospital but when I got back to school nothing had changed. Bugs.

"Disappointing."

That stung.

"I don't understand, why not? I mean, I could barely take care of myself against someone else's pet, what if I had to fight you?" Then I hastily added. "For example."

"Think of something," she said drily. "Flexibility, creativity. The hornet is not a weak creature. Do not trap yourself saying you can't." Her voice turned a bit hollow. "And do not focus on an enemy so closely, you miss the ground washing away beneath your feet. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

She inclined her head to me and it felt like acknowledgment. I couldn't work up the words to respond, my mind spinning in circles but soon I realized I didn't have to say anything. The silence was comfortable. I had to be exhausted out of my mind if I felt this way. It must be at least two in the morning and if I was feeling camaraderie with Lung I really needed sleep.

Oni Lee was first to go, leaving just ash on the wind.

"Do not interfere with my people again."

"Why?" Lung turned back and I took that as a sign to continue. "Why did you say all that? Why did you..." save me, I didn't say.

Lung took two long steps right up to me and reached out. Her hand came down on my shoulder and it was a pulsing heat, seeping all the way through the layers of spider silk and it felt like into my very bones. When she spoke, it was slow, purposeful and it resonated. "This is your springtime."

She dropped her hand and walked away. An old woman on the corner held out silken red robe reverently. Lung took it, they bowed to each other and wrapped it around herself without missing a step. She took the needle out of her hair, spilling it and twirled the metal spike in her fingers absently.

I stood there on the street corner, stunned. My shoulder was still warm as if branded. Marked. I was ashamed to admit, even in the privacy of my own head:

I almost followed her.

Chapter End

Last edited: Mar 30, 2022

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#92

Hornet

I woke to the muffled sound of the radio in the bathroom. Reaching over to my alarm clock, I turned it around. 6:28. I groaned. Roughly forty five minutes had passed since the last time I had checked. Turns out a broken hand when you had a habit of turning in your sleep did not work out well. I was woken up periodically by the searing pain shooting up my arm.

I had my alarm set for six thirty, but I almost never needed it, because my dad was always in the shower at the same time. Routines defined us but just this once, there was nothing I wanted more than to sleep in. I raised my good hand and placed it on my shoulder. If I concentrated, it was as if I could still feel the warmth.

I laid in bed for a good five minutes before I forced myself to get up. My thigh muscle twinged and I knew a large mottled bruise was decorating my side. My hand had ballooned to twice it's size, the throbbing pain telling me quite clearly that I was going to have to face the music.

I didn't bother changing, just walked down to the kitchen sink to wash my face and then rooted around in the fridge for the orange juice. Screwing open the cap on the carton with only one hand was an ordeal, luckily I got the hang of pouring it into a plastic cup one handed pretty quickly. I was walking to the kitchen table when my dad came downstairs in his bathrobe.

My dad is not what you'd call an attractive man. Thin as a rail with a soft jawline, dark hair that was thinning to the point of being see through on a spot at the back of his head, big green eyes and glasses that magnified those eyes further. An ugly scar trailed across his right cheekbone, making it look sharp. As he entered the kitchen, he looked surprised to see me there. Then his eyes zoomed in on my hand before I could hide it, and his face darkened.

That was the way my dad always seemed to look these days: on the verge of losing his temper. That, and a little defeated.

"What happened?"

"Nightmare," I lied thickly. "I cracked it on the wall, or the bed post. It kept me up."

He bent over my hand and touched it gingerly. I couldn't quite keep the hiss of pain inaudible and he flinched back. "That looks broken." He looked up at me. "Nightmare? Was it..."

"I had to get out." That wasn't technically a lie, I really did need to go out but I knew how he would take it and the niggling feeling of guilt just kept squirming in my gut.

He smiled weakly and kissed the crown of my head. "Want me to call you in? I don't think you can write with it like that."

I nodded in relief. "Please? I'm going to have to get this looked at today, it's killing me."

"The insurance card is on the dresser." He took reluctant steps towards the fridge, like he was afraid if he took his eyes off me I'd break. "I could take today off to drive you there?"

"It's not that far away," I refused the offer and smiled. "Go to work, as long as I don't try to pick up anything I'm fine."

There was the slap of bacon hitting the frying pan. Silence descended and I sipped at my juice. The bacon was sizzling, and maybe burning, before he spoke again.

"You know Gerry?"

That name wasn't ringing any bells, but Dad's voice was a bit tight so I already knew it wasn't going to be good news.

"You met him once or twice when you've visited me at work. Big guy, burly, Black Irish?"

Oh.

"E88?"

"They roughed him up real good," Dad gritted as he rescued the bacon and added french toast to the pan. "His house was completely trashed, I was thinking getting some guys together to help clean it up."

My dad was part of the Dockworkers Association, as the Union spokesperson and head of hiring. With the state of the Docks being what they were, that meant my dad was pretty much in charge of telling everyone that there were no jobs to be had, day after day. Still, he had his contacts and was always looking for legal opportunities.

"Maybe he could move to the Docks," I ventured.

Dad scoffed. "Trade the E88 for ABB?"

"At least he wouldn't have to worry about hate crime then," I said a bit more sharply than I intended.

"Just everything else."

I sighed and bit into my french toast. My Dad and I had a strange relationship and with the whole school thing, it had only gotten stranger. He'd gotten the scar on his face in a minor blow up between the E88 and the ABB at the Docks, just a bunch of hot headed kids with powers or knuckledusters and he'd gotten tagged with a flying piece of rubble trying to drive them off.

He didn't want anything to do with any of the gangs and I knew he blamed the Protectorate just a little for letting it get this bad. I could see where he was coming from. Even after they absorbed half of New Wave, it never seemed like they had enough heroes to really do anything. I haven't told him about my powers because honestly, I wasn't sure how he'd take it. And I certainly wasn't going to tell him about meeting Lung mask to mask.

We lived close enough to the Docks to expect visits for protection payments every other month and afterwards every time, without fail, Dad had to go for a walk to cool off. If you followed the rules and stayed out of the heart of ABB territory, you were left alone. Mostly.

It'd been three years since Lung "claimed" the outskirts and Dad was still simmering.

"We're supposed to talk about how the powers thing has influenced our lives in class today." I said quietly.

"Look around," Dad retorted.

We ate in silence.

"You went out for a walk?" Dad said eventually.

I nodded.

"And there wasn't any...trouble?"

"No," I lied. The guilt sprouted legs and started crawling around at my father's concern for me. It was all the more intense because it was so justified. If Lung hadn't decided to get that dog off me, hell everything about Lung in general, if it had gone differently we probably wouldn't be having this conversation right now. "And I had the pepper spray just in case."

His face tightened. "If Kali had been wandering..."

"She wasn't. I'm fine," I nodded at my injured hand. "Except for you know, beating the crap out of myself in my sleep."

He let himself be defused, chuckling, and pointed his syrupy fork at me. "You get that taken care of, young lady."

"I hope I won't need a cast," I frowned. Going to school all taped up would smell like blood in the water and I had absolutely no desire to deal with that.

"You aren't planning to run, are you?"

"No." I gathered my plate and put it in the sink to run water over it. "Going to see if I can get some more sleep." I needed it. And after I saw a doctor, a trip to the library. I put my dishes in the beaten up old dishwasher and filled a plastic sandwich bag with some cold water for my hand. I bent down to give my dad a hug on my way back to my room.

"Taylor, have you been smoking?"

I shook my head.

"Your hair is, uh, burnt. At the ends, there."

I smiled weakly. Lung had been on fire when she knocked the dog off my back. "I dunno, maybe the stove?"

He didn't believe me judging from the look on his face. "Just...be careful, alright?"

"I will." I promised and I would. "I was thinking about hitting the library, get some studying done?"

"I expect you to be home before I am, kiddo."

I could work with that. "Hope today is better."

His answering smile was strained.

I tried not to think about how lost he looked when I collapsed on my bed. I put my hand on my stomach with the cold water bag on top of it. My clock read 6: 52. I sighed and closed my eyes.

When I had opened them again, 9:03.

The nap did nothing but make me feel even more tired, but the hot shower and a cup of coffee my dad had left in the pot woke me up a little. Even so, the fatigue did nothing to disguise how surreal today seemed. Just a matter of hours ago, I'd been in a life and death fight, saved the Undersiders, twice, survived meeting Lung and had even had a chat with Miss Militia. Now here I was, trudging to the nearest bus stop like it was a day like any other.

There were two people already there before me, both Asian but considering one of them was fussing over the elderly woman it felt safe to assume they weren't going to be trouble.

"Hello." I greeted as soon as I was in earshot. Never hurt to polite. I'd learned that last night.

The older woman smiled at me, clutching at a bamboo cane with a sequined purse hanging off her arm. She was wrapped in layers and had chin length hair that had streaks of gray running through it. She murmured something that might have been a hello, her younger companion just gave me a very terse nod. "Jing Wen," she introduced herself and then gave a smiling laugh, pointing at who I assumed was her daughter. "Noriko."

'Noriko' looked like she was somewhere in the mid twenties, maybe thirties if I pushed my estimate and quietly pretty if a bit intense. A small mole was at the end of her left eyebrow and her face was heart shaped. Not cute like Madison's, but thinner with a small mouth and large dark eyes. She wore her hair long and was also one of the few women I met who stood almost dead even with my height.

"Nice to meet you," I tried to say brightly. A yawn almost sabotaged it and Noriko quirked an eyebrow.

"Where?" Jing Wen said.

I waved my hand and she winced in sympathy. "Hospital."

We didn't have to wait long for the bus and I stayed back to make sure the woman with her cane got on. She and Noriko spoke quietly in...Korean? No, Chinese, I recognized some of those words I think. Kind of odd, I thought 'Noriko' was a Japanese name. Before I stepped on, Noriko gasped quietly.

"Your hair..."

My hand flew to the back of my head, terrified that the burnt ends were that easy to see. I was already beginning to regret not spending more time in the bathroom cleaning those up. "The stove," I repeated the lie I'd tried to feed my father. Her other eyebrow rose to join the first. I cringed and rushed up the stairs.

She didn't follow. The doors closed as I sat down and the bus pulled away from the curb.

I felt like I could still feel eyes on me.

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Aug 19, 2014

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Aug 21, 2014

#177

Hornet

If you looked at Brockton Bay as a patchwork of stellar and squalor, upper class and lower class with no middle ground, then downtown was one of the nice areas. The streets and sidewalks were wide, and that meant that even with skyscrapers in every other lot, there was a great deal of blue overhead. It was always busy, not quite to the point of never sleeping, but the streets were just beginning to fill up with people taking an early lunch break and the sides of the buildings were mostly free of gang markings.

I say mostly because there were a few Asian restaurants that depicted dragons on their signs, but they were different colors, green or gold, or just stylized letters and not something you could really prove. The city had gotten a small wave of immigration for, well obvious reasons I guessed, and in many ways it was like sitting at a table where someone kept moving your glass. You think you know exactly where it is, but it isn't until you reach for it, miss and blink that you realize things have changed.

My stomach growled as I came across a street vendor getting ready for the lunch rush and I dug into my pockets with my good hand. My injured one was in a sling and still numb from the anesthetic. The X – Ray at the ER had revealed a clean and slightly displaced break in two of my...metacarpals? He'd had to set it, thankfully with my hand already numbed up and I was under strict orders to not move it.

I wasn't exactly sure how eating a hot dog with mustard and relish one handed was going to go, but I was hungry enough to risk it.

I sat down on one of the street side benches with my plate.

I ate slowly, taking care not to get relish on myself and just thought about things. It was still hard to believe that last night had really happened. Which I supposed was the point. Escapism wasn't any use if you were always grounded in what was still waiting for you when you got up the next morning. In my case, that was school and after the dumpster, I would have rather clawed my own eyes out than go back.

I was determined not to let them win, but if I felt like I had to escape, I'd already lost.

I didn't like thinking like this.

I finished my hotdog and threw my plate away, scattering a kit of pigeons. The public library was only a few blocks away so I started heading in that direction.

People were trickling into the library with me. A few college students with laptops in their bags and business men and women wanting some quiet during their lunch hour and casually browsing sites they couldn't at their workplaces. I would have included Brockton Bay's biggest and fanciest high school, the nearby Arcadia High, in that generalization, but students spending their lunch breaks at the library was a thing that didn't happen.

The Central Library looked more like a museum or art gallery than anything else, with tall ceilings, pillars and massive pieces of artwork framing the hallways between the major sections of the building. I headed up to the second floor where there were about twenty computers sitting on a couple of flower shaped desks, with dividers creating the "petals" and giving users a bit of privacy.

I sat down and grimaced as I had to peck at the keyboard with one hand. It was a good thing all I really wanted to do was browse, and not write a message. The go-to place for news and discussion on capes was Parahumans Online, or PHO for short. The front page had constant updates on recent, international news featuring capes, groups and events, or to the message boards, which broke down into nearly a hundred sub-boards for specific capes and cities. My first research topic on the wiki was a guilty curiosity: ABB. Specifically, non-Asian capes.

The list was longer than I thought it would be.

There were names I wasn't familiar with but there were a couple I did know. Parian used to be a fashion designer rogue but some kind of power clash PHO wasn't clear on between her and Kali ended with the former forcibly inducted. That made me feel a bit queasy but I pressed on. Uber was a name my gut expected but my head was still surprised by.

Uber and Leet had been a dynamic duo, running their web shows and thumbing their noses at authority. Empire happened. They'd dropped off the radar for a few months and now Uber has resurfaced, alone. The implications weren't pleasant.

On an article brimming with "citation needed" and "evidence please" tags was Panacea's ABB page. A lot of it sounded like circumstantial evidence, claims of preferential treatment or suspicions surrounding her reasons for not joining her sister in the Wards. These people seemed to forget that her father retired and her mother was in a coma. Panacea can't do brains. That kind of helplessness could suck the motivation from anyone.

I couldn't help but to feel sorry for her. A lot of her troubles seemed to hit too close to home.

I kept searching, going over the absolute ridiculous number of Empire capes. They had to be getting them out of town, drawing in resources from sympathetic groups because I didn't want to believe there were that many Brockton Bay bigot natives. Diamond, Kafka, Frederick, I've never even heard of Regent, crawling out of the woodwork.

No wonder my dad looked so defeated. Something has to give.

I navigated to the forums and started searching under villain gangs: ABB. At the top of the page was a blanket warning in bright red from Tin_Mother about Lung pictures. Immediately underneath was a pinned 532 page argument about that very warning.

Not surprised.

I skimmed the titles of the most recent threads. The ABB was a controversial topic to put it lightly. Just as hero worship was a thing, villain worship was too. Everything from Slaughterhouse Nine psychos to "local favorites." From what I've heard of Kaiser, the leader of the E88, he had a high class gentleman image that meshed with his knightly costume, befitting an ideal no matter how disgusting it was.

Lung; see warning.

One message, just about to drop off the first page was simply titled, 'Bug.'

My gut churned as I clicked it. What I got was brief.

Subject: Bug

Owe you one. Sorry about the dog. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?

Send a message,

Tt.

The post was followed by two pages of people commenting. Three people suggested it had something to do with the 'bonfire' last night, while half a dozen more people decried them as tinfoil hats, 's term for conspiracy theorists.

It was meaningful though. The group I'd saved, the Undersiders, had found a way to get in contact with me. I thought hard about what I wanted to say back, a thousand and one questions bursting to the forefront of my mind. The loudest was: Lung. Are you stupid? But that didn't seem to be very diplomatic.

I chose to compose a private message, finding 'Tt' in the drop down menu and started typing very slowly, pecking away.

Subject: Re:Bug

Bug here. Why should I?

I hit send.

The reply came only two or three minutes later. It was fast enough that I imagined she must have been either waiting for a reply, or just spent a lot of time online. Either way, the answer sent a shiver up my spine.

Subject: re:Bug

Lung.

Just want to talk. Don't come dressed up if you don't want her to know. I won't either.

Boardwalk, boat statue in an hour?

You need my help.

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Aug 21, 2014

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Aug 23, 2014

#238

Hornet

I leaned back in my chair and swallowed the acidic taste of anger. I wouldn't say that I inherited my dad's temper, but I did inherit his pride. I found it hard to think much beyond: 'I need your help? Who saved who yesterday?' How could someone that nearly got charbroiled by Lung help me with Lung?

Why did I need help in the first place?

And don't even get me started on that fucking dog.

The screensaver came up while I stared at the monitor trying to get my thoughts in order. I didn't think someone who 'owed me one' was hostile, at least not for a very good reason that I couldn't think of at the moment. On top of the public meeting place, that pretty much eliminated the chances of this being a trap. Which meant that it really couldn't hurt to at least listen to what 'Tt' had to say.

Or I could spend the rest of the afternoon killing time as best I could with a broken hand.

I sighed.

Subject: Re:Bug

See you in an hour.

I logged off the computer and exited the library and very carefully did not think about how much I could come to regret this. Showing up in costume on the Boardwalk was just asking for trouble considering it was A) near the Protectorate building and I was meeting with a villain and B) would have little to no chance of not attracting attention. That didn't mean I had to be stupid about it.

I caught the bus from the library to my house and struggled to put on key pieces of my costume underneath my clothes. Most of the armor panels of my costume were separate pieces, held in place by straps that ran into slits in the fabric of the costume. Not all of them were though. I'd integrated some of the armor into the bodysuit itself, narrower rigid sections. If it came down to it, I would rather be capable of surviving having a knife pulled on me.

I checked myself in the mirror before I left and grimaced. Messy ponytail, large sweatshirt with a sailboat on the front, baggy jeans and a pair of Dad's sneakers. All I needed was a drawn hoodie and then I would really look like I had something to hide. I left a note for my Dad in case I ran over time along with an explanation of where his sneakers had vanished to and headed out.

The Boardwalk was a long stretch along the beach of the Bay, stuffed to the gills with tourist traps and restaurants. The boat statue Tt mentioned was a stupid little bronze cargo ship mounted on a painted wooden pole. It had a worn plaque detailing how long Brockton Bay had been an active port but often went over looked now, graffiti, dents and scratches on it. There were dozens of life sized examples of what the Bay had been laying in a heap like trash at the Boat Graveyard.

There weren't a whole lot of people around given that it was in the middle of the day so I sat on one of the benches and sent a dozen flies to scout. I closed my eyes, braced myself and focused on what they were sensing.

Bugs sense things in a very different way than we do. More than that, they sense and process things at a very different speed. They didn't have any of the ingrained cues our minds did when it came to recognizing faces, scents or colors. The rush of awareness felt like breaking free of my head. The world warped into broken pieces of light and dark, vibrations, tastes and instincts that weren't my own. Multiply that by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and it would bury me.

Happened before.

The monochrome light and dark started to form a coherent image, kind of. More like a kaleidoscope of cobbled together angles and viewpoints and a mess of sound that was still a bit painful to focus on. My preferred method of sensing things through my bugs was touch. Where they were, if they were still, moving or was being moved the same way I know where my hand is.

My fingertips were ghosting over the people on the Boardwalk and most of them had no idea. By the boat statue a shorter blurred figure with an ant on her shoe turned towards one of my flies.

"bUG?"

I flinched and pulled back.

Found her.

I licked my dry lips. Tt's power must be mental of some kind if she was able to pick out my presence from a fly which was really giving me misgivings about this whole thing. It may sound like a terrible thing to say, but I did not relish the idea of talking to someone parahumanly smarter than me.

I approached her carefully, taking her in with my own two eyes. Tt had dirty blonde hair tied back in a loose braid with freckles dusting the bridge of her nose and a somber expression on her face. She wore a plain blue T shirt underneath a denim jacket and matching knee length skirt with white sneakers. Her eyes were a tired bottle-glass green that soon found mine.

Her lips quirked.

"And she arrives," Tt said simply. I opened my mouth. "It's just me," she cut me off. "Lung hit Grue pretty damn hard, swelling in his spine. Spitfire wants nothing to do with you. And Bitch..." She smiled weakly. "Yeah, no."

"You could have died," I said sharply.

"In our defense, we could have taken a bunch of angry gangbangers." She shrugged. "And then Lung would have gotten pissed, so yeah. Did I mention I owe you one?" She held out her hand. "Call me Lisa."

I took it. "Bug."

Her smile turned a bit sardonic. "Smart. But that doesn't change that you're here, and so am I. You know my face, and I know yours. Dangerous," she said. "But not as dangerous as what you're about to get mixed up in."

I frowned, keeping the small sand flies at the beach hovering near people's ear so I could judge who could hear us and who couldn't. It made a tiny headache start to blossom between my eyes but a migraine was worth it. "Enlighten me."

"Last night was your first time out, wasn't it?" As I struggled not to react, her small smile grew into a smug, vulpine grin. "You tangle with the ABB, the thugs we heard were coming for us. Lung catches you red handed but you don't run. You're not E88 so she makes you an offer you can't refuse. Am I warm?"

"How do you -" I bit my tongue.

"I'm psychic. The point is," Lisa sobered, looking back out over the bay. "She's got your number now and soon she's going to start ringing it. She'll trap you here."

I frowned and leaned against the railing. "Trap me? I live here."

"This city, you see it?" She nodded back towards the Boardwalk. "It's about to blow like a volcano. The person I work for, independent, I know not many of those, small time, keeps under the radar. He wants this city." She turned her head and scanned the crowd with what seemed to be an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. But she didn't find what she was looking for and her smile resurfaced. "But he can't have it when half of it's Empire and the other half has a dragon sitting on it. What do you do when you've got two players too big for you to handle, that hate each other?"

I knew what I would do. "Play them off each other."

"And make sure there are no victors, yes. Everything is going to get caught up in that."

I could imagine it. Fighting breaking out in the streets as both groups made the push to wipe the other out. And when I considered the sheer amount of parahumans involved, something cold formed in my stomach. I'd seen Lung on TV before, during Canberra, towering over the buildings like they were made of matchsticks. Brockton Bay wouldn't survive that.

My hands balled into tight fists. "Why aren't you telling the Protectorate?"

"Don't you think they already know?" She rolled her eyes. "Come on now. Villains and stable don't exactly go together. To them, all out gang warfare is inevitable, its only a matter of when." She waved her hand at the floating Protectorate building out on the bay. "Gotta give it to the heroes, they've always been the big picture type, they just can't do anything about it."

I wanted to defend them, but choked on the words. There were more villains than heroes. Fact. A lot more. And Lisa's employer was going to take advantage of that, right underneath everyone's noses. I remembered Lung's advice: And do not focus on an enemy so closely, you miss the ground washing away beneath your feet.

Did she know?

A far more grim possibility occurred to me right after that thought. What if she didn't?

"I know that face. That's the 'I have a crazy, stupid idea - ." Her expression shifted as she suddenly paused. "Lung, really?"

"It's not stupid if it works," I said a bit defensively. "But if it's going to work I'm going to need you to answer some questions."

Lisa stared at me, studying me, before her smile returned full force. "I did say I owe you one," she commented drily. She leaned over the railing. "What do you want to know?"

I decided to start with the most immediate question. "Do you think Lung knows?"

Lisa's lips pursed. "She can't expect the status quo to remain forever but she's sure she'll win. That's Lung for you."

"Will she?" I asked quietly.

Lisa looked me dead in the eye for a moment. "Made an impression?" She looked down at the water. "She gets stronger over time. High powered rifle shot when she doesn't expect it? She dies like everyone else." She looked away. "Your next question is probably going to be, what were we thinking getting her attention, right?"

'Something like that."

She shrugged. "Being expendable is one of the risks of the trade."

A sharp thread of horror wove through me. "Why the hell are you working for him then?"

"Don't have a choice, personally. And that's something you're going to run out of soon, you know. Choices." She looked at me again. "You know once Lung thinks she has you, she's not letting go." A shudder went through her and she pulled her jacket tighter around her. "Fuck," she swore quietly. I reached for her and she pulled back.

"What's wrong?"

"Caffeine withdrawal," she said unconvincingly. "Look, you do what you think you have to. I'll," she rubbed at her face. "I'll try to put a time frame on it." She straightened, tapping the rail thoughtfully with her index fingers, before giving me a small smile and shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. "I was hoping I could convince you to book it out of town. Don't know what the hell I was thinking."

"It's a good thing you're doing." I tried to inject as much encouragement into my voice as I could, taking my cues from my memories of Miss Militia last night.

She laughed. "Maybe. See you around, hero."

"Taylor," I said.

"Taylor."

Her answering grin was relieved.

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Aug 23, 2014

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Aug 24, 2014

#275

Hornet

Dad? I'm home." I called as soon as I opened the door. There was no answer. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted right now was to worry my father. When he was concerned, Danny Hebert was like a helicopter with searchlights, never letting me out of his sight and itching to blow the horn if I so much as turned a corner he wasn't expecting. It was nice that he cared, but if I was going to pull off being a cape, I needed space.

I headed up to my room and stripped out of my costume's bodysuit as quickly as I could manage it. I put my borrowed sneakers back where I had found them and shoved my costume back into the depths of my closet. My stomach rumbled, declaring that a single hotdog wasn't enough to keep it satisfied.

I hooked my arm back into the sling and headed downstairs.

I pulled some luncheon meat out of the fridge numbly and it took me at least three minutes to tie up the bread bag after I was done with it. I was in the middle of making my sandwich, spreading a bit of mayo on one of the slices before I noticed that my hand was shaking.

"Tinkertech of some kind." she had said, pointing out the small horizontal scar at the base of her head. She hadn't known exactly what it was, ranging from bomb to tracker, to things more sinister. "At times I think it's a bluff, but other times I am so damn sure he's about to activate it that I...just can't." She had similar scars all along her spine.

"I'm not the only one."

I didn't think it was possible to hate someone I didn't even know so much.

I thought of myself as a hero but the spike I of loathing I had felt for Lisa's "employer" had scared me. Heroes weren't supposed to contemplate murdering someone in cold blood, they were supposed to be more. But if I had a gun in my hand and came face to face with 'Coil' I couldn't say I wouldn't take the shot. I suppose it said something about me that his aims for the city just made me feel morally obligated to stop it, but when it came to one friendly face I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands.

Maybe it just made me human.

I had questioned her, lightly, if it was really caffeine she was suffering withdrawal from. The look of self loathing that had appeared on her face was one I'd seen in the mirror, and at times on my father's expression. The one said that said 'Why am I so weak?'

I'd hugged her. She didn't pull away then.

"You're a real bleeding heart, aren't you? Be careful with that."

Until Lisa had more information, an idea of how to get free without mutual destruction or leaving someone behind, we were going to concentrate more on keeping the lid on gang violence.

I had an informant.

I caught myself smiling. And maybe a friend?

The distinctive rumble of Dad's car came into hearing and I hurried up on the sandwich, popping a few slices into the toaster in case he was hungry as well. I looked down at my second lunch. Still needed a bit of something. I dove back into the fridge and was pulling out the tomatoes when Dad walked in through the door.

I knew by the slump to his shoulders that today hadn't been better.

I chewed on my lip when the toast popped back up. Dad sunk into a chair at the table, placing his briefcase on it.

"What's the damage?"

Dad opened his case and shuffled through some of the papers. "Gray showed up today, thanked me for my time. He'd found work." He shook his head tiredly. "Wouldn't say where."

"Mayo?"

"Please."

I made his sandwich in the quiet. Dad always took 'losses' personally and I couldn't blame him. Spend day after day telling people you cared about that you had not work for them, only to watch them get scooped up by a gang while your hands were tied.

"It's probably nothing serious, you know."

He scoffed.

Then there was the little thing of Dad's black and white morality. Guilty by association, even if everything was above the table. I was far from asking him to let go of his misgivings, but preemptively judging someone before they even did anything? Still, I knew Dad was the norm, not the exception. Maybe all the weirdness about our views on the gangs were my fault. I couldn't apologize for it.

When the people you least expect to lend a helping hand, do, it tends to change your world view a bit. I still don't know if it was for the better, or worse.

"That's how they get you," Dad said. "It's harmless at first but before you know it, you're in too deep to get out."

I handed him his sandwich and sat down with mine. He sounded like those posters and public announcements hung up on the walls at Winslow High, about what to do if you felt you were being targeted by one gang or another. It emphasized getting help as soon as possible, even if they didn't ask for anything illegal. Both the Empire and ABB had legitimate enterprises and that was before considering the civilian identity of any of their capes.

Lisa had advised telling the Protectorate, Miss Militia in particular before I carry out my 'crazy, stupid plan.'

"Soldier girl and Lung have a bit of an understanding. I'm going to guess it has something to do with the high powered rifle I mentioned. It's always the nice ones, I swear."

"He lives on the Docks?" I asked before I bit into my ham and tomato.

Dad grimaced. "Yeah."

My first thought was something along the lines of 'He'd be safe at least.' ABB didn't harm their own. I was less sure about the Empire, but it just seemed like common sense. And was giving me the feeling that the entire city was being Stockholmed into submission.

"I know that look." Dad peered at me over his glasses. "We've talked about this."

We had, when a gas main in a decaying part of town had ruptured a little over a year ago. I'd been at school, miserable doesn't really need to be said, when it had happened. Dad hadn't come home until very late that night, mostly because the evacuation was being spearheaded by ABB. He couldn't do less than them. I'd asked why he didn't just let them help.

'Good deeds don't erase bad' he had said. Troubles at school, friendless and lived in claimed territory. I think he was afraid of losing me to a gang.

Sorry, Dad.

"I wasn't going to say anything," I said.

He let it go with a sigh. I finished my sandwich.

"I love you, Taylor," he murmured before I hit the door out of the kitchen.

I blinked rapidly. My eyes prickled. "Love you too, Dad."

It was around seven when I finished putting on my bodysuit underneath my clothes again. It wasn't that I expected to need it, but I had liked having extra security. It didn't do anything for my head, or sufficient concussive force as last night had shown me but it was much better than nothing.

I came downstairs, finding Dad in the kitchen where the smell of spaghetti sauce and garlic was overpowering. He saw me in my sweats and sling and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Taylor..."

"It's Monday," I reminded him. "And early." I jiggled the bulging pocket on my pants. "I've got my pepper spray. Just a little ways then back."

He'd lost this argument three months ago and he wasn't going to win it today.

He must have been able to tell from the stubborn look on my face because he nodded and let me go.

My evening walks had originally started from a severe case of cabin fever and maybe more than a little rebellion at how tightly Dad seemed to cling to me. Not something I'm proud of, he'd been worried sick the first time I'd disappeared and didn't come back until dinner. I ran in the mornings so I could try to get into better shape for my cape career, so while strictly speaking I didn't need go out, I wanted to.

Bao's group patrolled Mondays.

The ABB had a 'neighborhood watch' of their territory. Most of the time it was just normal people wearing the distinctive dragon icons and colors of whatever sub group they were in. Late at night, on a bad roll of the dice, you might meet a cape instead. It wasn't called a curfew, but it might as well be one. The fear alone probably kept most inside.

Just moving from one block to the next, you could see the change in the area. As I made my way into the Docks, the quality of my surroundings began to get a bit schizophrenic. Old and new mashed together with signs of new construction or repair. A few old men were sitting out on the front step of an old building smoking pipes and arguing over a board game I didn't know the name of. The empty warehouses had long been converted with guards standing out front, and the strains of music reached my ears.

As I walked, I was using my powers to draw a small swarm together, but kept most of them out of the way. Moving over just over the nearby rooftops or skirting behind the buildings. It was mostly for practice in stealth, dedicating just enough attention to tell where there was light and not trip over my own two feet.

It was when I was close enough to see the cranes rusting from disuse and the 'skyline' of warehouses along the Bay that I saw them, smoking against a forklift.

That's what Lê Công Bao had been doing that day, sneaking out of school for a smoke when he heard me in the dumpster. He could have left me there. I would never forget the jeers of 'It's Hebert!' and someone kicking the metal side. But Bao got the janitor, a gang member who spent more time out of school than in class, doing what the teachers didn't.

Story of my life.

"Hebert!" Bao waved me over, wearing his dragon scarf and camo jacket with jeans. He was a year older than me, with his hair was cut short with a styled shaved area on the left side of his head. I wouldn't say we were friends but he wasn't an enemy and listening to him joking with the other members of his group made me feel less alone. God, I was pathetic. "You weren't in cla- " The muscles on his jaw rippled and I remembered my broken hand. "They fucking with you again?"

The urge to say yes burned.

"No, it was an accident."

He eyed me disbelievingly, but shrugged. "If you say so." He pointed out new faces. "Neal, Takeo, Bun Ma and her brother Chai Son."

Neal was tall, I estimated him to be in his early twenties and the best dressed of them, looking like he had just come home from work with nice slacks and his tie hanging loose around his neck. Takeo was younger wearing a wifebeater, his dragon handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. His arms had sharp muscle definition and sprawling tatoos. Bun Ma and her brother just had T shirts and jeans, my age but I couldn't remember them from school. Arcadia, maybe?

I stared at them and they stared back.

"Hi?" I tried.

Some of the 'old hats' on the forklift chuckled and waved their cigs but the silence afterward quickly got very awkward. Bao's palm met his face while his other hand reached out to swat 'Takeo' over the head. "Stop staring. Christ."

"But she's not - "

Bao hit him again. "Who cares? She's cool, quit it."

"Just," I sighed. "Pretend I'm not here."

I sat on the curb, mentally keeping track of time. Slowly, they started talking again, weaving in and out of English and at times breaking out in laughter. I snuck bugs onto the clothes of everyone in the group and let the chatter wash over me. It didn't matter if I couldn't understand them. I was being left alone.

Bao stamped out his cig and turned to me. "Walk with us?"

I swallowed. This was usually the time I headed back, but I could barely stop myself from leaping at the invitation. "Is that okay?"

He looked around and no one protested. "Sure. Come on."

The group split into three. I got up and wiped my clammy palms on my sweat pants. I was going to be bit late for dinner. Bao's group made a loop towards the Boardwalk before coming back, I could probably split from them there. But more importantly...

It was during a short lull in the conversation that I asked the question I had come for.

"How would I get in contact with Lung?"

"Youuuu," his voice cracked an octave higher. He coughed. "You probably don't want to do that? I mean, you don't just demand her attention."

I bit my lip. I was afraid of that.

"Thinking of joining or something?" He waved his scarf at me.

It was red, with a gold dragon stitched into it and Chinese characters lining the bottom. It's eyes glittered menacingly as it looked at me.

"Maybe."

"I'll vouch for you." Bao grinned. "We take care of our own. You won't regret it."

I wasn't naive enough to believe that.

I was calling Miss Militia tomorrow.

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Aug 24, 2014

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Aug 21, 2014

#132

Interlude, Miss Militia

Old interlude.

Spoiler

The first time Hannah spoke to Lung was in a high school gym in Beaumont, Texas.

The basketball court still had the bright blue and white streamers hanging from the ceiling. A large banner slung between the folded up basketball hoops proclaimed 'Go Panthers!' in blocky lettering. A large wooden plaque covered in burnished bronze nameplate was stapled high on the far side of the room, and underneath it a multi-tiered trophy shelf complete with pictures of smiling teens dressed in football and basketball jerseys. She wondered how many of those children made it to the shelter before the earthquakes came.

The showers and locker rooms were closed off with small cubicles. Off white cloth walls did very little to quiet the sounds of a few curses or pained hisses from wounded within. Average people in bland hospital scrubs shuffled around carrying clipboards, dragging IV stands, hugging bundles of blankets. Getting access to a real hospital during an Endbringer fight was a luxury. Sometimes the location was just bad, other times the hospital was just too small or too busy with other cases to shove an odd hundred capes in. Too few doctors for the demand meant there were overwhelmed interns, anxious volunteers and stressed nurse practioners rushing around.

The half court was populated with folding lunch tables and tired heroes nursing instant coffee. The cafeteria half these tables had been stolen from housed the recuperating villains. Four hours ago this had all been wires and cord, filled with nervous energy and the resignation of a hospital chapel as tremors rumbled beneath their feet.

Dauntless murmured in his sleep, head buried in the crook of his arms. He survived his first encounter with the Hero Killer. The battle lasted a little over 3 hours. The nightmares would last months. Velocity was fetching chocolate bars from the vending machine one handed until there was an opening to have his arm grown back. Armsmaster was still critical.

They lived. All that mattered.

A ragged, subdued cheer went up and she looked. Alexandria nodded imperiously before turning back to talk quietly the three around her. Beside the Triumvirate and running her right hand through dark hair in baggy grey sweats was Lung.

Standard practice was to handcuff villains to protect them and protect others from them. That worked for most, but like Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend, a simple construct of steel wouldn't be enough to hold the Japanese villain. A thick band of black metal was clamped across her eyes with a single LED above her ear shining green. What could be seen of the rest of her face was pale skin, a delicate chin and small mouth.

When it turned red, if – if it turned red, the band would explode with enough heat and force to liquefy the woman's brain. Alexandria stood by carefully, never letting Lung leave her sight.

"Snickers for you!" It made a loud clatter as Robin dumped it on the table. His empty sleeve drew her eyes and he flashed a wry grin as he nudged Jason awake. "Butterfinger, yeah?" The granola bar was for Colin. Robin flopped into his seat, tearing into his skittles bag with his teeth.

She took a gulp of her coffee. It was bitter and burned her throat.

"We're alive," Robin toasted with his skittles bag. "Thank fucking God."

A wave of superheated air, crackle of ozone and sparking with lightning. The dragon roars as the left side of its body ceases to exist. It falls but before it hits the ground it is whole once again. It twists instead, curling around Behemoth's legs. "BLASTERS" comes the call over her arm band and she takes aim.

She expects the recoil, dislocating the shoulder with a wet pop. The dragon's right hand vanishes in a pulp of blood and bone and she winces, but underneath she had burned a bleeding crater in the Hero Killer's flank.

The dragon readjusts and the call comes again. She ignored her shoulder. She couldn't ignore the searing lightning Behemoth threw her way.

"- a few months of peace too much to ask for?" Robin was saying as she came out of the memory. "Villians sitting fucking pretty in the Bay while we're here. The Empire – "

"We'll have a bit," Jason said. "No one wants to fight Lung now."

Robin paused, blue skittle hanging on his bottom lip.

"True."

Nothing about Lung made sense to her. Villains like that were selfish and self-serving. The number of criminals that participated in Endbringer battles around the world could be counted on both hands, and most of them only started after Lung resurfaced for Leviathan in Seattle, 2003. Every three months since then, without fail, Lung had been there. Why?

Even now, Alexandria was sitting rigidly on the top of a table, one foot on the round plastic seat as she watched over the room. Lung sat on the floor in front of her, leaning back against the heroine's hanging leg.

Another bitter sip and Hannah stood up. "Be right back."

She threaded her way towards Alexandria keenly feeling the loss of her star spangled bandana that usually covered her face. The two were talking in tones just quiet enough not to disturb but not so quiet as to seem like they were concealing the conversation.

" - ate wearing this thing."

"Should have thought of that before you decided to take on all of East-North-East," Alexandria told Lung clinically.

"Don't you trust me?"

No, Hannah thought even as Alexandria's lips twisted sardonically. "About as far as I can throw you." And then her voice turned to steel. "And no further."

She stopped at the end of the table Alexandria was sitting on and politely rapped her knuckles on it twice. Even with no visible allowances for eyesight in her black helmet, Alexandria instantly recognized her.

"Miss Militia," she said warmly. Lung's head turned. "Is there something you wished to discuss?"

She tried to smile back. She wasn't sure if she managed it. "I have a question for Lung."

"Oh?" Lung murmured.

"Why?" Elaborate, Hannah. "Behemoth. Leviathan – " Lung's lips tightened. The island of Kyushu had sunk, she recalled. Just the peaks of the skyscrapers were above the waves now. How old had Lung been then? Young, her mind said. Young. "Simurgh. Why do you do it?"

"Tch." Lung looked down, then back up. Her accent was thick. "Because I can."

She had a gun in her hand. She didn't know how, where it came from. But her fingers curled around the handle. It was heavy. The soldier behind her barked, time running out. Keep walking. Keep walking. She might die. Like the others, legs blown off. Fallen down holes onto sharp spikes. Crushed.

But she had a gun. She didn't have to die taking that step.

She turned, bringing up the gun. She knew how to hold it, how to aim. She pulled the trigger –

Hannah nodded. "Fair enough."

--

The air was thick with an acrid smoke, the kind of stench that came with burning chemicals, plastics and rubbers. The thick plumes wafting out of the windows were discolored; white, green, orange. Brick and mortar didn't burn well, but the wallpaper and old furniture fed the flames eating at the drug labs. She buried her nose in the fabric of the bandana masking her face, grimacing as she picked her way over the guts of a broken down car. She huffed slightly, measured breathing as she squinted through the haze.

On the side of the building was the all too familiar graffiti sign: a crimson dragon.

"ABB," she sighed.

"Repeat that?" Dauntless' voice crackled over her ear bud.

She breathed in deep. Through the fabric, the air was just slightly tinged with something sickly sweet. There were mounds of fine dirt or ash in the street, wisps blowing off the top by a small breeze. Something in her stomach turned as she looked around. Doors torn from their hinges. Windows smashed. There were blood stains on the pavement. No bodies.

"The target of this attack was the drug labs and caches," she said, curling her fingers around the KA-BAR knife. Its handle felt like carved wood and it fit perfectly. "Fresh ABB tags on the buildings. No sign of original occupants."

"A purge."

Brockton Bay had seen the rise and fall of several villainous groups. The Allfather's Empire 88 shattered with his death and that of Iron Rain, only to rise again under his son Kaiser. Marquis' slow decline as a power until a local vigilante group confronted him. This city had been visited by the Slaughterhouse Nine. The Teeth crushed. The Merchants were just the latest.

This could have been them, the Protectorate. Hannah vividly remembered the silver scaled reptilian creature looming over the buildings, the scream of the Endbringer alarms, and balls of flickering flame choking the air like a swarm of fireflies. The roar of triumph and wet heat of fire vaporizing her lower right arm.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of a Desert Eagle pistol. The smell of burning flesh always woke her up from that memory.

"Careful," Dauntless said suddenly. Obediently, she stopped. "You've got company ahead, give me a moment to ID."

The mounds of ash were bothering her. Some of them were tall, others long. They spoke of something being burnt cleanly and totally so that not even coals remained. Lung could do it, were she so inclined. Hannah hooked her bowie knife in its holster as she bent down and trailed a finger through the fine grit.

No bodies, she thought.

"Shi – Militia, its Lung."

"Where?"

"Half a block north of yo – what are you doing?"

Her palms stung as she hauled herself up, the soles of her boots scraping the brick. She took a short, fortifying breath as she eyeballed the maintenance ladder. She could make that.

"Militia, don't engage!" She imagined him pinwheeling his arms frantically in the air above. "Don't fucking engage, Jesus Christ!"

The outdoor patio was covered in trash. Beer cans, used syringes, strips of aluminum foil streaked with burnt residue, stained and dirty mattresses hid behind chipped and faded wooden trellis. She crossed slowly, careful not to make too much noise on her way to the large, beige fuse boxes on the roof. She hefted the weight in her hands, getting a feel for it, testing. She lifted it and peered down the scope.

Wind blowing east, she noted and shifted.

"Movement?"

Dauntless might have responded, but she already saw her mark.

In a deep red kimono that almost but not quite hid the bloodstains. Barefoot and metal dragon mask on her face coming out of a warehouse on fire.

Take the shot.

The crosshairs aligned. A slight adjustment for bullet trajectory and wind would be all it would take. She saw a red headed girl with dead eyes, bleeding from marks on her face and neck. She pulled the trigger.

It missed, going wide to pulverize the corner of the building. It rained brick dust and chunks of concrete.

Lung stopped with a slight flinch. Her masked face slinging around and up. Hannah breathed, and pried her finger from the trigger and lowered the gun. For several long moments, villain and hero just stared at each other.

Just one shot, with the right gun.

Lung nodded, and deliberately turned on her heel to show her back.

Message delivered.

--

Hannah sighed as she pushed open the door to the briefing room, a few minutes early as usual. Colin was already there, also as usual. She smothered the fond, exasperated smile at the bags under his eyes and barely acceptable beard as he scribbled in a notebook. "You worked too hard and forgot to sleep again, Colin?"

"My earliest estimate for the new tranquilizer was two weeks." He offered as if it was an explanation. It almost was. "I can have it done in eight days."

"If you skip out on sleep? I don't doubt it." She sat down next to him. "But exhausting yourself – "

"Dragon is checking over my work for any errors," he countered. "It'll have to be administered in Lung's earlier stages, but it should shut down her regeneration. This could work."

The ABB was one problem of many in the Bay. "And the Empire?"

His frown deepened before he sighed. He set down his pen and rubbed at his eyes before grabbing his mug of steaming black coffee off the table. "Working on it."

She smiled and tapped the drawings on his notebook. "So I see."

The door opened and admitted Sarah Pelham out of costume, wearing a casual blue sweater and slacks. "Good morning," she said a bit hesitantly. Hannah smiled back reassuringly.

Lady Photon had all the courage and presence of a "golden age" superhero but without the gradient star burst shining on her chest, the woman seemed a bit lost and unsure. New Wave, the public superhero group had been as much of her identity as her powers were. Losing her husband and sister had been just shy of devastating but she was holding on. Time didn't heal all wounds, but eventually, it would clot.

Assault and Battery trickled in after her, teasing each other, followed by Dauntless nursing a cup of coffee, black from the smell of it, and Triumph yawning. The newest addition to the Protectorate wasn't due to attend college until this fall, but he wasn't slacking off, cramming in extra training and picking up late night console shifts.

"Alright, alright, let me guess." Assault threw himself into a chair. "Lung."

Hannah grimaced. "Yes."

The door opened and Director Emily Piggot walked in slowly. Her bob cut was dyed blonde with mousy brown roots showing. She shuffled to the head of the table and placed a manilla folder stuffed to bursting with papers on the table with a loud slap. They all watched her silently as she pulled out the chair and sat down.

"Miss Militia," she began blandly. "You responded to a disturbance report last night, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am." She'd typed up her report during the night but these meetings in the morning for debriefing was a quick way to get everyone caught up with the latest news. The old system of passing it up the chain and waiting for it to trickle back down simply didn't work anymore. "Triumph," she nodded at the young man. "Was on console when we got the warning."

"Fire was the key word," he added. "I made the call to send her instead of Dauntless."

Piggot's watery blue eyes found her own. "And?"

"The Undersiders." A small, little known gang. Minor crimes and misdemeanors. Seemed to be more interested in nipping at the outskirts of the Empire's territory. Until last night. "Did something that set Aswang off."

"Aswang," Assault cut in. "Not Lung?"

"Possibly Lung," she allowed. "But how she put it, she was unconcerned, or didn't think it important." That didn't mean the Undersiders had been safe. Lung didn't suffer even the smallest slights lightly. "Of more importance was that Aswang disobeyed her."

Piggot huffed in morbid amusement. "Naturally."

Aswang's fear was to be caged, and he wouldn't be moving. It was in the report, as long as Piggot knew she didn't feel the need to let everyone in on the deal. "She appropriated a new parahuman. She called the girl 'Hachi' but she denied being part of the ABB. Right place at the right time recruitment?"

Piggot nodded, flicking through her papers. "And her powers?"

"Her costume looked very well made and designed to resemble the carapace of an insect." A bit unfinished, a few openings for armor and hastily painted over but the material was high quality. Silken. "I'm afraid I don't have details."

Piggot sighed and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. "But you made contact and she's not officially ABB, yet." She opened the folder. "At times I can't help but wish Lung was more of a violent thug so we could justify more extreme measures."

"Endbringers," Dauntless said quietly.

"So she's a useful criminal," Piggot said dismissively. "Anything on the Empire?"

Sarah Pelham shook her head. "They've been relatively quiet but given the timing?" She drummed fingers on the table. "There might be some truth to the rumor of dissent in the ranks. "Purity," the name was spit with venom. "She hasn't resurfaced."

"No news is good news as far as I'm concerned. Back to the Undersiders, what is the problem with this picture?"

"Small time independent group poking the ABB," Battery said immediately with the air of someone putting together the pieces. "Part of the smash and grab routine is picking good targets."

Assault picked up the thread. "Lung is a terrible target."

"By all accounts, the Undersiders are all teenagers," Hannah pointed out. "Not experienced criminals."

Assault threw up his hands. "That's even worse!"

Colin raised his head from his notebook. "They have a backer. It's the only thing that makes sense. Look at their activities until now. They are runners, not fighters."

The problem with the backer theory, Hannah knew, was that there just wasn't that many independent groups left in Brockton Bay. Amy Dallon, formerly Panacea of New Wave and Sarah's neice, was pretty much the only rogue left and even that was tainted by her ties to Lung.

"Coil?" She asked.

Piggot frowned. "My first instinct is 'too small time' but we don't have the luxury of dismissing him or her just yet. Anyone coming in to this city with the Empire and ABB already here is either confident or stupid." Piggot's frown darkened. "And he's lasted too long to be stupid. This city is a powder keg and it will blow. We need to be ready when it happens."

There were nods all around the table.

"Militia, let the wards know to keep an eye out for this 'Hachi.' With any luck, Lung hasn't got her claws in this one. Now we've got a budget increase coming down the pipeline and we're starting to look at possibilities for transfers from Boston and New York..."

Much later, Hannah walked into the Wards' common room, immediately spotting Missy Biron hunched over a textbook, chewing on her pencil as 'Hanabi,' Kaoru Watanabe turned the pages of a novel in a bean bag seat that had been dragged over. The Japanese Ward's costume wasn't completely on, missing the red overcoat and her fingerless gloves but her red visor was hooked up over her forehead.

"Good afternoon, you two."

Missy saluted her with the pencil as Hanabi glanced up. "Oh, hey Miss Militia. Need something?"

"Where is everyone?"

"Shadow Stalker is out," Missy said. "Said she had something to do." The girl rolled her eyes. "You know her."

"Double date." Hanabi shrugged. Well, that accounted for Glory Girl, Laserdream, Aegis and Gallant.

"Clockblocker was at the console and Kid Win in his lab, Shielder?"

"No idea," both girls said.

Hannah sighed. Eric Pelham wasn't integrating well. About the only people he spoke to among the Wards were his relatives. Understandable, but she'd have to tell Dauntless about it later. "Well, if you see him be sure to tell him what I'm going to tell you. There's a new parahuman that hasn't joined a gang yet."

"Keep an eye out?" Missy's face was solemn. "Sure, details?"

"She wears an insect themed costume. Tall, wavy dark hair. May or may not go by 'Hachi.'"

"...Bee?" Kaoru said with a smirk. "Got it, no problem."

Missy nodded as well.

"Thank you. Keep up the good work."

And they did do good work. The Wards program had never been intended to be training grounds for child soldiers. It was supposed to be about learning to control their powers, learning what they were capable of. Giving them a stable, supportive environment after their trigger and a little help academically and financially for their future. There should be more exercises, events, sessions but no one ever seemed to have the resources, the people, the funds, the time.

Never enough time.

Last edited: May 21, 2016

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Shujin

Aug 21, 2014

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Aug 25, 2014

#302

Cricket

Tuesday morning found me running again, first thing.

I woke up a bit later than my regular time, startled awake by my alarm clock blaring in my ear. I felt a bit refreshed, the benefits of going to bed early and not having homework to complete, and almost pain free. My hand was still a pain in the ass to deal with, just not as much of a literal pain dulling to just a bone deep ache.

I got on my usual sweats and paused just before I closed the closet door. A corner of the pale green and yellow ABB handkerchief stuck out. Takeo had given me his. I pushed it back out of sight and double checked my room. Nothing incriminating in sight. That relieved me more than it should have.

I headed downstairs, apologized to my dad for not having breakfast with him as he put on his coat, and grabbed an apple. We split up just outside the door, him to work and me for the Boardwalk, my hood up to hide the mess of my uncombed hair.

There was something appealing about being out and about just as the city was waking up. As I headed east at a brisk jog, there were a few other joggers acknowledging each other with head bobs and headphones in their ears. People were walking their dogs or taking small bird cages outside. The sun was hovering just above the horizon, so the shadows were long. The air was cool enough for my breath to fog and a bit of mist drifted in from the Bay.

It gave everything an ethereal, hazy look, the fog almost completely drowning out the buildings on the other side of the Boardwalk.

My training regimen had me running every morning, and alternating between my walks in the evenings or other exercises in the afternoons, depending on what day of the week it was. Late in the week, the approach of the weekend usually stirred up the neighborhood and I didn't know of any 'safe' patrol members. Instead it was jumping jacks, push ups and anything else I could think of in the basement before cooling down in front of the TV.

I'd gotten the idea from one of the 'community centers' a little ways from our neighborhood. I'd taken a peek in spite of Dad's warning and in the mornings, it was a scene of few elderly men and women following a group leader through Tai Chi routines. It had been a couple of days before I screwed up the courage to ask one of the women what they were doing. Turned out, they weren't training to fight, necessarily, but just to stay limber and give themselves energy to face the day.

Joining them would have been far too awkward, but I couldn't deny that the concept appealed to me. Not long after, I had started training in my own way. After a few false starts, I settled into a routine. It was more of a general endurance thing but with the way things have been going, maybe I should stop by again and learn how to defend myself.

I was more fit now. While I wasn't exactly chubby before, I'd had the really unfortunate combination of a slight pudge to my stomach and twigs for limbs, adding up to me looking like a frog forced to stand up on it's hind legs. A little less than three months had burned away the body fat, leaving me looking more like a meaty stick. Better. Kind of. I had the stamina to run at a steady jog without leaving me panting for breath at least.

The route I took varied every day, at my father's insistence, but it usually took me to the same place. In Brockton Bay, going east took you to one of two places. You either ended up at the Docks, or you ended up at the Boardwalk. And if you ventured further from the Boardwalk, you ended up in the Docks anyway. Sometimes I cut through, but often I just stuck to the main roads skirting the edges until I got to the more commercial sections.

Not today though.

Part of me regretted not at least stashing my handkerchief deep in my pockets so my Dad wouldn't see, just so I'd have it on hand, as I noticed the stares and the attention. I slowed down when the pavement gave way to gravel and forced myself to breathe. In and out. Though my legs were aching, I forced myself to power walk instead of just stopping. I'd made that mistake when I was first starting out. The cramps were legendary.

The main upside to having a father that was the Dockworkers Union spokesman was that he was reasonably well known, by word of mouth on the Docks if nothing else. His stubborn insistence in being involved and reaching out as best he could made a certain kind of impression. A few vaguely familiar faces looked at me with recognition.

There were quite a few people out this early, visiting neighbors or just occupying street-corners but I could honestly say that I would probably recognize Bao anywhere.

He had on his usual camo jacket and scarf, a combination that just barely managed to not look silly, with a T shirt underneath. His jeans were faded with rips on the knees, but the stylized grunge look rather than it being because of wear and tear. His boots I suspected were steel toed and he looked like he was on the edge of passing out and sleeping while standing.

I stopped by him and he jerked awake.

"Man." He palmed his face, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs. "And you do this every morning? You monster."

"You said the time was okay," I said with a bit of amusement. I felt more than a bit self conscious, standing next to him in my sweats and messy hair but I had plenty of experience with feeling out of place.

"I wasn't thinking," he protested. He straightened and I felt my own posture tighten up with him. "So I talked to a few people and I've got you an in."

I felt my mouth go dry. "Just like that?"

"No," He sighed. "You'll get a face to face, later today. With Snake."

Snake was the name of Lung's most elusive lieutenant, about the only thing known about her was her gender and that she was the former second in command of a primarily Hmong gang on the south-east side. No one knew what her powers were, if she even had any and I was already having second thoughts. When it came to parahumans, fearing the unknown was a survival strategy.

I swallowed my doubts. There was a lot riding on this. "When and where?"

"Pier 4, 5 PM."

Pier 4 was rather deep in the industrial area bordering on the infamous Boat Graveyard. It wasn't quite No Man's Land with its abandoned buildings and languishing equipment, but it was close to the decayed parts of town no one wanted. It was a good place to hold recruitment without worrying about anyone stumbling upon you. It was also a good place to make someone disappear.

My only consolation was that it wasn't taking place in the dead of the night. "I'll be there."

Bao smiled and nodded towards my sling. "You going to class today?"

"Are you kidding?" I deadpanned, waving the cast. "A chicken could write neater than me right now."

He yawned behind his hand. "Right." He seemed to make a decision, nodding. "Me neither." Big surprise there. Not. "You ate yet?"

"Just an apple." I hadn't been brave enough to litter the street with the core, carrying it with me for at least ten minutes before tossing it into the first garbage can I saw.

"Come on. You ever had Banh chuoi before? The bakery should be open, my treat."

The offer surprised me. Eavesdropping on conversations I couldn't understand just to have company didn't really count as "hanging out" and the bags under his eyes told me he really wasn't used to waking up this early. It wasn't out of character, exactly, he seemed likably decent if lazy. I just didn't think he had any reason to want me around. Was it because he liked me, Taylor, or just putting his best foot forward for a new member?

"Okay." The word came out thickly. It would mean going deeper into ABB territory than I've ever been; I should be feeling more cautious. Instead there was just a bit of a thrill, like being allowed backstage to peek behind the curtain and see the actors without the scripts, costumes and masks.

Bao had a nice smile.

I coughed and looked down at the ground, horrified that I'd been staring. It really didn't help that he didn't seem to notice, tugging lightly on my sleeve.

"This way."

I followed him and was completely unable to keep the moronic smile off my face.

The heart of ABB was a city within a city. It was as if I crossed an invisible line, a divide that separated it from the outside world and followed different rules. The section of the Docks that I was used to was sleepy. It woke up slowly and was suburb with middle class homes, small yards and paved streets leading in from the outskirts. This reminded me of when the Docks had been a bustling part of the inner city.

Gradually, once we passed that line noise levels started to pick up. Towering spray painted murals a dizzying mix of color sprawled up the sides of the buildings we walked past. Entry points. Cars and vans were parked haphazardly, a bit of a slant there, too far out here and we wove through them under the watchful eye of some men and women sitting on the hoods, or leaning against the backs of trucks. Me, being a bit slow on the uptake, didn't realize it was a barricade until after we spilled onto the main street and not a parked car was in sight.

It felt like I had passed a point of no return.

The first sign I saw was in English, as well as five different alphabets underneath. Colored banners stuck out from the sides of the apartment buildings and off the fire escapes. Store fronts occupied the bottom with their own signs and shelves stuffed to bursting with goods out front. What looked like public announcements were plastered to the windows or walls. The smells were sweet, savory, fried food and cooking meat. People loitered around the stalls, talking animatedly and carrying bags.

Bao led me to one of the stores and held open the door for me. I ducked inside.

A portly balding man shouted something and I blanched, only for Bao to step up laughing and yelling something back. He ordered, I think, what looked like a baked pastry and smelled heavenly.

"Banana." He said, handing me a oiled paper with it inside. "It's good, you'll like it."

I barely waited until I was outside to bite into it. The outside was crispy and it tasted like sugar and banana, with a slightly chewy texture. It was good.

"Knew it!" He laughed.

We walked through the narrow grid of streets, chewing. I could have sworn I recognized Jing Wen from the moving crowd at a stall, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure so I didn't say anything. Bao pointed out places of interest, stores and centers. I was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to tell me about the gambling hall, judging from the 'oops' expression on his face and how quickly he moved on.

The main street was the center of commerce, most of the community shopped there at one point or another. Another painted mural, this time of dragons, marked the end of the public area.

"Dragon's lair," he said in a cheesy voice. "After today, that is where you go to be given a responsibility." He said the word, responsibility, with some weight. A perpetual academic slacker, taking something seriously. It was a paradoxical thought: ABB was good for him.

I had already assumed a responsibility. I had to see it through.

"Lung is there?"

He shrugged. "Usually."

I let it go and tried to burn the surroundings into my mind through the insects around. For a brief moment, what they felt was what I felt. I was them. Then I blinked and that moment was gone, just the memory of it like a carbon drawing in my mind.

I turned and smiled at my guide. "Anything else to see?"

Later that morning saw me searching through the Protectorate's official website in the library for the PHQ phone number. I wrote it down in the worst handwriting I have ever seen, couldn't help it, and waited until I was at home to pull out the burner phone Lisa suggested I get.

Just holding it made my stomach turn.

I punched in the number quickly.

"You've reached the Protectorate Headquarters." A male voice that was decidedly not Miss Militia answered. "Is this an emergency?"

"No," I said. "I'd like to talk to Miss Militia," and after a moment I added a bit of a desperate, "Please."

The man's voice softened. "Are you a parahuman, Miss?"

"Can you tell her Hachi wants to speak to her?"

"Alright. Stay on the line."

There was a beep before the strains of classical music came through the small speaker. It only managed to get through a couple of measures before the phone picked up.

"Are you alright?" I blinked in surprise at the concern in her voice, sounding exactly as I'd remembered her. Miss Militia had been my mother's favorite, even without the flashy powers or durability. I was beginning to see why.

"I'm fine but I really need to talk to you. Today."

She was quiet for a moment. "What happens today?" She asked shrewdly.

There was no good way to say this. "I join the ABB. For a good cause!"

She sighed and there was the squeaking sound of what must have been her chair. "I've heard that one before. Are you up for a proper talk, rather than over the phone?"

That was exactly what I wanted. "How soon?"

"As soon as possible. Do you need to be picked up?"

"I can make it." The last thing I wanted was for the neighbors to see a PRT van stop by our house. "Give me a half hour."

Reaching the ferry to the floating oil rig in costume took twenty.

235

Shujin

Aug 25, 2014

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