Chapter 1: Think Before You Leap
When you were me, breaking freeway speed limits and shattering the laws of gravity was easier than breathing.
Almost nothing compared to the exhilarating thrill of soaring through the air. I lived for the sharp winds that blew through my hair and clothes, the adrenaline rush that coursed through my veins as I dominated the skies.
If only finding criminal scum was that easy.
I spent my entire afternoon patrol searching the mean streets of Brockton Bay for just one hint of an ongoing crime, but the reward for my hard work was seeing the same dirty potholes, the same dented guardrails and the same decaying buildings that scattered the Docks of Brockton Bay.
In other words: nothing. Nothing against good ol' Brockton, but this was Boring; with a capital 'B'. That didn't mean I'd give up, though. When duty knocked, I wouldn't flake from answering the call.
Unfortunately, nobody was calling. In times like these, I thought about finding a more productive use of my time. There was always PR work that needed to be done. I could help spread awareness of a good cause and add it to my resume. I was good with people, so it'd be cake: the fat-free kind.
But that would mean spending less time on my favourite hobby. Most of the time, getting to fly made up for patrols where nothing really happened, very often.
My powers were the main reason – the only reason – why I could experience that. With the forcefield that enveloped my body, I didn't have to worry about the cold bothering me or nasty, creepy bugs or anything like that. My forcefield kept me safe, made me powerful. Glorious. Without it...
A heart-rending scream stopped that hurtling train of thought. Finally, it was time to kick some ass.
I focused on that innocent person's pain to sharpen my focus, forget about that, and dropped down like an anvil. When I hit the street below, I crushed the gravel beneath me, knocking chunks of it into the air. Naturally, my forcefield protected me, but it didn't keep some dust from clinging onto my pristine cape and dress.
Seemed like I needed to practice some more before I got that damn landing right: my leg extended too far and the heel of my palm scraped against the ground. I managed to steady myself on my other leg and stood up, dusting myself off.
Close by, a man fell on his ass as a swarm of bugs feasted on his skin. His shrill shrieking was drowned out by a grating onslaught of insects buzzing and chirping their victory.
Someone in a gray and black bodysuit walked into the black swarm, sneaking towards another innocent guy like they came straight out of a horror movie. Judging from the group of innocent folks in the vicinity, he wasn't the only one in danger.
Great: I just found my villain.
It was my duty to defend the weak and fight the criminals who left chaos and misery in their wake. That went double for villainous capes. Since this villain was a Master, all I had to do was catch them off-guard while avoiding their minions.
Time to do my thing.
I rose into the air and flew parallel to the ground. The bug controller turned to meet me, unflinching, and I nearly shivered when some of the bugs followed their master's lead. The rest of the bugs continued to attack the last man struggling against them.
"Wait!" the Master said.
She was a girl? Not like it mattered, she was still a villain. Her bugs splattered against my forcefield, powerless to stop me from slamming into her chest. She bounced off the pavement, and didn't move.
I focused on her victims. The man the Master attacked had joined his partner in dreamland, while the other two civilians were in shock. The woman was quivering, while her friend struggled to find his feet.
"You have nothing to fear," I said, trying to instill confidence in them. "I'm here to help."
They ran away the second the guy got up.
My smile slipped a bit. This wasn't right. I beat the villain. I saved them from being stung by bees or bitten by spiders. And yet, they bolted for safety the first chance they could.
I wanted to call out to them, prove they had nothing to worry about, but I changed my mind once I saw the Master climbing to her feet. I touched the ground in front of her with the ball of my foot, landing as softly as a feather.
"Where do you think you're going?" I asked, sending waves of emotion outwards.
Her mask wouldn't stop me from knowing how she reacted to my power. If she was with me, my aura of awesomeness would give her courage and soothe her fears. But she wasn't, so she'd be more frightened than a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
"You want a one-way trip to jail? Why did you attack those innocent people?"
Instead of spilling her guts, the girl straightened out her back, groaning. Before I tackled her, her posture was menacing, a conductor orchestrating her symphony of pain. But now, she was timid, small. Stunned silent.
Not on my watch.
"Answer me!"
Still nothing. If she wouldn't talk, I'd force her to squeal. My power intensified, but instead of making her back down like before, the swarm of bugs around us began to stir, buzzing violently.
"I was fighting criminals, you fucking asshole!" the girl said, voice dripping with venom. "What the fuck is your damage?"
That... wasn't what I expected. Unfortunately, my power affected each person differently. Seemed like the pincers came out when her back was against the wall.
Still, I wasn't worried. She thought she had some footing to stand on, but I ate criminals for breakfast and fought off monsters at lunch.
"If you really were fighting crime, you won't mind repeating what you just said to the police, won't you?"
She clenched her right hand. "You attacked me for no fucking reason! I bet the police would love to hear that!"
I nearly flinched, but I stopped myself. There was no way I'd look weak in front of her.
"Hey, you were the one with the brilliant idea to dress like a villain and attack innocent people. Don't be surprised when a real hero takes you down."
Seriously. Her well-kept hair wouldn't look out of place on a hero or even a glamorous villain, but her costume had armour plating sewn from a carapace or bug exoskeleton, and her mask had mandibles on it. Sheesh.
She took another step back as her swarm arrived, ready to swallow her. Oh no, oh hell no.
"Fuck you. You're no hero."
Then her bugs smothered me, a black fog blocking my sight. First, she talked shit to me, then she did this? This bitch was going down.
I flew above the swarm and saw her hobbling away. The bugs tried to follow me, but I was too fast, reaching their master in seconds. I grabbed her throat and began to squeeze, looking right at her creepy yellow lenses as she struggled to break free.
"You should have listened, you little worm. Now you're gonna rot in jail."
Her fist sailed towards my face, but it was too wild to actually hit its mark. She still had some fight left in her, huh?
It was child's play to grab her wrist. It was even easier to break it.
Her ear-splitting scream tore into my brain, but somehow, she didn't buckle. So I threw her against the wall. Something cracked, and it wasn't the bricks that she collided against. She slumped to the concrete, not moving an inch. Her hair fell around her shoulders, curly and glossy, split ends nowhere to be seen.
I still couldn't get over how strange it looked on her.
Now that she was out for the count, I went to check on those so-called criminals. One of them was holding a pistol, hand covered in sickly welts. Similarly shaped bruises were visible on his face and arms. No part of his skin had been spared from her wrath, and the man next to him wasn't faring much better.
Shit. Was she actually right?
Wait a second. Even if these guys were criminals, this might have been some gang skirmish. But if that was true, then why didn't she attack those two civilians? Why were they afraid of me?
It might be because she saved them, but there was no way that was true. What kind of hero had bug control for a power? Why would she dress up in black and gray? Only Alexandria could pull that off.
"Fuck," I whispered. "God damn it!"
No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. I wanted to scream, but no one would hear me wail. I had to keep it together, had to fix this, fast. I couldn't do that while the bugs were trying to eat my face, so I flew high into the sky and pressed '3' on my phone.
The call was brief, but the wait was agonizingly long. No one was going to run away while I waited and tried my hardest not to think about what just happened. It wasn't working.
A few unbearable minutes later, my sister arrived. I met her at the edge of the alley and greeted her with a smile.
"Thanks for coming, Panacea."
Panacea pulled down her scarf, revealing a frown and freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. Sometimes, I wondered why Amy bothered hiding behind a mask. Seemed like a waste to me.
"Let me guess, you hurt someone. Again." My smile was plastered on, which made her pinch the bridge of her nose. "When are you going to learn, Victoria?"
I shrugged, and my cape fluttered behind me. That really should have happened just after I introduced the bug girl to the ground. Now, it wouldn't intimidate anyone.
"First off, it's Glory Girl while I'm in costume. Second, I fought a Master, and she's the only one who got hurt."
"Is that right?" Amy sighed deeply, but I knew she would help me. She always did. "Let's get this over with."
I beamed, gave her a tight hug. "Thanks, sis!"
Amy pulled away. Her mouth had curled into a shy smile. "Thank me later."
I escorted her to the bug girl's victims and watched her worked her magic. With how great she was at healing, it really was magic.
"Bee stings and spider bites, non-lethal," Amy reported. "No allergies, though. Who was responsible for this?"
"The Master I mentioned," I said, pointing at the girl in question.
Amy grabbed her hood and tugged it down, revealing her frizzy brown hair. Now I knew why she covered up: to hide that mess.
"Is that why those bugs are trying to attack you?"
"I guess?"
More like she was totally right. She shook her head.
"Well, these guys will be fine. They'll just have to take a short nap first."
"Why don't you just let them go?" I asked, playing dumb.
"There's something I want to check."
As Amy walked towards the bug girl, I kept some distance so the bugs wouldn't irritate her. The bug girl's chest was rising and falling evenly as Amy bent down and searched for skin, finding some at the base of the wrist that wasn't broken, pulling the glove.
The second she examined her, a scowl pulled her chapped lips taut.
"What's up?" I asked.
I winced when she told me the details: no concussion, but it was pretty bad. I took some solace in the fact that it could've been a lot worse. She woke the girl up, and when she came to, a desperate scream ripped out of her throat.
"Shh, it's okay," Amy said. "It's okay."
"What's going on?" the bug girl asked. She yelped when she tried to move against the wall.
"Deep breaths, please. I'm Panacea, and I'm here to help you. You're going to be okay."
She followed Amy's instructions to the letter, calming down.
"Please. Fix me."
Amy got to work, fixing her wrist and everything else, pulling her hand away once she was done. She gave her a smile, one that could flake away in a second.
"How do you feel?"
"Better," she replied, putting on her glove. She examined her formerly broken wrist. "Thank you."
Amy's strained smile tightened. "It's nothing. Just get some rest and you'll be fine."
The bug girl nodded, before standing up. "I will, Panacea. I honestly can't thank you enough."
"Can you do me a favour? Call off your swarm."
"Come again?" She looked around, then she noticed me and flinched. "Why is she still here?"
"What's the matter?" Amy asked, frowning.
The bug girl thrust her finger at me. "Your sister attacked me because she thought I was a villain!"
Amy's eyes narrowed. "Is this true, Glory Girl?"
I held my hands up. "I made a judgement call. I couldn't assume – "
"Bullshit!" the bug girl screamed. "You didn't listen to a fucking word I said! You tried to choke me – "
"Because you tried to run – "
"Calm down," Amy said. "Please. I want to get to the bottom of this, but you're not helping."
The bug Master whirled on Amy, looming over her with tall, spindly limbs. "Then shut up and let me talk!"
"Don't tell her to shut up!" I shouted. "She just saved you! You're lucky she didn't make you horribly fat or fuck up your senses. Ever think of that, you ungrateful – !"
The swarm's buzzing symphony stifled my voice. Even though I was hovering in the air, it felt like that bug girl was towering over me.
"I swear on my oath as a healer that I didn't mess with your body," Amy said, brow furrowed. "You're in perfect health."
She covered her torso with her arms.
"Is the first time she made you do this?"
"That doesn't matter. Why did she – "
"Glory Girl attacked me, she just admitted it. Your sister's a fucking bully, and you're just going to enable her?"
"I'm the bully?" I said, baffled beyond belief.
She was trying to stare me to death through those yellow lenses. "You're the worst kind of bully, you self-righteous, entitled –" The bug girl balled her left hand into a fist. "You're not getting away with this."
This stupid bug girl didn't know a damn thing about me. My methods stopped crime and saved lives. Someone needed a reality check.
A dark scowl formed on Amy's mousy, freckled features. "You called me an enabler, right? Well, I'm sorry for what my sister did, but I can't let you destroy everything New Wave's tried to build."
The girl began to shiver, but she wasn't calling her swarm.
"You know who Brandish is, do you? She's a lawyer when she's not being a hero, so if you try to get even, you'll be the one that pays the price."
The girl hunched over, almost folding into herself. "I can't... I – I thought I could be a hero, get away from assholes like you. And now this happens? Fuck this."
She turned around and started to walk away.
"Wait, before you go," Amy said. Surprisingly enough, she stopped. "Those people you stung, they were criminals, right?"
Seconds passed, although it felt a lot longer than that.
"Yes. They wanted to rob a couple. I saved them. But you don't care."
She walked away, head bowed and shoulders slumped, taking all her bugs with her. I wanted to apologize when she woke up, but it wouldn't make a difference coming from a fucking hypocrite. She didn't deserve that, because she was right.
Amy and I bullied her into keeping quiet.
"I knew it."
I blinked. "What?"
Amy stood up and when I saw her glare, my heart skipped a beat. She might've been angry before, but now, she was apoplectic.
"This is the sixth time I've had to fix your mess. The sixth! Are you fucking kidding me?"
"If that girl was a villain and I didn't attack her, she might have hurt innocent people. I made the right decision."
"No, you didn't. If you waited to see how things went, none of this would have happened, but you just had to jump the gun, didn't you? Some hero."
"I am a hero! She wasn't willing to co-operate, and she tried to run away. I wasn't going to just let her go."
Amy sighed from clear exasperation. "She wouldn't co-operate because you weren't listening to her! For fuck's sake, Victoria, that girl would have been up to her eyeballs in hospital bills if you didn't call me. But you know what?"
She took a step forward, an inch away from my personal space. I was always the taller one, even when I was on the ground, but Amy's glare made me shrink from guilt.
"I'm done cleaning up your messes."
My heart leapt into my throat.
"What? But you can't!"
Amy scowled. "Don't try me, Victoria. Every time I bail you out, I tell you to stop crippling people, but you just don't listen. First, it's Nazis or child traffickers, then it's some lowlife pot dealer, and now you're out assaulting heroes. Why is it that instead of learning from your mistakes like a good hero, you keep on fucking up? It's like all the advice anyone gives you goes through one ear and out the other!"
"That's not –"
I cut myself off. Arguing wouldn't get me anywhere. I didn't need Amy to tell me what I did wrong. I knew exactly what I did.
"You're right. You're absolutely right. I won't do this again."
She stopped scowling, but she hadn't calmed down, either. "That's not good enough. You know exactly what will happen if your crimes goes public, and you'll apologize now, but you'll probably fuck someone over next week and try and convince me they need some healing. What's it going to take for you to stop?"
My eyes squeezed shut, frustration mounting. New Wave was built on the principle of capes holding themselves accountable for their actions. And I was doing the exact opposite.
I wanted to be a superhero more than I wanted to breathe, but getting my powers was the easy part. All it took was being fouled during a basketball game, and yeah, it was the last straw on a back broken by crushing pressure, but compared to Amy watching me bleed out before she triggered? I got lucky.
Ever since then, she became my guardian angel, trying to get me to become a better person and hero. When I triggered, I vowed to do things my way, but when I fucked up, Amy always papered over the cracks, no matter how much it hurt her to do it.
Something had to change.
"I'll show you. From now on, I'll restrain myself. I'll assess the situation, and I won't assume the worst. I'm not going to cripple anyone else, Amy, I promise."
I hoped, prayed that Amy realized just how serious I was, that she didn't assume this was some ploy to win her over.
"Okay. Fine. I'll hold you to that. If you screw up again, you're going to come clean about everything you've done. But if you don't, I will. Understand?"
I looked my sister in the eye, unflinching. "I understand."
And I meant it.
Finally, Amy smiled, one that reached her eyes. "It's a start."
All's well that ends well, right? Nah. Heroes didn't beat up aspiring heroines just because they looked creepy. They didn't bully them into silence. Amy tried her best to keep people from getting hurt, but I used that against her. This time, I all but forced her into threatening that bug girl to keep quiet.
That bug girl just had to be a hero dressed up like a villain, too stubborn to listen to reason, but that was no excuse for what I did.
Never again. If all that took was keeping this promise, then that was exactly what I would do. This couldn't happen again.
I wouldn't let it.