AN: I'm not dead, and this fic will not be abandoned, but be prepared for long times to go between chapters that do not seem to warrant it.
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I hesitantly stepped out from my room.
The hallway was bright, with a lot of natural light coming in from a window at the end of it. This highlighted the blandness of the walls, the off-grey coloring that I suspected permeated the entire building.
I turned towards the main area, my ears picking up the sounds of a spoon clinking, of a cup being filled. The turn in the hallway meant they couldn't see me, though they likely heard the door opening.
No turning back now.
There were cracks in my arms as I walked. I should have taken my jacket back on, I thought, but then I realized it would only have made me look weirder; normal people don't wear coats indoors. (But normal people are also powerless, and fragile.)
I reached the main area way before I was ready to enter it; but there was no door for me to stop in front of, so I stepped in.
Immediately I could feel a person's gaze on me. My head swiveled towards them, finding a dark-haired asian girl, clad in a red hoodie along with black jeans, with a cup of tea in her hands. Based on her height and hair, I recognized her as Untraceable.
From my new viewpoint, I also saw the other Ward, Mirage, who was with their back to me, sitting on the couch, with only their mop of messy brown hair being visible.
Untraceable appeared as uncomfortable as I did, but thankfully Mirage wasn't. He jumped up from the couch, letting me see that he was shorter than me, a boy with light brown skin and dark brown hair.
"Hey! Dreadnought, right? Nice to meet you, I'm Mirage. Elliott outside of costume!" he stuck his hand out, and I only needed a couple seconds to realize he wanted to shake my hand.
Then I gripped it in an instant, but I wasn't sure how hard I should grip, nor how long, nor how much I should move it or in what pattern.
(I'm pretty sure I gripped too hard, but he didn't wince. So I was left unsure.)
"I'm Untraceable," spoke up the other Ward, already next to us. "Fumiko out of costume."
"It's nice to meet you." I parroted Elliott's earlier words, for lack of anything better to say. I didn't know if I should continue, and if yes, then how.
Thankfully Elliott didn't give me enough time to make a fool of myself.
"We were just about to have breakfast; I'm sure you're hungry too."
Despite not being sure sure how close the resemblance between my hunger and human hunger was, I nodded.
"Great! Fair warning though, the selection's pretty limited." And with that declaration, Elliott turned around in sync with Fumiko, both of them moving for the kitchenette.
She only stopped there for a moment, taking a bowl in her hands I failed to notice before; it was steaming, full of oatmeal? porridge?, and she sat down with it at the large table on the other side of the room, with her back to the wall.
Meanwhile Elliott started opening the cabinet doors, revealing boxes of brightly colored cereal boxes and less brightly colored - boring textureless grey - bowls.
"Let's see . . . We've got Hero-Oh's, there's actually a funny story about these, Myrddin's Magic Hoops, Crunchy Capers, Cinereal's Ashes, Chevalier's Mixed Fruity." Only at the sight of my blank face did he realize that those words meant nothing to me. "Hero-Oh's will be fine, I think. Just don't get your expectations up."
He took out two bowls and filled them both, then gave one of them two me, along with a spoon.
We took our seats then, Elliott sitting with his back to the window, which left me the seat right in front of him, with the sunlight directly shining into my eyes.
"How have you slept?" asked Elliott between two spoons of cereal.
"I didn't." His eyes betrayed nothing, but I could see Untraceable's surprise, her eyes flicking towards me, obscured by her dark curls.
It felt like the entire world just stopped, a single frame rendered again and again unto infinity: Elliott's unmoving face, Untraceable's spoon halfway between the bowl and her mouth.
(It was a short infinity.)
"Damn!" smiled Elliott. "Lucky you. I wish I didn't need to sleep."
I didn't know how to reply to that, so I was left scrambling to find something to continue the conversation with.
"You mentioned a story about the cereal?" I managed, after a couple seconds of awkwardness.
"Oh yeah. So, the Big Three used to be the Big Four: there was this Hero guy who wasthetinker. Anyways, towards end of the nineties, the marketing machine was starting to really kick-off, and one of their most successful experiments was a Hero themed cereal. Seeing how well it did, they ordered a stupid amount of them, but before they could release it, Hero died!"
This was the part where he laughed, and I chuckled awkwardly along with it. Fumiko's only reaction was a frown.
"Anyways, they were left with warehouses of the stuff that the public wouldn't even touch. So they instead sent them out for individual departments so they could add it to the menu; but since the troopers don't care about sugary cereal, most of it was left for the Wards. And that's how even ten years later, you can find a good couple boxes at any department."
Only then did I realize that I hadn't even touched my cereal yet, my attention having entirely been on Elliott. So I took a spoonful from the bowl, and put it in my mouth without thinking.
It was awful. An overpowering cloying taste that made the milk taste like water.
"This is inedible." I said, the half-chewed pieces flowing out from my mouth, back into the bowl, creating an even more disgusting mix than the original.
"Sorry? I grew up with stuff, so I developed somewhat a taste for it."
Glancing around, still trying to forget the taste of that abomination, I caught sight of Fumiko's bowl. "And the porridge?" It couldn't have been worse than this.
"Well, if you prefer cardboard, you're welcome to try it." Fumiko didn't interject, but her eyes narrowed, her gaze like steel.
"It's not that bad," she muttered.
"Is there any good food in this building?" I asked with a bite in my voice. I expected better from the Protectorate. Better food, better beds, better answers.
"Well, the PRT cafeteria is open all day, but we aren't supposed to go there."
"Is the food any better?" I pressed on.
"Depends on a lot of factors. Time of day, how well the last deployment went, how the cook's feeling that day . . . "
"What he's struggling to say is that it is better," interrupted Fumiko. "But they asked us to meet you here in the morning, so we were left with this. After you talk with the Deputy Director, we can go the cafeteria and get something more flavorful."
Elliott's face was frozen in surprise, and it looked like a video that couldn't catch up to himself; from one moment to the next, without movement, his head changed position, looking at Fumiko just like I did. His eyes were slightly narrowed.
Still hungry, I decided to just, get on with it.
"Can we just go to him now?"
"Sure." said Elliott, already standing up from his seat, with an easy smile on his face, and I realized his bowl was empty. Fumiko's porridge was similarly almost done; only my own bowl was still full.
Elliott was already at the door when he abruptly turned towards me.
"A bit of heads-up: we need to wear basic masks inside the building, in case we run into some random janitor or accountant or something," as he said this, he took out a black and yellow domino mask from a small cabinet that was nestled inconspicuously amongst the clothes' rack next to the door.
I peered in, but it was small, dark and cramped; so I just pushed my hand in and grabbed, and decided that I just wanted to get it over with and it didn't matter what I wore.
The mask I ended up with wasn't that bad. It was a light blue domino mask, that fit onto my face snugly.
Fumiko took out a dark red mask that resembled her costume's, and we were out, down a stairwell, then going through a hallway with grey walls and bright lights. There were many doors on either side of the hallway, but their windows were blurred, though I could hear faint sounds of talking coming from behind a couple of them.
A couple times another person got out into the hallway, and in each case Elliott greeted them with a cheerful smile and a high-five or a handshake. (Not one met my eyes.) The hallway arced a couple times, and my internal map of the building was growing messier each time it happened.
After another couple minutes we reached another flight of stairs, this one with a couple bored troopers standing next to it, but they didn't pay us any attention. (My arm was already cracked, ready to meet any question with a blade.)
The building made me uneasy. There was a completely irrational fear in me that someone would call me an impostor, or that another cape would turn up, a containment specialist they bought in just to get me locked up and taken away.
I didn't like that thought.
"Right. We're here." said Elliott, stopping in front of a door that was more classy than the ones on the previous floor. It contained a plaque, on which this was written: "Deputy Director Lawrence Marsh".
He knocked on the door once, and even before the shout of 'Come in!' came, he was already opening it.
The office wasn't spacious. The only reason it wasn't cramped was because it lacked any significant furnishing aside from the deputy's desk and chair, along with a couple cabinets that were barely visible; both because of the desk covering them, and because of the frosted windows in the back of the office that let too much light in.
The deputy was similarly obscured by the early morning light, hunched over some papers, his eyes half-lidded with bags under them. He looked up at our entrance and made an attempt at a welcoming smile.
"Dreadnought! A pleasure to meet you!"
"Hello," I replied, unsure, again of the level of formality expected.
His next words were interrupted by a yawn.
"Please do forgive me; I haven't slept a wink since word came in of your arrival." I shrugged. Yawning didn't seem like an insult. "Hopefully all that effort means that this paperwork right here is free of errors." There was a large stack of papers next to him, and he quickly gathered them, discarding some, before he put them in front of me.
"This should care of your situation." The stack of papers was intimidating. Even, nay, especially since I suspected that most of it was bland lawyer-speak that meant nothing, hiding the important stuff that even in isolation I would be hard-pressed to recognize. "It's usually good practice to read a contract before you sign it, but I can assure you that you don't have anything to be afraid of in it. It's mostly about the PRT becoming your legal guardians, the issue of your legal identity, and a ton of copies of documents to special rights and exceptions that are made due to your Case 53 status. It also contains all of the paperwork of a general Ward contract, along with, again, some extra stuff due to your situation. I can assure you that hundreds have signed similar contracts, and almost all of them have been satisfied with the results: quality costumes and training along with the security and stability that comes with being part of the largest hero organization in the world."
He spoke fast. His words left no time for thought, just acceptance. I didn't like him much. But the point about stability was exactly-
"Oh, but give me a moment. In my haste I may have forgotten about a small but important detail." Lightning-fast, his fingers slid across the keyboard, typing with a dizzying intensity. After a moment, his fingers relaxed. "Seems like it's a non-issue; one of my assistants must have checked, then forgot to notify me."
I looked back at the paper, an incoherent, paranoid voice in my head screaming at me not to sign, a voice smothered by the promise of security. Succeeding alone out there was only possible on a path paved with blood, and paying the price of the Protectorate was easier than watching my back forever.
"Where do I sign?" I asked, trying not to let too much of my inner conflict show.
"On the first page, and then there also a couple pages that I've marked with yellow . . ."
It took a good couple minutes for me to sign everything, with the deputy constantly elaborating on the parts that came to the forefront. When I signed on the last sheet, he let me go with a word of 'I'm going to get some sleep now; Don't forget about the costume design appointment in the afternoon!' because apparently they need to get me out there as fast as possible, and the first step for that is getting a costume.
Stepping out of the room, once again in the company of Elliott and Fumiko, I felt satisfied. Things had been set in motion, and the future was looking bright for me.
"Hey?" asked Elliott, interrupting my train of thought, "You wanna know what he forgot to look up?" he wasn't whispering, but his tone would have been fit for it; smug, conspiratorial.
"Sure." I replied in kind.
"Whether the name was free. Fortunately for you, the last Dreadnought died back when Leviathan attacked in August."
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AN: I sincerely hope I'll be able to maintain a better pace working on the next chapter. (An actually realistic goal that I may even complete is getting it out before the end of the year. Let's see if I'll succeed.)