Earning Her Stripes

Part Twenty: Confessional

[A/N: This chapter beta-read, and vastly improved, by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Taylor

After Emma put the call through for the PRT, we all stood around awkwardly. Sophia was groaning and moving a little, but with the damage I'd done to her leg she wouldn't be going anywhere in a hurry, even if she went to shadow. Madison climbed back into the Blockade suit and stood over her, ready to grab her if she did something stupid. Emma had already zip-tied her hands behind her back.

"You're fucked." It was Sophia's voice. I could hear the pain as she spoke through gritted teeth. "You know that, don't you? You are so totally fucked beyond all belief."

Emma shook her head. "I'm thinking you've got it all backward there. You're the one who tried to kill Mr Hebert, and Taylor and I are witnesses to that. You also held my parents hostage. You are going to prison. Oh, and I'm officially kicking you off the team."

I wanted to chuckle at that last bit, but I wasn't really in a laughing mood. Besides, Sophia hadn't sounded like she was just trying to make a threat. There'd been something more in her voice.

"Yeah, you go ahead and do that," Sophia gritted, her breath audibly hissing between her teeth. "The moment I'm in gen pop or whatever, I'm telling everyone who you are. Firebird and Blockade will be so totally fucking outed by the time I'm done. I'll even tell the PRT and the cops how you talked me into feeding Hebert that stupid fucking vial to give her powers so you could have your very own supervillain to kick around, because picking on Hebert without powers got too boring."

Mr and Mrs Barnes stared at each other, then at Emma, but Dad got there first. "It's a long story," he told them quietly. "I'll fill you in and you can yell at them later."

"You were the one who stole the vials," Madison said, the suit's voice emulator still making her sound like a guy. "We wanted to back off. You were the one who kept pushing forward."

Sophia chuckled harshly, then bit off a groan. "Yeah, right. Who are they gonna believe? The one who's going to juvey anyway, or the heroes trying to pretend they're as pure as the driven snow? Nope, I'm telling them everything—my way. You're all fucked. I'm gonna make sure of it."

Mr Barnes stepped forward then, and crouched down next to her. "You can do that, if you want. It might even work. But you know something? Emma and Madison have every reason to not want their secret identities out there in the public eye. Yours will be going out there; we can't change that now. But if you expose them, they've got no reason not to expose everything you've done, and give the jury a good solid motive to hang all your actions on. As it is, you broke into Danny Hebert's house and tried to murder him, and you held me and Zoe hostage. But if we can't give them a solid motive for why you did it, and we can't do that without handing everyone's secret identities over to the PRT, then they'll be less likely to throw the book at you."

"Still sending me to juvey," Sophia reminded him. "Get me out of that, and we can talk."

"Sorry, no can do." Mr Barnes shook his head. "You're in too deep. You've done too much. But if your lawyer can spin it as a one-time mental break, you'll probably be out when you turn eighteen. Premeditated attempted murder as revenge on three innocent civilians? That's bad. Exposing the identities of PRT-recognised heroes? That falls under the Vikare Act, especially if either of them gets hurt as a result. You wouldn't have a chance of getting out before you're thirty at a minimum."

She literally growled at him. "You can't tell me what to do. I can fucking say what I want, to who I want."

"No. You can't." He reached down and pulled her mask off. "I'm going to need some cloth here, so I can finally fulfill a long-held fantasy. To be able to physically gag someone who isn't following my advice."

I leaned down and tore a strip of cloth off the hem of Sophia's cloak. The cloth was tough, but that didn't matter. When I handed it over, he fastened it in place, despite her struggles and attempts to bite him.

"Sophia," he said seriously as he stood up. "Keep going the way you are, you'll just dig your hole deeper. You can spill everything you know and put yourself in prison for fifteen or twenty years just to spite Emma and Madison, or you can keep your mouth shut and tough it out for three in juvey. Just think about it."

"PRT's here." Madison pointed at the vehicles that were just rolling on to the property. Mr Barnes backed away from Sophia and went to stand next to his wife.

The PRT vans, two of them, pulled to a halt. One had red cross markings on the side, which made sense in retrospect. Emma had mentioned Sophia's injury during the call.

Half a dozen PRT troopers climbed out of the other van, along with two of Brockton Bay's Protectorate heroes; specifically, Assault and Battery. I'd always thought that was a deeply unfortunate naming theme, given that it was the name of a crime, but they seemed to be okay with it. From the other van, two PRT troopers wearing the red cross pulled one of those rolling wheeled stretchers.

"Hi," said Assault cheerfully. "Seems you folks have had a bit of a problem with Shadow Stalker. Thought she was part of your team?"

Emma glanced at me, asking silently if I wanted her to take the lead. I gave her a nod; the PRT and Protectorate wouldn't know me in my current costume, whereas Firebird was familiar to them.

This was just for convenience; as per Emma's offer and my acceptance, I would be assuming leadership of the team, sooner rather than later. There was no other circumstance in which I would be willing to tolerate their presence for one second longer than necessary, once the current crisis got dealt with. I might have had fewer fucks to give overall since I got my powers, but there was a fucking limit.

The reason why I'd even accepted her offer was equally simple. Their team, while it may have been formed under false pretenses, had actually accomplished some good things. On the downside, they'd also forced me to get powers and had (before we stopped her) nearly allowed Sophia to murder my dad and Emma's parents. It was clear to me that unless The Real Thing was to be disbanded and Emma and Madison tossed to the wolves (and trust me, I was absolutely tempted) they needed an adult (translation: me) watching them, just in case their heel-face turn wasn't as definitive as we thought it was.

The thing that finally convinced me to keep them together was the understanding that debuting as the new leader of a pre-existing team gave me a certain amount of up-front credibility, as opposed to having to start fresh as a solo hero. I'd heard that could suck.

"She was," Emma said. "Until tonight. She's been acting out for a while, you know? But we just assumed it was Stalker being Stalker. Until she broke off in the middle of our raid on the Empire and headed off to who knows where. We didn't know what she wanted in the Hebert house, but I figured it wasn't good. When we stopped her, she took off and grabbed Alan and Zoe Barnes there, and forced them to drive out to Winslow, then taunted us to come save them. Oh, and by the way, she was threatening to out us to all and sundry, so we've gagged her. Just so you know."

"Any idea why she picked those particular targets?" I got the impression Assault wasn't quite buying it. "I mean, three people at random out of everyone in Brockton Bay?"

Emma let out a small huff of breath. "You'll be unmasking and identifying her soon enough, so I can tell you that her name is Sophia Hess. She goes to, or rather, went to Winslow High, along with Taylor Hebert, the daughter of the first victim. During the fight, Taylor figured out who she was. Afterward, she told me they didn't get along. Like, at all. So my wild-ass guess here is that after Winslow got rubbled, Sophia got pissed that she didn't have Taylor to kick around anymore and just up and decided to go after her, but found her dad first?"

"Okay, I get that an obsessive type of personality might go after someone she's been bullying for so long," Battery observed. "But why the Barneses? Where do they come into this?"

Dad cleared his throat. "Alan Barnes and I are old friends. If Shadow Stalker's been … well, stalking Taylor long enough, she'd know that. So, she grabbed them to draw me and Taylor out. But I told Taylor to go stay with friends. I didn't want her in the line of fire."

"Okay, that makes as much sense as anything does with capes these days," allowed Assault. "Kinda explains why she made you drive out here too." He rubbed his chin. "Any idea what made her go off the deep end like that?"

At the same time, Battery took a closer look at Mr Barnes. "What happened to your head? Was that Shadow Stalker? Do you need medical attention?"

"Yes, it was," he said with an easy smile. "She gets a little rough when you don't move fast enough for her, so I've found. But it's just a bruise. Nothing more serious than that. Didn't even break the skin."

Emma frowned in response to Assault's question. "I'm really not sure. She's been doing this a lot longer than Blockade and I have, but maybe that means she feels more entitled to do whatever she wants? I thought I knew her, but I really don't."

There was a burst of what could've been muffled swearing from Sophia as the medical techs got her onto the stretcher, but I wasn't sure whether that was due to the pain from her hip or what Emma and her father were saying about her. I was willing to bet on a fifty-fifty chance, but at least she wasn't carrying out her earlier threats.

Something clanked when Battery kicked it, and she looked down. Bending, she picked up the gun I'd crushed. "Okay, what the heck is this? A Smith? Nine millimetre? How did it get like this?"

"Ah, that would be me," I said, stepping forward. "You can call me Monochrome. I, uh, I caught the action tonight and stepped in to help. They like my style well enough that I'm apparently replacing Shadow Stalker on the team."

Which was the most ironic aspect of all this. As the most experienced of them, Sophia had considered herself the team leader. I was the least experienced, but I would actually be the team leader, where she hadn't been.

Battery nodded and examined the crushed pistol. "Brute, I'm guessing?"

"More or less, yeah." I gestured at the ground. "There's probably a flat bullet somewhere around here. She got a shot off before I grabbed the pistol."

"There's something else you need to know about Shadow Stalker," Emma said to Assault. "She's got family in Brockton Bay; mom and a brother and baby sister. We don't want her identity as Shadow Stalker getting out to the wrong ears."

It only took him a second or so to get it. "Ah, right. Okay, we'll get them into protective custody until we're sure nothing's leaked." As a cape himself, he would definitely know about the value of a secret identity. And while the Empire Eighty-Eight had been going downhill over the last couple of years since the Triumvirate captured Night, Fog and Purity, they still had dangerous members.

"Also, Shadow Stalker knows my secret ID as well as Firebird's," Madison put in. "We'd really rather that didn't get out."

I could understand why she was saying this. As much as I disliked her, she was doing her best to fix the shit she'd helped cause, and I had to give her credit for that. While what Mr Barnes had said might stick, it also might not, so it was a good idea to reinforce it.

Assault was evidently not a stupid man, and I could see the cogs turning over in his head. "I see. I'll institute zero voice contact for all non-cleared personnel. Once she's in our custody, I'll make sure she understands the consequences for sharing that sort of sensitive information."

Emma grimaced. "We've already tried telling her that, but she's promised us that she will be shouting our secret identities from the rooftops just as soon as she gets the chance. So, if and when you do ungag her, be aware that whoever's in the room is going to learn everything she has to say. And she's got a lot to say."

"Understood. I've encountered people like that before. She'll learn, or she won't. We've got contingencies in the Vikare Act for this sort of thing." He hesitated. "However, on the off-chance that this whole thing has more to do with your secret identities than you're saying, holding back crucial information might lead to difficulties in the case against her."

"Difficulties? I don't like the sound of that word." I didn't blame Emma for saying that. Neither did I.

"Well," Assault said. I got the impression he was launching into a spiel he'd used before. "In situations like this, when cape and civilian identities are both involved, getting charges to stick tends to be a lot easier if you're willing to officially share your secret identities with the PRT. It helps us to connect all the dots and put together a coherent picture to show the DA when he's building his case. Otherwise, her lawyer might lean on how she's got minimal officially confirmed connection to the victims, especially since the school that Stalker and Mr Hebert's daughter used to go to has since been demolished, thus making it Ms Hebert's word against Stalker's. They may well even go for the Mastered defence."

"Can they do that?" I asked Mr Barnes in a low tone. "I mean, pretend to have been Mastered to get away with attempted murder?"

"There have been cases," he confirmed, keeping his voice equally quiet. "But usually, as soon as any proof of prior connection or motive shows up, that defence is discredited almost immediately."

Which made sense, but also fed straight into why it was technically a good idea to let the PRT know our secret identities.

Technically.

I didn't want to give them my secret identity straight away, mainly because I'd only had it for an hour or so. Also because I didn't know exactly what they'd do with it; would it go into a database, locked away from human eyes, or would they look further into it, and discover that I lived just around the block from where Uber and Leet had crashed their damn car into me?

If our identities came out, how long would it take before the PRT found out how the entire founding membership of The Real Thing used to bully me unmercifully? Would it kill the case by throwing doubt on Emma's and Madison's testimony? Would Sophia's lawyer then make a big thing of the fact that I was now leading the team, having kicked Sophia to the curb for having attacked my father? I couldn't help thinking that each new detail we revealed to help nail Sophia to the wall would make it harder to keep a focus on the basic facts of the case.

But the die was cast, and we'd see how things went.

An Hour Later
Barnes Residence

Danny

They trooped inside, Madison last of all. She'd left the suit in a nearby park; the last Danny had seen it, it was doing an amazing impression of an electrical junction box. Alan, waiting by the door, pushed it shut and locked it.

"I'm making hot cocoa," Zoe said, heading for the kitchen. "Who wants some?"

"Please." Emma dropped her helmet on the floor and more or less fell into an armchair. "I have a feeling we're all going to need it."

Madison went into the kitchen as well. "I'll help you."

"We're going to need to call your parents as well." Danny lowered himself onto the sofa, while Taylor leaned on the back of Emma's armchair. "They deserve to know what's going on."

"Already done." Madison's voice floated out of the kitchen. "I rang them from the suit. They should be getting here any moment now." Almost perfectly on cue, there was the squeak of brakes from the curb outside.

"And I just sat down," grumbled Alan, levering himself back up out of his chair.

Danny eyed him as he passed by. "You're calmer than I expected, given what you've heard tonight."

Alan just chuckled wearily. "I am all adrenaline'd out, my friend. But trust me. When the time comes to yell, there will be yelling."

He opened the door just ahead of the knock; there stood two people Danny had never met. On the young side, they bore more than a passing resemblance to Madison. Or rather, she did to them.

"Rod, Marcy, come on in." Alan stood aside to allow them entry, then shut the door again. "This is Danny Hebert and his daughter Taylor. Madison's okay, she's in the kitchen, helping Zoe mix up some of her famous cocoa."

Danny got up with a grunt and shook Rod Clements' hand. "Pleased to meet you, but I can tell Madison didn't give you many details about what's going on. Trust me, I've seen that look in the mirror."

"Many details?" Marcy spread her hands in confusion. "She didn't give us any. Much less an explanation for why we had to leave the house, or why she was over at Emma's house at this ungodly hour."

Alan chuckled darkly. "Oh, yeah. I know how that feels."

"Not the only one, believe you me." Danny seated himself again. "Okay, now that everyone's here. The only people who know everything that's been going on are Emma and Madison. Taylor and I know most of it, Alan and Zoe know a little bit, and you two are more or less totally in the dark. So, let's get this started. Taylor?"

Danny watched as she stood straighter, rolling her head on her neck. The anger he'd seen in her didn't seem about to pop like a volcano, but it permeated her being, infusing her with strength. "Okay, back last year when I started at Winslow, I thought it was gonna be a whole new beginning. It was, but not the way I thought. See, these two," she gestured to Emma as well as Madison, who had just emerged from the kitchen, "decided it would be a great idea to join forces with Sophia Hess and make my life hell for exactly zero good reason whatsoever. Now, you can get the full details about that out of them, but long story short, I just basically endured it until they decided to kick the whole thing into high gear at the start of school this year." She looked at Rod and Marcy Clements, gave them a brittle smile, and leaned on the armchair with her elbows again. "Emma?"

"What she said." Nothing like the superhero now, Emma curled her back and lifted her feet off the floor, almost as if she were hiding in a foetal position from those sitting opposite her. "I was everything she said," she admitted, hiding her face in her hands. "In the beginning, I thought we were doing it to toughen her up, but that was a lie. We were bullying her, and I used everything I knew about her against her …" She climbed around and knelt up on the armchair to look at Taylor. "And I swear, if I could take it back, I would. I'd even swap with you if I thought I could."

"Me too," Madison added quietly from the kitchen.

"Keep going," Taylor growled, sounding utterly uninterested in their lamentations. He didn't blame her; as far as he could tell, this day had been a long, long time coming.

Emma bowed her head and turned to sit back on the chair. "She has every right to hate us for what we did. You see, Sophia's Shadow Stalker and…"

"Wait, what?" Rod and Marcy Clements shouted, leaping to their feet. "Emma, you can't just out a hero…"

"She's no hero," Alan snarled with a shake of his head.

"Please, please, let me finish," Emma begged, tears streaming down her face as she stared at the adults in the room. "Before I lose the courage to keep going."

The adults settled. No one was happy, but information was key and it was clear they were all preparing themselves for something worse.

Emma clenched her fists and pressed them into her eyes. "I met Shadow Stalker the night she saved you and me from the ABB. Remember that, Dad?"

Alan nodded, resolutely.

"And when she unmasked to me, I wanted to be like her. I was willing to do anything to make her like me, even turn on my best friend before that."

Emma dared another glance up at Taylor, who was still scowling down at her. "I—I can't…" She bowed her head and wept again. "I'm so sorry."

"I guess that's my cue," Madison said, coming into the living room from the kitchen with Mrs Barnes in tow. She handed out a mug of cocoa to each person, then sat down beside Emma. Emma curled into Madison, and it was Madison who squared her shoulder to support her friend.

"I came in later," she went on. "Where Emma used her knowledge to attack Taylor, I enjoyed it. At the time, it was fun to think up new ways to screw with her, but at that point, that's—" She paused and shook her head. "No, I'm not going to say that's all, because there's nothing 'all' about it. We pulled every conceivable prank on Taylor to try and break her." She looked over her shoulder. "But you just wouldn't break. It floored me that you wouldn't break."

She turned back to the adults. "And this is where it gets really bad. Sophia turned up with three vials … of which Emma and I decided to take one each. I know!" She shot out, when her parents opened their mouths to lecture her on ingesting unknown substances. "We'd figured out that the vials belonged to Cauldron. Have you ever heard of them?"

"I have," Alan said. "Thought they were a myth."

Madison and Emma both shook their heads. "No. They're real, and when we drank the liquid, we got powers and formed a superhero team with Shadow Stalker." Now, it was Madison's turn to falter, and Emma lifted her head. "The plan was that if we forced Taylor to swallow the third vial, she could become our very own villain that we could kick around at will."

Danny rubbed his brow, but the other four parents were not as non-verbal. "You…you WHAT?" they all demanded, at varying degrees of volume.

Danny stood up and went over to Taylor, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. "Baby, I am so, so sorry," he said, pulling away just long enough to kiss her forehead before dragging her in for another hug.

Emma and Madison were now hugging each other as both sets of parents railed on them. Only Mrs Barnes paused long enough to raise her hand to her mouth to cover her gasp as she turned to Taylor. "And they did it," she said, just loud enough to be heard.

Taylor nodded from inside her father's arms. "They did."

Rod and Marcy Clements then caught up. "So, all three of you have powers?"

Madison took point once more. "Yeah," she admitted in a brittle tone of voice. "I'm a Tinker, and Emma is more action packed than Armsmaster wishes he was. Along with Sophia, we became the Real Thing."

"But there was a side effect to the powers," Emma added. "Ever since we got them, we started to question what we were doing. Even when we made Taylor take her vial, Madison wanted to just offer it to her. Give her a chance to be one of us for reals. But Sophia wouldn't let us, and at the time we still followed her lead."

"It took us until recently to realise it was all sorts of wrong, and we started pushing back against Sophia," Madison cut in. "And eventually, Emma said 'enough'."

"I should have said it sooner," Emma admitted. "But when I did, Sophia and I argued over it. It was made even worse when Mads suggested bringing Taylor into the team instead of fighting her. That's when Sophia lost it. Like, psychotically lost it."

Madison chimed in, "Which brings us to tonight."

Danny stepped to one side of the sofa, walking Taylor with him. It was crazy, him thinking that he could protect her now when in actual fact Taylor was far more powerful, but his emotions were sky-high and he didn't care how stupid it looked. "I'll take it from here."

He watched as the two girls melted into the couch, probably in the hopes that no one would notice them. "From what I understand, Emma and Madison were out mopping up some Empire capes—let me finish," he insisted, as once more, the four parents surged at the new information. Inwardly he knew he might have done that deliberately, for it was one thing to know your daughter had powers. It was something altogether different to know that those same girls were sneaking out at night and fighting established villains while you think they're fast asleep in their beds.

"Shadow Stalker then broke away from them after they argued some more and came to my house. She grabbed a carving knife from the kitchen with every intention of murdering me in my sleep. I woke up to Emma busting in through Taylor's bedroom window like a bomb, before she chased Stalker off." He turned to his friend. "Unfortunately, that's when she made her beeline to you."

"Batter up," Alan grumbled, still scowling at his daughter who had the sense to keep her head bowed low. "Emma called me to warn us, but the problem was, Stalker was already hiding in our car. So when we left, we took her with us. We still had no idea what was going on at that point, but for some reason, we were taken to Winslow and held hostage. Her demands were simple. Bring Danny and Taylor to her."

"So, what happened?" Marcy Clements asked, when it seemed no one wanted to pick up the conversation.

Taylor shrugged from inside Danny's arms. "I happened. That vial they shoved down my throat? Gave me powers that let me kick Stalker's ass in very short order." She turned in Danny's arms to face the girls. "You're not my friend anymore, Emma. I doubt you ever will be again. But you've offered me the leadership of the team and fine, I'm gonna take it. You need someone making sure you don't fuck up again. But first, you've gotta survive whatever your parents have in store for you. Good luck with that."

"Indeed," Rod growled.

Alan Barnes

Danny stepped away from what was probably going to be the scene of a double filicide, even if the girls did have powers.

"Well, Taylor and I need to get home so we can have some sleep before the night is over. But before we go, I did want to point out that although your girls have done some pretty egregious stuff, they did save my life, and they also helped Taylor save you. From the sounds of it, they've already figured out the error of their ways, so you might want to use that as a starting point." At Taylor's growl, Danny gave her a tighter hug. "I didn't say to give 'em a free ride, hon."

"Taylor," Marcy called, as Danny and Taylor headed for the door. "I'm sure we'll be saying this plenty of times in the near future, but from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry this happened to you, and that our daughter caused you this pain."

Taylor looked up from her father's shoulder. Pinching her lips together, she nodded without a word.

"Would you like us to drop you home?" Rod asked, causing them to pause again.

At that, Taylor's lips kicked up a fraction. "That won't be necessary, thank you."

"Alan. Zoe," Danny said, acknowledging each of them. He then looked at Madison's parents and nodded at them.

Out on the porch, Danny's skin and clothes turned shades of grey and Taylor was black and grey from head to toe. They stepped out onto the lawn, where she crouched slightly and then they vanished, shooting upward faster than Alan would've thought possible.

Distantly, he thought he heard his friend whoop.

"So," Zoe said, turning back to the girls who hadn't moved from the couch. "Where do we start?"

"How about in the morning?" Alan suggested with a yawn. "It's been a long night and I'm not in the mood to make it go on any longer."

Rod nodded. "You got it." He turned to his wife and child. "Let's go home."

End of Part Twenty