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She lurched awake with a startled scream, so violently that she fell off of her bed and painfully hit the floor. Then she frantically crawled over to the toilet just in time to violently purge the contents of her stomach.

For what felt like an eternity she heaved and heaved her guts out, but it was only when she saw blood in the toilet afterwards did she feel concerned that maybe she might have literally done so just now, but fortunately it was mostly just dripping from her nose and already slowing down. Then she noticed her hands.

The scars on her knuckles were missing.

That led her to notice that her hands were smoother in general, just a little smaller and certainly more, ugh, feminine, and that little chip in the nail of her little finger from her compulsive chewing and biting was gone as if it'd never been.

She spat into the toilet one last time and leapt to her feet. Aches and pains that she'd known and felt for decades were just gone. She all but tore off her orange shirt, and immediately noticed that her arms were way too goddamn slender. The tattoo she'd gotten on her left arm back in '31 when Brockton Bay joined the list of cities that had been wiped off the maps forever? Gone. The scars from combat wounds? Gone. Appendectomy scar? Gone. She tugged her pants down a little and softly swore when she saw that her cesarean section scar was gone, as was that fucking stretch mark.

Okay, that last one she couldn't actually bring herself to feel upset about and found herself nodding in grudging approval.

Then she finally noticed the sink on the wall, and the little square of mirror that sat above it.

For several long seconds, all she could do was touch her bizarrely youthful face, a face that hadn't existed in some thirty-odd years, and stare.

Captain Sophia Naomi Hess of the UASSF took a deep breath.

"WHAT THE FU-"


April 2nd, 2011

New York

2:47pm EST

"We're still waiting on more information, but from what we know so far the incident in Westfield Ma-"

"-from what we know so far, the number of injured is thirty-four people, ten of which are currently in criti-"

"-where several Airmen from the nearby Air National Guard were involved in a horrifically tragic Parahuman altercation and gunned down nearly a doze-"

"-think what everyone at the moment is asking themselves is just what was the PRT doi-"

The sound stopped with the press of a mute button, but the television was left on with captions relaying the speech of the news anchors.

Given the severity of the ongoing situation that had begun shortly before noon, it was no surprise to Director Caleb Wilkins that Chief Director Costa-Brown had called for an emergency teleconference meeting of PRT directors. The moment the news had broken, every PRT and Protectorate department had gone on alert just in case the other cells of the Elite attempted some form of retaliation. He personally thought it unlikely. Bastard Son had been their attack dog, this was true. But more often than not he was, had been, a mad dog off his leash. It had only been a matter of time before someone was going to put him down like one.

Pity that it had to happen with civilians caught in the crossfire.

"I don't think that I need to tell anyone here just how bad this looks," he announced to his fellow directors as he turned his full attention to the multitude of screens lining a wall of his currently-sealed office. There was an almost immediate scoff.

"Bad? Try a disaster. Fifteen dead and over twice that injured, with a bunch of kids caught in the middle. What the hell was the Air Force thinking, even getting involved?"

"I think, Director Seneca, was that they were trying to keep their JROTC cadets, a group of over one hundred children I might point out, from becoming collateral damage."

"That's not what I-"

"That's enough." Costa-Brown spoke, and the two directors fell silent. "What was the response time of our PRT and Protectorate assets in the area?"

Director Armstrong quietly cleared his throat and briefly glanced away from his camera before speaking.

"According to the report from the Westfield office, Freightliner and Gigawatt were dispatched with PRT support when we first received news of a parahuman fight between local villains, smugglers and thieves for the most part, and Bastard Son's cell. That was five minutes before the running battle ended up in Westgate Plaza, and by then two of the locals were already dead. Three members of that Elite cell stayed back to delay Freightliner and Gigawatt and the strike team accompanying them, while the rest joined Bastard Son in hunting down this so-called 'Flare-Up.' The three villains of the cell that stayed behind were sufficient to hold our forces off on their own, right up until Bastard Son died, and all three immediately collapsed and lost consciousness afterwards. Freightliner stayed back to assist in securing them while Gigawatt then rushed to Westgate Plaza on his own."

As Armstrong spoke, Wilkins was already looking up the files of the two Parahumans in question. Freightliner was a combination Brute/Mover that grew exponentially stronger and faster the longer he ran, while Gigawatt was a blaster/mover whose powers were electricity-based and had fine-enough control over the electricity she generated that she was uniquely suited for non-lethal takedowns… as long as she was against a single person. Against multiple opponents, her control and accuracy suffered. He started to speak up, but Costa-Brown beat him to the punch.

"It was foolish for Gigawatt to go ahead on her own, especially if she had no idea what the situation was. But at the same time, Freightliner wouldn't have been able to cover the distance nearly as fast and wouldn't have been able to keep up with her. It was unfortunate that circumstances weren't in their favor for the beginning of this mess and Gigawatt took a stupid risk to rush ahead without support or intel, but in this instance, things worked out as well as they could have." The Chief-Director's face suddenly hardened. "What I do not like about this, is nearly getting into a Blue on Blue incident with the Air Force National Guard and having it all over the news."

There were more than a few flinches all around at that. Wilkins himself couldn't help but grimace. The PRT was doing their best to squash it but there were already cell phone videos and stills of Airmen from the nearby guard base in a very touchy stand-off with PRT troops in the aftermath of the event.

"The commanding officer of the initial PRT strike team on site attempted to follow standard procedure and apprehend all non-Protectorate-affiliated Parahumans involved, which happened to include two of the JROTC cadets, one of which is fresh trigger. This unfortunately exacerbated the situation."

"That's a vast understatement," Director Hearthrow grunted out. "Whoever it was is damn lucky this was only the Air National Guard involved and not the Marines."

Even Costa-Brown winced a little at that thought. Wilkins knew that he did.

"Fortunately," Director Armstrong continued, "And surprisingly, Flare-Up was instrumental in deescalating the situation, and willingly surrendered to PRT custody. He's currently in surgery for his injuries."

"If only more villains had that kind of sense in their heads, our jobs would be easier," Wilkins commented. Then he asked, "Did he give a reason why? I'm curious."

"One of the JROTC cadets involved is his younger brother and is currently in surgery. We believe that one of the two dead parahumans killed in the initial confrontation with Bastard Son is very likely another sibling as well."

"...Ah."

"I think at the moment, it is more important that we address the two Parahumans that the military is refusing to give us access to," yet another director spoke up. An unpleasant smile immediately formed on Armstrong's face.

"One of the two involved is already known to us. Taylor Hebert, aka Aircraft," he said.

"Oh. Her," Director Piggot grunted out with a sour expression. Wilkins suspected that she was still plenty furious about losing a Cape with such potential to the military, thanks to the actions of one of her Wards. The PRT had managed to keep it quiet for the most part, but that particular fiasco had had all of them taking a much closer look at their Wards and what they were up to, especially the probationary ones. Hopefully, Shadow Stalker would remain a black eye that the public would never learn about.

"The other is complicated." Armstrong briefly looked away to tap at his computer, and uploaded a dossier to his fellow directors. "This is the fresh trigger. Nataliya Sokolova. An immigrant from Ukraine with her father Leonid Sokolov, a former colonel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned diplomat according to a few contacts of mine. Or more accurately, refugees. They were extracted by American operatives back in '06 and brought to the US when a detachment of the Russian's Elitnaya Armiya decided that they wanted Leonid Sokolov's head on a plate and to hell with diplomatic immunity. They carved their way through damn near half of Luhansk to kill him, and were officially labeled a rogue unit to stave off the shitstorm that they damn near caused anyways."

Wilkins found himself looking at a picture of an arrogant-seeming young woman with a long and narrow face and shockingly pale blonde hair, that would no doubt grow up to become a rare beauty. It was a marked difference from the hunched over form huddled underneath a blue service jacket several sizes too large that the next picture showed. The picture was obviously and hastily taken at a distance, but it was enough to reveal that all trace of the girl's hair was gone and that every inch of exposed flesh had become a matte-black metallic material, with her exposed legs having a distinctly mechanical appearance.

"Are we sure that this is actually Sokolova and not some kind of Tinker construct?" someone mused.

"Unfortunately yes. A witness recorded her transformation into that immediately following her Trigger Event. Fortunately we were able to confiscate the phone that the recording was taken on as evidence before the video could be uploaded anywhere. As Sokolova's clothing clearly does not survive her transformation, I felt it particularly prudent to order it held onto for the time being. From all appearances, Taylor Hebert's presence has clearly influenced Sokolova's Trigger, but until and unless we get access to her, we have no way of knowing to what degree that influence extends. And unfortunately, I suspect that that's not likely to happen any time soon."

"It is doubtful that Sokolova has the sheer destructive ordnance that Hebert has at her disposal. Surely we should be able to pressure the Air Force into handing her over," Director Seneca said with a frown.

"That's not what I mean," was Armstrong's response, and his expression twisted into one of uncomfortable distaste. "Not thirty minutes before this conference began, I had a rather unpleasant meeting with a representative of the CIA, in which it was made abundantly clear to me that Sokolova, for the time being, was not to be approached by the PRT for any reason, along with what I'm fairly certain is a very illegally obtained copy of her most recent psychological evaluation, as well as a copy of the mission report detailing the attempted extraction of her family from Luhansk that I definitely know that I'm not supposed to have."

Everyone started to speak at once.

"What."

They all immediately shut up with that one icy word spoken by Rebecca Costa-Brown. Wilkins could count on one hand how many times he'd ever seen such a look of carefully restrained fury on the Chief Director's face. Armstrong's expression soured even more.

"I will personally forward it to you momentarily, Chief-Director," he promised gravely. "Suffice to say, Sokolova and her father by all appearances have a number of political supporters that we would be ill-advised to get on the wrong side of."

It was clear to Wilkins that Armstrong had been more than a little spooked by the encounter, for all that he did his best to look unfazed by it. And damn well he should, since it had been less than, according to his wrist watch, three hours since this mess began, and someone in their own government had had enough leverage to get a CIA asset to deliver both a message and a threat to one of their own. No wonder Costa-Brown was furious, Wilkins realized. He was more than a little pissed himself. There were proper channels for this sort of dick-waving after all, and as such there was no need to be so heavy-handed.

… Unless being so very heavy-handed about the situation was exactly the very reason why it was done. He found himself meeting Costa-Brown's eyes through their respective cameras, and instinctively knew that she was thinking the very same thing and still wasn't any happier about it than he was.

"Armstrong, make doubly sure that you utterly destroy both of those reports after you've forwarded them to me. You know what channels to use," Costa-Brown said, and the other man immediately nodded and looked eager to have those potentially career-ruining hand grenades no longer sitting in his lap.

"Moving on and setting aside the subject of Aircraft and the fresh Trigger for now," Costa-Brown continued, "The actions of the Elite today require a response. Whether they knowingly let Bastard Son off his leash or not, we cannot let an incident of this nature go unaddressed, especially not when it concerns a nuclear asset under the jurisdiction of the United States military."

"Is it even possible that Bastard Son's attack on these small-time villains was just a cover for an attempt to kill or subvert Aircraft?" a director mused.

"Irrelevant. If we don't do something, you can bet that the military certainly will. There's no way in hell that they'll just allow this to go unaddressed," another replied.

"Indeed. The longer we take to appropriately respond, the more likely it becomes that they'll step all over our mandate and try to do our job for us. It'll be a disaster."

"For the Elite, maybe."

"For the Truce in general. Like it or not, when Endbringers are involved, we need all the Capes we can get to fight them. That'll be a damn sight harder to do if Villains start believing that the military will start gunning them down if they step out of line. And unfortunately we have Aircraft to show us exactly what using military hardware to put down Villains will look like."

There was a pregnant pause as they all digested that. Wilkins took the time to review the photos of what was left of Westgate Plaza. Flare-Up's accidental crash-landing while fighting for his life had done significant damage to one of the business lots. But the damage done when Hebert had been frantically attempting to defend herself and her ROTC classmates had been so much worse.

Just her wing turrets alone proved terrifyingly enlightening as to just how much sheer, raw damage 25mm guns could do, and that had been with the girl doing her best to be careful, allegedly. Just at a glance, she'd blasted off a significant chunk of the roof of a bookstore, reduced nearly two dozen vehicles to useless wreckage, damaged a dozen more to varying degrees, and utterly destroyed over an acre of parking lot, including a shattered water main. By some mind-boggling miracle, the only unintended injuries caused by her guns were ruptured eardrums and minor shrapnel wounds.

Wilkins had to believe it was a miracle, given that the four people she did kill, one woman and three men, had all been Bastard Son's thralls. What her guns had done to their bodies was horrific, plain and simple. The fourth had only lost an arm when Aircraft's defensive fire had punched right through the engine block of the car he'd been crouched behind, but had unfortunately been missed in the initial search for wounded. He'd bled out before anyone had found him.

And that didn't even take into account what both girls had done to Bastard Son. There was barely enough left of him to bury in a briefcase.

God help whichever poor bastards that might be caught on the wrong side of that girl when the Air Force finally let her off the leash. And now it was quite possible that there were two of them.

"Chief-Director, fellow Directors, I propose that we immediately begin drafting plans to bring the Elite to heel, once and for all," Wilkins announced. "If only to minimize the possibility of the military having Aircraft do something like this again, only deliberately. More importantly, we absolutely cannot let them or anyone for that matter think that they can get away with acting like the second coming of the Slaughterhouse 9."

"Seconded."

"Agreed," said Costa-Brown. "For those of you with known or suspected Elite cells present in your areas, let me make this abundantly clear. I want them to learn the consequences of their actions here today. Hit them so hard that any that might manage to slither away will think long and hard about attempting to set up shop again. None of you should have the slightest difficulty in getting the warrants necessary, but if you do, let me know immediately. As far as I'm concerned, any judge or district attorney that attempts to block or stonewall you is either an idiot or in someone's pocket, and as such, if any even consider it…" Her smile was something downright unpleasant to see.

"You have your orders. Get it done. Armstrong, I'll be expecting those files shortly."


Pendleton Correctional Facility, 20 miles outside of Brockton Bay

4:19 PM EST

"Hess, Sophia Naomi, Captain, UASSF, 1401762236!" The teen all but shouted in a voice already going hoarse, yet she ignored the still-full glass of water sitting within arm's reach. She sat with her back rigidly straight and her chin ever so slightly raised, as if she wasn't currently in handcuffs and leg irons and shackled to a metal table with a Tinkertech taser strapped to her right ankle and six guards around her armed with shock prods.

"She's been going on like that for five goddamn hours now, like she's some kind of POW. Every five minutes like clockwork, unless someone actually tries to talk to her. I wasn't sure what to do about her, so I called you thinking it might be some weird Parahuman bullshit," the prison official said. Deputy Director Paul Renick nodded as he stared intently through the one-way mirror at the prisoner that once had been the Probationary Ward Shadow Stalker. As far as the public knew, the Ward had resigned to focus more on spending time with her family. It would have been a problem if anyone knew just what kind of 'hero' Shadow Stalker had turned out to be and what she had done.

The young inmate in that room, for all that she looked like Stalker, seemed absolutely nothing like her save in appearance.

"Sir, I don't know who that is. But that is not Sophia Hess," the young man in power armor next to him said authoritatively. Renick gave Gallant a look of consideration.

"Are you absolutely certain, Gallant?"

"As certain as I can be Sir," the Ward said after a cautious moment. "I understand if the PRT is going to want verification from another Thinker. But I can tell you that the colors of her emotions are entirely wrong. Whoever that is in there feels more like Velocity or Miss Militia. She's angry, but not nearly as much as Stalker always seemed to be. A little amused too, but mostly… confused and resigned, I think."

"Hess, Sophia Naomi, Captain, UASSF, 1401762236!" the parahuman who may or may not have been Shadow Stalker on the other side of the glass shouted out again. Renick sighed quietly, then glanced at Gallant, then at Miss Militia as he considered things. Honestly, he thought it quite likely that Hess was just fucking around. But 'UASSF'... that was a designation that no one outside of the upper echelons of the PRT and select members of the United States military should have known about. It definitely was not something Hess should have been shouting about, much less known of. Renick wasn't even sure what it meant, only that it meant something concerning the military cape they'd dubbed Aircraft.

"Alright. Militia, you and I are going to go talk to her. Gallant, you stay here and keep alert. If you sense anything that might suggest she might try anything, you warn Militia and I immediately."

"Yes sir, Deputy Director," he responded with an emphasized nod, and Militia fell into step with him as they strode into the interrogation room.

Hess didn't even so much as blink as the two strode into the interrogation room, and in fact didn't show a hint of recognition. She just kept rigidly sitting there as he and Militia sat down across from her, with the weapon at Militia's hip shifting in flickers of black and green until it was a sheathed combat knife. The Hess he knew would've been slouching and snarling at them. This one regarded them with such a calm alertness that if they'd been back in Brockton Bay, he would've immediately called for Master/Stranger protocols.

"My name is Deputy Director Paul Renick of the PRT ENE. With me is Miss Militia of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. So... who are you and what have you done with Sophia Hess?"

Of the responses he expected, he hadn't quite expected her to scoff with thinly-veiled disgust. Contempt yes, but not disgust.

"Why don't you start with bullshit that's actually believable?" she said with a roll of her eyes. "Never heard of any UAS agency with either of those names, and certainly not one that would work with an Altered," she said as she gave Miss Militia a look of pure, utter hatred. "If you're gonna put in so much effort for some kind of weird mindfuck on a POW, you can at least get your fucking facts straight."

"If this is some sort of game Sophia, we aren't amused," Militia coldly said as her eyes narrowed dangerously above her bandana.

"If this isn't a game, you'd have known damn well that Brockton Bay got hammered into the fucking Atlantic back in '31. You Altered fuckers butchered over seven hundred thousand people! You don't fucking get to call that a fucking game!" Hess all but snarled at them as she tried to lunge across the table, only to be brought up short by her own shackles, but the raw pain and hate in her eyes felt like an attack all on its own.

"Sir, she's… she's telling the truth, or at least thinks that she is," Gallant's voice hesitantly came over the radio in his ears as the prison guards in the room rushed forward to force Hess back down into her chair.


San Francisco

3:30 PDT

"We're fucked. We are absolutely fucked and it's all that fucking moron's fault!" The Gentleman ranted.

"It's not quite so bad, I think."

"You think?! Thanks to that damned lunatic, the peace we've had with the PRT, no, the government as a whole, has been completely shot to shit! What part of that says 'not quite so bad' to you?!"

It wasn't often that the leadership of the Elite gathered together. There simply wasn't often a need to do so, more than every few months or so, and most situations were managed with the guidance of the San Francisco head office.

"Relax, Gentleman. We can not only survive this, but turn this to our favor. The Elite survived NEPEA-5, we survived the PRT throwing us to the wolves, we've survived the Slaughterhouse 9. We will survive this and turn it to profit," Patrician said in smooth and reassuring tones. "We control enough Corporate teams alone to effectively rival the Protectorate. They don't want an outright war with us. That would only lead to utter chaos, and worse would be unprofitable for everyone. I understand that your nerves are frayed by this unfortunate situation my friend, truly I do! But you worry too much. Now, I have to prepare for the meeting with the other cell leaders. I'll meet you at the hotel once your jet lands. In three hours, yes?"

"Yes, yes.. Of course. You're right, my friend. I'll see you in three hours." The Gentleman hung up, and Patrician waited until he was doubly certain that he'd disconnected on his own end before quietly sighing and turning to look at Agnes Court, who wore a grim expression that he was certain matched his own.

This definitely was not most situations.

"We are fucked," Patrician said bluntly, and Court nodded in agreement before twisting her lips into a scowl.

"We should have killed Bastard Son three years ago and dumped his corpse in the Pacific for the sharks," she growled out as she began restlessly pacing. Normally, Patrician might have chided his fellow cell leader. But in all the years he'd known her, she'd never been quite so … vocally hostile concerning her complete opposite, and in this particular instance, he couldn't help but agree.

"Unfortunately it is what it is. The only question now is what to do to protect our own skins. It won't be just the PRT, it'll be the federal government of the country as a whole that won't be satisfied until they get their pound of flesh."

"I know! Ugh.. It's just so infuriating that everything we've worked for might get torn down because of that psychotic imbecile!"

"You and I both know that there's no 'might' about it, not this time. There's abusing the spirit of the law, and then there's damn near killing a hundred kids as collateral damage. I'm already starting to hear hints and suggestions of the Elite being considered domestic terrorists."

Court grew still at that. Then she subtly yet unmistakably shivered, and he could see gooseflesh rising on her bare shoulders. The comparison didn't sit well with him either. Oh, he knew perfectly well that he was no saint. No businessman or woman worth the name and their stock portfolio would seriously delude themselves into thinking otherwise. But being thought of as someone who would commit horrific acts against his own country just for a fistful of dollars and favors crossed a line that he hadn't even known existed until that moment. He wasn't some damn neo-nazi! It was supposed to be just business!

His grandfather, the man who once ran one of the most respected and feared Mafia families on the west coast, would have been disgusted and ashamed of him for being associated with someone like that.

"We.. We're going to need to cut the fat, Margaret," he quietly said, and Agnes Court started at the sound of her real name being spoken. "Cut the fat and more, as lean as we can, before we get bled to the bone."

She stared at him for a moment, then said in just as quiet a tone, "Are you saying what I think you're saying, Frankie?"

"Yeah. Fuck, I can't believe I am, but like I said, it is what it is. The fact that you, Uppercrust, and a few others keep your noses so squeaky clean will make this less painful than it has to be. If the Elite, or whatever it is that we're gonna be after this is going to survive in any way, shape, or form, we gotta turn State's Evidence on the others. The worst of us, the violent ones. The Gentleman, Blueblood, Regis Rex, Cara Mia.. as many as we have to. We can fight the PRT and Protectorate if we absolutely have to. We can't fight them and the other Feds and the National Guard."

Agnes Court grimaced, and for a moment, he thought she was going to argue. Then she raised a hand to her face to touch her elaborate mask. Then she pulled it away, and Margaret Hill's weary, stress-lined face gazed back at him. "... I'll get Joshua on the phone and bring him in on the plan. Between the three of us, we should have the best idea of which of the others needs to become grist for the mill, for the rest of us to survive this."


Pendleton Correctional Facility, 20 miles outside of Brockton Bay

7:27 pm EST

In the end, what was needed to get the woman wearing the teenage face of Sophia Hess to talk was simple. They took her out to the exercise yard, and pointed out where Brockton Bay was in the distance almost exactly opposite the setting sun, some twenty miles away. Hess dropped to her knees and stared, haunted. Up until then, she'd glared at Miss Militia with such unrestrained hatred and fear that it drowned out everything else he might've sensed from her. But now?

Gallant actually had to look away. He had to, and what she felt was still almost too much for him to endure, even at a distance. That was how uncomfortably intense her sheer grief was. It was only a few minutes later that she finally began to talk. The pain she felt just from looking at the city was like nails in his eyes.

"... The War started in twenty-nineteen… no, twenty-twenty," she quietly began, and he saw Deputy Director Renick swiftly double checking to make sure that he had turned the voice recorder back on in time. "Overseas. Didn't much pay attention at the time. Altered were popping up everywhere, going crazy and just... Doing things. Horrible things. I'd just figured that either Kim-Yong-whatever had gone Altered or an Altered had killed his fat ass and took his place. Either way, we all were caught off guard when they hit the Chinese first. I mean, who the hell is fucking crazy-suicidal enough to start a land war against China?"

She let out a hoarse, bitter laugh.

"Shit, I was still a dumb-shit then and even I figured that, no matter the crazy Altered shit they threw around, the Chinese would just drown them in bodies if nothing else. But then they started using Altered shit on the bodies, and the bodies started getting back up and fighting for the wrong fucking side. It got bad then. Really fucking bad. Bad enough that the Russians jumped in, and we didn't think they gave a shit about anyone at the time. Maybe if they'd done that from the start..."

She shuddered.

"The Russians were the ones to name the Shagohods. Walkers, but that name ain't nearly so fucking scary. Fuck-off enormous war machines made of metal, circuits and human meat, like a skyscraper growing arms and legs and using the people stuck inside as spare parts and covered with enough big fucking guns to literally stomp a third world country all by itself. Shit, that actually literally happened in Beijing now that I think about it. Crimes against humanity don't begin to describe it. Once the first Shagohods started, that's when the entire world knew that shit had suddenly gone super fucked. Just three of the damn things marched right through the DMZ and took out South Korea in a single night. Three."

"People used to talk shit about the Premier of China back then. But fuck, no one said not one damn thing about him at the end, when he ordered a fucking nuclear strike on his own country and glassed everything east of the Nen River. And I mean fucking everything. It was the only way to give the civilians on the western side time to bug the fuck out while reinforcements dug in.

"The next thing we knew, Altered all over the world just went insane, at the worst possible time, and just killed and killed and killed until they were gunned down. When their bodies got back up we had to kill them again and started burning the bodies. But that distraction gave the Enemy time to tighten their grip and swing the momentum back. They nuked New York twice. St. Petersburg. London. Okinawa. DC. Toronto. Hammered Mexico like a fucking drum because they weren't able to swat so many nukes out of the air in time. Lots of other places too got glassed.

"What was left of Europe banded together to back the Russians and what was left of the Chinese. They had to, it was survival at that point. What was left of Canada, the United States and Mexico, well shit, there were so many refugees everywhere and by then we were acting like one big country finally, but it still took us awhile to pull our heads out and make it fucking official. Shit, even Africa, and I mean the whole fucking continent, got their shit together before we did. How fucking embarrassing is that?"

She paused, sniffled, and Gallant belatedly realized that she'd been crying the entire time.

"Everyone started making the nastiest shit they could. Earth was already most of the way fucked to hell in a handbasket at that point, and I guess we all just figured 'what the hell' after ten straight years of nuclear winter. Bio-warfare didn't do shit so we turned to nukes. Really nasty ones. Had to, when Shagohods started coming out of the fucking ocean and launching surprise attacks on the coast.

"We lost more cities. Brockton Bay was one of them. They were… just collecting people. For spare parts. So we dropped a Stone Burner." A humorless laugh burst from her lips.

"Dunno if you have those here. Basically, we figured out how to make a nuclear shaped charge of some super nasty Russian nuke, sort of. Couldn't get it to work in the new rail launchers, it was too finicky. So we went old school and used missiles and bombs. We used the first one on Brockton Bay. Punched right down into the aquifer before it blew, and turned the entire basin into one big fucking steam explosion. What was left just sank under the water. Wasn't much. We lowered the yields after that, but the damage was done.

"Didn't see daylight again after that blast for … fuck, that was fifteen years ago maybe. So.. Not until now. I'd kinda forgotten how pretty sunsets were."

For the first time in his life, Gallant wished he had never drank that Cauldron vial.


Barnes Air National Guard Base

9:00 PM EST

It had taken considerable effort to sedate Nataliya Sokolova. No needle could break the material that her skin had become, not to mention that when she and Taylor Hebert had been brought back to base, she had been attached to the other girl's side like a limpet and just shy of completely catatonic. The on-call physician at the base's military treatment facility had been seriously considering trying to put a hypodermic needle into the corner of the girl's eye when someone wondered if gas might work.

She'd become heavy enough that it had taken five people to carry her to another bed, letting Hebert finally get rushed into surgery. Or maintenance. Hatheway wasn't entirely sure which it was anymore at this point, where the girl was concerned. She had multiple shrapnel injuries, the jagged hunk of debris in her right forearm being the worst of it. But underneath the skin and blood and muscle tissue was metal and wires and machinery, and no one knew if she'd always been that way since her Trigger, if she hadn't changed back to completely human before losing consciousness on the way back to base, or if it was something new.

He had to admit that seeing a maintenance chief in surgical scrubs helping to pull shards of metal out of the girl when surgical tools weren't enough to do the job was a novel experience, but he'd be happy to never see such a sight again. His own nightmares were plenty enough.

"How are our kids, Captain Hatheway?" It wasn't easy to sneak up on him. But then again, he was distracted at the moment. He grimaced anyways, because another time, that wouldn't have been an acceptable excuse, not even in the privacy of his own head. He started to turn and salute, but his hand hadn't even completely risen before General Harper irritably waved him down.

"Sokolova's been heavily sedated, as best as they can manage. She's still... Whatever she is now, and some nurses managed to get her into a gown until we can get her into clothes that'll fit her properly or somehow get her to change back." Left unsaid of course was whether or not the girl would even be able to change back. Not all monstrous Parahumans were Case 53s.

"Cadet Conner's scheduled for surgery tomorrow, but for now he's stable. Miyares just came out of the OR a couple hours ago. The docs think they might've gotten to him in time to save his left lung. As for Hebert," Hatheway trailed off, and jerked his head towards the OR window that he'd been watching through. "They're still patching her up. Well, trying to. As it turns out, when she goes part plane her insides change just enough to make figuring out things like internal bleeding while pulling shrapnel out of her parts a major hassle. But that's not the worst of it."

Harper stared incredulously up at him, then quietly scoffed. "She was just forced to kill four people. I'm not sure I want to know… but I already know that I need to. What's the worst of it, Captain?"

She watched as he grimly turned his attention back to the window and pointed. At first, Harper couldn't understand just what she was looking at. What she was watching. Why the small shrapnel wound in Hebert's left side was being held open by clamps, and why-.

Her blood ran cold as she watched the surgeons very carefully extract something with flexible surgical probes that looked like a doll, no bigger than her finger.

It grew into an emaciated, almost skeletal corpse clad in the shredded remnants of a flight suit, just in time for them to ease it into a nearby body bag.

There were already two more occupied bags in the OR.


"Chief-Director, it's Emily. We had an incident with Hess."

"What is so important that it couldn't wait?"

"Trust me, you'll want to know about this, ASAP. It's potentially far more serious than the current issue with the Elite. I'm sending you both a recording and a transcript of an interview. I… This is big. Haywire big."

"… Send it."

"It's done."

They hung up, and Rebecca Costa-Brown immediately turned her attention towards the transcript and the recording that accompanied it. She listened. She read. Then she stood up.

"Door me."