Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

44. Ff2

Cricket

I felt extremely self-conscious riding the ferry across the water to the Protectorate building, and it wasn't because I was wearing my costume in broad daylight. The driver hadn't even given me a second look, welcoming me aboard politely and not making any sudden moves, but I found it hard to let my guard down.

PRT stood for Parahuman Response Team, which made the name a bit misleading because it was actually the non-powered government handler of the Protectorate, the heroes. They were the funding, the regulations, the support and in the end they called the shots. And, as Lisa reluctantly told me, they were also compromised.

If I stopped to think about it, that scared the hell out of me.

It was as if within the time span on a single afternoon, I'd gone from Brockton Bay to deep within the pages of an Earth Aleph comic book. With genocidal aliens, sentient viruses, villains straight from Saturday morning cartoons and government conspiracies. Surreal. I hadn't had much time to appreciate just how far in over my head I was but I was starting to.

"Registering with the Protectorate?" The driver asked.

Fishing for information, I thought. My height was working for me, for once, which at times let me pass for older than I actually was albeit undeveloped. Which was true anyway, sadly.

"Yes."

I was able to see the edges of his smile from my place by the railing. "Not much of a talker, are you?"

I didn't dignify that with a response.

Meeting me on the small dock was a shield carrying teen in a rust red and gold armored costume, the lower half of his face set in a small smile. I recognized him from his images on PHO: Aegis. From what I could remember, he was a shifter cape that repurposed parts of his body into whatever it needed. If he wasn't strong enough, tough enough, fast enough, that soon changed making him a nightmare to deal with on the front line. That wasn't counting his tinker-tech shield that could absorb a lot of incoming damage, buying him time to ramp up.

PHO also had him dating Laserdream, formerly of New Wave and was showing far more stability than the other Wards couple, Glory Girl and Gallant. And by that I mean they weren't breaking up every three weeks.

"Hachi?" He asked.

He couldn't see my face, but I grimaced. "That's me."

"Great! I'm-"

"Aegis, I know." Immediately after I wished I kept my mouth shut.

"Ah," he said sagely. "My reputation precedes me."

I let myself relax a little. In all honesty, I had nothing but respect for the Brockton Bay hero team. They were outnumbered and outgunned but wherever they could make a difference, they gave 110%. No matter the love-hate relationship people like my Dad had with them, it didn't change the fact that they were heroes and I knew how terrible it felt having your hands tied.

"You have a very distinctive costume," I blurted, embarrassed.

"So do you." He smile shifted into a little smirk. "Very edgy."

That wasn't actually intentional but while the black bodysuit was probably fine, I really should have chosen different colors for the armor. I'd wanted insect themed but by the time I figured out it would actually make me look more like a humanoid beetle it was already too late.

"Where's Miss Militia?" My subtle attempt at changing the subject.

He made a 'follow me' gesture with his shield arm. "She set aside one of the briefing rooms. May I ask what this is about?"

Aegis was the current team leader of the Wards, so it made sense that he would at least ask.

"Sorry." But the less people that knew the better.

He didn't seem offended, shrugging. "Alright."

The interior of the PHQ looked more normal than I expected for being a superhero base. The corridors were rounded, wide enough to allow for people traveling both ways but with low ceilings. We passed one hallways that led deeper into the complex and they were less finished, with pipes coming out of the walls, and signs declaring them off-limits to visitors.

This place used to be an old oil rig back when the Protectorate's East-North-East branch was being established but it was easy to forget humble origins when you had a visible force field.

We stopped in front of a non-descript door.

"It was nice to meet you, Hachi." Aegis smiled. "Good luck."

"You too?" I stared after him as he walked away. I really hoped I didn't need to rely on luck. Mine was unerringly terrible.

I opened the door and my eyes fell on a perfectly ordinary room with a rectangular table with four black chairs seated around it. Miss Militia was already sitting facing me from the other side of the table and on the right end was the newest Ward, Hanabi.

"Hey." She gave me a small wave. Her costume had changed a little from her press release debut, mostly shifting colors around but her red visor stayed the same. The end result looked a lot less like someone had dressed her in the dark, and more like she wanted to stand out. "You mind if I sit in on this?"

I hesitated. I actually did mind but before I could say so, Militia spoke up.

"She can give you insight into the ABB that I can't, honestly. I thought it would help."

"It would," I admitted and closed the door behind me. "But that's not all I wanted to talk to you about."

"Your good cause?"

Militia was sharp, I had to give her that. "Is there a way to make sure we don't have eavesdroppers?"

Her eyebrows rose and I knew what it sounded like. I was in the PHQ, with two heroes and I didn't feel secure. I didn't.

After a moment, she nodded. "Hanabi?"

The Ward leaned back in her chair and reached out to touch the wall. She held her fingertips to it for a few seconds and then the metal seemed to explode with ribbons of red light. They wrapped around the entire room, cocooning it.

"I thought you just did explosions," I said, shocked.

"That's right." She smiled slyly. "I just get to choose what effects those explosions have."

I whistled. "Broken."

"I know, right!"

"Girls," Militia chided warmly. "Hachi, take a seat?" I did so. "What is it that has you so worried?"

I carefully thought over all the information I had. Everything Lisa had told me and everything I hinted out for myself at her vague hints. The familiar rush of anger as I remembered what her "boss" had on her burned in my stomach, as did all the uncertainty and fear at just what was at stake. I felt sick.

"The Undersiders are being backed by Coil. He intends to pit the E88 and ABB against each other, sooner rather than later." I paused, trying to find the words. "He has a girl working for him, she's forced to with implants and drugs and she has a thinking power."

Miss Milita's eyes had hardened.

"She said he has people in the PRT so I need this to not get out."

A brief silence descended. Hanabi looked away first.

"Fuck."

"Yeah," I let out a shaky laugh. "That is a good way to put it."

"You want to warn Lung," Militia stated.

That was part of it, a large part, but I couldn't deny that something like had been building for a while. It was as Lisa said, inevitable. The Protectorate couldn't hold the city together by themselves. So in absence of good options, there was only the less bad. As far as I was concerned, ABB was in the running for 'less bad.'

"More than that. I want her cooperation. You can't move without the PRT knowing, which means he'll know. And even if you can slip by, one or two people is not enough."

Miss Militia crossed her arms, tapping piano fingers on the sleeve of her costume. I didn't think she would dismiss me, she didn't seem like that kind of person and what I could see of her expression was edged. "How sure are you about this?"

"Her power is based on information gathering of some kind, really good at it." Scary good. "I saw the surgical scars. She risked a lot contacting me and the only one misdirection benefits would be Lung."

"Not her style." Miss Militia hummed. "Is it possible for your contact to pass me information as well?" Not," she held up a hand to stall my answer. "Not that I don't believe you, but it's better to have backup. You will be able to get a second opinion more readily, and I won't have to work off of third hand information." She looked at me seriously. "You understand I can't give you permission to join a gang."

I nearly bit my tongue. "But it's the only way!"

"It's easy," she corrected gently, lowering her voice. "It's tempting. But you don't even know if Lung will listen to you."

"She will," Hanabi said and we both turned our heads towards her. "Don't demand anything or she might refuse just because."

I blinked. "That's - "

"Petty?" Hanabi shrugged. "She's proud. So ask, beg if you have to. But a gang war is going to hurt a lot of people and she has to know that. Her people."

Hanabi sounded like she was speaking from personal experience. "You live on the Docks," I accused her.

"My father does. I used to live on the edge of downtown, south." That was Empire territory. She also said "used to."

"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly.

She smiled sadly. "Don't worry about it."

"If you can get me contact information, I'll see what I can do on my end. I might be able to talk to Lung, so you won't have to get involved."

Might. The more time that passed the closer Coil was to getting what he wanted. Militia was probably going to have to jump through hoops just to make an inch of progress, on top of her other responsibilities and moles within the very organization that handed out the marching orders.

I couldn't help feeling that we didn't have that much time.

Miss Militia somehow saw it. My body language maybe, or how I didn't answer immediately, I couldn't tell. She didn't try to dissuade me any further, just a simple, "Be careful."

The cocoon of hard light frizzed. Hanabi asked, "Am I good to let it down?"

"Yes," I answered. "We're done here."

I stood up. The ribbons of red light dissolved into sparkling motes, like the colored sparks of fireworks. I opened the door and left.

5 PM saw me at Pier 4 in casual, sturdy clothing. Slightly baggy jeans and sneakers, a long sleeved shirt with a light jacket for the chill. Bao was nearby, headphones in his ears and the setting sun glinting off the gold dragon on his scarf.

My heart was trying to beat out of my ribcage.

It was quiet and I was having second thoughts, as well as third and fourth ones but I just took deep breaths and tried to steel my nerves. It didn't exactly work and when the sound of soft footsteps reached my ears, I almost swallowed my tongue.

The footsteps were in threes, two steps and then a soft thump in a rolling pattern. It rounded a still, rusting crane and I laid eyes on Snake.

She was a small woman with a leg brace and cane. Her clothes were simple, a blood red blouse and black dress pants. What caught my attention was her face, or rather the fact that I could actually see it. She didn't wear a mask, or visor or shades. Just a blank smile and average features you could lose in a crowd easily.

"Snake," Bao greeted cautiously. "Today went well?"

"It did," she said. Her voice was dusty but warm, with a tinge of an emotion I couldn't put my finger on. "Hello, Taylor."

Her gaze focused on something around me, or through me and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

"I would like to join the ABB," I said with far more confidence than I felt.

Snake smiled placidly.

"No."

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#395

Cricket

"No." I repeated, as if I needed to hear the word from my own mouth before I could believe it. The sick feeling seemed to crawl up from my toes and nest in my head, making the world tilt. I stared at Snake, at her distant smile and felt my face begin to heat up. My fists clenched. "No?"

Snake tapped her cane on the ground. "You disagree with my decision?" She asked with the sliver of interest in her voice.

Hearing that tone just made me angrier. It was like being back at Winslow "overhearing" girls taking potshots at me and acting surprised when called on it, knowing that if I ever actually fought back I would be the one punished. She was lording it over me, I thought. All I saw at that moment was a plain, small woman smiling when all I wanted to do was save the fucking city.

I was not taking no for an answer.

"Yes, I disagree with your decision!" I bit out. At the edge of my awareness, I felt the gathering of hundreds upon hundreds of bugs. I had no idea where they had come from. I stilled them.

Her reaction was subtle. A slightly wider smile as she dipped her head a fraction and leaned more heavily on her bad leg, creating a slight plastic creak. Her eyes shifted down from around my head but I got the feeling she still wasn't looking at me.

"Why?"

"Why?" I sputtered. "What do you mean why? You just shut me down without telling me anything!"

"Taylor," Bao whispered urgently from the side.

I pulled myself back and tried to take calming breaths. It didn't matter if I joined or not, I rationalized. It wasn't like I didn't know where the center of ABB holdings were. I could sneak by with my bugs. Actually delivering a warning might be a bit difficult but I had a few ideas for that. And Lung would actually listen to me.

"Snake," Bao said. "This isn't because she isn't -"

"Asian?" Snake finished for him. "No, although that does have problems of its own."

I was surprised to feel disappointment at those words. I was a little invested in the idea of joining something, that people wanted me and it hurt hearing that might not be true.

Bao jerked in surprise. "But Lung said - "

"I am aware of what Lung said. You think she rules as a tyrant, thinking for you?"

He backpedaled. "No, I - "

"Lung may welcome all who would follow, but this one," she pointed her cane at me. "Will not follow. There is no room in the ABB for deceit."

The bottom of my stomach dropped out. She thought I was a spy? "I'm not a spy," I said, desperate to salvage this situation before it got any worse. "Or an infiltrator or traitor or anything like that."

"And should we call on you against the E88?"

"I'm not a Nazi," I said sharply. Disgust warred with outrage at the implication that I had any sympathy for them. Unlike what I had seen of the ABB, the Empire 88 held no sympathy for those under their heel.

"I vouched for her, Snake. Taylor's good people." Bao flashed me a quick smile. I felt a flush of embarrassment and what I hoped was gratitude and relief for his support, regardless of his intentions.

Snake tapped her cane on the ground again. "And against the Protectorate?" She was smiling like she already knew the answer.

"I - " My mouth opened but after several long moments I had to close it. I was a hero, or trying to be one. But helping the ABB attack the heroes in order to help the Protectorate was a paradox, and there was the crux of the dilemma facing me.

Helping one, would almost certainly mean conflict with the other. I supposed I deluded myself into forgetting exactly what joining a gang meant. I was still seeing the colored banners and murals, people nodding in my direction and the taste of banana on my tongue. I wasn't ashamed in admitting to myself that I wanted that but I didn't like the price tag.

"That is why I must refuse you," Snake said. "You are not here to be ABB. You are here to get something from the ABB."

"You're right. What I want is this city in one piece and we both know who can actually do that." I had to blink as the words left my mouth. That was true, wasn't it? I felt a little unease when the answer to that question came back as 'Yes.' I believed that.

"You seek to use us?"

"I want your help." A flash of memory, the surgical scar on the base of Lisa's head. With it came the determination. I had to see this through.

Snake's smile dimmed as she finally saw me, focused on me. "And there it is," she murmured. "I see about you now a mechanical queen with tattered wings. Perhaps Lung named you well."

My heart stopped. "What?"

She turned on her heel slowly and started to limp away. "You may follow me."

I knew I shouldn't push my luck but I couldn't stop the question from popping out of my mouth. "Is that a yes?"

Snake tilted her head to the side but didn't answer.

Bao cleared his throat. I jumped and turned to him, an excuse on my lips. "I'm not going to ask what that was about," he said quickly. "But you've got a good reason, right?"

I said two words. "Gang war."

He puffed out his cheeks and nodded. "Right."

He held out his hand. I bit my lip and took it.

The 'Dragon's Lair' was a square of repurposed warehouses isolated from the main population by abandoned condemned buildings surrounding it. The grid layout of the empty inner city streets made everything look the same with blacked out windows and dusty corners. We made left and right turns too many times for me to keep track without my bugs, but I could instantly tell we had arrived when the native insect population plummeted.

Snake led the way to a metal side door and I could feel the anticipation building, making me feel giddy. It lead to a back hallway skirting the edge of a main room I only saw through various open doors. A slight haze of smoke on the ceiling and the sharp smell of tobacco met my nose.

I caught glimpses of women wearing more threads than clothes and a lot of tattoos, covering every inch of skin in some cases. I got the impression this was a less than reputable establishment, but Bao didn't even bat an eyelash. I lost a bit of respect for him because of that. Not a lot, admittedly, but it bothered me.

"Come here often?"

He squeezed my hand. I tried to ignore the heat in my cheeks and was glad for the poor lighting. "Nah. Got better things to do."

"Homework?"

"Sleeping."

There was a lacquered wooden door up a short flight of steps with a guard posted. He wasn't wearing a cloth top, showing off a "shirt" of dragon tattoos. "Snake."

The woman nodded back. "Taylor."

Bao let go of my hand. I felt a little abandoned. "Yes?"

Snake smiled at me, her blank polite smile. "You will not live to make me regret this."

I couldn't respond, my voice stuck in my throat. I could only nod.

With that, she walked away. Bao nudged me forwards. "I'll wait for you," he promised. "Lung will like you, trust me."

She liked Hachi, I wanted to tell him. And I wasn't even sure what it was about me that had gotten her attention. I had the option of just coming out and telling her who I was but it might make her expect more of me. You don't throw unpowered minions against seasoned heroes, but another cape was fair game. I wanted to avoid that, if I could.

I pushed the door open and headed inside.

The room was surprisingly plain. Off white walls with water-color floral patterns and characters, dark wood lining. There were a few squat filing cabinets against the walls and a rice paper mat under my feet. I instantly felt guilty for tracking dust from outside on it.

The center of the room was dominated by a large, low table with seating pillows around it: five of them. And beside it closer to the wall was a decent sized desk of the same kind of dark wood.

That's where Lung sat, her head bent over a book she was writing in. This time, she wore a beautiful blue robe with silver flowers and a wide sash around her waist. Her flame rotated her head casting moving shadows.

I had the sudden thought that it must be killing her eyes.

She calmly set her pen down and I held my breath, "New recruit? Why would Snake bring you to me so soon?"

"I don't know, sir." Sir? Ma'am. I had no idea how what to call her. How do you address one of the two most powerful criminal leaders in the city?

"You - " She cut herself off. "Hachi?"

It occurred to me just then that I should have accounted for her hearing. Despite the situation, I felt a little embarrassed at the slip.

"Um, hi." I said lamely. Of course she would have recognised my voice.

"I'm surprised," she admitted. She stood up from her chair and rounded the desk, trailing her hand along the edge. "Did you think on what I said?"

I will admit to panicking. I'd been so focused on everything else that I didn't consider that she might want to continue our last conversation. I thought back quickly. It was about strength and, ironically, not focusing on a problem to the point of missing other things. I didn't want to just dump everything on her lap.

Snake's accusation of using her stuck with me and it might seem like dodging the question. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"How do you feel about giant hornets?" Wait, what?

Lung paused. "What?"

I kept talking. "You know, the ones that are like three times the size of regular hornets and they're Asian. They can sting more than once and kill a lot of people, I don't know how many but a lot of people, and they are incredibly aggressive to just about everything…" I had no idea where I was going with this as I slowly trailed off into mortified silence. Did I really just pitch hornets as being Asian?

The awkward pause was only broken by my palm meeting my face.

There was a sound like a hiccup and a cough.

I peeked through my fingers when Lung began to laugh.

Last edited: May 3, 2016

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#444

Sorry for the delay, flu hit me like an eighteen wheeler. Thanks to Gideon for helping me get back into it!

Cricket

"I'm sorry," Lung said insincerely, clearly not sorry for laughing at me. "But your face, oh relax, please. I am not one to be offended so easily."

The rest of the tension in my shoulders and back drained away and I almost slumped over in relief. It wasn't exactly an all clear sign. I found myself not really caring. I didn't have my bugs and was in a flammable room with Lung. And as far as a pyrokinetic was concerned, I was flammable. Even if I managed to escape outside, I would still have to go through the rest of ABB.

It wasn't that I anticipated this going wrong, more like if it did there was nothing I could do about it.

Lung stepped up to me and nodded. "Better."

She offered me a seat at the round table which I took a bit awkwardly. I tried to sit cross legged but my knees banged up against the underside until I figured out that I was free to move the cushion. Lung waited for me to get settled in patiently. Didn't snigger, or mock me and maybe it was a bit self centered, but I felt that instantly made her better than half of Winslow.

Instead of sitting directly across from me, or at a weird angle as some sort of power play, Lung just sat next to me. Her small circling fireball shifted to hover above the center of the table, out of the way.

"This is an unusual situation." She propped her elbows up on the table and clasped her hands together. "I don't see recruits until after their initiation is completed and is vouched for by a lieutenant."

Her masked face shifted, focusing on my face, "You were looking to join, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but Snake had other ideas." I explained. Surprisingly, I felt a bit of relief at that. I'd been fully prepared to bite the bullet and join a parahuman gang, but if I could warn Lung about Coil and not join? Best of both worlds.

"Did she tell you why?"

I hesitated on answering because it wasn't a very flattering one. "I wouldn't be loyal to the ABB."

Her answering chuckle was dry, humourless, "It's a scary thing, isn't it? To trust something as large as the ABB, knowing that you would have to take the good with the bad."

My eyes dropped to the table, hands squeezing the fabric of my pants, "You think there is bad too. Why don't you just-"

"Stop it? When I arrived here many were deep into crime because they liked it. They would take the shallow power, the highs and freedom over helping a neighbor. The previous version of the ABB was disgusting." She looked away, seeing something I didn't as she continued.

"There was no greater purpose. Just greed and selfishness." She gestured at the other spaces around the table. "Some were willing to change but such things don't happen overnight. How long has it been?"

I thought back to the very first time the city became aware of Lung. The sirens sounding in the dead of night and a very short glimpse of a sinuous, silver creature rearing up. "Almost four years."

"Adding good is more important than removing bad, I think. The more members that join, because of that good, because that is the ABB to them the easier it is. Soon there will be more of you," she gently poked my forehead. "Than there is of the others. There will be no room for them at this table."

"Is that why you gave Aswang up?" Handing over one of her lieutenants to the Protectorate had seemed more like an after-thought, but now? It raised new questions.

Lung's reply was succinct, "I've been looking for a good reason to get rid of him. I took advantage of the timing."

I wasn't entirely convinced. But I didn't want to seem like I was looking for holes to poke in what she was telling me or put her on the defensive. "I read about Parian on the PHO message boards."

Lung simply nodded, "Kali has made her mistakes, yes. She is also leading a group that hasn't been fully integrated. 'Asian' is diverse enough without getting into the rest of the sub-continent. I hope you don't think poorly of me for tolerating her for a little longer."

I didn't. It was a simple explanation that made a kind of unpleasant sense. If I were Kaiser, infighting in ABB would be like Christmas came early. "You don't want the ABB to splinter."

"It would undo everything I've worked for and there are those that would like to see us falter." She straightened the silk white cuffs of her robe absently. I could imagine the distracted frown on her face before she leaned over the table again, palms flat on the surface. "If you were refused, why did Snake bring you here?"

I inhaled, it was now or never, "There's a man named Coil, minor leagues."

"I am familiar with the name." Lung confirmed.

"Good, because he's not minor. He wants this city and is willing to go through you and Kaiser to get it. He has at least one Thinker under him, enslaved. The Undersiders are his. They're supposed to poke you, get information on what you own, how you own it. What's important, what isn't and how'd you respond to something big. E88 big."

I was embellishing a little with my facts. Lisa hadn't told me that straight out, but it was obvious enough when you looked at what her group had hit and the reasons why. Money makers, places that provided gang funding, at the edge of territory lines. Smash and grab, disappear into the city gray zone between.

Open gang activity on "neutral" areas like the Boardwalk or downtown would put more pressure on the Protectorate to act since that was it's tourism and economic center respectively. It wasn't really neutral, just less overt.

Dragon icons on shop signs you couldn't prove and generic brochures for youth groups with all white members on the pictures inside, for example. Something you could pretend you didn't see as you went about your day.

"I see." She was looking at me, but at the same time I had the feeling she was thinking very carefully about what I just said.

I coughed, nervous from the stare, "She, uh, she also mentioned a high powered rifle shot to the head would...is that -?"

"True?" Her fingernails tapped on the dark wood. "I am not immortal. This Thinker, is she aware of when?"

"Working on it," I said miserably. "I didn't want to just sit on the information if it turns out to be tomorrow. It's a trap that needs two people to fall in. If I could warn you, stop you from getting caught in it then when doesn't matter."

"Thank you." Her head dipped in my direction. "It is a good plan. I would not let attacks go unpunished and even if I suspected, I could not remain on the defensive forever." She did sound actually grateful for what I had told her.

"We'd have to take him out." I suddenly said. It's what Lisa was aiming for, I was sure. And I didn't blame her. Someone who implants devices in people, drugs them in order to force them to work for him, and stays under the radar was a dangerous someone that couldn't be allowed to slip free. It wasn't enough to just ruin one of his plans. He'd just make more. It wouldn't stop him.

I could hear the smile in her voice. "We?"

"I live in this city," I tried to explain. "I don't want people like him in it."

"Agreed." Lung reclaimed her fire to hover idly around her head again as she stood. "If you have any more information, please tell Bao. I'm told he vouched for you."

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. He was waiting outside for me. I would have to give Takeo back his handkerchief. Neal would probably be there complaining about his day job at Bay Central and the siblings would be trading horrible jokes. I'd have to tell them I wasn't joining.

I didn't want to do that.

"I live on the docks," I said.

"Oh?" I didn't for a moment believe she didn't know who I was, but she was being polite, letting me control the conversation. I still fidgeted in my seat.

"I want to believe that it's like you said, replacing bad with good but," there is still places like this, I didn't say out loud. There was still drugs and protection rackets and violence if you caught the wrong person on a bad day. Just more organized. "I want to give you a chance."

"You wouldn't be giving us a chance, Hachi." Lung replied evenly. "We would be giving you a chance."

That would be why Snake said no. I felt like I understood a little. I don't trust easily. Never had a reason to, not when people in the hallways from teachers to students just looked the other way.

"But," Lung said abruptly. I looked up at her. "I understand sometimes a person just wants a place to belong." She went back to her desk and picked up her pen again, a dismissal. "You have my permission."

I exited Lung's office giddy, almost walking on air in a heady mixture of relief, happiness, disbelief. I blame that as the reason why I threw my good arm around a smiling Bao. I froze halfway into it with sudden sobriety but he carried the hug the rest of the way.

His scarf got tangled in my sling. He insisted I keep it, he had more.

I did.

Chapter End

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#418

Interlude, Snake

Lung blew into their lives like the summer rains, Snake remembered. The torrent would strike suddenly, washing away foundation and reshaping the landscape to suit its whims. It collected in the valleys and exploited weaknesses in the rock. You would find drowned plants in the aftermath, limp and rotting. Drowned animals, drowned people. But those rains were needed in the mountains, to revitalize the land and quench thirst, it nurtured life.

As her mother once said, one should be grateful that it does not take everything you own as payment.

At a time there had been twelve of them, carving out their own little slice of the world with strength. The 'Asian Bad Boyz' had been the largest, with Aswang at their head, established in the city like rot on wood. It was the name one thought of, when a girl went missing. Others were smaller.

It would be accurate to say Chang-Min bought her. He collaborated with the ABB often, using his influence and contacts to trade favors. She had no illusions as to her worth. When he found out exactly what she could see, he gifted the changer with lucrative drug deals so that the man wouldn't feel cheated. He treated her well, considering. He snipped her longing for home out of her head. Along with other unnecessary things.

The posturing, turf wars and violence held nothing for her but blurred images. Too many people, too many outcomes. She was satisfied being something of a fortune teller under the guiding hand of Chang-Min. White collar crime. Even among those that avoided the Bay's various economic pitfalls, there was always something to gain exploiting others.

One day, their autonomy came to a swift end.

Snake's natural sight was damaged, burned. A worthy price to pay for what she gained in return. The future. It was a kaleidoscope of images, outcomes. A dice rolled and it fell on all numbers.

She had to learn how to focus it, to tune out her visions of a leaf falling in all directions, of a pebble skipping across the water two, three, four times. The world was a faded dream. Everything had happened. Everything was happening.

People, ordinary human beings were as ephemeral as the rest. A set of possible actions, blurred. It was when she beheld those with a gift, that her sight gained meaning.

Chang-Min had been a ruby snake. He was scaled in bitterness and jealousy, venom dripped when he spoke and he curled around a gold coin possessively. She could see the actions he would take, dozens, but as time passed the visions began to fall away one by one until all that was left was a near certainty. Only a few seconds of forewarning.

Enough.

It meant she saw the wounded dragon lash out and crush the serpent's head seconds before the sound reached her.

"Anyone else?"

The room had been quiet.

"No? You will not avenge him? You will not challenge me?"

The dragon captivated her as it took shape, details sharpened. It bled water. It's silver shallow pride was flaking. It had tasted failure and found it a bitter poison. It approached her. She could feel the warmth radiating from it and she forced herself to see beyond the creature.

The woman was much taller than her. Prettier in a fair skinned way that was almost as alien to her as the black men in the city.

"I have heard of you," the Dragon said.

She felt despair. This was her fault, it seemed. She clenched her fists and said nothing.

"I will know your name." It spoke again.

She looked instead at Chang-Min's body. The snake had left it, leaving his form eerily still. Faded and dull. No more possibilities there. Cold of it, she thought. To simply abandon him without mourning.

"Snake," she had decided then.

"I am Lung." The Dragon hooked a claw beneath her chin and studied her. "Will you follow me?"

Snake observed the branches in the world. If she refused, she would live. Out of pity perhaps. Some small kindness. Accepting lead to hundreds, thousands of possibilities, too much for her to separate out and see. She thought she might like exploring those choices. She was also afraid of them.

"Will I be valued?" She asked.

Lung laughed. "As an imperial treasure."

She could see the Dragon make a decision then. Paths solidified while others withered away. Lung would keep its word.

"Yes."

Snake watched silently from the corner of the room. It was a mundane thing, unimportant, watching for signs of tampering or rigging of the games on the floor. The dice rolled. Snake eyes. Sevens. Everything in between. The cards were dealt with a single thread but once the game started choices began to muddy the waters as they shifted in hands. An extra card. She signaled and the bouncers closed in.

Lung was without her mask, seated at a casual card table next to her mother, nursing a small cup of warm rice wine. She straightened her mother's hands to hide the cards, for the third time, and pointed out a pair. And then nearly jumped out of her seat when the woman played it.

"Mama. No."

The woman tittered and took it back. The other players, also aged men and women, smiled indulgently. The dragon was curled lazily as it plucked the two cards and set them on the table face down. "Keep these, don't give them away. You won't win like that."

The aging woman grumbled in Mandarin and squinted at her cards.

One of Kali's approached the table and bent at the waist to whisper in the dragon's ear. She could see the pattern around it shift with the new information. Choice made.

Lung switched to Japanese as she stood, addressing the other players in a humble tone. Self deprecating humor, she saw all variations of their grins and laughter. They did not know. Lung preferred it that way.

The mother reached out to grasp her daughter's hand tightly. Lung allowed the delay. The woman let go slowly.

She followed Lung outside. "Who?"

She saw the decision to tell her. The E88.

"Kaiser." Lung said simply. The dragon looked up to the sky thoughtfully and this close, Snake realized the shallow pride she had seen, flaking, was being replaced. Something gold that ran deeper. "He should learn humility."

Snake looked forward along the potential actions and smiled. "He has a healer."

"Ah." The dragon grinned toothily and looked at her from the corner of its eye. "Well." Oni Lee handed the woman her true face cast in metal. "Mine now."

She gathered her five lieutenants around her, the remains of twelve. Snake felt the usual apprehension, as she had when Chang-Min left her alone in the house and he disappeared from her sight. The unknown bothered her but she did not insist on accompanying them. Treasures were not to be put at risk.

"Lung. Chagpo nang."

Lung acknowledged it with a nod of her head. She watched until the dragon faded from her sight. There was no one else with a gift around.

The world was dimmer.

"You wish for me to trust you with the youth?" Lung had asked in Korean, Chang-Min's tongue. There were four now and a space needed to be filled, a responsibility. It needed doing and Snake would do it. If not her, then someone else whose choices had hidden motivations would. Lung would not allow his permanent removal until he acted. Snake had to admit it was only a possibility, but it set her ill at ease.

"Yes."

The dragon pondered. "Do you even know how to interact with them?"

She could look ahead and see what not to do. Snake had the feeling Lung would not accept that as an answer. She remained quiet.

Lung's smiled. "Guidance, Snake. You must be able to listen with open ears. Your words should cut or soothe as needed. Lead in a way that makes them want to follow."

Like Daichi. That name had only been mentioned once in Snake's hearing. Lung had taken something from his death that was more important than the boy himself. Something that had nearly been forgotten, until failure dredged it up from the sea.

"I can," Snake had said.

Lung inclined her head. "Show me."

That was how she found herself sitting at a low table in her room, the smell of sweet meat and green tea in the air. It was not what Lung had intended. She had laughed loud when she found out, but allowed it. In Snake's eyes, it was if she had found a broken bird, languishing.

There was no reason to let it suffer needlessly.

"This is good," the girl said with pleasant surprise. The bird stopped pecking at it's festering sore.

"It was made by Yuka," Snake told her. "She continues to thank you for your help."

The bird ducked its head, shying away. It's metal feathers were dull and the gears on its wings rusted from disuse. Guilt and hopelessness dripped from it like machine oil. The conversation paths spiraled out in front of her to a single point.

It stared into the meat bun as if it held vast secrets. "That's very kind of her," it said softly.

"I will tell her you liked them."

"Thank you."

The bird nibbled guiltily.

Snake smiled. "How was your day, Amy?"

They thought it a weakness. Mercy. Kind. At one time, she thought the same. And Snake supposed it was kind, if one would consider a quiet suffocation as opposed to burning to death, kind. Lung had killed for purposeful disobedience before. Not this time.

Snake looked down at Aswang dispassionately. His knees were charred, flaking holes. She could see his bones with strips of burnt flesh still attached and the smell of cooked meat was strong. The pavement underneath had begun to melt into slag.

She'd already seen this outcome.

The punishment differed, the time changed but she had seen with clarity that he would not last long. He should have had his roaming eyes put out, so that Lung did not have to feel their gaze.

"Fuck." Kali whistled lowly. "And just...leave him here?"

Lung smiled, as if reliving a private joke. "He will not be moving."

"You could have just broken his legs," the Indian offered hesitantly. "Bust his knee caps. Not that I care, but the Protectorate won't like this. Kind of blatant."

The flame that hovered around Lung's head as a crown, her symbol of power, flared. Snake could see the truth in the dragon that curled around her: she'd taken no pleasure in the act. The damage was unlikely to be permanent, but the memory of pain was the intent. Penance for his actions and a promise, should she ever come across him again.

Lung met Kali's eyes evenly. "I dislike rapists."

She held out her hand, and Oni Lee placed the dragon mask within it. She fitted it over her face with practised ease. "Come."

They left Aswang there, moaning on the warm pavement.

Snake let her eyes fall on the back of Lung's head, contemplating. Summer rains. The analogy was apt, she felt. Keep your head above the rushing waters, heed it's currents and show it the proper respect or you drown. Meet those standards and you prospered. There was no room for complacency.

The absence of cruelty was not kindness.

There were now three and a space that needed to be filled.

234

Shujin

Aug 28, 2014

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M. NightShujinlan

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Sep 4, 2014

#466

Dragonfly

I woke up at the usual time, a bit before 6:30, and for once without the lingering exhaustion. I had a good feeling about today. I suppose it said something about my life that I laid in bed for the better part of ten minutes exploring the alien positivity.

Dread was familiar. Grim determination as if I was marching to the gallows was what made me get up in the morning at times. Once it had been hope. After Emma had gotten herself suspended for a week, I thought they would back off. They did, for a month. My grades had even picked up a little in time for midterms.

It wasn't until after winter break that I realized they had just given me a false sense of security.

I got up before I could kill my own mood and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Dad was in his Union T shirt and jeans with one sock on. The custom print was of a barge on the backdrop of Brockton Bay's blue silhouette. He'd gotten it for Christmas the year before last and he'd told me he didn't like wearing it. Felt too much like a 'We had a good run' to him.

"What's the occasion?" I asked as I brushed past him to take the orange juice out from the fridge.

Dad smiled at me. "We setting up a barbeque by the office, something to get the guys together. Maybe make it more of a community thing."

I poured us both a cup. "That sounds like fun. Is that what you'll be doing all day?"

"It's been a bit slow lately," Dad hedged. "Seemed like as good a time as any."

The toaster popped out the first of the blueberry Eggo waffles. Dad grabbed the edges of them gingerly and tossed them onto the plates he had set up. Bacon sizzled in the pan. He nudged the maple syrup further down the counter for me to pick up.

"It's a good idea."

I was trying to be encouraging for his sake. Dad had a habit of throwing himself into doomed projects when he felt like he wasn't doing enough, such as dusting off his proposal for the revival of the Bay ferry. He'd come home from the Mayor's even more depressed and angry which led to him working late doing who know what. Something would jolt him out of it eventually. We both had seasonal passes to the emotional rollercoaster.

Dad handed me my plate. "Let's just hope the ABB doesn't decide to drop in."

"They wouldn't," I protested before I really thought about it. Would they?

"We'll see." He sat down at the table. "So you're looking upbeat today. Anything going on?"

I shrugged. "Just feeling positive, like today is going to be good."

I hated lying to my dad. He'd never bugged me about the bullying, so I'd always been able to just come home and sort of let my guard drop. I couldn't do that now because I knew I'd end up saying something incriminating that he wouldn't be able to turn a blind eye to. Bao's scarf was safely tucked away in the one place I knew Dad would never look: the bottom of my backpack.

There was a time for honesty, but when that meant telling my father that I maybe joined ABB, that time was not now. Maybe not ever. One mistake or a single concerned phone call from the school, and my dad would probably flip, and things wouldn't be the same between us for a very long time.

It wasn't guilt in my stomach this time, not like it had been after my first night of heroing. It was more of a certain tenseness in my shoulders. I knew he wouldn't understand but I needed this. More than I was probably admitting to myself.

"Are you going to tell me who you met with yesterday?"

Right, that.

"Just Bao and some of his friends."

Dad frowned at his waffles. "You're spending more time with that boy. Are we going to have to talk?"

"It's not like that!" I barely avoided choking on my orange juice. I had honestly not even considered what it would look like to him. It was better than him getting suspicious for ABB related reasons, but only barely. Besides, I doubted Bao had even the slightest interest in me. He was just genuine. If he was happy, he smiled. If he was angry it showed on his face. If he didn't feel like going to class, he didn't try to half ass it but just skipped instead.

I was, well, me. I would have a very hard time believing that he would honestly consider me over a girl like Bun Ma. Dark haired was about where the similarities ended. She was pretty in a small, impish way and if she was going to Clarendon along with her brother, her parents must be well off.

"There was another girl there, Bun Ma and her brother. They go to Clarendon."

Dad's eyebrows rose. "That's quite a ways."

"I think they were visiting family," I guessed. "A little snobby sometimes but they were trying. Ended up making stereotype jokes the whole time."

I didn't join in for obvious reasons.

"I like them."

Dad smiled slightly. "That's good."

I shoveled more waffle into my mouth. The rest of the breakfast went like that, just awkward questions and answers back and forth. It was a lot better than it used to be.

"I'm thinking of going back to school soon. Maybe." I shrugged with my good arm. "Pick up some homework at least."

"Absolutely not," Dad shut me down. "I'll get your work for you but if you don't need to be there, don't."

"Thanks, Dad."

He didn't take the opening to ask if it had been getting any better or worse and I was grateful for it. It made this conversation much easier than it could have been and I knew it couldn't have been that easy at all for him. I felt like I owed him.

"They have this thing," I said slowly. "Um, like a tutoring thing and I was just thinking about going. Doing something productive in the evening."

It was my canned response to questions about where I was going, studying at so and so's as my way of covering anything I might be doing. I would actually have to bring my grades up if it was going to have any chance of flying, but I should be able to pull it off. I'd be officially known as a 'dock rat' but as long as I watched myself, I should be safe from the E88.

The only problem would be Emma. I wasn't sure how'd she respond to losing her favourite punching bag, but I was long past the point of caring now. I just wanted it to stop.

"You'll have to tell me when to expect you back." Dad said sternly.

"Sure."

"Okay then." He sighed. "I'm glad you found some friends."

He said it like he was trying hard not to be a sore loser.

"I'm glad too."

We finished the rest of our breakfast in silence.

"Were you planning on running today?" He nodded towards my sweats.

"Have to get back into it or -"

"It'll be harder to start up again. I know. Got your spray?"

"In my pocket." Along with Takeo's handkerchief this time. I didn't really have any plans for where my route was going to take me today. Maybe just to the Boardwalk and back but I felt better having it on me.

I was glad for the excuse to escape, rinsing off my sticky maple syrup-coated plate before putting it into the dishwasher. "I'll see you later."

"Be safe."

I hugged him. "It doesn't matter about my friends. You're my dad."

I didn't have to look to know that he was smiling wide. "Love ya, kiddo."

I pulled on my shoes with a bit of effort. I'd left them tied so I didn't have to mess with that, shoving my feet into them. I closed the door behind me and took off with a light jog.

I took the same general route as I usually did on my morning runs, heading east towards the Bay. The neighborhood was just beginning to wake up with lights shining through the windows and the faint sounds of someone singing in their shower, a vaguely militant song in a language I couldn't recognize.

Back in the golden days, the city had been a bustling metropolis. Ships were coming and going at all hours with the cloud from their smokestacks adding to the morning haze. Further north at the Trainyard, deliveries were coming by rail at regular intervals, ready to be shipped overseas and the city was overflowing with people. At the far outskirts to the south were some abandoned construction projects for more apartment complexes, more roads, another school left interrupted.

The northern end of the bay, close to the water was all about the industry. Ships, warehouses, factories, railroad sidings and the homes for everyone who worked those jobs. You also had the ferry running across the bay itself.

The ferry was my dad's pet project. It had been one of the first things to go when import/export dried up. With the ferry gone, the Docks had been sort of cut off from the rest of the city unless you were willing to drive the extra half an hour to an hour.

In the beginning, my dad had held the opinion that the lack of transportation to the rest of the city was what had let the Docks get so bad. All of the gangs, the high crime rate and people with no where to go, trapped with each other.

Then ABB became what it was and he had, reluctantly, dropped his crusade. Now it was just us, the folks on the rest of the Docks, isolated along the Bay with them. It didn't even stop the gang's influence from spreading, making the ferry a pipe dream that was more likely to help ABB than hurt it.

I knew the city kept the station and the ferry looking pretty for tourists that wandered down far enough. The 'temporarily out of service' and 'coming soon' signs were replaced regularly so they kept looking new, but hadn't been taken down in nearly a decade.

Everything about the Boardwalk was pretty wrapping on something rotten.

Thoughts like that was probably why I found myself making a detour, cutting through side streets and back alleyways and feeling around with the local insects.

I didn't remember much about getting my power but what I did remember wasn't pleasant. Ignoring what had gotten me into that situation in the first place, the first thing I could recall was the sensation of splitting into hundreds of 'me.' Each with senses and feelings I couldn't understand. I pulled myself together. Eventually. Shortly afterwards, I had a habit of slipping and it had creeped a visiting Bao out.

I hoped he'd forgotten about that.

I found the 'trail' of scents and smells that led me into the heart of ABB territory. I approached from a different angle and met a small blockade of cars and a scooter. I flashed my handkerchief at the man sitting on the fire escape looking down, and headed in.

It gave me an electric, secretive feeling like having membership to an exclusive club. I didn't have a time limit or a guide to show me the approved sights. I wasn't exactly eager to see if there were restricted areas first hand, but I felt that walking along the shops should be alright.

A small flower shop with cut bonsai trees and potted cactus at the end of the road was where I met Kato Yuka and Amy Dallon.

222

Shujin

Sep 4, 2014

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Sep 9, 2014

#477

Rough as hell, please don't hold it against me!

Dragonfly

The flower shop was one of those large, L shaped stores that dominated a street corner but was trying to look like it wasn't. It didn't have a store sign or colorful awning outlining its space like the others, but when you got close enough it became apparent that it didn't need one.

The front windows were large and open to showcase what was inside. And inside looked like a fairy tale forest. Pots containing various small trees and shrubs, and some bamboo, sat alongside vases of various flowers. Some of the plants looked familiar, but the others I had no idea what they were. I didn't think anyone would know what they were.

Some of them had the same general shape as normal plants, but others edged into bizarre. Bulbous green flowers with petals that dripped in spirals, a flower that was colored and shaped like a rainbow, a jagged vine with crimson needles ran up a pole with small buds that shifted in colours, while the ones in bloom created geometrical patterns. It was strange, but also rather pretty to look at. Like a benign mad scientist playing florist.

My curiosity got the better of me and I headed right for the shop. A simplistic cursive "Yukas" sign hung on the doorknob haphazardly as an afterthought. I made a mental note about the missing apostrophe.

The door opened with a jingle and the shop's centerpiece plant took my breath away.

It was a sinuous tree that curled in ropes of bark around itself like a spiral staircase. It's leaves were broad and waxy, with flowers that had dozens of star shaped blue and white petals on thin stalks spilling out. It's branches brushed the ceiling but when you looked at it head on, the curls and angles of the wood formed a picture out of the negative space. A family. A mom and a dad, and two girls.

"I know that look."

I snapped back to attention and realized I was still holding the door open. I let it close behind me sheepishly. The speaker was a woman behind the counter with a steaming tea cup cradled in her hands. She had dark brown hair in a pixie cut topping an oval smiling face. She filled out a blue maternity shirt with a prominent baby bump.

"It's beautiful, innit?" She jerked her head back towards the far window. "And she says she isn't an artist."

The girl by the window I hadn't noticed sighed loudly over a notebook she was writing in. "I'm really not."

She had long brown hair with curl to it tied back in a french braid. Her face actually seemed familiar. Her name was on the tip of my tongue but when I reached for it, I grabbed nothing. She looked to be my age and very much not Asian. 'Yuka' at first glance didn't seem so either except for the slight curvature to her eyes.

"The tree was her idea," she stage whispered. "Planned it out and everything."

"It was your idea," the girl corrected her.

"The basics was, yes." Yuka smiled fondly. "The details were all you, Amy."

The name I'd been looking for slammed into my mouth. "Amy Dallon?"

Maybe a bit better known as Panacea, the former New Wave member and the greatest healer cape in the US, bar none. She'd personally saved at least several hundred lives and improved the wellness of thousands more.

She also had one critical weakness: She couldn't heal brains. Maybe her power just fizzled or it was too complicated but the end result was that her own mother was in a coma at Brockton Bay General Hospital.

Six months and counting.

Amy gave me a sideways glance with a frown on her face. "Yes."

I blinked at the almost hostile answer. Yuka laughed quietly.

"Amy," she chided gently. "Be nice."

She stuck out her tongue like a five year old, face all scrunched up and eyes screwed shut. "Sorry," she said eventually. "But if you want me to do something about that?" She pointed at my limp arm in my sling. "You'll owe me lunch or something."

"Lunch?" I repeated.

A bit of panic seeped into Amy's expression. "Maybe just a donut and coffee - " Yuka cleared her throat. "Lunch would be fine too. Right." She gave the older woman a look. "Anything to add?"

"You're doing fine, hun." Yuka smirked back.

Honestly, my broken hand was a legitimate excuse to stay out of school for just about as long as I wanted. That was almost enough to tip the scales by itself. On the other side was the prospect of being benched as a super hero until my injuries healed.

I opened my mouth when a thought hit me.

"Can you heal drug addictions?"

She gave me a strange look as if trying to reconcile something. "Um, I can detoxify and take care of some physical things but the cravings…" She tapped her forehead.

Good enough.

"I...have a friend." I paused to figure out how to phrase the request. I didn't want to give her too much information but at the same time I knew I had to give her something. I drew a blank. "We think she has a bomb in her spine."

Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline as her mouth fell open.

"Jesus." Amy breathed.

There was a porcelain clink as Yuka put her cup down. "I think it might be best if you two young ladies had this conversation somewhere more private. Perhaps in the back?"

Amy shook her head. "If it can't be said in front of you, then I'm not listening."

"I can't say too much to anyone," I admitted sourly. "I heard you just have to touch someone to know what's wrong with them. Is that how it works?"

Amy nodded slowly. "More or less."

I licked my lips, an idea forming. "Then what if she is nearby on that lunch?"

"That could work." Her eyes narrowed as she pointed at me. "But you'll tell me what the cloak and dagger stuff is for after, right?"

"If her life won't be in danger," I countered immediately.

Amy tilted her head and gave me a triumphant little smile. "Deal."

She held out her hand.

I took it and watched her right eyebrow quirk. "Breaks in your metacarpals, you've also got bruising on the side of your rib cage, some minor muscle lesions in your upper thigh and -" She reached up and took my glasses off my face. "Astigmatism. Done."

My vision was clear. On reflex I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose where a small divot scar used to be. It was where the frame of my glasses had bitten into my skin when Emma had punched me. It had gotten her suspended for three days, but that just meant she had time to think of something worse.

She hadn't been there. Safe with an alibi in a class room with a few other students willing to vouch for her but I had more than just a hunch or gut feeling that she was involved. The entire reason why I went out to the dumpster in the first place.

I never found my mother's flute.

"Thank you." I was a bit astonished, blinking. "You didn't have to do all that."

Amy's smile turned secretive. "I wanted to."

"Thank you," I said again.

An alarm rang from behind the counter and Yuka sat up straight. "Buns are ready." She nodded at me. "Do you want to try one?"

I fought the urge to look for a clock. I must have started running a little before seven. "Isn't it a bit early to be baking?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "She's always cooking something."

Yuka grimaced and placed a hand on her stomach. "That's because I'm always eating."

"When -" I stopped. It was a bit of a personal question wasn't it? It had just come to mind like a half forgotten memory of how to actually have small talk with someone who wasn't looking to use everything I said. I scrambled for something else to say to cover my blunder when Yuka smiled.

"Am I going to pop? Sometime next month."

"He's late." Amy said quietly and turned back to her notebook.

"He's fine." The woman waved a casual hand. "I trust you, remember? Now before those buns overcook, you girls will have to excuse me."

Amy just seemed to lose all interest in talking as soon as she left and buried her nose in a book, taking notes with her right hand. The book proudly proclaimed "The Human Genome - Third Edition" and had a worn cover with dog eared pages. I peeked at the notebook. Amy's eyes flickered to me for a moment, then dismissed me so I took a step closer for a better look.

It was covered with helix designs, chemistry formulas and neat handwriting.

"The store isn't officially open yet, but you can take a look around if you want," she said. "You break anything, you're buying it."

"I'm more interested in what you are doing," I admitted.

Amy hesitated.

"It's a retrovirus," she said, looking at me over the top of her book. "For gene therapy."

"You're taking college courses?" I asked.

"No, it's a project of mine, I guess. Independent study. And maybe a bit of practical work. I need to make absolutely sure it will do what I want it to do. Different kinds of cancer, different causes, it will be making changes without direct supervision so it has to be perfect." Her brows furrowed. "And careful on the propagating. The PRT can get a bit jumpy."

I caught on to what she was saying.

"You want to use a virus to cure cancer?"

She slumped. "It's a bad idea, isn't it?"

"No!" I almost yelled. "It's great! You can not only cure cancer, but eliminate it. Just make it airborne and sturdy and if it corrects all the genetic defects that leads to cancer -"

"And kill the present cancer cells without killing healthy cells," she pointed out. "Some cancer types are also caused by other viruses."

"Can't you make it be able to tell the difference?"

She looked down at her notebook. "In...theory…"

The only question was how was she going to make a virus like that. Then I looked back at the tree center piece and felt stupid. If healing was the only thing she could do, then she couldn't have made that. I had an inkling of an idea what link existed between her ability to shape trees, heal bones and make super viruses.

"Is your power biology?" I asked her seriously.

Amy blinked. "Yes."

There were so many ways to abuse that. I grabbed hold of the fly sitting on a flower inside the shop and guided it to the table. I also swallowed every ounce of trepidation and anxiety welling up in the back of my throat. Amy was a hero's hero. She was safe.

I made the fly do loop de loops in front of her. "H-Hi, I'm Taylor."

Her face lit up with understanding. "Amy."

255

Shujin

Sep 9, 2014

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Sep 11, 2014

#495

Sooo much dialog! @.@

Dragonfly

Making meat bun rounds with Panacea and a pregnant woman hadn't exactly been my plan when I had left the house on a jog that morning, but I was not about to complain. When I was here with Bao I was like a tourist on the Boardwalk. There, but not a local.

Amy was and it showed. She knew several of the civilians on the street by name, across nationalities and made it a point to try and get the pronunciation right. It wasn't until I saw her reach out and brush a random passerby with her fingertips that I realized what she was also doing: checking up on them.

"My sister would patrol," she explained. "You know, be on the look out for muggings or gang violence. My power...doesn't really let me be that kind of hero." She looked down at the ground momentarily. "But I can patrol in other ways."

She didn't look like a superhero in her loose jeans and flower turtleneck, but then again, wasn't that the point of New Wave's unmasking schtick? It wasn't like Amy lost her powers when she didn't have her iconic white robe costume on and she didn't have an identity to hide. I didn't really think she had to have that costume on to be a hero either.

"And keep me company," Yuka added. "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Liu! Have one."

Amy confronted an old man with a face full of wrinkles and liver spots smoking a pipe. "Chung. You haven't been taking your medicine. Why?"

The old man scowled. "I don't feel any different!"

"And you won't," Amy agreed pleasantly. "Until you have a heart attack. That's why they are doctor's orders and not doctor's suggestions." Her gaze fixated on the pipe in his mouth. "I am not curing the damage from that."

"I'm a die soon anyway," he mumbled.

"Take your medicine, keep up your walks and stop smoking and you'll have another decade."

Chung blinked and squinted at her. "Really now."

"Or you can keep doing what you're doing and try me," she said dryly.

He hummed and settled back against the wall he had been leaning on. His friend chuckled and babbled something at him, nodding at Amy at the same time he said 'sheeao shuh.' He grumbled but nodded.

"Alright, I'll take the pills."

Amy smiled brightly. "Good."

"What did he call you?" I asked her when she stepped away.

She made a face. "It's Chinese for little snake." She sighed. "It's a long story."

Yuka came back just in time a few buns lighter to nudge the girl with her shoulder and tell me, "Amy's been adopted by Snake."

She sighed again. "Not that long apparently."

I stopped dead in the middle of the street. "Wait, really?"

"No! Not really. Really not really."

"Not legally," Yuka inserted.

"Hup-bup-bup!" Amy put a hand up in Yuka's face sternly, but I could see the woman grin around it. "You lose your talking to Taylor privileges."

Yuka started to giggle and Amy sniffed and put her nose in the air while she snagged the sleeve of my sweatshirt. "We'll be on the other side of the street." I went along with her, bemused. "It really is a long story - hold on." She broke off to tap a woman that had just brushed by her on the shoulder.

Amy whispered something and the woman's face looked stricken, before bowing low and then grabbing Amy into a surprise hug. It was returned fiercely.

When she came back, "Developing brain tumor. I just let her know to get it looked at. And...Snake." She looked away, then up at the overcast sky. "She's basically my sponsor. So that I could be here."

It was obviously not the whole story. To me, Snake had been hovering around 99% disapproval, and the feeling was mutual. It wasn't difficult to tell what someone like that smiling woman would see in Amy, the question was why? "So are the rumors true then?"

She frowned. "What rumors."

She didn't know? "That you're part of ABB?"

Her frowned sharpened into a hard scowl. "No." Sensitive topic alert! I started to frantically apologize, but she cut me off. "I know what it looks like, I'm here and I think the people are wonderful but," she sped up a little. "I don't like Lung."

I lengthened my stride to match her.

"You know how many people here are missing fingers or parts of fingers?" It was a rhetorical question. "It's penance, for a mistake. Ritualised. There's people addicted to drugs of all kinds and you know what happens to people who don't pay when told to?"

Dad made sure I never found out.

"That not counting psychos like Kali and," Amy stopped. "Honest to god whore houses. I was here last night with Yuka, talking Go out of hanging himself. He-" her voice broke. "He was in charge of the casino that got robbed recently. Security breach or something, they didn't even get caught."

Lung would have killed them, I wanted to say but I bit my tongue until I tasted iron.

"And you know what gets me?" She started walking again.

"No one does anything." I guessed. She was starting to sound like my father.

Amy looked at me out the corner of her eye and nodded slightly. "It's like someone is running a tally in the background. Do enough good, remind them of it," I heard the papers of her notebook crinkle in her grip. "And you can be as much of a monster as you want."

I made the decision not to tell her about the dragon handkerchief in my pocket.

Snake actually came to meet us at the end of the road, melting out of the crowd with her cane and blank smile. She was still formally dressed with what looked like a cashmere sweater and slacks. Amy brightened upon seeing her.

"Snake."

The small woman nodded. "Amy." Her dark eyes traveled to me. "Taylor," she acknowledged and just as quickly dismissed me. "Progress?"

"I'll see you around, I hope Taylor?" Amy peered up at me earnestly.

"I owe you lunch," I reminded her. It also reminded me that unlike myself, Amy probably had school later today. "Um, Saturday at 1? Boardwalk?" I searched my mind for a good meeting place and only one came to mind. "Boat statue."

She sobered. "I'll be there."

I smiled tightly. I'd have to relay the meeting to Lisa, but I was reasonably sure she wouldn't turn down the chance.

Yuka caught up to me with her bun tray greatly depleted, only about four lumps showed through the damp cloth that had been placed over them. "Sorry, sorry, today's Wednesday, isn't it?" She nodded in the direction of Amy's back as she showed off pages in her notebook to Snake as they walked off. "Mad science day, here, do you have to leave soon?"

I shook my head.

"Well," she pumped a fist in the air. "Do you mind accompanying me to my last stop?"

I didn't mind. I also had something I wanted to ask her. "What do you think about ABB?"

Yuka settled the tray against her distended stomach and turned off the main road. "It's like a rum filled dark chocolate," was her answer.

I raised my eyebrows. "You are going to have to explain that one."

"I had one of those." She gave me a look. "Once. It looked good and I knew going in what it was, but it wasn't until I actually bit into it that I discovered that I really didn't know. It was bitter, and alcoholy but at the same time the chocolate was divine and it had a few nuts and caramel. I was allergic to the nuts. Mixed success."

She handed me one of the four buns and told me in no uncertain terms, eat. I bit into it obediently and instantly tasted why Amy had stolen one before we set off. There were green onions, meaty tasting mushrooms and scrambled egg mixed with a savory pork in the middle. The bun itself was soft, slightly sweet and still warm. I scarfed it down.

Off the main road, the surroundings seemed to quiet. The bustle of people faded into the background to be replaced by a stillness. It was more of a residential section, I thought, judging by the heaters stuck in windows and the presence of drapes. Quite a few had lights on, but other people were still fast asleep.

I briefly wondered if Bao lived here.

"A lot of things are held together by Lung's sheer force of will, you know. This isn't possible without her. Some elements don't blend well with others, some don't make any kind of sense and a lot is…" For a moment, Yuka's expression teetered on the edge of brittle and she ran a hand over her tummy. "Bad. But what it does right, well." She shrugged. "It's not something you would want to complain about, hmm? And what you would, what can you do? She has the strength to back it up. She is our divine mandate from heaven."

"Because she's a cape," I finished for her.

Yuka's expression was neutral with her eyebrows only slightly angled downward in a not-expression that could have meant any number of things. Her fingers were still curled around the pan, looking for all the world that she wasn't really bothered by the idea that someone who stumbled into superpowers could rule over her. Just because they had powers and she didn't.

"It is much like the old days. The ones you read about in history books, well, maybe not so much in our public education system," she said with a bit of sarcastic cheer. "But when I was a little girl, my grandmother used to tell me stories of the samurai and the lords they swore loyalty to. Fantastical ones, with dragons and ghosts, evil spirits and gods, you know? That's what I see here, like a reenactment of the feudal period."

Dragon murals on the walls staking out territory and a metaphorical palace on the hill.

I could see a bit of what she was saying. Like Kaiser's knight theme, the PR for the Protectorate or the Guild in Canada, the various independent superhero teams across the country all that in common: making them seem larger than life. I tried to imagine how it must have been for those people who had grown up in a time without any parahumans at all, only to have that all flipped upside down when Scion arrived and the first superheroes began to emerge on the scene.

They even called it the "Golden Age" of heroes, a fantasy grounded in reality.

"Lung's power makes her seem mystical." I mused out loud.

Yuka thought that over, chewing on her bottom lip. "She plays up to that, I think. Although I suppose if I could turn into a fifty foot dragon by getting angry enough, I would abuse the hell out of that."

I couldn't help but smile.

Yuka's jovial mood faded. "A lot of those myths end in tragedy, even the ones with dragons in them."

She led me down a side alley, chatting non stop. I could see why Amy liked her. Yuka was one of those outgoing people that simply decided she was a friend of yours, and then did her best to live up to that title without asking anything in return.

She carried the conversation, telling me about her old apartment in New York and her shop. Her mother lived in Boston with her younger brother who was still in college going for a business degree.

She had, in her words, a 5th grader's understanding of Japanese and couldn't be bothered to get better at it.

"English has twenty six letters. You know how many kanji I'd have to learn to read a newspaper? Over two friggin' thousand. God. I'm done with school, thank you very much."

"Two thousand?"

"Chinese is even worse!"

Her father had been at Kyushu.

"We have a memorial," she had blurted out. "It's out of the way and not really something 'outsiders' see because it would be...rude? Not quite the word, but other people seeing it, who don't know is…"

Like someone you don't know at your mother's funeral, offering empty condolences.

"I get it."

She looked at me and gave a tiny, watery laugh. "Now I've gone and spoiled everything. Yes, let's talk about loss and suffering this morning, Yuka. Great idea." She shook her head. "I talk too much, really."

Our destination seemed to be a dead end between two brick apartment buildings lined with dumpsters and identical fire escapes scrawling up their sides in metal zig zags.

I spotted the familiar face first. Noriko was seated on the lower rungs of the fire escape with her legs hanging over the railing and her back against the ladder. She was bundled up a little with tight jeans and black boots that went up her calves, a dark green corduroy jacket over a red turtle neck completed the picture.

A woman sat on a landing higher up despondently, just leaning listlessly against the side as if she was just waiting for the railing to give way and dump her on the ground. She wore gray rumpled sweats and short matted hair. A long cardboard box was opened next to her and in her lap was a sword with a black blade.

They made a strange pair. Noriko wouldn't have looked out of place on the Boardwalk with the tourists or downtown at the higher class stores. The other woman looked homeless.

Noriko's eyebrows jumped when she saw me. "Taylor, right?"

"Noriko," I returned, nodding. I had no idea what else to say. Are you a gang member too? Was I just assuming that all Asians within a certain age range were ABB? Were they? Did thinking so make me racist?

"This is...awkward." She looked around the street as if trying to spot a camera. I got the feeling she wasn't sure what to say either. "Did you..join?" She made a vague, aborted hand motion in the air. "You know…"

"Technically."

"Don't." Yuka said. Noriko's eyes shifted over to her. "You don't need to get involved with any of that."

"She has her reasons, Kato."

"Oh really?" Yuka turned to me. "Do you have a burning need to spend a lot of time around psychopaths, murderers, rapists or all of the above?"

I stared at her. "Not...particularly…"

ABB did have a lot of fear around it, and it had it for a reason. I was having a hard time swallowing it though. I thought about everything here and the people; trying to reconcile Bao visiting me in the hospital and someone like Oni Lee as belonging to the same group wasn't working.

Amy seemed to think that was the point.

Yuka whirled back around. "Now you tell me Lung doesn't have some troubled people on her payroll. Go ahead, Nitta."

Noriko opened her mouth and then closed it. Yuka got a 'ha!' expression on her face that was eerily similar to the triumphant little smile Amy had given me earlier. The exchange left me feeling a little confused. Obviously, they didn't see eye to eye on everything but they were friends, I thought. How much of that was because they liked hanging around each other and how much was Yuka alone was hard to say.

"They were worse before," Noriko murmured.

Yuka placed her hands on her hips. "I'd rather they not be around at all."

That got her a frowning, thoughtful look. "Noted."

I looked up at the other woman hesitantly, wondering if she was going to respond. She was still staring at the sword, oblivious to the world. Yuka placed the tray with the remaining buns on the lowest landing, standing on her tippy toes in order to reach it.

"That's Nabiki," Yuka told me.

"Make sure she eats today," I could barely make out Noriko's whisper to her. She leaned over the railing precariously. I honestly expected her to slip off at any moment.

"I will." Yuka promised.

"And your boy?" Noriko settled back against the rusting ladder.

"He's fine," Yuka stressed and patted her stomach. "You ask every day." She perked up suddenly like a cat that caught sight of a juicy bird. "Want one of your own?"

Noriko grimaced. "I can just spoil yours."

"That wasn't a no!"

"Possible," Noriko allowed and Yuka literally bounced on the spot in excitement. "But not likely. I have enough 'children' to take care of at work."

The crumpled woman above us, Nabiki, turned her head slightly to stare down at Noriko. She rasped something in Japanese I had no hope of understanding but Noriko leaned her head back to stare up.

"Lung," she answered blandly.

Nabiki's grip on the sword tightened and she went quiet again. Noriko frowned up at her and shrugged at Yuka before sighing.

"Were you showing Taylor around, Kato?"

Yuka leaned against the wall and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Yes, could you take that up for me? I was thinking the memorial."

Noriko's face tightened, then relaxed. She pointed at me. "You show any disrespect and I'll beat it out of you, understand?"

I was pretty sure she meant that literally. She didn't have what I would consider a powerful build, but it was athletic and the look on her face was as serious as a heart attack. I nodded quickly.

She pulled her legs up over the railing and made her way down, hopping the last three or four feet to the ground.

The curiosity burned in my stomach with the meat bun as I slowly followed her out of the alley. "Is...is Nabiki going to be okay?"

Noriko smiled slightly as she seemed to pick a random direction, spinning on her heel. "Bravest coward I know."

Talk about a backhanded compliment.

"What did she ask you?" Something about this, looking at her back was familiar.

"Who gave her the sword."

"Lung does that?" For some reason, I wasn't surprised. Because giving random people live steel just seemed in character.

Noriko's lips curved mischievously. "Sometimes. Why, want one?"

That sounded like a terrible idea.

"My father would kill me."

Noriko chuckled.

Deja vu.

193

Shujin

Sep 11, 2014

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Threadmarks Dragonfly 4.4

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Shujin

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M. NightShujinlan

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Sep 12, 2014

#554

Dragonfly

Walking the streets with Noriko was quiet, but not uncomfortable. Amy and Yuka both had the same approach to the moving crowd of people on the main street; greeting everyone by name and showing an interest in how they were doing. Caretakers, in a very real way.

It was how I imagined my father approached his job. He remembered histories, names and faces and made it something personal to him when they were going through hard times. In comparison, Noriko was distant.

I didn't mean that in a bad way. It was like comparing a hug to a handshake. She was less involved but not unkind. If someone called out to her she responded but most of the time it was just a look of recognition, a smile or a nod. It was an attitude that didn't demand attention.

Just another face on the street.

The number of people had started to increase as the morning wore on and more woke up to face the day. I saw dozens of people starting to crowd the food stores and bakeries for breakfast or morning shopping. I saw the bakery Bao had taken me too, with the same tubby baker out in the front scrawling on the chalkboard.

Noriko followed my eyes and then glanced back at me. "Hungry?"

"No!" I felt my face burn a little. "I just...a friend introduced me to the food there. Just recognized it."

"Never had any from there." She gave the bakery a considering look then turned back to me. "Good?"

I nodded, "At least, what I had was good."

A bike rider zoomed past us on the side of the street, male with a blue blazer and laptop bag. He raised a hand, "Hey, Taylor!"

My hand raised reflexively, startled, before I realized who that had been. Neal, off to work.

I stopped walking.

It was a stupid, childish reaction to someone just saying 'hi' and at the same time, I kind of felt like it was long overdue. Maybe it was just the fact that it was early, and it was completely unexpected in a place where I could count the number of people I recognized on one hand but my eyes started to prickle. I closed them stubbornly and tried to take a deep, calming breath.

It didn't work.

Noriko's sure footsteps carried her back to me. I waited for her to say something, ask if I was alright or mock me or something, anything when a tear slipped free. She was quiet. I stiffened when I felt the weight of her hand settle on my shoulder and squeeze light as a feather. She took a step forward, pushing me along slightly.

I took a step and when I didn't immediately fall flat on my face off a curb, I relaxed minutely. I scrambled to get control of myself, surreptitiously wiping my face on my sweatshirt sleeve. It wasn't until I opened my eyes again that I realized we were still walking and that she'd been guiding me.

I stepped forward quickly and she let me slip out from under her hand.

"Sorry about that," I mumbled.

"Better?" She absently brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear as she studied my face.

"Yes," I tried to say confidently, an effect slightly marred by the raspy note to my voice.

"Good," was all she said. And that was that.

We wound our way through the grid of streets and crossings, until we got to a point where the mass of buildings just stopped. Perhaps it would be more accurate to stay, they opened up. It was exactly the same kind of thing you would see on the south side of town with the more expensive studios and apartments, the city development trying to make it look less like an urban gridlock by planting a few trees in the middle. Except that no sane politician would clear out a few buildings for it.

That was my first impression of the garden: huge.

My second impression was the kind that stayed with you forever.

The garden was unlike any I had seen before. White sand made looping, spiraling, abstract patterns that cut through short, brilliant green grass and moss. At a few places, the corners mainly, large rocks of all shapes were embedded and someone had made indented concentric circles in the sand around each one.

In the center, arranged like a clock face were plots of blooming rose bushes. Red buds dominated a sector to the east, a trail of the white sand separating it from a plot filled with pink buds. White roses were next to them and then pale blue. Dark blue, purplish and wrapping back around to red.

In the large circle at the dead center were a collection of eclectic pieces. Small statues, wood carvings, a fine set of china and various knick knacks. A stone slab stood stoically in the middle. Arcing across the entire garden was half of a simple, stately miniature white suspension bridge.

I could only imagine what the garden would look like in full bloom, but what was there was peaceful, sombre and I felt like I could linger forever. There were only a few other visitors, silent. They touched the slab or placed flowers at the base before moving on.

"It's designed like the Kanoya Rose Garden," Noriko said softly. "That's gone now." She pointed at the bridge. "Kanmonkyo. It connected the island to Honshu. That's," she cleared her throat. "That's gone too."

"How did you get this all built?" I knew it couldn't have been cheap. Not when something as small and inoffensive as getting the ferry operational again had a projected budget of several tens of thousands.

"We already had the space." She looked around and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "Condemned buildings. There was a smaller garden here before." She shuffled around uncomfortably. "Lung may have helped."

"Footing the bill?" I grinned when Noriko rolled her eyes.

"The least she could do." She nodded her head towards the stone slab at the center. "That's where we put the names. Not everyone." I felt my grin slip. It was a large rock, essentially a rough monolith of granite nearly five feet high, but it didn't have enough space for millions of names. "Just those we knew."

"Did you…?" I bit my tongue and the sudden burst of pain reminded me that I had gnawed on it violently before.

Noriko shifted. "My mother put my father up there." She shrugged nonchalantly but her lips twisted. "Never cared for him personally." She tilted her head, still looking at the memorial. "God, that bridge is gaudy, isn't it?" she blurted out as if just seeing it for the first time.

"A little," I admitted. "But I like it."

She looked at me. "Why? It's," she waved at it. "It's just there."

"Symbolism." She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "It's a bridge," I began, finding myself drawing on a half forgotten lecture on symbolism in literature my mother had shared with me once. Poems. "Bridges have always been about connecting people and that's what this does, doesn't it?"

I felt a bit of shame at realizing that I let things like that slide, reading. When was the last time I actually bothered to take notes during English class or spent the weekend at the library finding new books to read?

Noriko got a quirky little smile as she shifted her eyes between me and the bridge. "I think it was just a big expensive thing to Lung. But…" She nudged me with her shoulder. "I like your version better."

"You don't like Lung very much, do you?" I asked her.

"I like her just fine," Noriko said indignantly. "Like you could like a friend and still want to hit them for being stupid."

I thought about Lung's metal mask and how she just punched into a brick wall. "You'd probably break your hand."

"Still want to do it," she growled. "You know how much damage she caused? Just her. How many lives were lost because she didn't want to lose a pissing contest with an Endbringer?"

My head was telling me that I should just let the topic drop. Noriko's body language was getting increasingly tense, but none of it was directed at me, which made all the difference. I pushed. "Is that how you saw it?"

"How else could I see it? She didn't even notice the island was sinking!" I could see her balled fists in her pockets and she took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

A lightbulb went off in my head. "She warned me about something like that, I think."

"Then maybe she's learned her fucking lesson," Noriko spat. "Maybe she's," she hunched her shoulders. "...learned."

I didn't know what to say. The silence was that special kind of awkward, where you didn't want to break it because you couldn't see any way of making it better, and the topic wasn't going to die a natural death.

Noriko's cell phone ringing loudly spared us.

Her expression morphed into a long suffering one with a bit of exasperated amusement. "That's not yours, is it?" she asked hopefully.

I just gave her a flat look.

She sighed. "Didn't think so. I should take this. You'll be fine on your own?"

I huffed. I seemed to be picking up chaperones like I was making a collection. "Thank you for guiding me here, I'll be fine."

Her eyes shifted to a point above my shoulder, looking at the far side of the garden and then back, "Respect this place." She drifted back to the memorial stone. "There are a lot of ghosts here."

She accepted the phone call and walked past me, absently brushing some of my hair back as she did. My own hand came up to follow the trail her fingers had taken, finding strands that had escaped their ponytail. I walked along the cobble stone path through the garden as I buried them back where they belonged.

The stone had a lot of names on it. Every square inch of the flat, polished surface was etched with symbols and letters, a fraction of the butcher's bill. I found myself reaching out but stopped myself before my fingertips could touch it.

The base of the stone was decorated with bundles of flowers. The mementoes were spread a bit farther out. Sometimes it was a picture, laminated to protect it from the elements. A cup or bowl. Toys. A beautiful wooden chest caught my eye, as did a plastic flute case. The garden was empty but as I stood there in front of the names, my chest was tight.

Noriko was right. There were a lot of ghosts here.

I stared at the flute case.

I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my morning. I had a ghost of my own to visit.

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Shujin

Sep 12, 2014

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Threadmarks Interlude, Laserdream

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Sep 13, 2014

#588

Interlude, Laserdream

It had been at least half a year, but Crystal didn't think she would ever get used to flying over the blinking lights of downtown towards the PRT building as if she belonged there. It was where the government heroes belonged, signed and stamped by a public relations machine and hidden away from the rest of the city by code names and costumes. Part of her saw the need, for their own safety and all that with the masks and the protocols and the rules but most of her just saw something sad.

It was like shoring up the crumbling foundations of an abandoned building. Heroes, the beacons of justice and larger than life paragons. In Brockton Bay, that ideal was dead.

As far as she was concerned, it died the moment her father did.

She touched down on the pavement, wishing it was the grass of their lawn at home instead and also wishing she had thought to do more of her homework beforehand. South Side patrol tonight, why'd it have to be South Side?

'I should have swapped with Clockblocker', she thought.

Patrolling ABB territory was like patrolling the border of another country with a cease fire in effect. Toeing the invisible line in the dirt, tense, waiting for the other side to make a move and break the truce. For most of them anyway. Piggot had pulled Carlos off of ABB duty, indefinitely, because his version of "patrolling" was picking a random fight, getting beat up and then going home.

Assault had gotten yanked for the exact same reason.

The building housing the local Parahuman Response Team division was just like all of the other buildings. The exterior was all windows, reflective enough to mirror the sky overhead and passing headlights of cars. An office building on the outside that could have been anything from insurance, to sales. Only the shield logo bearing the letters 'P.R.T.' marked it apart.

The glass door hissed open as she approached it, inviting. Never mind the half a dozen scanners embedded in the metal door frame or the wall camera that immediately oriented on her face, the observer behind it itching to punch the alarm.

She'd always thought the lobby was kind of schizophrenic.

A pair of employees in suits skirted around her, leaving at the end of a long work day and entirely unremarkable. Then there were the small team of four PRT officers on standby, each stationed at different areas of the lobby and outfitted with the best equipment money could buy. All wore the standard exoskeleton that acted as a force multiplier over their tinkertech composite body armor.

Their firearms were incorporated into the skeleton, mostly. Tasers, EMP, rubber bullets, just self defense items. Offense was slung across their chests in bandoliers of specialty ammunition and grenades like they were starring in a Rambo movie. One still had the foam sprayer, a flame thrower looking weapon that spewed hardening foam and used to be a staple. They were being phased out and the excess sent to other branches.

The 'P' in P.R.T could have been changed to stand for 'Paramilitary' instead and no one would have noticed.

Then there was the gift shop.

When school ended there was always a small crowd of teens eyeing the action figures, posters, video games or clothing. Four-foot tall pictures of the various Protectorate and Wards team members were placed at regular intervals around the lobby, each backed by bright colors. The PR machine at work.

The tour guide would sit behind the front desk with the expression of a Walmart greeter, a 24/7 tired smile. On schedule, he would introduce tourists and children to the PRT offices, the armory, the training area and the parking lot with the parahuman containment vans, showing them what it took to manage the local heroes.

Like a police department's K-9 unit, proudly showing off what they accomplished with the help of their trained pets.

Bark, bark, woof, woof.

It was too late for a tour and all the kids had gone home. The lobby just had its watchers and the empty front desk with the sign 'Be right with you!' perched on it next to an intercom button. She checked the time on the large clock on the wall above the door behind the desk, before heading in. Early.

She turned the doorknob. Dauntless and Hanabi were already inside.

"Hey," Hanabi said. The eraser under her fingers poofed into perfectly arched rainbow. "Crap." She sighed and reached over the table where Dauntless nudged another small eraser her way.

"Watanabe," Crystal said with a strained smile as she sat down.

'Not her fault,' she reminded herself. That didn't stop her from remembering her aunt's still body in the hospital bed, all of her external injuries healed but the mind asleep. 'Not her fault, get a grip.'

"How's, um, how's your uncle doing?" Watanabe looked up at her like a puppy dog hoping for good news.

No longer on suicide watch and the rest of them finally felt like they'd be able to breath. Victoria seemed to take making sure he took his medicine like a sacred duty, come hell or high water.

"Better."

The girl sighed in relief and rolled her new eraser around. "That's good."

They chatted lightly about general things, school mostly. The younger Ward was finally getting her transfer to Arcadia pushed through from Immaculata and would be in the next batch of 'decoys.' She didn't even know what the point of that bit of nonsense was. With a name like 'Hanabi' anyone not looking for an Asian student was retarded, and she doubted there were that many available to even be a decoy.

The P.R.T might surprise her, probably by insisting they might have given a dark haired caucasian girl a Japanese name just because. She wouldn't be holding her breath.

Crystal did not bring up Carol and Hanabi didn't ask.

When Carlos came through the door in costume with his mask hanging from his right hand, she let a tiny bit of her anxiety drain. He sat next to her and found her hand, entwining his fingers. She smiled.

"So!" He said cheerily. "Nazi time."

"South Side patrol time," Dauntless corrected mildly. "If it becomes 'Nazi time' you are calling it in and booking your asses back to base."

"And we do nothing," Carlos said. "Again."

"I didn't say that," the hero murmured. "Did I? I could have sworn I said 'Nazi time' was bad, but if it so happens to be a couple of petty criminals breaking the law, well." He shrugged. "That's too bad for them, isn't it?'

Hanabi's eraser became a yellow flower of light. "You are so much better than Armsmaster," she whispered.

"Don't chase them," Dauntless warned. "Stay safe, watch each others backs and don't fight if you don't have to." He eyed Carlos. "Understood?"

"Nazis have no sense of humor," her boyfriend said. "Who knew?"

"You have been spending way too much time around Dennis," she told him.

"I expect you all back before eleven. You've got five minutes of leeway before I throw up the search lights." Dauntless paused there and rubbed at the stubble on his chin uncomfortably. He looked at each of them in the eye. "If something comes up, call. I'm not losing any of you on my watch."

He handed out the ear bud radios and double checked to make sure that they were working. Carlos pulled on his mask, becoming Aegis and Hanabi grabbed a handful of the small erasers.

Dauntless raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have your marbles?"

"Yeah, but I want to try something and don't want to overwrite."

He sighed. "You aren't allowed to directly manipulate time, space- "

"I know!" She whined. "I was thinking tranquilizers of some kind, or power null field?" She smiled hopefully.

"The field I'll give a pass on," he said slowly. "But don't try to directly shut someone down until we put it through testing. We don't want you accidently killing someone."

'Or putting them in a coma,' Crystal thought.

Hanabi winced and put the erasers down. "Never mind," she said in a small voice. "I'll just use what I have." She grabbed her hover board from the corner of the room, one of Kid Win's projects and all three of them marched out into the street. Crystal took to the air first followed by Aegis, and then Hanabi once the board kicked into gear.

"PRT to Laserdream, can you read me?" crackled through the bud in her ear.

"Yes." Answering to an authority that wasn't her mother still made her squirm a little. "We're going to start with Lawrence Park and go from there."

"Sounds good. Things have been quiet lately, let's hope it stays that way."

"I thought I was team leader," Aegis teased her and she rolled her eyes.

"Did you want to take another route, great team leader?"

"Oh no, no, I'll just be following your lead. Enjoying the view."

She shoved him and he tumbled out of the air dramatically flailing, catching himself just before he slammed into the side of a building. He stopped there, staring into a nearby window and she could hear him chuckling weakly.

"I think I nearly gave an old cleaning lady a heart attack," he mumbled when he rejoined them.

Hanabi pulled up beside him. "Good effort, but it will take more than that to dethrone Shadow Stalker."

Aegis snorted. "No one wants to dethrone Shadow Stalker."

"The mask sees electricity," Hanabi growled in a rough approximation of Sophia Hess. "There was no electricity, how the fuck was I supposed to know it was a boy's locker room shower!?"

Crystal cracked a grin. "And the most awkward Heroic Entry award goes to…"

They ran into trouble three hours in.

The sound of what seemed like a really violent car accident reached Crystal's ears and she lifted herself instinctively, higher until the tops of the buildings stopped blocking her sight. "Did you guys hear that?"

"Yup," Aegis' voice was augmented by their radios. "Got nothing so far."

"West," Hanabi said.

Crystal didn't question how the girl knew that, turning. A store front's large window was sporting a car crashed through the front of it and she felt her lip curl. Probably refused to pay for 'protection' this month, subject to a vicious smash and grab, classic. "Empire."

"Keep an eye out, Laser," Aegis ordered. "I'll head down first. Hanabi, cover me."

"You got it."

Crystal felt something cold and hard form in her chest as she watched her boyfriend touch ground as she floated above. Her fingertips itched as she searched the skyline and the corners of the street. Nothing. 'Didn't mean anything,' she thought a bit desperately. More could show up at any time, like cockroaches when the lights were out.

"Come out with your hands up!" Aegis yelled.

The response was immediate. "Oh you have to be fucking kidding me."

Aegis' gaze honed in on store when the door opened casually and out stepped a girl dressed like a wizard, a long blue and red overcoat and cowl shadowing her face and a black scarf obscuring her chin. "The boy scouts showed up. Really? Fuck."

Crystal tensed when the girl brushed the glass of the door with her fingers. Then she seemed to change her mind and bent to touch the concrete front step. Better, slightly. The step, the sidewalk and curb broke apart with spidering cracks as if struck with an invisible concussive force and chunks began to rise into the air.

Rune of E88, capable of 'attuning' herself to a material like glass with a touch, and then in a terrifying display of telekinetics, was able to control all of the attuned material in her range with her mind.

She had a moment of being glad her brother wasn't with them, and then really, really wishing he was.

"Don't make this hard on yourself," Aegis said confidently. Crystal could already tell that he had grown a bit taller and she knew that under his costume his skin was hardening. "We can talk this out like civilised people, can't we?"

Rune laughed derisively. "Not alone, fuckwit."

Walking out from behind her wearing his provocative Nazi soldier uniform and theater mask of a smiling man with a mustache and goatee, was Regent.

'This was already a win,' she found herself thinking. If Rune was willing to try and kill them she would have stuck to glass, and any information on Regent's abilities was information they currently didn't have.

"Heil," he said.

"Really?" Rune hissed at him.

"It's two versus three," Hanabi swooped down on her board, marbles already between her fingers. "Don't be dumb."

"If you really think I'm going to listen to anything the Jap says, you don't know me very well," Rune ignored her entirely, eyes still locked on Aegis.

Aegis took that opening. "So when she says 'don't be dumb,' that means…" A flying chunk of concrete cut him off.

"Wait, wait, wait," Regent held up his hands and carefully stepped out into the open by the crashed car. Rune hesitated, glancing at him. "Would you believe we were out on a date?" He asked seriously.

"No," Aegis said dryly, tensing.

Rune's reply was non-verbal, nailing Regent in the stomach with an errant piece of rubble.

"Domestic abuse!" He gasped out, sounding horrified. "You all saw it, arrest her or something."

"How about we take you both in?" Crystal gritted out from above.

Regent straightened and pretended to think about it. Aegis leapt at him, hoping for a quick takedown but at the last second his feet seemed to stick to the ground, sending him skidding painfully on the pavement.

Regent tsked. "How about no?"

Rune took that as her cue, launching a huge section of concrete at Aegis. Crystal's heart leapt into her throat and light leapt from her hands, smashing through it. Pieces pelted Aegis as he bounded up to his feet, his skin turning silver.

"Three!" Hanabi called out and threw a marble. It exploded between them, light reaching out, grasping.

Regent scrambled over the trunk of the car. She bored a hole in the pavement in front of him. "Stick around for a bit!" She called down and scattered her shots to the edges, keeping the Empire capes hemmed in. She was careful, a poor shot could easily be lethal.

Rune swamped Hanabi's trap with concrete shards, pulling up more concrete only to get tackled around the midsection by Aegis.

"Don't," he started.

Rune slapped a hand on his chest, and his costume launched him away.

Crystal fought the urge to go after him as he disappeared over the roof of a building. He'd be fine, hopefully.

Hanabi hauled her arm back, but her throw jerked wildly. Crystal's only warning as she fired between Rune and the car was a hasty "Shit!" before light exploded at the edge of her peripheral and grabbed her in an octopus hold. She projected her shield reflexively, and it just as quickly crumpled.

She sped to Hanabi's side. "Get this off me!"

"Sorry!" Hanabi wailed. The light fizzled and broke into colored motes.

"You know what?" Rune's voice rang out. With a heavy groan and tinkling glass, the car lifted into the air under her fingers. "You guys are fucking annoying."

Hanabi fished out a marble. "Four," she whispered. 'Four?' Laserdream repeated in her head. 'There was no four.' There was a flash of light.

Time slowed as the car rocketed towards them. The hood was dented, the grille crumpled and the windshield cracked into jagged lightning bolts spidering across. A pair of fuzzy dice swung from the rearview mirror. It filled her vision, no room to move, no room to dodge.

Light slammed down from the sky like the fist of an angry god.

The car disappeared with a squeal of protesting metal and a shudder rumbling through the ground. Crystal looked up, swallowing.

There floating above them and sheathed in brilliant white light was Purity.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Aegis' red and gold costume inch closer. She shook her head so fast, her neck creaked.

"This ends now." The woman said simply.

Rune seethed. "What the fuck, Pur-"

"You heard me," Purity snapped back.

Regent raised his hand. "Going. Right now."

Rune stared defiantly, for about three seconds. "Fine."

Crystal didn't relax even after they left. Purity hung there in the sky like a star, staring at the broken store front despondently. 'Should I be calling this in?' she wondered. Purity hadn't been seen active for at least a month by this point, then she shows up and is...on their side?

That would be too good to be true.

"Crystal Pelham?" Purity questioned, turning back to them.

"...Yes?"

For a long moment the woman was quiet.

"I'm sorry about your father."

"I.." before she could even respond, Brockton Bay's strongest Blaster just flew away. Crystal stared after her blankly.

Hanabi sighed loudly. "I'm done for the night," she said shakily. "Who's with me?"

Aegis coughed. "I don't have pissing off Purity on my agenda either. Laser?"

She jerked and looked back at them. "Um, sure." She turned back. The storefront was completely trashed by the short skirmish. The sidewalk was non-existent and even the front step was gone. The damage from the car alone would likely cost the owner's insurance several thousand dollars and as to whoever owned that car...It was embedded in a deep hole in the street, the center melted to slag. "I'm fine with that."

Her only consolation was that most of the damage was done by the villains.

A thought struck her. "Hanabi."

"Hmm?" The girl recovered her hoverboard and stepped onto it.

"What was four?"

The Japanese Ward cringed. "Something I'll have to tell Piggot about, probably. You should be fine. I think."

Her voice raised shrilly. "What was four!?"

215

Shujin

Sep 13, 2014

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Sep 14, 2014

#629

Preying Mantis

A few steps after my sneakers stopped clunking down on sidewalk concrete blocks and started stomping on the wooden platform, I stopped. I put both hands on the railing as I looked out over the beach, pumping my calves to keep the blood flowing. It was just a gut feeling, I didn't exactly have evidence for it, but as my fingers curled into the wood I couldn't help but think that Amy had done a bit more than just heal me.

I felt great.

The run had been easier, like picking up something you thought was twenty pounds only to discover that it was actually fifteen. My legs weren't aching as much as I was used to and I felt lighter. All of the small aches and pains were gone, made better by how much lighter I felt.

I'd unloaded a lot of garbage at Mom's gravesite yesterday. Just, talking about things. I wasn't ready to share all with my father yet, Emma and everything, but I felt like I could get there. This morning's conversation I had just come straight out with him that I had met Amy and she had healed my hand in exchange for lunch. Being able to be honest with him, for once it seemed, felt good. Keeping things bottled up was doing us both a disservice.

But that was a concern for later.

I straightened up and power walked the rest of the way to the Boardwalk.

People were just starting their business day. Most places were still closed, with top notch security systems, steel shutters and iron grates protecting all of the expensive stores, but there were cafes and restaurants opening up for the breakfast crowd. Other stores had vans parked out front, and were busy uploading their shipments. There were only a few people out and about, which made it very easy to find Lisa.

She was leaning on the wooden railing, looking out over the Bay and munching on what looked like a cheese croissant. Balanced on the railing next to her was a cardboard tray with a coffee in the north east and south west pockets with a small pile of napkins in the middle and, strangely, a light blue plastic lunchbox.

I slowed down to a walk and came to a stop beside her.

She glanced over with a little smile on her face. "Bug."

I rolled my eyes. "Tattletale."

She looked different than she had when I saw her Monday. No denim or T shirts, for one but nice gray pants and a green designer sweater-shirt that hung long with a high collar. The biggest change was that she looked healthier with her hair done up and without the exhaustion lines on her face. On Monday, she had seemed like just another teenager down on their luck. If she told me now that her father was the CEO of Medhall, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.

"It's Hachi now," I added and leaned on the railing with her.

She gave me an unreadable look. "Congratulations." She bit into her croissant a tad viciously. "So how's having Lung as a boss?"

"She's not," I said a bit defensively. "My boss that is."

"You're adorable," Lisa said with a grin. "If she tells you to do something, are you really going to say no?"

"That's not really fair. You wouldn't say no to her face either," I countered.

"Neither would half of the Protectorate and a chunk of E88," Lisa said and finished off her breakfast. "And that's the reality. Lung would literally own this city if she wasn't playing nice. But she is." Lisa frowned. "And I think that was a mistake."

"Are you blaming her for all of this?"

For a moment, Lisa looked surprised. "Huh. Guess I am a bit." She sighed and hung her head. "Never mind me." I caught the edge of her wan smile as she stared at a crab slowly scuttling across the sand. I checked around us and then took control of it, making it do figure eights. She caught on to what I was doing almost immediately, laughing quietly.

"So, you met the illustrious Amy Dallon?"

"That obvious?" I replied dryly, holding up my good as new hand. "She was nice and a bit more studious than I was expecting. Did you know she's trying to cure cancer?"

"It's a good thing she's a hero," Lisa said simply.

I briefly imagined a super villain wielding the power of biology and came up with Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse Nine. I shuddered.

"It's a shame what happened to New Wave," Lisa said softly.

"Was it ABB's fault?" I had to ask. I didn't think so, it didn't come up but the death of a family member wasn't something everyone would be willing to even hint at. I would know.

"It wasn't anyone's fault, not really." She pried one of the coffees from the tray loose and handed it to me. Startled, I took it. It was one of those fifteen dollar cappuccinos from the cafes with sugary cream on the top. "It happens. The only one that came out of that clusterfuck smelling like roses was the Protectorate. Luck, I'm guessing."

Luck. I didn't like the sound of that. I let go of the crab but it just sat there, as if it couldn't remember what it was it had been doing before the impromptu dance session. I gave it a mental 'Get on with your life, citizen' nudge and it scuttled away.

I smiled, watching it go. "I got Amy to agree taking a look at you."

Lisa choked on her coffee, stepping back from the railing as a bit dribbled down her chin and stained the Boardwalk with wet droplets. She grabbed a napkin from the top of the tray. "You...what?" She warded off my answer with a wave of her coffee. "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I asked, frowning. "She can help."

"If running to New Wave was a valid tactic, I would have done it already." Lisa told me bluntly. "Not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do for me, really I do, but…"

I gritted my teeth. "Coil can't have thought of everything."

Lisa smirked. "He didn't, but I'm pretty sure accounting for world famous Panacea is a no brainer."

"The addiction at least?" I slurped up some of the cream on my cappuccino.

"You mean reset my body's tolerance so that the next time, I'll probably OD on accident? No thanks."

"It can't hurt just to check," I pleaded. I wasn't sure I could explain it but I needed to help her. It was basically the entire reason why I donned a costume in the first place, helping people. I was beginning to think Lisa had spent so long feeling like there was no way out, that she saw traps in the exits. "We're already having lunch here at one on Saturday."

"No, it can't hurt." She looked back out over the Bay. "Alright, I'll be there."

A turn of the salt-water and seaweed scented wind blew my hood back, and I took a second to push my hair out of my face and pull my hood back up. I grinned, both at her agreement and that I no longer had to wear my glasses. "Good."

"You really do look happier," she said. It sounded final.

"Don't give up," I told her.

"I'm not going to." I felt more than a little relief at the return of her wide, fox like smile. "Coil has plans for E88, listen carefully." I leaned in. "Alright, so plans. He's confident about them which means he has a way to neutralize them. They are the designated losers, mopping up what's left."

"And ABB?"

"He's not gunning for Lung herself anymore." She frowned. "And yet he is, kind of. If E88 loses, ABB has to win, but…" She trailed off, brows furrowed. "Win in a way that doesn't make them stronger. Without Lung, pin it on E - no, the Empire would probably win that." She stopped. "Aswang is in PRT custody."

I gave her a sideways look. "Yeah?"

"You warned her, right?" She said tightly.

"Of course I did," I said a bit testily. It was kind of the entire reason I went to her in the first place. Sure, I had reasons to stay now, but I only took the first step for a very good reason. "Talk to me."

"I don't know yet." She chewed on her bottom lip and slurped more of her coffee. "But I have a bad feeling about it." She shifted on her feet and gestured towards the lunchbox. "That's yours by the way. Consider it a thank you."

I raised an eyebrow and tilted the box so that I could see the front. "Alexandria." She'd been my favorite hero as a kid. I lifted it with both hands. It had a bit of weight to it. "Is this a collectible?"

Lisa snorted. "Open it, you dork."

I stuck out my tongue at her and fiddled with the clasps. It popped open. "Money," I breathed. Rows of bills marked for 20 filled the plastic casing to the point where I quickly closed the top again and looked around to make sure no one else saw.

"It's half of my take for the casino job," Lisa said smugly. "Five grand. I figured my life is worth at least that much."

"I can't accept this." The foremost thought was the fact that it was way too much money for me to be holding in an Alexandria lunchbox, from a criminal no less which made the hero on the front ironic.

"Coil has a lot of money. Bank accounts, intermediaries, businesses legitimate and not. I haven't been sitting on my ass with," she rocked her head backwards subtly. "This. I've been picking it apart. If five grand is going to bankrupt me, then I'm doomed."

"Don't talk like that," I said.

"I said if," she protested with a smile. "Take it, really. If not as a thank you, then as an apology for getting you into this mess." She shrugged. "I told the others I was courting you."

I nearly dropped the lunchbox. "What?"

"For the team," she added, but her smile made it clear she did that on purpose. "Non-Asian living on the docks, forced to fall in line, you know the story."

"It's not like that."

"I know that. The others? They'll buy it. And hopefully, we'll be done with this before Coil starts asking the uncomfortable questions. He...knows too much sometimes."

I reluctantly tucked the box underneath my arm. "How much time do we have?"

"Not enough. But he thinks he's got me broken. I'm not," Lisa snarled. Her cup crinkled in her hand. "And he's going to regret it."

"You mentioned another," I said.

She relaxed slightly. "Yeah, a boy he picked up somewhere." Lisa's eyes flickered to me uncomfortably before she occupied herself with finishing her drink. "Quickest fingers I'd ever seen, he could take your wallet right out from your hand. Didn't really have a name, some parents just suck." Her expression shifted into a sad, nostalgic smile. "I call him Reggie." Her expression darkened. "He's trapped too."

Neither of us felt like talking much after that. I picked my coffee up from the railing and slowly drank it.

It was promising to be a sunny day today, only wisps of clouds clung stubbornly to the horizon of the bay and the sky was already brightening to that light blue. Hopeful weather, I felt, breathing in the sea air with the smell of freshly baked donuts and croissants wafting in from behind us.

She breathed out slowly and gave me a nod. "You should get going. School, right?"

"You don't go?"

"GED," she smirked. "Completely legitimate, of course."

"Right," I said dryly.

She shooed me away and I took off at a light jog, arm clamped around the lunchbox. Heading back home and preparing for school left me with this strange mix of anticipation and dread. If everything went well, today was the day the bullying ended. It wouldn't be through anything the teachers did, or the principal, but just having a group to belong to was going to be...it was sad that I couldn't even imagine it.

Ever since starting high school, I'd been isolated. The worst days had been back in my first year, when I was sure who to turn to and getting burned every time, when I wasn't yet experienced enough to anticipate the variety of things they could come up with. The odd man out, unwilling to take the invitation to join the E88 or the ABB, but too far down the social ladder for any of the ones in between to actually stick up for me.

Back then, it had been terrifying, because I hadn't know what to expect, didn't know where, when or if they would draw the line. It had been too hard to go back to school in January. I'd spent a week in the hospital under psychiatric observation and I knew everyone had heard the story.

Emma, Sophia and Madison. The Terrible Trio.

And maybe if it had just been the shoves, the taunts, juice in my chair and stolen homework, I could have taken it. But then I had made the 'mistake' of accepting a bit of help from the more friendly ABB. From Bao.

Emma hated the ABB. Things escalated. I tried to fight back. She got suspended. Dumpster.

What made it so much worse was that at one time, Emma Barnes had been my best friend.

195

Shujin

Sep 14, 2014

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