บท 44: 44 Shit Rolls Downhill
aigha bit, piggy takn bout jester then guy bursts in takin bout e88 dentitis DONT FORGRT COIL AGAIN remember to delete this
April 26th
Aisha Laborn
///
The door slams into the wall with a sound she distantly recognises as too loud, but she doesn't hear it over her own wheezing breaths as she rushes into the apartment.
"BRIAN!!" She yells at the top of her lungs right before she sees his head poke around the corner at the end of the hallway.
It's immediately apparent that he isn't reacting right, since he only seems somewhat confused staring not at her, but right through her and she remembers that she needs to deactivate her new power.
Which is a hole other can of worms she is not mentally ready to deal with right now.
So instead, she just flips that mental switch that now exists in her head and doesn't stop running even when her brother flinches back in shock at her sudden appearance to his eyes.
"BRI!!" She yells again, knowing she must look pathetic with tears and snot and probably blood too covering her but not caring in the slightest as she leaps into her brother and desperately wraps her arms around him as tight as she can.
"Aisha!?!" Brain exclaims with a mixture of shock, confusion and worry. But despite his brain still being in the process of processing what is happening, he doesn't hesitate to reciprocate her hug just as tightly when she starts sobbing and wailing into his chest.
"Bri," Aisha whines pitifully as she presses herself deeper into his warm, safe embrace, not knowing what she could possibly say except for to call out to him, the one person who makes her feel so safe and protected.
"Aisha? What's going on Aisha? Did you just..?" Brain trails off as he finishes processing and quickly comes to the decision to just ignore everything for now and focus on his distraught little sister first. Because she is what matters most in the end.
She doesn't know how long they stood there, the only sound her own pathetic sobbing and whimpering. It might have been minutes, it could have been hours, but either way, by the time the bone deep sense of terror finally leaves her, Aisha just feels completely and utterly wrung out.
It's like she ran a marathon, which she kind of did, but in her mind, leaving every nerve, every thought and feeling just so incredibly raw that it circles back to numbness.
"Aisha?" Brain asks again, his voice softer than she's ever heard it.
She shuffles herself enough to look up at him and she almost starts crying again when just seeing his face sends a wave of overwhelming relief flooding through her.
His face twists when their eyes meet, but she's too wrung out to decipher his expression before it relaxes into one of warm concern. "If you go sit on the couch and wait a minute, I'll make you some hot chocolate, with cream and sprinkles and everything, okay?"
Mutely, she nods her head, feeling so much love for her brother as he once more proves to be the best big brother she could have ever asked for, no matter what she usually says.
They separate, and Aisha makes it all of one step before she collapses, her legs feeling like jelly and completely incapable of supporting her. Luckily, her brother is on the game and catches her before she can hit the ground.
Normally, she would whine and complain and generally put up a fight to being carried around or treated like the child she never got the chance to be. But when Brain picks her up in a gentle princess carry, she just melts into his arms and does her best to absorb his warmth and the safety it brings her.
All too soon, they reach the living room and she reluctantly lets him go to be deposited on the couch.
Brain speed walks into the kitchen to put some water on the boil, then speed walks back to the front door to close and lock it properly, then back to the kitchen to begin preparing Aisha's hot chocolate.
Aisha doesn't really recognise any time passing. Without her brother to focus on, her mind drifts to- to what she belatedly remembers is called her Trigger Event.
She curls in on herself on the couch, hugging her legs into her chest and pressing her eyes into her knees in the hope it might just do something to blind her to images in her head.
But she can't forget.
She didn't know them for long; Toby, Marcus and Luke, but she liked them. They got along well, none of them were weird about her being a girl or three years younger than they were.
She liked them. And now...
She sees glassy, empty eyes staring at her, accusing her as if she's at fault when her only crime is surviving.
Aisha has seen a lot of movies, she's even snuck phones she stole into the house so she could use their data to go on FoolsNet without Brain's stupid WIFI search block things she doesn't know the name of stopping her.
In the movies, when someone dies, there's just a spray of blood and they fall over. If a head is cut off, there's maybe a fountain of blood, depending on the movie's PG rating. Generally, when people lose limbs or have hole blown in them in the movies, there's just a lot of red and then they collapse.
Aisha was fine with death looking like it did in the movies. She doesn't want to know that blood is a lot darker than just red. She doesn't want to know that blood doesn't explode like fountain but just flows out in steady pumps pushed by a still beating heart.
She doesn't want to know how little red there is when a skull gets crushed. She doesn't want to see that shade of grey. She doesn't want to hear the sounds of flesh tearing and bones crunching. She doesn't want to hear the screaming.
"Aisha?" Brain's soft voice brings her out of her mind enough to look up and see him holding a steaming cup out to her.
Gingerly, she takes it, feeling the warmth bleed through her palms and soothe her aching hands.
"Aisha," Brian says again, one hand gently holding her shoulder, "I need you to tell me what happened, can you do that for me?"
"Y-yeah," she says, her voice croaky and barely audible. She clears her throat and tries again. "Yeah, I can- I can."
Despite saying so, she doesn't speak for a while. She just sits there and absorbs her brother's presence like a sponge, finding strength in his concern.
"Um, s-so," she begins, feeling a mixture of nerves and bile as she prepares to tell her brother about the worst day of her life. "I think-" She swallows, "I think.. I think I triggered."
It feels... Strange, to actually admit it out loud, like if it was all a horrible, horrible dream, then just by saying it... She doesn't know, it just feels so much more real now, like she can't even delude herself into thinking it was just a nightmare anymore.
"Brian," she whines as she flops onto his chest and continues in a voice barely above a whisper. "I don't wanna die."
///
April 27th
Emily Piggot
///
Something is deeply wrong with Brockton Bay. Maybe the city is just cursed. If she were the superstitious type, she might even believe the crazies that claim Brockton Bay is the playground of some mad god's twisted whims or some such other nonsense.
Unfortunately, she is rational enough to understand that the faults of Brockton are entirely thanks to humans. Though, she doubts it would be nearly half as bad if not for all the Parahumans.
Brockton Bay is something like third or forth in the country in terms of Parahumans per capita, but it is easily number one in terms of being a breeding ground for Parahumans.
Nowhere produces as many capes as Brockton. The only reason she doesn't have as many capes do deal with as New York does is because half of them either die within two weeks or simply flee the city.
Just look at Love Triangle, or Chorus. Two groups of capes in as many years, neither of which lasted longer than half a year. Hells, Chorus only lasted about a week before the Empire killed half of them and the rest were arrested by Glory Girl.
Now, normally Emily does her best to keep these pessimistic thoughts about her city hidden deep in her psyche. But it feels like every other week someone decides they want to spit in her face and remind her what a shithole she has been given command over.
Just in the past week, half the city has exploded, killing a number of her capes, including two Wards, one of whom had literally just signed up. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the various gangs decided that now was the perfect time to unleash a gang war on the streets.
So now she has to deal with the Empire, Red Heart Coil, and the ABB all getting into multiple shootouts and cape fights daily. The Youth Guard have forced her to keep the Wards out of the fighting too, so she is significantly lacking any kind of ability to keep the gang's capes at bay.
The only reinforcement she's even getting is just two new Protectorate members. Brockton Bay has lost six Heroes. Two Protectorate, two independent and two Wards.
The Protectorate doesn't just let Wards die. That is something that doesn't happen, and whenever it does, the entire wight of The Protectorate comes down on whoever is responsible.
But apparently, 'the culprit has already died so there is nothing to do'. BULLSHIT!! Two new capes is not enough to deal with the shitstorm Brockton is facing right now! She is so fucking outnumbered that it is not even funny.
If nothing happens to change the course in their favour, then Brockton is going to become the next Gary and get completely abandoned. She refuses to allow that to happen, even if she has to get on her hands and knees and beg that stone cold bitch she calls Chief Director for help.
So, in short, the situation is dire, and any kind of blow to the PRT right now could easily prove fatal.
So why.
Why. The. Fuck, is their fucking resident Clown deciding that now of all times is the perfect time to start slaughtering people on the street.
People were just fucking starting to feel safe enough to go outside, in groups at least. The gangs were keeping to specific areas away from the general public by some kind of silent agreement. But now that Jester, she seethes just thinking the name, has gone and slaughtered a couple dozen innocents on the Boardwalk of all places, the gangs have apparently decided that it's open warfare in the entire city now.
Anyone who isn't white that walks into most areas of Downtown is simply getting shot or beaten to death, anyone who isn't Asian that strays too close to the coast either side of the bay is meeting a similar fate.
The only truly safe areas in the city are the trainyard and the surrounding residential area where Red Heart has made it's claim and the Boardwalk and Twins where she can actually have her troopers and capes doing proper patrolling.
But the former is still a gang, and any trust that might have been had about the Boardwalk being safe is now well and truly shattered thanks to Jester.
So now, even more residence are migrating to Red Heart controlled territory, as that gang is the only one without racial motivation, and they are admittedly very professional.
The upside is that Red Heart is very much like The Elite in that they don't really do violent crimes like gangs do, since they are a much larger organisation more focused on the real money making crimes.
The downside is that Red Heart is going on a fucking recruiting spree and swelling their numbers with all the angry, deponent and recently unemployed people who have just lost their homes, their families and livelihoods.
She really hates this fucking city.
The sound of a door opening brings her out of her thoughts, and she turns the full force of her glare upon Adamant as he sheepishly steps into the crowded room.
Adamant is one of the new capes sent her way. He wears a metallic costume with metal bands and panels loosely linked together by chains, fit over a black bodysuit. At the very least, the costume is actually armoured.
Something that will no doubt help him for however long he is in this city.
"Sorry, new building n' all that, I got lost, my bad," Adamant says as he files his way into the room, not managing to make it that far from the doo with how crowded the room is.
for this emergency meeting, every Protectorate cape is present, as well as the various commanders among the troopers, her Deputy Director Renick, even the PRT's consultants are present.
She keeps her glare up on Adamant until his helmet tilts down and then she quickly glances about the room, her eyes briefly staying on Sere, the other new cape.
Sere wears white desert-tribal style robes with fine patterning on them and a mask that's just a featureless plate with light blue lenses over the eyes.
She has her eye on him, because he's known to be a tad too brutal for a Protectorate cape. But honestly, that's exactly the kind of thing she needs right now.
The kiddie gloves have evidently come off in this city, there is no space for so much restraint when they are both outnumbered and overpowered.
If the fucking gangs decided to truce for just one fucking hour to team up against the PRT, then she'd be overrun likely before even half that time had run through. They are so outgunned it's beyond reasonable.
The best she can hope for at this point is to split the city with Red Heart, because even if she will never say it out loud, she has basically given up on regaining full control of her city, as if she ever had it in the first place.
She'd need a member of the Triumvirate to come to town for such an optimistic result, but clearly they're all 'busy'.
"Now that everyone is here," Emily says, pushing her negative thoughts aside with practiced ease, "We can begin. I'm sure you're all aware of what the situation has been for the past few days, recent arrivals excluded of course." She glances at the two new Heroes with her words.
"Normally I would do a brief recap to their benefit and our own, but there is no longer any point, as the situation has changed again, as many of you are no doubt aware."
Emily gives Renick a look and he activates the large flatscreen behind her to show a pair of images split on each side of the screen.
On the left is a still frame of the Boardwalk taken by a CCTV camera. It doesn't show anything strange. There's a bit of trash and rubble, but that's normal these days. People are waking about and a big cluster of people are working on a building.
The image on the right shows another still frame from the same camera. The timestamp shows that the two images were taken only minutes apart, yet the difference is stark.
The street that was dirty but recovering is now covered in deep gouges and swathes of blood and limbs. All of the buildings that were standing are reduced to rubble, and in the centre of it all, covered in the blood of innocents, stands Jester.
There are a suitable amount of gasps and inhaled breathes throughout the room and Emily lets them process the images before she continues. "In the early hours of yesterday's afternoon, the Villain known as Jester slaughtered twenty-seven innocent civilians for no apparent purpose."
"As a result," she continues before anyone can interrupt, "The gangs' established fighting lines no longer exist. Patrols will have to be more frequent and tighter in order to prevent something like this happening again, which means we will have to pull back and centralise even more, again."
She has to pause and take a deep breath to stop herself from gnashing her teeth like some kind of rabid dog, but she manages, somehow.
"Is that alright?" Redemption asks and Emily immediately scowls even deeper. "It's just that we're already patrolling less space than any of the gangs hold, except for Coil and maybe what's left of the ABB. Can we really afford to pull back?"
Redemption is nineteen now, so she left The Wards for The Protectorate last year. Emily has never liked her, for much the same reason she doesn't like Shadow Stalker or Assault. The fact she is so understaffed that she has to allow criminals to work for her as a plea deal vexes her to no end.
Worse than that, with Falcone deciding to go rogue, Redemption seems the most likely to follow in her footsteps, which is not something she can afford right now.
Hell, the only reason she hasn't organised a raid of Maryam's house is because the damn woman is about the only thing keeping the Nazis from slaughtering their way through Chinatown.
Not that she currently has the resources to organise a raid even if she wanted to.
"Of course it's not alright," Mimic responds before she can. "But we don't live in a world of should or should not, we live in a world of can or cannot, and we simply cannot protect everyone. My power is effectively doubling our manpower and we're still running short."
"Not to sound condescending or anything," Sere comments, "It's not my city so my opinion is probably lacking in understanding, but, how are we outnumbered?"
Sere looks about the room in confusion visible through his mask and continues, "We should have what, two, three hundred troopers, eight Heroes, fourteen if we count New Wave, Fifteen if we still count Falcone. Then, with Mimic's power that number can get doubled, and we have to have the advantage in arms right?"
There are some nods and murmurs that Sere takes as consent to keep talking.
"The gangs don't have the armoured monsters just a tread shy of being called tanks that we have, they don't have the same guns or armour or confoam, hell they aren't even really trained and there should at most be six hundred gangsters in the Empire, probably less by now. Even outnumbered we should have the advantage, and with Mimic we don't even really need to worry about being outnumbered, especially since his projections are projections, and thus expendable. How are we the ones being pushed back?"
Done with his speech, Sere leans back into his seat to stare at her, as does the rest of the room.
Emily struggles not to throw something at him.
"Because," she stresses instead of using violence, "We are not fighting a war. If this was a true battlefield then yes, in terms of unpowered force we would be the undisputed king. However, that is not the case. Are job isn't just to fight the enemy, it is to protect the civilians."
She pauses to glare at the room's occupants to ensure they give her words the value they are due. "We could do as the gangs do and spread our forces to claim as much territory as possible, but thinking like that results in shit like this," she points behind her at the scene of carnage.
"We cannot spread ourselves thin, because unlike the gangs, we cannot afford our enemies to be slipping through the cracks. Which is why we will be pulling back further, because we need our forces to be condensed enough that we can actually protect the people behind us."
She lets her words simmer for a moment until the general mood of the room is accepting of her point. "And besides," she continues, not able to hide the bitter note to her tone, "you confidently mentioned our roster of Heroes. Eight by ourselves, fourteen with New wave, right? Well, first off all, Panacea has apparently split from her family and joined Falcone. So, not counting vigilantes, this city has thirteen capes protecting it."
"Do you know who else has thirteen capes?" Emily rhetorically asks, "The Empire Eighty-Eight. Just one gang matches us. Red Heart has a further six, The Undersiders are five, Jester and Coil are another two, that's twenty six. It's twenty nine if you count rogues and thirty four if you count Faultline's Crew too. Even if Mimic doubled our capes, we're still behind, and I'm not sure if you've ever seen the result of PRT troopers trying to contain a high tier cape, but suffice to say, whatever advantage you believe us to have in firepower is entirely imagined."
The air of defeatism that was already present thickens like a mist as everyone present truly accepts how fucked they are. She knows that it's not good for moral to admit these things, but everyone in the room is in a position of leadership or a member of The Protectorate.
So they need to know, they can't afford not to know. That doesn't mean she's going to be saying any of this to the rank and file, or she will lose before the day is over.
The situation is dire, and frankly, she has no idea how she can turn it around with the forces she has available to her. If she can't get any more support within the next week or two, then she's going to be forced to do something to turn things around.
What that something would be, she doesn't know, but she has a horrible feeling that it will be to make a deal with one of the gangs, namely Red Heart.
She is loathe to give any more power to a criminal organisation that has spread through North-East America like a cancer, but sometimes you have to cut your arm off to survive.
At the back of the room, Adamant raises his hand in the uncomfortable silence, the movement drawing eyes in the otherwise still room. She almost rolls her eyes at him acting like he's in a classroom.
"What is is, Adamant?" She asks regardless, praying that he isn't about to waste his time with another ignorant speech made by someone who thinks they can just come in and fix all the problems she's spent the last decade struggling with.
"Ah, it's just, I would assume you've already explained the situation to the other directors and asked for more support than just me and Sere, but evidently you got denied for whatever reason-"
"Probably politics and red tape," Redemption mutters, not quiet enough to go unheard.
Adamant pretends not to hear her. "But if the regular channels aren't working, have you considered reaching out to Kitsune's faction?"
"Who?" Triumph asks, and despite herself, Emily wonders the same.
Adamant abruptly finds himself the centre of attention and shifts uncomfortably under his armour.
Luckily for him, Sere notices and takes pity on him. "You guys don't know?" He asks, and when their eyes all turn to him, he shrugs and straightens, adopting a pose not unlike a lecturer.
"Kitsune is a Heroine who started making waves around early '08. To make a long story much shorter, she's basically formed a new power bloc in The Protectorate on the position that The Protectorate shouldn't be so heavily stymied by the PRT as to basically be a subordinate organisation, when they were supposed to be equal, regulating each other. If The Protectorate was an electoral vote, with the Heroes being the voters, then Kitsune would probably get something like a twenty to thirty percent."
It really just goes to show how much of a shitshow Brockton is that she's been so consistently busy dealing with its own shit that she is only now hearing about this.
Then again, as Sere said, the PRT and The Protectorate are technically separate organisations. That's why Wards and Protectorate Heroes usually have a shift working on console, because the PRT doesn't technically have the authority to order them around in the field.
Obviously, with the current emergency that is not the case, but in normal times, the two organisations are separate, no matter how close they seem. So it's not too surprising for her to miss out on internal Protectorate politics.
"So basically," Sere fills the surprised silence with a shrug, "If your not getting enough reinforcements through normal channels, you could just get in contact with Kitsune. She'd probably organise assistance just because politics demands she do whatever the opposing party doesn't. Of course, the downside is that if you accept her help then you'll have to get into Protectorate politics in support of her faction, which will probably have ramifications I'm not smart enough to really understand or predict."
Well, at least her worst case solution of negotiating has improved. She really doesn't want to get involved in normal politics, never mind Parahuman politics, but she'd rather deal with Heroes over Villains regardless.
She'd struggle to call this good news, but it's as close as she is going to get to anything positive these days, so she gives Sere a grateful nod and gestures for Renick to remind her of this later.
"Right, thank you for your insight, Adamant, Sere," Emily starts, "Unfortunately, our problems still exist, so now we must discuss our strategy going forward, what we can lose and what we must defend, where we need to be and who we need to fight. Deputy Director Renick has prepared a presentation on our plans going forward, please give him your full att-"
The door bursts open with a bang as a harried looking office woman barges in wide-eyes with a tablet held in one arm. "Director!" She yells, and Emily feels her face twitch and blood pressure rocket.
"What." She snaps at the woman, who flinches back before barrelling forward again.
"It's all over the news Ma'am! You need to see this!" The nameless woman yells as she pushes her way to the flatscreen and rapidly starts tapping her tablet before swiping in the direction of the screen.
A second later, the screen changes to show a local news broadcast.
A broadcast that has all of the Empire's capes listed with pictures of their masked faces or costumed forms if no good picture was available. Then, next to them, is an equal number of photos showing bare faces.
"-Still unknown who is behind this leak, but our sources say that it is accurate, and has further proven to be such when Max Anders, CEO of Medhall, was seen fending off an assassin wielding a Tinkertech rifle and fleeing the Medhall building while displaying the powers of his alter ego Kaiser. For those just tuning in, I repeat, the secret identities of all Empire Eighty-Eight capes have been leaked! It is still unknown-"
The screen clicks off and the room descends into a silence more tense than any other.
Has she ever mentioned, just how deeply she despises this fucking city?
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
I keep fucking forgetting coil, I nearly just straight up didn't mention him before I wrote the assassin part and remembered that coil would be the easiest suspect for that :/ fucking snake bastard.
Y'know, every time I start writing shit that has a whole lotta shit happening at the same time, I complain about how difficult it is to keep track of everything and write it.
SO WHY THE FUCK DO I KEEP DOING IT!!!
God fucking damn I'm some special kind of retard. There's so much fucking chaos, and I've got to keep track of it all, and then consider all the ramifications of all the chaos, all while considering if the chaos would be enough to prompt action from anyone outside of the situation, all while considering the fucking feelings of everyone present, cuz moral is important and if people don't feel like they have a chance then they will give up or turncoat, so I have to profile all the character's (at least the important ones) and decide what the fuck their emotional responses would be so I can know how I should write them and how they should act. Like, fucking hell.
All the while, I'm doing my best to just not think about Taylor right now, because I think I'd have an aneurism if I tried too hard to think about what the fuck she is doing :/ Hopefully I'll soon be able to implement a part of my Plan to deal with her being a pain in my brain... hopefully...
Man, how I desire to go back to the simplicity that was being a murder wizard...
And I srsly need to stop writing this shit with 20 minutes left till my scheduled upload
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