Nathan looked at the woman who sat at the only table in the room. Made of dull metal, someone could have told him it had been there for decades and he would have believed them. She looked exhausted, deep bags under her slightly unfocused eyes. Her black hair, unlike in all the reference photos he'd seen where it was neatly combed and straight, hung around her head in curls not unlike a bird's nest over and around her slightly darker skin. Standard PRT accommodation provided a fully furnished apartment-like series of rooms, for situations exactly like this. Newly Triggered Capes tended to be… mentally unbalanced and for everyone's safety they were often offered to stay in a preprepared space, one that Delilah had accepted readily. Or as readily as one could in her condition.
The apartment-like section of the PRT building included a shower, but it didn't look like Delilah had used it, or like she had moved much at all since she'd got here. Security footage showed that she hadn't even opened the cupboards to change into the clothes they had moved from her house, or done much other than stare at anything but the power that followed her around.
It fuzzed at the edge of his perception, a blurry mass of black fog shot through with blue that flowed in erratic patterns even as it stood still. Under the brightness of the light embedded into the ceiling, there was no way to mistake the shape for a normal human. Shapeless swirls of it wafted away and into nothingness, dissipating as soon as it got more than a few inches from the figure's 'skin'. A projection, it floated an inch off the ground like a ghost. The images that he always saw around Capes flowed in a chain of refracted light through which he could see flashes of a happy child and a happier woman that grew darker the closer the chain got to her shadow, the face changing into flashes of a pale, bloodless father and son on cold morgue tables and a face that looked so like her adopted son's but not.
"Missus Graves," he said, sliding effortlessly into the Chevalier persona while moving into the chair across from her in much the same way, "how are you holding up?"
He tried not to feel like it was a massive understatement, or that he wasn't putting his foot in his mouth. That was the main difficulty with being a public figure, one that was expected to be part of the backbone of society and talk and reassure people; the trick, he'd discovered, was to just keep talking and act like you knew what you were doing.
Her head turned towards him like a puppet with its strings pulled taut and he fought back a wince. Even if she couldn't see his face behind his helmet, it was surprising how much body language still leaked through in a full set of armour.
"How am I holding up?" She asked disbelievingly. The whites of her eyes were wide and tinged red from nights full of tears, standing out even more above the bags under them, "I-"
Cutting herself off with a violent shake of her head, she turned away, crossing one leg over the other and wrapping an arm around her stomach as if hugging herself. Her eyes trailed back to her projection, it shifted and solidified once it was back in her vision into a shorter form, the head solidifying into a blank face that he'd seen enough times to recognize easily.
"Sorry, it was a stupid question. Normally you'd have a specialist in here talking to you, instead of me." Chevalier gestured to himself with a careless wave in an attempt to bring her attention back to himself. It didn't work. "But I'm told you've had enough of therapists."
She snorted, the sound devoid of anything resembling humour.
"You get tired of having people tell you what you want to hear all the time, treating you like you're made of glass…" Delilah trailed off, staring deep into her new shadow and seeing something that even his eyes couldn't see.
"They just want to help. And it's not safe out there right now."
That she needed help went unsaid, that they all did, even more so. Near every Cape was buried so deep in trauma that they couldn't see it either, and only he could see the horrible things that latched on to them. That latched on to him too.
Part of him wished that he was born a decade or two later, he could have used the therapy that Delilah scorned now. But the rest of him knew himself enough to say that he would have acted much the same, broken into so many pieces he couldn't see enough of how he'd fractured to know that he needed fixing.
"If they wanted to help they'd let me out of here," she muttered, only slightly petulantly, before doubling back, "all they do is tell me how 'dangerous' it is out there, that it's 'not safe'." Slowly, the shadow-like projection drifted towards her, maybe sensing her agitation. Its legs moved like it was walking, but it slid over the ground during and between steps like it was flowing over ice. Delilah flinched away and it stopped, "How am I meant to know it's not safe when nobody will tell me what's going on? You don't even let me watch the news."
Chevalier tried not to shift uncomfortably in his seat as the topic wound its way to his purpose here, both here in Brockton Bay and here in the room with her.
"That's actually why I'm here."
Her attention snapped back to him like an elastic band, and Nathan tried to ignore how her power slowly floated away into the periphery of his vision.
"The situation has," he paused for a second, searching for the right word, "escalated since you came in."
"You mean he's done something," certainty rang through her voice, he tried not to wince at the near—lifeless tone. Her body was tense, as if ready to run away
Lying was something he tried to avoid in general and one look into Delilah's almost haunted—looking eyes was enough to further convince him not to. Once she was released, either by joining the Protectorate or proving that she wasn't a danger to herself, she would be able to see herself anyway. Better that she hear it now, in a safe place where she couldn't do anything rash even if she wanted to.
"He killed Hookwolf." He ripped the band-aid off quickly, or the first of them at least. When the woman across from him didn't react at all, staring through him like he wasn't there and she hadn't heard the words, Nathan continued slowly, "After he came to you. Hookwolf runs, ran, dogfighting rings throughout the city for the Empire. Ashton crashed them, found him and… well."
Delilah was still, not even breathing for a second that stretched into two, and then five. Long enough for him to worry that she'd reacted worse than the therapist, he couldn't remember her name, had told him she would. But just as he was about to say something, she let out a deep breath and sagged back into her seat. A balloon of tightly wound emotion punctured with a great hole.
"He," she choked on something, be it words or emotion he didn't know, "he asked about who killed David and Michael before, before he left. I told him it was Hookwolf, but I didn't think he'd go after him."
Each word sounded like it hurt her to remember and came out only slightly above a whisper. Her gaze didn't move, but her focus drifted further away. What kind of child could do this to their mother?
"We know, don't worry. I don't think anybody could have seen it coming." Despite the Protectorate having a team that worked damn near around the clock to try, "And if it was 'just' that, then I wouldn't be here. But it wasn't. Delilah, he attacked the PRT Headquarters."
"Oh."
The words didn't seem to register, or maybe she just didn't have any more emotion to give like a towel wrung dry of water.
He let the room sink into an uncomfortable silence, unwilling to push further while the woman was processing everything she'd just been told. Trigger Events were never nice. Even if from the outside some seemed less horrible than others, they were always traumatic and often involved the newly powered parahuman's life turning upside down. To this day, he avoided travelling by car whenever possible and the guilt he felt at piling more onto this woman was something that would no doubt eat at his conscience for the foreseeable future.
"How bad was it?" She eventually asked, her voice still quiet and distant. It didn't sound like she truly wanted to know but felt compelled to ask anyway.
"Bad. He went through damn near the entire team and we're just lucky that Brockton has Panacea. Without her, it would have been a whole lot worse."
Apart from Velocity most of them hadn't been hurt worse than some broken bones, but it would have been enough to keep them out of action for weeks without outside aid. Instead, the situation was merely terrible rather than completely hopeless.
"And that's why you're here then, to make sure things don't get worse?"
There was something off about her tone, but Nathan answered honestly.
"The same as everyone else here, yeah."
"Chevalier. You're one of the big ones in New York, right? Ashton," she cut herself off, but kept going in a torrent of words before he could answer her question, "I was never the one that kept up with all that Cape stuff."
"You're right though. The top brass made the call to bring in some of us from out of town to bring the situation under control."
"And all it took for Brockton to finally get help was him," came Delilah's scathing reply. Her voice wobbled unsteadily like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry and it came out halfway in between instead, "Where were you before? When Michael and David died? When Trisha down the street lost her son? When… if any of you had actually cared-"
He weathered the words like a rock in a storm, one so beaten by the same waves every day that they'd become almost a comfort in their constant nature. No Hero was immune to criticism, and none were perfect, so there was always plenty of it to go around no matter where you were stationed. And Brockton definitely had more grounds to complain than most other places.
It would be a lie to say that Chevalier was a vocal supporter of sending additional Protectorate personnel to the city, in almost every city he had seen the government agency was already struggling against the tide of criminals and independents, so the idea of sacrificing members elsewhere had always seemed far fetched. But having seen the state of the area the locals called the 'Docks', he couldn't help but wonder if someone couldn't have been spared.
Delilah took one heaving breath, and then another, while Nathan's eyes cautiously slid to her projection. It was hard to tell, but it looked as if the smoke that made up its body flowed in faster torrents now, at the moment of its master's emotional distress. The eyes, pools of shifting midnight blue, watched him now instead as the figure swayed in an imaginary breeze.
"Sorry," she eventually apologized, voice showing genuine remorse as the anger leaked out of her in a long exhalation of breath, "that's not fair to you."
In response, he raised his hands out and splayed his fingers wide in front of him, palms facing towards her.
"No, it's okay. In all honesty, I prefer this rather than tiptoeing around things. It's refreshing. I won't try to deny that the situation in the city has spiralled out of control, or that some things couldn't have been done better, only that we're here now to make it better," he stopped briefly, looking at the worn down woman who'd lost her family twice, "and that I'm sorry it took so long."
She blinked at him. Once, twice, before she let out a startled laugh that she cut off with her hand over her mouth.
"You actually mean that too," she said disbelievingly, "did you know that Armsmaster was in here earlier 'asking questions' about my son?"
Her voice trembled again at the mention of Ashton, but she pushed through. Unfortunately, Nathan had known. He'd made sure to check the logs and the recordings before going in to try and avoid any misunderstandings or upsetting the woman any more than he had to. While Armsmaster hadn't been insulting, or cruel in any manner, his direct manners had clearly grated on Delilah enough that their conversation had looked to the outside eye more like an interrogation. Colin meant well, he always did, but he had taken his team's loss to Tyrant poorly, and his own personal defeat to him even worse. Many found his old friend grating on his best days, but on his worst? Nathan had been there for a lot of them and knew just how the man could get. Time may have tempered it somewhat, but Armsmaster had always been… intense.
"I do, and I should apologize about that too." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. The movement should have been awkward in his armour but he was well used to the unnatural lightness of it and the sharp edges. "Armsmaster is a good man, but he's trying to deal with the blame for everything that's happened in the city ending up at his feet, even if he's the only one putting it there and he's determined to get rid of it."
Nodding along as if she was agreeing with what he had said, Delilah raised a delicate eyebrow, the expression seeming forced somehow.
"He's an asshole."
Holding back the snort that threatened to burst out at her deadpanned declaration, he tilted his head from side to side slightly in a 'so-so' gesture. The description wasn't a new one, both online and from local staff, but few people saw Colin Wallis as he did. Few people could.
"He's focused," he rephrased, not directly disagreeing with her statement, "and everyone is feeling the pressure right now. I'm not going to say he's normally a people person, but he wasn't at his best so I'd ask that you cut him some slack." He held up a hand to forestall a comment that he saw she was going to make. "Not that it excuses anything, only that I know he'll wake up tomorrow and regret how he handled himself."
She looked like she had more to say, but just looked away and sighed tiredly again instead of pushing.
"I'm not normally like this," she apologized again in tone rather than words, before her attention was pulled as if by magnets towards her shadow, "so angry. Or tired. I don't even feel like myself anymore."
In their conversation so far, the woman had never looked so small and fragile, her shoulders hunched away from the projection that ever watched her with a painfully neutral expression. If it was possible, she looked like she'd both aged decades in the time since her son first went missing, but also like she was a child, lost and without any idea what to do. Maybe he was reading into it too much, but he couldn't help but be reminded of himself when he'd first triggered. Alexandria and Legend had taken a risk on him then, given him a chance, and one of the few positives he truly enjoyed of his job was passing that chance forward.
"I understand, hell any parahuman will understand. You won't find a single one of us that wasn't… emotionally unstable for a while after getting our powers. Trigger Events aren't something any of us like to talk about when we don't have to, they're private and, more importantly, traumatic. There's nothing to be ashamed of in being affected by it. It took Alexandria taking me to task to set me straight."
Omitted was the fact that the path the famous Triumvirate Hero had stopped him from walking down was less one of introspective turmoil and more one covered in the blood of the Snatchers. Some things were best left in the past, and he doubted that hearing his story of revenge would help.
"And now you're meant to be my Alexandria?" She asked wryly, eyeing his deliberately over—the—top armour, "I don't get one of the Triumvirate? Legend too busy shooting a commercial?"
Humour was a good sign, he noted in relief, allowing himself to relax slightly now that she'd been drawn out from her shell. Though he didn't doubt that it was only temporary, he knew from experience how that first step was the most important, and then always the next.
Memories of better, or maybe just simpler times flashed behind his eyes. Before glimmers had become shadows, before duty and death had taken fledgling friendships and potential for more and extinguished them. How many of that first Ward's team was left? Just himself, Hannah and Mouse Protector?
"Unfortunately Los Angeles couldn't spare her so you'll have to make do with me," he responded dryly, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the slightly more relaxed atmosphere of the room.
Of course, all it took was the shadow shifting towards the table like it was attracted to the non—depressive feelings, to snap the atmosphere back into a tense one. The bond between the two of them twisted, a double helix with memories in the middle. A laughing boy, one with dark brown hair, the other with black, the images flowed from the shadow to its master.
"And Alexandria recruited you? Is that what you're here for? To get me to fight against my own," she sucked on this inside of her lower lip, the word choking in her throat, "against him? If everything you've told me is true then I don't see what I could do against him."
"Recruitment is always the main goal we aim for with every parahuman," he shrugged, tacitly agreeing as metal plates clinked against each other, "they can do a lot better with us than they can by themselves. You can too."
"I lost the figure to pull off the spandex a decade ago," she dismissed the idea as a joke, but he'd monitored or managed enough recruitments to see the unease hidden beneath the attempt at humour, "and don't think I didn't notice you not answering me about what you want me to be doing here."
Nathan stared at her for a moment, really looked at her. He'd read her file enough times in the last couple of days that the words were burnt into the back of his eyelids, but reading was one thing and meeting was the other. Born in Brockton Bay, Delilah had only left for brief holidays, she'd never lived anywhere other than the area of the city that the locals referred to as 'the Docks'. An area that didn't receive the funding that the downtown areas did, or any funding at all in most places and the local Protectorate Heroes didn't patrol as regularly.
It was an impossible choice, he knew. They didn't have the manpower to enforce control over the entire city, so was it better to focus on one area, the most economically important one and have 'good' results, or to spread their attention and see their effectiveness drip away? Director Piggot had made her choice, and Nathan didn't envy her for it.
But it left people like Delilah feeling abandoned by the Protectorate, a government organization that was sworn to protect and serve them. The same government that didn't fix their roads or keep their streets safe from non-parahuman crimes. When meeting newly Triggered parahumans in New York there was almost always some form of hero worship in their eyes, a respect and admiration like they'd seen something out of an old comic book come to life. There was none of that in hers, just a bone deep weariness. Of the system, of the situation, he didn't know of what; but she was tired, and also clearly seeing that he had an ulterior motive in coming.
He leant forward, resting his elbows on his greaves just above the knees and clasping his hands together. Sensing his seriousness, Delilah leaned in too, her focus entirely on him.
"You're not wrong," he admitted, slowly, "the PRT are scared, Delilah. Ashton's rate of escalation is so far off the standard curve it might as well not be on the graph at all, and nothing we've done so far has phased him. The only thing, the only thing, that he's reacted to at all is you."
She laughed a bitter, sad laugh.
"I can promise you that if he has a weakness it isn't me." She shivered at the memory of something, no doubt her one encounter with her adopted son since he'd triggered, the one that she had already given countless reports about. "He looked at me like a stranger, Chevalier."
Sound muted slightly by his armour, he hummed thoughtfully.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that."
Instead of looking happy, or hopeful, Delilah's gaze grew darker and angry.
"Don't give me that. I don't want your pity or your false hope."
"And what do you want, Delilah?" He asked carefully.
"I want my son back."
It was the straw that broke the camel's back, as tears welled at the edges of her eyes faster than she could angrily rub them away. The bond between Delilah and her shadow swelled in size, memories blazing past faster than he could make out. With each one, the projection grew more solid, its form that had hazed at the edges before now floated solid and real. Instead of staring at a body that could only be questionably identified as one Ashton Graves, there was no doubt about it now. Like he'd stepped out of one of the ID photos that his adopted mother had provided them, only with no colours other than black and slashes of dark blue. It didn't move though, or react at all other than to stare blankly at its Master.
Nathan waited until the crying petered out, again resisting the urge to reach across and comfort the woman and chose instead to give her space. He leant back in his chair and forced himself into a relaxed and open position, all tricks that his work had taught him when dealing with an emotional victim.
Eventually, her quiet sobs lessened into gentle sniffles before ending in her staring down at her hands. He'd almost call her catatonic if she didn't twitch every time she saw her projection, now flowing and smoking again, move in the periphery of her vision.
"I don't want to give you 'false hope'," he continued quietly, thinking back to how blunt Alexandria had been with him about his options. False hope was a dangerous thing. People could convince themselves of just about anything with only the slightest piece of evidence. But there was evidence, and Chevalier had always had a soft spot for broken families. "But his conversation with you was the only normal interaction that we know he's had since he Triggered."
"You mean 'normal' until he went out and murdered that bastard right afterwards. 'Normal' like he didn't come to taunt me with what he's done to my son. 'Normal' like he didn't leave me!"
Every sentence was louder than the last, and with every word she rose higher out of her chair until she was standing with her fingertips pressing so hard into the metal table they were completely white. The only noise in the room was the heaving of her breaths as she glared down at him, gaze slightly manic and unfocused.
Nathan carefully ignored how her once again solid projection edged closer, instead making himself remain relaxed and composed. Delilah might have said that she wouldn't be of much use in a fight, but her shadow hadn't been tested and it was rare to find a parahuman whose powers didn't lend themselves to combat in some way.
"Normal in that he didn't attack you by the end of it," he countered gently, "and the only motive we can connect his murder of Hookwolf with is that in some, misguided, way he did it for you. As you said, he asked about what had happened to Michael and David."
"Or he did it to twist the knife. Besides, all he cares about is this insane 'justice' that he's come up with."
Her voice was bitter and argumentative, though it was hard to tell if she was trying to convince him or herself.
"You watched the video?"
Shaking her head Delilah answered, "No. Armsmaster kept going on about how I don't have the clearance to watch it even though it's about my son, but he at least talked me through it."
Had that been a slip of the tongue, or had she meant it? If it was, had she caught it? The therapists that had reviewed her case so far had commented on how she oscillated between referring to Tyrant as a separate person to Ashton and clinging to him as a son, like a pendulum.
"Then he also told you about how he reacted when Miss Militia brought you up?"
"He said not to get my hopes up, that his read of the situation or his technologies' could've been wrong." She slowly sunk back down into her chair bonelessly, exhausted.
"False hope is a dangerous thing," he repeated his earlier thoughts to her, "Armsmaster is a driven man, and one that avoids the emotional side of things when he can, but please believe me when I tell you that he cares. He thinks of this city and everybody in it as his. What's happening with your son, he sees that as a personal failure, both the other night and the situation in general."
She stayed silent, staring so deeply into his eyes that he half thought she could see his face beneath the mask.
"But I don't think he was wrong. Our Thinkers have been working overtime on trying to work everything out," and a dozen other things at once but there was no need for her to know that, "and while their answers have been frustratingly vague, and often just lead to more questions instead of answers, there is a trend in his actions. Or they think there is. Ashton cares about you. I have to believe that and our Thinkers back that up too. He's a kid who's gone through something horrible and is lashing out at everything he couldn't before he Triggered but he still cares about you, he's just lost."
Nathan had dealt with enough of those kinds of kids, the young adult parahuman demographic was larger than any other. Hell, he'd been one himself not so long ago.
Torn halfway between disbelief and hope against all hope that she could, somehow, some way, get her son back, Delilah looked stricken. Slowly, she shook her head, the motion as much to shake her from her thoughts as to disagree.
"You don't understand. All the therapists and Armsmaster think I'm crazy, I can see it in how they look at me and treat me. Like I'm made of glass or I'm a bomb about to go off. But that, that thing isn't Ashton. That's not my son."
He tried to ignore how the words cut at him, but his own memories of how his parents had reacted at the lengths he'd gone to to chase the Snatchers rose to the surface despite his best efforts. There had been harsh words spoken then, about the methods he'd employed even after his brother had been rescued; as if every other child kidnapped hadn't been somebody's brother, sister, son or daughter. It had taken years for their relationship to patch itself back together and even now it still felt frayed at the edges. Delilah was reeling, lashing out in much the same way the therapists and Thinkers hypothesized that Tyrant himself was, only without the super strength and the escalation.
"Do you really mean that?" He questioned, tone serious enough that it shook her into silence. "We can't be one hundred percent certain of anything until Ashton confirms it himself, and there's no denying he's dangerous. Extremely so. But my gut is telling me that your son is in there and needs help. And I doubt there's anyone out there that can give him it except you. Make no mistake that we'll try, I'll try, as hard as we can to give him it, but if that fails then the bigger guns come in. Legend, probably. Maybe Alexandria, and not for a recruitment pitch. I'm rooting for the kid, but I'm gunning for Tyrant. You're probably the only person he could have in his corner that's fully behind him and he needs it."
He took a deep breath. That had probably been a mistake. If you were to ask the brass he was no doubt going to receive a lashing from then it definitely had been. But it was worth it to see the emotions swirling behind Delilah's eyes like the smoke of her projection.
"I'm sorry," he apologized again, wondering if he meant the words, "I overstepped. It's not my place to tell you how you feel, or how you should feel. Just," there were so many words he could say and none of them felt like they fit. Like a jigsaw piece missing something, "I've seen this kind of situation go bad before. Too many times, honestly. Been in one myself, too. I know it doesn't feel like it can get worse, but it can. We just have to do everything we can to avoid that happening. If there's any doubt in your mind that Ashton is in there, like I believe he is, then we owe it to ourselves and to him to try.
Trying to meet her eyes through the visor of his helmet, Nathan tried to convey the convoluted mess of emotions he was feeling.
"I-" She stopped, looked into the corner and folded her arms over herself in a half hug over her stomach, "I don't-"
He waited for her to continue, but she sunk back into herself, absorbed in her thoughts instead of finishing whatever she had been going to say. His own words lingered on his mind and his tongue, but he decided to excuse himself before he could make more of a mess of things. Maybe he had gotten through to her, and maybe he was wrong, but he'd consider himself more in the wrong if he didn't at least try.
"It's okay, I've been told that my mouth tends to get ahead of me sometimes. Comes from my days of misspent youth, probably. Just… think about it okay? I'll be in the city for a while longer if you want to talk, and we can always use another Hero to keep the city safe."
The metal chair screeched backwards uncomfortably loudly in the quiet of the room, as he stood and strode away. Floating silently in the corner of the room, the dark shadow watched him go with pitch—black eyes that he tried not to meet but felt burning into his back with each step he took away from its master.
He paused at the door, thinking about saying something more. What would his mother have wanted to hear when he started going out as a Cape? When she'd heard what he'd been doing to the kidnappers that had taken his brother? Worryingly, but unsurprisingly, he didn't know, so instead he pressed the button that released the door and stepped through when it smoothly slid sideways into the wall.
Astrologer was waiting on the other side. She stood, straight-backed and serious-faced around the corner from the doorway, just enough that she wouldn't be visible to Delilah inside but enough to loom disapprovingly at him as soon as he stepped outside. Like himself, she was dressed in full costume. A mix between a dress and a robe, with a mantle dotted with blue constellations joined together by white lines over a black backdrop. The costume itself beneath it was a curtain of shifting white fabric, contrasting with her darker skin, that he knew hid deceptively thick armour plating beneath it.
Unlike Delilah, her shadow wasn't humanoid. Instead, it was something like a cloud, full of flashing lights and blowing in a breeze that only it could feel, a storm cloud mixed with stars brighter than the ones emblazoned across her mantle. It flowed around and through the cloak, wrapping around her almost like an additional layer to her costume that she couldn't see.
"Astrologer!" He greeted happily once the door had closed behind him, ignoring the judging stare she sent his way, "Fancy seeing you here."
"You shouldn't be here."
"That's what they'll say, I'm sure. Here to get a head start on the reprimanding?"
"Director Piggot will have plenty enough words for you I'm sure," When he'd first met Jennifer there'd been a trace of an accent that he hadn't recognized, now in the rare occasions that they met her voice held as clear a New York accent as someone that had lived there their whole lives, "but why must you put more in her mouth, Chevalier?"
In way of an answer, he turned and stared at the door as if he could see the woman still sitting inside.
"Who do you see in there?"
He couldn't see her face, hidden as it was by a mask of the same design as her mantle that conformed over it, it covered everything from the nose and up, but he could hear the elegantly raised eyebrow in her voice.
"An unaffiliated parahuman that we have in for questioning. A target for recruitment. A civilian. A danger? I'm not sure what you expect me to say," her voice was still disapproving, but she indulged him and looked towards the door with a neutral expression.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have made disapproval an art form?" He teased and got an unimpressed huff in return. Nothing was surprising about her answer, it had been what he'd been expecting after all. Astrologer's mind was always set, she never seemed to doubt or question herself, and expected the same of the people around here.
"All those things are true of course. Any untrained parahuman is a danger, often to themselves as much or more than others, and as much as she doesn't seem to think so, I'm sure that projection of hers is useful for more than just floating around looking menacing. But more than any of those things, I see somebody that's lost. She's grieving for a son that's still alive, and doesn't know what to do or what to believe."
"And that's enough to make her special?" The question wasn't aggressive, just curious, "Enough to break regulations and get yourself in trouble again? There are hundreds like her in this city alone, will you do the same for all of them?"
"I'll do what I think is right," he corrected, the path of this familiar argument as well-trodden as ever, "and it's the fact that she isn't 'special' or unique that means I have to help her in whatever way I can, or at least try to. If you have to be special to deserve our help then we've already failed in every way that matters."
Jennifer didn't say anything for a moment, before letting out a quiet sigh.
"You're right in that, at least," she admitted quietly, which was a surprise in itself. His fellow Hero always seemed to enjoy a verbal spar, and never gave up so easily. Or agreed with him at all, really, "Don't mistake my dislike of your methods for a dislike of your reasons. Helping that woman is good, noble even, but without our rules we are hardly better than any other gang, just one with better funding."
He shot her a look.
"Did you pull that one from PHO again?"
She had the decency to at least look slightly embarrassed when she looked away, the mask stretched across her face tightly enough that the slight furrowing of her eyebrows was easily visible.
"I wonder what the brass would think if they knew you got half your lines from an internet message board that spends most of its time making funny captions for unfortunately timed photos."
"I expect they would think far more highly of that than your flagrant disregard for our regulations," she responded archly, but notably didn't deny the jab, "Director Piggot will have many choice words for you, when she finds out."
Nathan turned to her, his own eyebrow raised this time.
"She didn't send you after me?"
"No, one of the Wards wanted to speak with you. Vista, the girl that warps space? And I had some inkling as to where you would be."
Before arriving in Brockton, he'd made sure to go over all the known parahumans in the area and all the local personnel. It was something he tried to keep on top of anyway, but when he'd been ordered here to assist it suddenly became more important. Vista, Missy Biron, was one of the longest-serving Wards in the Protectorate East-North-East office and one that was on record for pushing boundaries almost as often as he had. From the reports, she had the scars to prove it too. Something tugged at him though, so rather than pressing the topic he asked, "And you didn't report it to the Director when you found me here?"
She looked at him with a silent reprimand, eyes serious but not so cold that he thought her actually angry.
"The Director no doubt knows already, I'm sure she's been warned as to your tendencies," the way she said that made it sound like he was some kind of deviant, "if anything I'd say the lack of anyone else coming to stop you says that for whatever reason she wanted you to speak with Delilah."
That brought him up short. His first, second, and third impressions of Director Piggot were not of an empathetic woman who would approve of his only slightly against the rules visit to the newest parahuman in the bay.
"You judge her too harshly," Astrologer rebuked, not entirely inaccurately, after seeing how his face twisted at her words. From the few times he'd had the dubious pleasure of interacting with the Brockton Bay PRT Director before he had known that they didn't gel well together. The woman was much more like Jennifer, really. As rigid and unmovable as a mountain, unless you were someone like Alexandria, then that mountain wasn't going anywhere. Even if, in his own humble opinion, it meant leaving the innocent people they were meant to protect suffering at the base of it.
"I respect her just fine," he said, not disagreeing exactly.
"Just not enough to listen to her."
"Respect isn't enough of a reason to not help. Go in there and ask Delilah how much respect for the rules matters and you'd get a very different answer to what the Director would give you. Whether it's true or not, from her point of view we've already failed her and I've no doubt that many in the city feel the same."
"They sent us here to bring Tyrant in, not fix all their problems for them," she pointed out.
"That's still no reason not to try. Besides, Tyrant is a Mover with a high enough rating that we've got nothing to do but sit around, prepare, and wait for him to come to us. I'd rather do something than sit around twiddling my thumbs."
"We won't be here forever," Jennifer warned, folding her arms and leaning against the wall.
"All the more reason to do everything we can while we are."
"And you think that getting in the Director's bad books will help with that? You want her on your side, not against you. All the best wishes in the world wouldn't mean anything if she ordered you to not do something just because you've annoyed her enough."
They both knew that he wouldn't go against direct orders, or at least not without a very good reason. The fact that he'd gotten away with these small acts backed up the idea that someone higher up likely agreed with him.
"I get enough politics in Philadelphia," he sighed, not looking forward to the pile of paperwork that was no doubt piling up as they spoke. Luckily, one of the upsides of having a second in command who was as much a stickler for the rules as Jennifer was in Rime was that she wouldn't mind doing as much of it as she was cleared to. Hopefully. Or she'd leave as much as she could just to spite him.
Shaking her head wryly, "Honestly, it's a wonder your office is still standing. Poor Rime."
"Poor Rime," he agreed wholeheartedly, knowing that the pity would just irritate the icy woman more.
Taking a deep breath, Nathan allowed the moment of levity to pass and returned to the cold metal walls of the corridor.
"Vista, then," he moved on quickly, starting to walk back towards the elevator. Jennifer fell into step beside him, her cloak shifting silently as she did. Guards were patrolling the floor, both their numbers and their alertness higher than normal, and he made sure to nod at them as he passed. The corridor wasn't wide enough for the two Heroes and a patrol to pass side by side, instead, the PRT units would stand aside. "Did she say what she wanted?"
"No, but knowing that girl I'd suspect it's something to do with wanting to fight Tyrant by herself."
He wanted to laugh, but from his own limited interactions with the local Wards team, he didn't think she was joking. Everybody had been taking the recent turmoil in the city hard, he could see it in how tense the base personnel was and feel it in the apprehension in the air. The PRT base in the city itself was running on a skeleton crew; enough to not give the indication that anything was going on to any passing pedestrians and enough that they could hold out long enough while repair work was going on, but that meant the Protectorate base in the bay was overcrowded and full of men and women rattled by the experience. Each and every one of them was well trained, both mentally and physically so they did a good job of hiding it, but it was as if the base itself was holding its breath waiting for something to happen again.
Ideally, he'd have liked to dismiss their worries, but with the way Tyrant was going it was like he was walking on his toes waiting for something he knew was coming.
"The Youth Guard wouldn't allow it," he pointed out as they rounded a corner, approaching an elevator which slid open readily, allowing another squad of troopers to file out, "more than that, she has to know that we wouldn't allow it either. The Wards aren't meant to be getting involved in Cape fights nearly as much as they have been allowed to here, let alone against A-Listers."
Before he'd gotten here, the amount of action the Wards team in the Brockton office saw was a point of concerning, but academic, interest. Something distant, almost not real. As much as he liked to believe he tried his best to keep up with and care about affairs all around the States, there was just too much to stay on top of. So when he'd gotten here and seen first-hand how desensitized even the youngest of the Wards was to violence it had been a shock to the system even if he'd halfway expected it.
"And Tyrant was already on that list when he took out Hookwolf," his tone said the unspoken fact that he wasn't exactly broken up by the long-time Villain's death, "let alone now. Frankly, Vista will be lucky if they're allowed out on anything but the most basic of patrol routes for the foreseeable future."
The Protectorate had already been focusing their efforts on select parts of the city, namely the downtown areas where the commercial hub of the city and, as the dissenters against the Protectorate were always quick to point out, the richer and more well-funded districts lay. Now, they'd drawn back even further, turtling up and only doing the minimum to present a front of normality. It was only a matter of time until the other villainous elements in the city picked up on the change in attitude, and he knew that it would be shortly followed by the general public as well. The PR hit they would take from it wasn't something that they could afford, both in the city itself and in other areas, so all cards were pushed in behind a rapid response before the information inevitably leaked. A strong action to seize control of the narrative.
Nathan took a deep breath. He didn't feel strong.
The doors closed behind them, the two of them alone in the utilitarian elevator. Unlike the PRT base in town, the Protectorate one in the bay didn't get nearly the amount of civilian traffic, and if there were any they didn't go this deep, so the elevator was left largely unadorned.
"She won't be happy to hear it."
"I know I wouldn't be," he nodded, agreeing, "lord knows if it was me when I was her age I would've tried to sneak out half a dozen times already. But we play the hand we're dealt, and even if I can understand why she won't like it, it doesn't change that there's nothing that can be done about it. If they so much as hear a whisper about sending Wards out there before the situation is under control, the Youth Guard will be on our backs before it could leave the room."
The Youth Guard were a constant source of friction within the PRT, as it always was within a government agency and something putting more red tape in front of them. Ironically, it felt like within the Protectorate most of the hate came from their younger counterparts in the Wards, or maybe that was just his memories colouring his perception.
Now that he was older though, he was glad for them. It was encouraging, inspiring really, to see how enthusiastic young kids like Vista were about making a difference, but it was sadder still to see himself in her.
"Somehow, I don't think that will be enough to convince her. She came to me about it, and I checked the records afterwards, that was only after she'd been putting in requests damn near every other hour to go into the more active zones through all the channels that she's meant to use."
He knew that. He'd been the one that rejected half of them.
"I'll talk to her about it," he acknowledged tiredly.
The girl was dogged in her determination if nothing else, and if she had been old enough to be in the Protectorate in full, then he had no doubt she'd be on his side about at least sending out minimal patrols. Unfortunately, she wasn't, and the final decision lay in the Director's hands.
"You'll talk to all of them about it," Astrologer corrected, "most of them are still on base at the moment, and every one of them has started logging requests themselves."
For a moment, Nathan wondered how he'd gotten into the situation where he was the one discouraging kids from going out and fighting an enemy that they were hopelessly outmatched by. It really was like talking to young versions of himself.
"Yes, fine." He waved her away. Both of them knew he was always going to agree, "Anything else I should know?" He asked as the elevator continued to climb steadily upwards.
Jennifer hummed for a second, considering, "Piggot will want to speak with you after you're done here."
He turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
"I thought you said she hadn't sent you."
"She didn't," the robed Hero confirmed happily, "but I'm going to go make sure she's aware of everything you said. Just to make sure, you know," she stopped just short of a sing-song voice, but it was enough to make it clear how much she was looking forward to the idea of throwing him under the bus.
He just laughed, glad for the excuse to before what he was sure was going to be another draining conversation. With a quiet 'ding!' the doors opened, revealing a corridor that looked exactly the same as the one they'd entered the elevator from; the only difference being the big white characters spelling 'WARDS' stencilled across the doors at the end, their temporary base.
"Of course," his response was drier than a desert in summer.
Laughing quietly with him, or maybe more at him, she pushed him gently out of the doors before throwing him a wave. Wasn't she enjoying this too much?
Nathan didn't wait to see the doors close, instead turning and taking a deep breath, the painted sign staring back at him. Really, Armsmaster should have been the one doing this, or Hannah, or at least someone from the ENE branch, but most of them had only just been pushed out of the hospital, and those that were had to cover the limited patrol routes they were still running.
Footsteps sounding uncomfortably loud against the floor in the silent hallway, he made his way close enough to the door that he could hear the alarm warning the kids inside about their imminent visitor. Unlike the one they'd used in their usual base, here it had been replaced with a much more generic monotone alarm, one that was only vaguely audible through the thick metal doors. Just another thing that was different from normal.
Thirty seconds later, he was greeted by the Wards' common room. Wide open and dominated in the middle by a collection of chairs they'd had to take from other rooms, office chairs rather than couches, pushed together around a collection of tables shoved close enough to be used as one large table between them. The kids had only been here for a couple of days and it was already covered in enough stuff that it looked like it could have been weeks. Maths homework, some pieces of tech that he'd seen Chris fiddling with on more than one occasion, even one of Missy's spare visors was tossed on it.
"Chevalier!" A voice called out, drawing his attention away from the endearing mess. If it was Armsmaster, he'd no doubt scold them for the inefficiency of it, but all he could bring himself to do was smile as he turned to the face of the sheepishly grinning Chris. From the way his eyes flicked to behind him and back he'd no doubt caught where Nathan's eyes had landed, "It's good to see you."
The smile was infectious, and he was glad that the boy was still able to smile like that. It was easy to forget with just how stressful their own lives had gotten recently, but it wasn't only the adult Protectorate members that the last week or so had been hard on.
"Chris. How are you doing?"
For a second his expression dimmed slightly, his eyes slipping away from him and down to his hands, his fingers intertwined and fidgeting with each other like he was putting something together out of thin air. Behind him, the familiar cloudy form of the Tinker's shadow shifted and rotated in a mass of right angles and cubes half hidden behind a wall of fog that floated barely an inch from the main body.
"I've been good," there was a notable pause before the 'good' and Nathan wondered what word he was going to say instead, his gaze drawn from the figure to the boy it was linked to. Chris chewed on his lip, clearly having something else he wanted to say but unsure how to say it, "better than Vista at least."
He'd been expecting it, but he still sucked in a deep breath. Taking a moment to reply, he instead looked out the window that took up an entire side of the room. Outside, through the forcefield that rippled like the water below them, Brockton Bay shimmered like a mirage. From here, one could be forgiven for thinking that nothing was wrong in the city. Well, if you could look past the wrecked ships that dotted the bay, little pieces of rust that breached the water like whales.
"I know, I'm sorry none of us have come by to talk to you all about it yet." Civilian personnel had been sent, but it really should have been one of the Protectorate Capes; as it was he could practically feel the gap between the Wards and their older counterparts growing every day.
Taking a second to look around the room, he couldn't see any sign of the other Wards other than the mess they had left, "Where is everyone?"
"Carlos is in the gym, and dragged Dennis and Connor with him," Chris grimaced, sounding relieved that he'd managed to avoid the same fate, "Lily is settling in well though!"
That was good. The decision to send Flechette as part of the relief effort was a controversial one, not least because of the reputation that Brockton had gotten itself even before everything that went wrong with Tyrant. But ultimately the All-or-Nothing nature of her Striker power and the relative closeness of New York was enough that she'd been sent with the rest of them. Nathan had worried about uprooting the girl, so it was a relief to hear that Chris at least thought she was handling it well.
"And Shadow Stalker? Vista?"
Gallant was with his family; his private life left him with responsibilities that would make travelling to and from the base out in the bay too inconvenient, and his parents had decided that they'd rather keep him close.
"Sophia is off doing her own thing," he said dismissively, unsurprisingly not sounding too upset by her not being there. In just the handful of times he'd met the probationary Ward she hadn't exactly left a stellar impression, the veneer of civility so thin it was a wonder she'd even tried at all, though she'd shown more respect to him than any of the local team. More telling was the lack of action from anyone to correct her, "but Missy hasn't left her room all day…"
He trailed off into an 'I hope you're here to help' kind of uneasy silence that teenagers seemed to default to when they were out of their depth.
"It's okay, I'll go talk to her," he reassured him, a sliver of guilt worming through him at the way his shoulders slumped in relief, "I know you said you were fine, but how are you really? I heard you've been working with Armsmaster in his workshop, how's that going?"
Instead of perking up as he'd expected, Chris hunched in on himself even more like he wanted to disappear.
"It's going well," he answered slowly, the words so painfully obvious a lie that it felt more like he was trying to convince himself more than Nathan, "I'd been trying to get him to let me in for ages, all it took was him not having a choice in the matter."
His voice was bitter, though it seemed like it was pointed more at himself. Unfortunately, it wasn't like he was wrong. The PRT was required to give Tinkers a space to, well, Tinker, and with their usual base temporarily out of order the Protectorate leader had little choice but to share his workspace. Something that was no doubt worsening his friend's already poor mood.
Colin didn't mean anything by it, but that almost made it worse for the people around him; when the going got rough he knuckled down and worked harder. A trait that he admired most of the time. Not when it led to him pushing away his other responsibilities and especially not when those same responsibilities got shunted down to him instead.
"It's not like that," the words tasted false in his mouth, hating how he felt like he had to keep making excuses for his friend, "he's always talked about how excited he is to have another Tinker on the team and I'm sure he's wanted to work with you again for a while. It's just, as the leader of the Protectorate team here he just doesn't have enough time to do everything he wants to, like Tinkering together. Especially recently."
He'd also heard about how the uncertainty about Chris' specialisation was wearing on Armsmaster. Contrary to what many thought, Colin would never purposely bring down one of his co-workers. The man was often blunt, yes, and had never been the most personable, but he wasn't a monster.
"Sure," the Ward's voice was tired and entirely disbelieving, every bit the teen hearing something he didn't want to listen to before he snapped back to attention like he'd just remembered he was talking to a superior, "I mean, yes. Sir."
"It's okay." Nathan held up a placating hand to cut off the flustered Tinker. Racking his brain to think of what another Tinker, and dear mentor, he used to know would have said in a situation like this he continued, "Please, there's no need to be so formal when it's just us here. I promise I won't be reporting back every word you say to the Director. Or to Armsmaster, if that's what you're worried about."
Some of the unease left Chris at that, or Nathan liked to think that it did. It was hard to tell when he would still hardly look at him.
"Look, I'll talk to Armsmaster." Again, "I promise you it isn't anything personal. Take it from someone who's known him for years, it never is with him. In the meantime, could you go and grab the others that are here for me? I'll go and talk with Vista, and then I think it's high time we have a team meeting."
The words seemed to be the right ones, as an uncertain smile came back to Chris' face, the genuine emotion behind it shining through and revealing how forced the first one had been, even if it had been brighter.
"Okay!"
Nathan watched as the young Ward walked off to find the others, his shadow followed behind him in less of a walk and more of a roll, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Times had changed a lot since he had been a Ward himself, but he could remember as if it was yesterday the uncertainty that had come from it, not helped in the least by the fact that at the time they were the very first group of kids brought into an untested and definitely not perfect system.
Logic would say that the system should have improved with time and that the newer generation of Wards shouldn't have to worry. That was the whole point. Providing a safe place for young Capes to contribute to society while also growing into their powers and responsibilities. Looking around the common room devoid of any personality other than the smattering of mess, he couldn't help but think that the system had failed. He knew some would say that it had never succeeded.
Deciding that he'd put the inevitable off for long enough, he turned to the side corridor that housed the Wards' rooms. It led off from the common room at such an angle that anybody leaving their room would be facing straight out across the bay through the window and would be able to see him coming, but he was met only by the artificial lights buzzing above him and his shadow stretching from his feet down to the very end of the corridor.
Each door along both sides was labelled with the name of the Ward it belonged to, but some of them were more personalised. Dennis had covered the first half of his name with a large clock sticker, leaving just the 'blocker' poking out of the side of it, while Missy had placed several posters from her merchandise around her own tag.
It was one of those that he came face to face with. The young Ward's face lit up from below by the forcefield bridge she stood on, the very base they were in now gleamed below its shield in the background. Her name was printed across the top in bold green letters striped with white lines to match her costume. It must have been from when she debuted, or near then, as her face was disturbingly young. The make-up and after-effects team had done as good a job of always at making Missy look more mature than her age but there was only so much they could do.
He couldn't hear anything from inside, but he had no idea whether that was a good thing or not. Before he could second guess himself anymore, he raised his hand and knocked. He winced, the metal of his gauntlets clanged against the metal of the door, the sound was louder than he'd intended.
There was no response from inside the room for several moments, long enough that he started thinking about taking off his gauntlet before trying again. It was only when he moved to undo the clasps that kept it attached that the doors hissed open and he was greeted with the girl he'd just seen on the poster. However, instead of the neat, confident Cape that was depicted there, he found himself chest to face with a mess of tangled blonde hair and green eyes sunken behind dark rings that more shouted than spoke of sleepless nights. She wore an oversized blue shirt that dwarfed her frame by such a degree that it nearly reached her knees, a bobblehead version of herself in Cape get-up saying 'Now That's a Heck of a Vista!'.
Her shadow loomed behind her. Translucent and seemingly only half there, it appeared from nowhere, the upper half of a featureless torso stretching out from thin air, while its distorted head did much the same as it scraped against the ceiling. Long, spindly arms with with too many joints swayed around, as if floating in some gentle breeze, their length covering the entirety of the room and ending in stretched fingers, the smallest of which looked to be as long as his forearm.
She blinked at him slowly, like her mind was lagging behind her tired eyes, he watched as life came back to them, "Chevalier?" Life that seemed to realise the state she was in if the way her eyes widened in a sudden panic was any indication. The door shut in his face a moment later, leaving him staring at the grey metal door with his mouth partially open.
What?
Biting back a laugh, he called out, "Vista? Is now a bad time?"
Inside, he could hear the patter of feet and some choice words that he deliberately closed his ears to.
"Just," was it possible to hear a blush in a voice? "Just give me a second!"
This time he couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up from his throat into a strangled chuckle which hopefully wasn't loud enough that the panicking girl on the other side of the doors could hear. Though the sudden increase in adorably flustered profanity would suggest otherwise.
It didn't take long for her to open up her room again, but luckily he'd managed to stifle his laughter in time. Half her hair looked like it had been hurriedly combed before she'd given up and just tied it back into a short ponytail, while the shirt had been replaced with the top part of her costume minus the panels of armour that would normally be slotted in. The image was contrasted slightly by the loose jogging bottoms and didn't do anything about the dark rings around her eyes, but at least she didn't look completely dead on her feet anymore.
"Hi!" She said with forced cheer, her cheeks still glowed red and her eyes promised violence if he said anything in the same way a baby threatened an adult. The only thing missing from the image was Missy stamping a foot and pouting, but it was still adorable. Not that he'd ever say that out loud where she could hear, "What are you doing here?"
"I came to talk to you, actually," Nathan was careful to keep his voice cheerful while he looked at the room behind her.
The light inside was off, but the light from the corridor was enough for him to see the clothes thrown all over the place, it was almost like a bomb had gone off in the centre of the room, where the epicentre was clean but the outer edges were littered with debris. Posters, ripped at the corners, lay face down around the room, their corners still stuck to the walls by pieces of tape and blue-tac.
The smile slipped from her face like it had never been there, replaced by a deep scowl that only emphasised the exhaustion written in her features.
"What are the others saying about me?" She asked angrily, her eyes glaring a hole into the door behind him. Clockblocker's.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. Some kind of friction within the Wards? Worrying, and something that he'd have to look into.
"Only that they're worried about you. Should they be saying something?"
Missy shook her head hurriedly, the force of which pulled more strands of hair from the ponytail, "No, no." She poked her head out from the doorframe and looked into the empty common room, "But then what are you here for? Not that it's not good to see you but…"
He held up a hand to stop the deluge of words before she could get further off track, "You've been requesting patrol routes into the city again. Routes you know we can't give you." It wasn't a question, and the way her eyes tightened told him everything he needed to know about how this conversation was going to go.
"Oh," a complicated mess of emotions coloured her voice.
"Do you mind if we talk inside?" He asked, and gestured towards the cluttered room behind her. Privacy was hard to come by on the base, and this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have in the common room where the other Wards could walk in at any moment.
She looked behind her, then down at the scattered mess over the floor, then back towards him with her face glowing red again. Her gaze strayed towards the room behind him and the window facing the bay, face twisting while she weighed the idea of being interrupted by the others against letting him into her room while it was in such a state, but her thoughts clearly echoed his own as she stepped aside in resigned silence.
It was times like these that Nathan was glad for the over-the-top armour of his costume. With it, he didn't have to try and stop his own awkwardness from showing on his face. Or the amusement at how Missy tried to surreptitiously kick clothes under her bed as she went.
"You know why the Wards aren't going on those routes," he started, once they were settled in. Well, Missy was settled, perched on the edge of the bed like she was torn between whether to stand or sit. Nathan was left standing, as the one chair in the room was decidedly more child-sized and not something that he wanted to risk withstanding his armour.
"Because of Tyrant," Vista answered despondently, and he had to bite back a sigh.
"Because the city is too dangerous right now," he corrected, gently. Much of the fault for that may lie at the city's newest Cape's feet, but the leeway this city's branch had gotten with sending their Wards into combat engagements was insane.
She looked up at him, her jaw jutted out defiantly, "That's why we should be out there. I," she paused and looked away, "we can help. It's what we've all been training for, it's what we've been doing for years."
"Nobody is doubting your willingness to help," he held up his hand to ward off the argument he saw bubbling from her open mouth, "or your capability to."
"Then let us." It wasn't quite a shout, but it wasn't far off.
"You already are helping. The patrols you're taking send you through central parts of the city, the public see you and the rest of us and they see that everything is okay. A sense of normalcy."
One that everyone on base could feel was one gentle push away from being shattered, be it by Tyrant himself or one of the gangs in response to him.
"But nothing is normal," the blonde girl protested, waving her arms around in a general motion that somehow managed to convey what she was getting at. The Wards on the Protectorate Base, the atmosphere around the place, the new restrictions they were under and even the fact that Chevalier himself was here instead of back in Philadelphia.
Nathan nodded to that, reluctantly, "Which is why it's even more important for you to provide them with some. This city knows you Missy, and seeing you and the others out on patrol keeps them calmer."
"It won't last though," she replied bitterly, looking down and away at something he couldn't see, "PHO had photos up of the holes he blew into the headquarters minutes after it happened, nobody is buying the excuse of a training accident. They're already talking about how much less they're seeing us in the city. It's only a matter of time until they find out what happened."
"And is that any reason to incite panic any earlier? It's better to keep it under wraps for as long as we can, both for their sake and to give us the most time to find him and sort everything out."
"'Sort everything out'?" She parroted back at him disbelievingly, "You think you can talk him out of this? After what he did to…"
Cutting her off, he answered, "We have to try. We're not soldiers, and this isn't a war. Peaceful resolutions have to be our first priority."
"Christ, you want to recruit him," surprise was written across her face in the form of wide eyes and the incredulous look in them. It faded though, melting away into a resigned, cynical look that didn't belong on a child's face. "Of course you do. Who cares what he's done to Miss Militia and the others, or that he's a murderer who's shown no sign of regretting or caring about what he's doing to the city."
This was precisely why he shouldn't have been the one having this conversation. Hannah could have handled it better, or at least someone from the local team. Protectorate policy on recruiting capes was well known, namely that as long as they weren't on a short list for a kill order then they'd be rushed through the door and have a contract put in front of them within minutes if they asked. Such was the struggle that came with being vastly outnumbered by their counterparts on the opposite side of the law.
His colleagues and himself being sent to the city wasn't just to support the local team. Though a Ward herself (admittedly not for much longer), Flechette was there as a heavy hitter to test the durability of Tyrant, or rather to be the final line option. The other reason, one that Missy clearly understood, was to try to convince him into joining the Wards himself, or strong arm him failing that. It wasn't something that the public knew about, a rebrand and a new city took care of that, and Nathan had seen it work enough times that he wasn't going to criticize the system. Brockton Bay's own Assault was one such example and he knew how much good the man had done for the city.
"The Protectorate is always looking for new members," he started, diplomatically, but seeing the scowl deepening on the Ward's face he continued quickly, "and Tyrant is just a boy. A teenager. And a newly Triggered one at that, one that needs the support that we can give him."
Vista looked shocked for a moment and he realised that Tyrant's age wasn't something she had known about, the Brute's appearance was enough to make it hard to believe he was only a few years older than the small blonde girl in front of him.
"And I guess the fact that we'd get a not so mini Alexandria out of it has nothing to do with it."
Spectral arms floated weightlessly down to wrap around the thin girl, each limb so long that they almost wrapped around her twice due to the extra joint.
"It doesn't," he lied, hating how easily the words came, "I'm not going to pretend like he wouldn't be a major addition to whatever city he'd end up in, but we'd do the same for anybody that needed our help like this."
She just snorted derisively and fiddled her fingers, more jamming them together angrily than nervously moving them.
"Vista I understand that nobody wants to go out there and do everything they can for the Bay more than you Wards and the ENE team, but I also know that you're smart enough to know why you can't rush off into this." She looked up at him, only to look away again when she saw him staring down at her, "Not getting sent on those routes isn't us saying that we don't trust you, but that it is necessary that we concentrate our work where we can do the most good."
"Is that what we call abandoning half the city? 'The most good'?"
"We're not abandoning them." Beneath his helmet, Nathan raised an eyebrow. Missy wasn't really arguing anymore, just lashing out in frustration. That was fine. He'd take a teenager's temper tantrum over the girl doing something foolish like trying to find Tyrant herself, "It's been a couple of days, not weeks or months. If Tyrant's pattern holds then he'll move again soon, and it's vital that we're in a position to meet him with as much force as possible when he does."
This time it was Missy's turn to raise an eyebrow.
"I thought you wanted to talk to him?" The way she said the word 'talk' like it burned her tongue made her thoughts on it clear.
"And you think he'll just listen because we ask nicely?" He retorted sarcastically, and he could see the involuntary upward twitch at the corners of her mouth clear as day, no matter that she turned her head away to try and hide it. "I'm optimistic, Missy, not naive."
Maybe fate really hated him, or he just had really horrendous timing, but when she went to open her mouth to reply a dull thoom went off, one that experience told him was an explosion. He could hear it echoing from the corridor, and it was followed by a shrill siren wailing. Moments later, his earpiece crackled to life, his friend's voice tinny.
"There's been an explosion at the Medhall building," Armsmaster said, even more all business than normal, "top floor. We're requesting information but…"
"You think it's him?" Nathan asked as the Protectorate leader trailed off.
"We would've seen if it was Lung or Purity and there are no other flight capable Capes on record. No gunshots were fired, no rockets, who else could it be?" His voice was full of grim determination and he didn't have to wonder what his old friend was thinking about.
"But why? What possible reason would he have for going after Medhall of all places?"
"Unknown," the answer was succinct, and so very Armsmaster. "My algorithms predicted he'd pursue the Merchants next, with the next highest possibility being the ABB. This, whatever this is, is completely outside of my model for his character."
"Keep me posted, I'm on the way," Nathan falling away into Chevalier as he turned and strode through the doorway.
"Chevalier!" A voice stopped him at the threshold. Missy had stood up from the bed, her hands curled into fists at her sides. Her shadows' arms stretched towards the doors, reaching out to the wall above it like a giant humanoid bridge. "Don't underestimate him. You weren't here when he…"
She trailed off, and Chevalier had to blink in surprise. He'd honestly expected her to ask him to take her with him. Maybe he'd misinterpreted something; the way her shoulders slumped and her hand shaking. He'd figured she was angry, or desperate at being pushed to the side, but maybe she was just terrified.
Armour clanked as he nodded, solemn. With his clearance, he'd been able to see more of the recordings than Vista no doubt had access to. If there was one thing he wouldn't do, it would be to underestimate him.
Exiting the base, he only caught a glimpse of the other Wards running back into the common room, trailing behind a wide-eyed Chris. Mouth twisting as guilt curdled his insides, he spared just enough time to yell towards them over the siren to stay put. Their conversation would have to wait. Tyrant really did have horrible timing.
A/N: Well. I'm alive? When was the last update? April, huh. Oops?
This chapter has been a pain in the ass, and finding the time to write, and re-write, this chapter multiple times hasn't been easy. Last year of university is kicking my ass, mainly because I'm so disorganised. I realised far too late that I should have just split this chapter into two, and then at least the wait wouldn't have been so stupidly long. A fact that is especially bad because I feel like this chapter will under deliver on that wait time, with the lack of action and my general feelings about my ability to write dialogue. On the bright side, more action next time! Whenever that is...
There is no doubt plenty of mistakes, but I'm going to just throw this up here now and I'll comb through it again and maybe make some more changes later. Also want to work on Doomsday a bit more too. This chapter probably drags on? I mean 13k words is just a bit silly, but by this point you all probably know that I like to overuse prose and write long sentences.
I'd love to promise that I will update regularly from here on, but the only thing regular about my upload schedule is how irregular it is. Fun. I hope that this doesn't prove too disappointing to those of you who have waited so long for this, but also hope that with it there's proof that it isn't abandoned, despite how it may look.
As always, thank you everyone for your patience and for taking the time to read my stuff.