Chapter 22

I reflexively took a step back, seeing Glory Girl.

She was sitting in the second row of desks, wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt, and with the door being at the front of the room, there was nowhere to hide from her. She offered a slight nod as Vista, Kid Win and Clockblocker filed in, then her eyes settled on me.

After the bank robbery, the fundraiser and what her sister had said about how me joining the Wards changed nothing as far as she was concerned, I braced myself for the incoming wave of debilitating fear, but nothing came. She simply looked away with a frown.

Vista settled down next to her, and Clockblocker and Kid Win, in the row behind them.

I went to Weld, who sat at the front along with six PRT uniforms with their helmets off.

"What is she doing here?" I asked him, keeping my voice low enough not to be overheard.

"Her team might be disbanding, so she's checking things out," he answered. "Is that going to be a problem?"

I looked back at her, and found her eyes on me, expression unreadable. She looked away as soon as our eyes met.

"No," I lied.

Something about being in a classroom environment with a possibly hostile person holding a grudge had me on edge, more than usual. I sent a handful of discreet bugs to her, to warn me of any movement, and since I didn't know what to expect from her, I went to sit in the last row, behind Clockblocker and Kid Win, to keep Glory Girl in sight at all time. Experience had taught me that the safest place in a classroom was with your back to the wall and eyes on any potential enemy. I also had a clear exit strategy with the door at the back of the room, in case things turned ugly.

Flechette followed me to the last row, sitting beside me.

"Who's that?" She asked, oblivious.

"Glory Girl," I whispered back. "She's part of New Wave, a local hero team with no secret identities, but according to Weld, they might be disbanding, so she's checking things out."

She seemed satisfied with my answer, and turned to the screen as the lecture began, the teacher introducing the Parahumans 103 class and syllabus.

Meanwhile, I pondered the much more pressing issue of Glory Girl possibly joining the team. Would she actually go though with it despite my presence? She had to know that I'd be there when she decided to show up today. Did it mean that she didn't hold as much of a grudge as her sister, or that she felt she could work around it and ignore me? She already knew the pre-Leviathan Wards, and her presence would certainly not help my relationship with them. If anything, it might worsen it.

My eyes kept finding her, despite the bugs' assurance that she wasn't moving at all, arms folded on her desk and chin resting on the back of one hand.

At least, even if she joined, I wouldn't see much of her, given my patrolling schedule with the Protectorate, and she wouldn't stay on site like the rest of us. Small mercies.

I tried to focus on my bugs to keep myself from falling down a rabbit hole of anxiety.

Down in my workshop, a handful of cockroaches were working the braille computer, taking note of what the teacher said so I could practice braille and at least get some real value out of this class.

The black widows were also working in concert, and the suits were nearly finished. Once they were done, I would entrust them to Maureen to get them dyed the appropriate colors and fitted with a zip in the back. The spiders' rhythmic, coordinated work soothed me as the lecture went on, and on and on.

Until Weld raised his hand to his earpiece, at the same time the PRT officers put their helmets back on and filed out of the classroom.

"Yes, ma'am," Weld said before stopping the video and turning to us. "Class is canceled. We've got trouble."

The others rose from their seats, and I waited until Glory Girl and Vista had joined Weld at the front of the room before following, keeping Kid Win and Clockblocker between us as a buffer.

We left the classroom for the elevator, with the unfortunate drawback that since Flechette and I were last to arrive, the others entered before we did, and we had to turn our backs to them to face the front. I could feel Glory Girl's eyes burning holes through my back until the elevator stopped one floor above our headquarters. I hurried to leave along with Flechette, who went to her room to retrieve her arbalest and ammunition while I went to my workshop. I called grasshoppers and jumping spiders to me, directing them under my armor, then went back out to wait for the others with Flechette.

When the elevator came back, Kid Win had retrieved a selection of guns, and Glory Girl had changed. Seeing her in full costume was somehow worse, a concrete reminder of the bank robbery. This time, as we squeezed in the elevator, I had a jumping spider in my hair, allowing me to track her attention. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes were on me.

As soon as the doors opened in the lobby, I hurried to the front desk to retrieve a few cardboard boxes for my bees, purposely letting the others head out first so I could reclaim my place at the back. Outside, a van was already waiting for us, and the others climbed in while I called my bees to fill the boxes. Once they were full, I piled them in the van, then got in and closed the doors behind me.

I sat down next to Weld and Flechette, across from Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista and Glory Girl.

"What's the situation?" Flechette asked as the van left the parking lot.

"We're checking out one of three crime scenes, most likely from parahumans," Weld said. "We don't know whether the perpetrator is still around. The Protectorate is checking the other two."

"Crime scenes?" Kid Win asked. "Shouldn't the police do it?"

"Because of suspected parahuman activity, it falls into our court to secure the perimeter first," Weld answered.

Through the rest of the ride, he tried to make small talk and engage the others in the conversation, but was mostly unsuccessful, except with Flechette. Glory Girl kept glancing at me, and I was careful not to look her way. She remained silent the whole ride.

Twenty awkward minutes later, we arrived to our destination, and I felt out through the bugs already present on site. Twenty feet in the air, in the skeleton of a building with a missing roof and wall, three bodies were gathering flies. None had laid eggs yet, so they must had been installed recently.

Beneath the bodies, on the building's uneven floor, bugs found three people and one large, winged figure clutching the empty frame of a second story window. The top hat on one of them identified them as the Travelers.

"There's three bodies up in the air, against the walls," I said, breaking the silence, "and the Travelers are there."

Weld turned to me. "Then I'm going to ask you to stay in the van, given the restrictions about you and groups under Coil's umbrella."

I nodded and remained in my seat as the others left the van, perfectly conscious that it wouldn't do anything to help soothe the tensions in the group.

As they approached the building, I sent a few bees, carrying a selection of bugs from under my armor to be able to see and hear.

"There's two more crime scenes like this?" Clockblocker asked, looking up at the bodies.

"Yeah," Weld answered.

"It's the middle of the day," Kid Win protested. "Broad daylight."

They got closer, and Trickster turned to them.

"Pardon the cliché," he said, "but it isn't what it looks like."

"I believe you," Weld answered. "I've read your file, and this isn't your M.O."

"Excellent, excellent. I commend you," Trickster tipped his hat. "Then, we'll be on our way?"

"No. But if you come into custody—"

"You'll arrest us for any number of other criminal charges we've got waiting. And you can't promise that one of your superiors won't try to stick us with the blame for this."

Weld frowned.

"Let us go," Trickster continued. "Whatever happened here, it deserves your full attention. You should be trying to find and capture the real criminals. This guy here was still alive when we arrived."

He was pointing one of the bodies, a man with limbs severed at the joints, lengths of chain holding the pieces together.

"Can't do that," said Weld. "You're still suspects, regardless of how much this deviates from your usual methods."

"A shame," Trickster bowed.

All of a sudden, Genesis stood in Weld's place, spinning around to face the rest of the Wards as Weld fell from the second story window Genesis had occupied a second before. Clockblocker lunged forward, hand outstretched, and was inches away when he was replaced with Trickster. Trickster then kept swapping the Wards and his teammates, easily taking control of the battlefield. He placed Kid Win in the way of his own attack, and exchanged the darts Flechette threw at him with wood splinters. He kept teleporting Vista, never giving her the time to use her power, and any of Clockblocker's attempts to tag him ended with him teleported away.

Did the others know that Trickster's power worked by line of sight? I didn't remember seeing it in his file, and from the way things were unfolding, I doubted it.

Weld had told me to stay in the van, but he hadn't said anything about using my power.

I cracked the door open, then opened a box of bees and sent them through.

Soon, a swarm coalesced around Trickster's head, covering it. He clawed at them, but there were too many, and any he managed to displace was immediately replaced with two more. They tied his legs together, and he fell down. Once he was on the ground, Flechette pined him down with a handful of darts, and I searched the restraints under the seats for a bag to cover Trickster's head, to make sure he couldn't use his power to slip away. I opened another box of bees and handed it to them before sending them forward.

Glory Girl was in the air, trading blows with Genesis, who let out a billowing cloud of noxious black smoke, forcing the heroine to back away coughing.

I used my earpiece to send a message to the rest of the Wards.

"Genesis is a projection. If you shoot to kill, she'll take a few minutes to make a new form."

"Permission to use deadly force?" Flechette asked over the comms.

"Apiary, you sure of this? It wasn't in the file," said Weld, who was getting pelted with debris by Ballistic.

"Yes," I answered. "I've worked with them before."

"Then yes, Flechette. Go ahead."

She fired her arbalest at Genesis's head, and the projection exploded in a cloud of dark smoke that left her coughing.

Two down. Two to go.

Sundancer had created her miniature sun, the size of a beach ball, and it was hot enough that my bees couldn't reach her. She moved it fifteen feet into the air in front of her so the other Wards couldn't approach her, then slowly moved it closer to them to force them to back away against the building's remaining walls. Weld didn't seem affected by the heat, but Ballistic was using his power on anything he could find to keep him away.

Glory Girl, the only one who wasn't hemmed in by the heat, flew to tackle Sundancer, but Ballistic sent a broken piece of concrete flying her way. She tanked the hit, and altered her trajectory to kick him in the chest, then drove her knee into his gut. As she did, he touched her leg, and she turned in to a blur before crashing against the wall of a neighboring building a fraction of a second later.

She fell down and didn't get back up.

With a sinking feeling, I sent more bugs to her to replace the ones killed by Ballistic's power, but they didn't perceive any movement. I waited a few seconds to see whether she would come to, but when she still didn't move, I got out of the van and ran to her.

I might not like her, but that didn't mean I wanted her to choke, and the others were too busy to check on her.

According to what Tattletale had said and what I'd seen at the bank, her forcefield shorted out after a good hit, so if she received a second hit before the forcefield came back on, she could actually get injured.

Indeed, blood stained her blond curls.

"Glory Girl?"

She didn't move, didn't open her eyes. As carefully as I could, I moved her into the recovery position.

"Glory Girl has a head injury and needs to be frozen," I said over the comms.

No one answered. The fight was still very much ongoing.

Vista had used her power around Sundancer's sun to reduce the heat and glare of it, allowing Kid Win and Flechette to attack her. Kid Win missed, but Flechette's dart caught her in the shoulder. At her yelp of pain, Ballistic threw projectiles in front of them, forcing them to back away rather than press the attack.

Sundancer dismissed her orb, then summoned it again outside of the space Vista had twisted, and slowly moved it forward, driving Kid Win, Flechette and Vista to jump out of a window to scramble away from the heat.

Ballistic was still throwing a barrage of projectiles at Weld, who'd managed to get closer while Ballistic was distracted by Glory Girl. I tried piling him with bees, but his visor made it easy to wipe them off, and there wasn't much more I could do without breaking Glenn's rules.

With Vista's assistance, Clockblocker managed to run over to tag Glory Girl.

"Red Rover," Vista yelled as soon as he was done.

What did that mean?

On his way back to the fight, Clockblocker ran forward, and space compressed in front of him, so it was probably some kind of maneuver they had worked out together in the past.

At the same time, Ballistic used a plank to clear part of the bees, then used his power on the plank after pointing at Clockblocker, forcing him to duck instead of tagging him.

I piled more bees on Ballistic, but he used another plank to clear them, then aimed the plank at me.

I didn't have time to comprehend what was happening before I got hit square in the chest and fell to the ground.

"Greetings from the boss, Skitter," Ballistic yelled, while Sundancer's hands went to cover her mouth.

I couldn't breathe. Warmth bloomed in my midsection, although the rest of me was cold. Something coarse and bitter that tasted like blood and bile made its way up my throat, triggering reflexes. I coughed, and every spasm was as painful as it was ineffective. I was on my back, and couldn't roll to my side to avoid choking.

Drowning in vomit was a spectacularly shitty way to go.

Clusters of bugs converged to me, people in their midst. I couldn't think clearly enough to tell who was who. I couldn't—

—breathe.

The Trav—

—elers we—

—re gone. I bl—

—acked out.