章節 2480: 63
Chapter 63: Promise 7-2
Promise 7.2
When my long, emotionally exhausting day was finally over, Dad got to go home, escorted by a nondescript cargo van carrying my enchanted mattress. I, on the other hand, had to stay at the PRT HQ while the paperwork was filed and taken care of, because I was still technically under protective custody.
The rest of the Wards, it seemed, were either at school or on patrol, because by the time I trudged into the room in their section set aside for me, feeling like a wrung-out towel more than anything else, I hadn't met any of them, apart from Vista. Or maybe they were just all avoiding me; I had no idea.
I didn't have the energy left to care which, so I just threw myself onto the bed of my new room, kicked off my shoes, and groaned into the pillow.
I chanced a glance at the clock that some considerate soul had placed on the room's desk in clear view of the bed, and 7:37 PM stared back at me in big, glowing numbers. A nap couldn't hurt, I decided, and closed my eyes.
But what felt like seconds later, I was jarred awake, blinking at my darkened room. The clock read 10:12 PM.
I shifted, hefting myself up with a soft grunt, unsure what had woken me. Barely a second later, though, I heard somewhat indistinct voices from outside my room.
The Wards section had a recreation center. Had one of the others come in and turned the TV on?
I slipped out of bed with a vaguely serpentine slide and stood, rubbing at the spots where my glasses had dug into my face, then padded over to my door and laid my hand upon the knob.
For a few seconds, that was as far as I got. Because I suddenly realized — the other Wards might be on the other side of that door. All of them, including the ones that I hadn't officially met, yet.
And I had no idea what they thought of me. What they knew. Whether they hated me for Shadow Stalker's death, or even for what had happened with Noelle and Khepri. The old fear of whether they felt overshadowed by someone who could fight on the Triumvirate's level.
Dennis had been nice enough, but after Khepri, would he still…
No, I decided, taking a deep breath. No more running away. I'd already talked to Vista, and she had hated me, at one point. I could do this, too.
I twisted the knob and started to open the door.
"— we're here?" said a voice. "I mean, why we were all called in and have to stay for the night?"
"You haven't heard, yet?" asked Vista. "We're getting a new Ward."
Quieter, I heard her add, "Didn't anyone read the damn notice they sent out?"
"A new Ward?" someone else asked.
"She signed the paperwork today, came down to clear the air with me."
"Oh good, another girl," said Dennis. "It's about time, if you ask me. Too many guys here, these days, it's a sausage fest. No offense, Vista, but ever since Shadow Stalker…"
He trailed off, as though suddenly realizing the landmine he'd been about to step on.
I paused, blinking at the sliver of light that came through the crack, and shrank away, wilting. You fucking coward, I told myself.
"Um, ah, there's just too much testosterone around here, is what I'm saying," he fumbled. "We could use a little more, um, estrogen, you know?"
"Before Clock decides to start chewing on his own shoe some more —"
"Hey! You ever think I just like how it tastes?"
"— do we have any idea who it is?"
"Seriously," grunted Vista, "was I the only one who read the memo?"
"Things have been…tense with the Dallons and New Wave," said another voice. "I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was Panacea."
Amy.
It had been a couple days since I'd last seen her. Had she gone home?
I needed to talk to her, too. Especially after everything I had talked to Lisa about, I needed to…to tell her all about that stuff, too, and…
My hand let go of the door knob and I sank to the floor with a quiet sigh, dropping my head into my hands.
Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Couldn't I have more time, to…to deal with all of this, before Leviathan came?
"Hang on, I'm checking it now," a third unknown voice said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Panacea joined up, either," said the second voice. "I got the impression that she's…that after what happened to Brandish, things aren't exactly —"
"Holy fucking shit!" the third voice screeched. "Apocrypha? They're letting her into the Wards?! After she mind-controlled everyone and tried to kill Alexandria!? Are they out of their goddamn minds?"
I winced, biting my lip.
That sort of reaction, that was exactly what I'd been afraid of.
"Jesus — shut your mouth, Kid Win!" Vista hissed. "You'll wake her up!"
"She's here?" someone else asked in a strangled voice.
"They added a room, so I went to check whose it was," Vista confirmed. "She was out like a light."
"Wha — you mean you've been here with her all day?"
"I mean, yeah? I just told you, I talked to her earlier, after she got all the paperwork signed."
"Are you — even after all that happened? After what she did?"
"Oh, for the love of — she's a person, not some mutated alien creature that's going to crawl down your throat and take over your body from the inside."
"You can't tell me it didn't bother you!" Kid Win said, lower, quieter this time, but with no less heat. "She just…just…mind-controlled us like it didn't even matter! Like it was nothing! Not even a howdy-do or a warning, just bam, and we were puppets dancing to her tune and following her every whim —"
"That wasn't what happened at all," someone said. I didn't recognize the voice, but it was definitely a boy. I knew Dennis — Clockblocker — and Kid Win was the one who was shouting, so this had to be Gallant, Browbeat, or Aegis. "You guys don't have my powers, so you couldn't see it like I did, but she…she was terrified."
I closed my eyes and took a quiet, shaky breath, then let it out slowly. Some kind of emotion-sensing Thinker power or something — not Aegis, who was something of a nonstandard Brute, or Browbeat, who was a self-targeting biokinetic of some stripe.
Gallant, then. It fit with the emotion-altering Blaster power that he used offensively, the one that Khepri's Tattletale had once warned the Undersiders about.
I wanted to go in. I wanted to barge in and stop him, stop him from sharing this secret, this personal moment where I'd fallen apart, but something held me in place. Something glued my feet to the floor and my tongue to the roof of my mouth. No matter how desperately I wanted to, I couldn't move from that spot and I couldn't speak.
Maybe, deep inside, I wanted them to know. To understand that things had gone the way they did not because that was how I'd wanted them to go, but because I'd had no other choice and I'd been backed into a corner.
It would be more consideration than Khepri had often gotten.
"It was like the world was falling apart around her," he went on. "So much fear and anger and loathing and despair, angled both inwards and outwards and all over… Frustration, helplessness, desperation, and so, so much of it. It was so bad, if she hadn't already had powers, then I would've thought that was…"
"A Trigger Event," Dennis said quietly.
"It was like she was drowning," Gallant agreed. "Like she was drowning and didn't know how to swim, and no one was reaching in to pull her out of the water. It was…hard to look at. Like staring into the sun."
For a long moment, no one else said anything.
I had no idea what they were thinking. Were they sympathetic? Did they care at all about where I'd been, the choices I'd been forced to make that night, all because of my own, stupid mistakes? Or was Khepri, was forcefully bending their bodies to follow my will and fight Alexandria, even if it was for the purpose of saving my only friends, a step too far for them to accept?
Vista, at least, had seemed willing enough to put it behind her, when we talked, or at least, she hadn't brought it up and made a fuss. I'd taken that, implicitly, as water under the bridge. The others, though? Aside from Dennis, I'd never even talked to any of them, and even with him, not since that night.
"…That doesn't make it okay," Kid Win said at length.
"Maybe not," another new voice allowed. The only ones who I hadn't identified yet were Aegis and Browbeat, so it had to be one of them. "But it makes it understandable, don't you think? She was in a horrible situation and she did the only thing she could think of to try and fix it. No one else had any better ideas, at the time."
"The Triumvirate —"
"Are human, too," Aegis cut him off. "I get it, guys. They seem superhuman, don't they? Better than any of us could ever be. Stronger, smarter, with better powers… But…I'm not sure they were making the best decisions that day, either."
"They were trying to deal with the threat," Kid Win defended. "An S-Class threat."
"And you don't think the danger they were in didn't play a part in their decisions?" Aegis rebutted. "Echidna almost had Alexandria. Alexandria. You don't think they might have done what they did because they were at least a little bit scared about fighting a clone of the strongest woman in the world?"
In Khepri's life, they had. It had taken Eidolon to defeat the clones of her, and in the meantime, the clones of both Alexandria and Eidolon had torn at the fighters' morale, revealing secrets that even Khepri, who had been opposed to the heroes at the time, had agreed were too dangerous to let out.
I couldn't imagine what sort of damage that would have done, if it had happened this time, too. Especially with Leviathan about to bear down on the city.
Understanding it better, now, didn't mean I liked it. Even Khepri would have balked at the idea of sacrificing my friends.
"And it would have cost us dozens of people, including Panacea, Miss Militia, and Dauntless," Dennis added quietly. "I'm not saying…Apocrypha's decisions were better. But… No, you know what? I will say that. Even if the way she did it was horrible and scarring and I hope to whatever god is listening that I never have to experience that again? She's the reason those people are still here."
"Because Alexandria was willing to let them all die," Vista said, voice hard. "I'm gonna agree with Clock. Maybe they weren't the best choices, but at least what she did saved those people."
"And Brandish?" Kid Win asked bitterly. "Is she one of those people who's better off, because of Apocrypha?"
I grimaced.
No, I answered him silently, she wasn't.
"Kid…"
"We don't know what would have happened," Gallant tried to say. "There're a lot of what-ifs that we just can't answer. Talk about intelligently. With Echidna, we can at least be sure that Alexandria's decision would have resulted in a lot of innocent people dead, including people we care about."
"We all got the story from Glory Girl," Kid Win rebutted. "Panacea wouldn't have been there, if not for Apocrypha. If Panacea wasn't there, New Wave wouldn't have been there. Brandish wouldn't have been hurt. Wouldn't have nearly died. Wouldn't be in a coma, right now. If it wasn't for Apocrypha."
I bit my lip. Because he was right.
But I'd already known that, hadn't I. I'd made a bunch of stupid decisions, that night. Miraculously, several of them hadn't gotten anyone permanently hurt or killed, but not all of them had ended like that.
If I could correct the results of some of those mistakes… Would it even matter, at this point? Even if Brandish was healed, would that undo the damage already done to her family?
"And if Panacea and New Wave hadn't been there?" Aegis pointed out. "If it was Apocrypha who had been hurt that badly by one of the clones? Or worse — what if Apocrypha had been captured by Noelle, and we had to fight clones of her? Could you imagine trying to deal with five or six of her, each one strong enough to give the Triumvirate a serious challenge?"
Or worse.
My fingers curled into fists.
Five or six of them, all controlled and coordinated by one using Khepri.
"Ugh," Dennis groused. "You're gonna give me nightmares."
"My point is," said Aegis, "things could have turned out a whole lot worse than they did. I'm not saying what happened to Brandish isn't a tragedy. I'm not saying Apocrypha is perfect and the sun shines out of her… Anyway. She made mistakes. People were hurt because of it, some of them might not recover from it. But at least we didn't lose everyone who was there, you know?"
Several of the others made noises of agreement.
"I can't believe this," said Kid Win. "You're defending her. You're actually taking the side of the girl who Mastered everyone in this room and two whole Protectorate teams. Who turned us into her slaves."
"We're not taking her side," said Aegis.
"Um, I…kinda am?" Dennis put in. My lips twitched a little as I imagined him raising a hand, like he was at some kind of support group.
Paradoxically, I wanted to laugh. An 'I've been controlled by Khepri' support group. It wasn't even funny.
"We're just being understanding about the circumstances, that's all," Aegis continued, as though Dennis hadn't spoken. "Trying to think about where she was and why she did what she did. Not judging her for doing what she felt she needed to in order to save lives."
"Seriously?" said Kid Win. "Seriously? Even you, Vista? What about what happened a couple of weeks ago —"
"What happened a couple weeks ago was my own damn fault," Vista said, cutting across him. "It was my fucking screwup, okay?"
"Language," Gallant chided, but it almost seemed like an afterthought, an automatic reaction.
"Whatever," Vista spat irritably. "I screwed up, there. Me. It was my own fu — freaking fault I got my arm blown off. She healed me when she didn't have to. And after what the Director… After, I figured I could give her the benefit of the doubt, at least a little. That doesn't suddenly make her my best friend, Kid."
"I don't even…" Kid Win began. "I can't… I don't believe what I'm hearing, here. She…she mind-controlled us, guys. Made us fight the Triumvirate. I…I couldn't even…"
"I'm sorry," I whispered my apology. It was a paltry and altogether inadequate measure of recompense for what I'd done, for what I'd had to do, to save my friends. It was made all the more so by the fact that I couldn't even go out there and tell it to his face.
"It's okay not to be okay with what happened, Kid," said Gallant gently. "I don't think any of us actually are. Well, maybe Clock, if he's into that sort of thing —"
"That's a little too far outside my comfort zone, thanks."
"— but none of us likes what happened. We just have to…look at it a little differently. She's going to be our teammate, now, after all."
"We just have to live with it," Aegis picked up. "If she's an unrepentant… Well. You know. If she's like Shadow Stalker, then feel free to hate her as much as you like. But if she wants to be friendly and actually work together, all I'm asking is that you give it a try. We're heroes, after all. That includes her, now."
A moment of silence followed. I held my breath, waiting to see what the others would say.
"No," said Kid Win. "No. You guys go ahead and make nice with her, if you want. I'm fucking staying as far away as I fucking can, no matter what Piggot tries to order me to do."
There was a screech as his chair moved and he stood and left.
"If you need me, I'll be in my lab."
The doors to the Wards area whirled open, then shut.
Someone sighed.
"How about you guys?" asked Aegis. "You got any issues with trying to make this work?"
"Jawhol, Mein Fuhrer," Dennis said with an exaggerated German accent. "Ve shall try our best, und make ze fraulein velcome!"
"Vista?"
"I already said I would, didn't I?" she answered carelessly. "You don't have to worry about me, at least."
"Gallant?"
"It'll be a bit…awkward, with things with Vicky being the way they are," Gallant said. "She…might ask me to pick sides, and that's… Well. At the very least, I can work with her professionally, if that's what you're asking."
"Browbeat? You okay with this?"
For a long moment, Browbeat didn't answer. Then, he said, "I'm… I'm not, really. I kind of agree with…with Kid Win. I don't…"
"It's okay," Aegis told him.
"I can't… I can't promise anything," said Browbeat. "She… What happened, it was… What it was like, being like that… I can't promise I'll be okay with it. But… I think… I think I can at least try."
"That's all I'm asking," Aegis assured him.
"Yeah…"
Another sigh.
"Okay. Clock, you and I have console duty, tonight, so we have to go and get ready for that. Vista, Browbeat, Gallant? Try and get some sleep. Tomorrow's still a school day, after all."
Dennis groaned, and so did his chair as he stood. "Ah, hell. I thought this whole thing tonight would mean we got out of school, tomorrow."
"You're not getting out of that English test that easily, I'm afraid."
"Yeah, yeah."
Then, they left, and the others bade each other good night and made for their own rooms. Carefully, I pulled myself back up to my feet and quietly closed my door.
Sighing, I turned back towards my bed and dropped my face into my hands, rubbing at my eyes.
Fuck. Just…fuck.
Another fucking mess. Another fucking mess that was my fault, too, and one I'd have to deal with the consequences of.
Dennis, Vista, Aegis, and Gallant, at least they had been understanding. Whether Gallant or Aegis had been putting on a face for team unity…I didn't know. I wanted to trust that they'd meant every word. I wanted to. But whether or not I could, that was something I might find out the hard way, and soon.
Dennis… Dennis seemed honest. He'd been that way a few weeks ago, too, and maybe that, maybe knowing what had really happened with Shadow Stalker, had bought me enough good will for him to be exactly as nice and understanding as he'd just been. I… I could probably trust that.
Vista had already extended that olive branch earlier today. Her, I think, I trusted the most. Somehow. Wasn't that just fucking backwards, that the girl who'd hated my guts was also the one most willing to give me a shot?
But Kid Win and Browbeat…
I'd known, when I let Dad talk me into this, that it wasn't going to be easy. I'd known there were going to be some problems, some clashes of personality, at least one of the Wards who wouldn't be able to get over the — admittedly horrible — experience of what I'd done to them as Khepri. I hadn't held any illusions that it would be sunshine and rainbows all the way through.
But I'd never really considered what to do about it. What I was going to do when I was confronted with the issue of actually trying to work with people who might hate me or even be so scared of me they couldn't be in the same room.
How was I supposed to fix this? How —
A knock came at my door and I startled, wiping frantically at my eyes in an attempt to remove any evidence I might have been crying. After a moment of hesitation, I walked over and pulled it open, looking straight into the face of a blond boy in Tinkertech armor, designed to look like medieval plate.
Vaguely, I recognized him as the boy Victoria Dallon had been sitting with at lunch, during that short week I spent at Arcadia. By the armor, I knew him to be Gallant.
He offered me a gentle smile. "You okay?"
It was probably supposed to be reassuring. But it wasn't, because of what it told me.
I grimaced. "You knew I was listening," I accused.
Of course he did. He was a Thinker with an extrasensory ability. I didn't know why I ever thought I had escaped his notice, eavesdropping on their conversation like that.
His smile turned sheepish and he rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Yeah," he admitted. "You're a little harder to see than most people. A little muted, kind of. But I can still get at least a vague idea of what you're feeling. I'm sorry," he added as an apology, "but it's not really something I can turn off, you know?"
I wanted to be angry, but it wasn't like I had a leg to stand on, in this case. We'd both been invading privacy — him mine, and me the rest of the Wards team's.
"It's fine," I said, even though it really wasn't. If he could see my emotions, he probably knew it was a lie, and that only made me more frustrated and annoyed.
But he didn't call me out on it and he didn't get angry or frown. He kept that kind and friendly smile, as though it was his default expression.
"I meant it, though," he said. "Are you okay? I know it couldn't have been easy, hearing some of that stuff. Having to listen to people judge you for things you felt you had to do. Especially when they don't have all of the context."
I twitched. Did he know about Shadow Stalker? Had he heard everything about what had happened with Vista?
Who was I kidding? He was, at the very least, friends with Victoria Dallon. What I knew of her said she'd told him day of.
"I'm fine," I said. I doubted he believed me.
He just kept up that friendly, understanding smile.
"Don't take what Kid Win or Browbeat said too harshly," he said. "They're…scared. What happened that night… I don't think anyone came away from that without some kind of baggage. Not even the pros."
I connected the dots.
"Battery?"
"Assault hasn't let her go on patrol without him since," Gallant confirmed gently. "What I'm trying to say is… It's fresh. And it was scary. What happened, I mean. What you did to everyone. Even if it was to save lives," he rushed to add, "it was…terrifying. They haven't had time to deal with it, yet, you know? Come to terms with it. Neither have you, I think."
I shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly naked under his gaze. Almost without my realizing it, my arms came up and crossed over my chest, like I was trying to hide behind them.
"There's nothing I can do about that," I told him, pointedly ignoring the last part.
"I think there is," he said kindly. "You just have to be kind. Open. Friendly. Make yourself seem approachable, normal, even vulnerable. Human, in other words. Maybe not right away. Give them some time to work through it. Space. You know? I think, eventually, they'll realize you're just like them: a cape who got put into a bad situation and dealt with it the only way you knew how."
"And you?" I countered. "You're not bothered by it at all?"
For the first time, his smile slipped. "I…won't say I walked away unaffected," he hedged. "I… Well. It wasn't… I didn't…"
He trailed off. I let out a short breath through my nose, not quite a snort.
"It was bad," he said after a moment. "Terrifying. Horrible. But…every time I think about it and want to be scared of you or hate you, I remember what happened before it. Watching a girl, alone in a sea of heroes, as her world crumbled around her. I remember that girl, and I remember that she was just as frightened and just as horrified as I was."
He smiled again. "And I say to myself, what kind of knight in shining armor would I be, how could I live up to my name, if I let one act of desperation color how I think of her?"
It startled a chuckle out of me. "That's it?"
"I think there's enough negativity in the world as it is," he said. "I think everyone, especially people in bad situations, deserve at least some positivity from me. Don't you think?"
I think you're not doing a half bad job of living up to that name of yours.
I closed my eyes, let out a slow sigh. "Thank you," I told him quietly, at length.
"Just give them a chance," he said again. "Let them get to know the girl behind the mask. Things will work out, I promise."
I wasn't quite so sure of that as he was. I wanted to believe it, I did, but I couldn't bring myself to. Neither I nor Khepri had ever been so fortunate.
"I'll try," I said anyway.
He smiled a little brighter. "That's all I ask."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Because the road ahead is a little rocky in places, but Gallant, at least, is a Good Guy.
I thought about making this a straight Wards interlude, but it appealed to me more to have it be something Taylor overheard. It gave me a chance to explore the Wards' feelings on the Echidna fight and make Taylor aware of where she stood with each of them.
Next chapter is planning for Levi. The chapter after, Taylor and Amy have the heart to heart she had with Lisa last chapter. Somewhere after that, before Levi comes, we get the first interlude, "Falling Star."
If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).
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