Unbroken 1.1 (Worm Commission) (Patreon)

The girl tumbled to the side as I flew into her, and it took me a moment to right myself and turn around to face her. She had a weird look on her face, but soon had a grin and asked, “First time?”

I stared at her; first time what?

“Flying, I mean. You looked like you were having fun, which I get because it’s probably your first time flying so it hasn’t become boring yet, but as soon as I said something you lost all control,” she explained.

“Yes,” I answered, even as I felt a surge of irritation at her calling flying boring.

“Not much of a talker are you?” she asked with a raised eyebrow when I didn’t elaborate.

“No,” I agreed, while trying to think of a way to make her go away. I’d been flying for long enough that I should head home, but I didn’t want this strange floating girl to know where I live.

“Ooh, going for the whole dark and mysterious, are we?” she asked as she floated closer to me. I drifted back, uncomfortable with even Danny getting into my personal space. My sisters were the only ones I had ever been able to tolerate getting that close.

“Leave me alone,” I told her, continuing to back away even as she paused. She stared at me for a moment, and I stared back, wondering what she was doing. Sure, she was kinda pretty, but not enough for me to want her to touch me.

“You should talk to me, what can you do? How’d you get your powers? Are you planning on joining the Wa-hey! I’m talking to you!”

I tuned her out as I turned towards the bay and flew straight towards it. A glance behind me showed that she was keeping pace with me, and I frowned in aggravation. I wanted to get home and see Taylor, but I couldn’t do that while this blonde bitch was following me. I could try to lose her in the Boat Graveyard, but she was probably the more experienced flier so that was an unlikely prospect. With that in mind, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before diving into the frigid waters of the bay.

It felt like I was flying into a wall of metal, but I was more than able to handle it. I kept my eyes closed, as I flew/swam through the heavily polluted waters. After a minute or two, I slowed down, drifted up to the surface and poked my head out of the water. I didn’t see any sign of her, so I started making my way to shore, far slower than my top speed. If I went that fast, she’d spot me easily.

When I made it to shore, I floated up slightly and spun in place, hoping to try to get some of the water off. I was a lot more successful than I anticipated, after a moment I was completely dry. Shrugging, I started walking home. It was slower, but far less chance of the blonde girl spotting me. Eventually, I made it home. It was close to eight, and the living room light was still on as I entered.

“There’s leftovers in the fridge,” Danny called out from the living room.

I grunted, but made my way over to the kitchen. There was most of a pizza in there, so I grabbed some slices to put on a plate. A glance showed it was our usual: pepperoni and bell pepper on a pesto sauce. After heating it up, I took the plate to the living room and started eating.

“Get it out of your system?” Danny asked after I finished the first slice.

“Wasn’t angry, was confused and needed to think,” I said. Even I knew this was going to be weird, but I am such a shit liar that I didn’t really see a way to not talk about it. “Heard something when I brought Taylor inside. Asked when I became ‘hot’.”

Danny blinked, staring at me in surprise. He leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh, “Not something I was expecting to have to talk about. Did you reach a conclusion?”

I shook my head, “No, was interrupted before I could. Ran into someone, they wanted to talk, I didn’t, so I lost them before coming home.”

“Well, am I going to have to get out the shovel?” Danny asked, making me look at him in confusion. What did shovels have to do with anything? Seeing the look on my face, he gave an exaggerated pout and grumbled, “Ruin my joke, will you?”

“What joke?” I asked.

“Nevermind,” he waved it off before composing himself. “I know you’ll do your absolute best to protect Taylor, even if your enthusiasm could use some more restraint. But I’m going to ask that you try not to encourage Taylor’s crush.”

“I don’t even know what I did to cause it,” I pointed out. “How am I going to avoid encouraging it?”

Danny opened his mouth to answer, only for no sound to come out. Frowning, he closed his mouth, only to try again. A few more false starts before saying, “Alright, I honestly don’t have a decent response to that. So… worst case scenario, let her down gently?”

“You aren’t very good at this,” I bluntly noted, making him laugh.

“Not really, no. Controlling a temper, that’s something I can help with; understanding and talking to a woman, that’s so much harder,” he said with a chuckle.

The conversation died after that, so I continued eating then went to bed.

[hr][/hr]

I sat in the passenger’s seat of Danny’s truck, the poker coiled around my right arm providing a comforting weight. Taylor was still asleep when we left, so Danny wrote a note for her before we locked up. I was not looking forward to this, but it was the agreement that Danny and I had. Time to see if I’d become a Ward.

Danny’d been given specific instructions on where to park, and there’d be power testing before meeting the Wards. Once Danny parked, I got out of the pickup and followed him to the guards standing outside the fancy elevator. This whole mess seemed over the top to me, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules like this. We were met by a dark skinned woman dressed like a soldier with an American flag wrapped around her face. There was a glowing green knife at her hip, but otherwise she looked unarmed.

“You must be the Heberts, yes?” she asked.

I shook my head, “Adopted. Richard Lindt.”

She blinked, but I couldn’t see enough of her face to properly read anything more than that. After a brief moment, she turned to the two guards and said, “I’ll show them from here, as you were.”

The guards left, and Danny and I followed her. We came to a door, and she paused before turning to face us, “You said you were a Brute, right?”

Vaguely remembering the stupid rhyme, I nodded, “Discovered I could fly yesterday. Punched through metal and barely noticed first time I used powers.”

“So an Alexandria package,” she muttered before opening the door. “The researchers will guide you through the power testing process. Mr. Hebert, if you’ll follow me to the observation deck?”

I entered the room, just catching the woman quietly asking Danny, “What exactly is your relationship with him?”

“He fostered with us when he was five, my wife and I officially adopted him-” the doors closing behind me made their voices too muffled for me to make out. I put it out of my mind and focused on the nerds in white coats.

You would think that power testing would be interesting. It wasn’t. Nerds make everything boring. There were a lot of numbers spoken, they had me punch, squeeze, and lift a bunch of things, then fly around a bunch in some stupid ways. Most I got out of it was Brute 5, Mover 5. Then they put me through the same dumb medical tests that I had to do for school. When the tests were finally done, I was led to a room with Danny and the woman from before.

“Have you given any thoughts to a potential cape name?” she asked as she organized some manilla folders.

“Atlas, Titan, Chort, or Prometheus,” I answered.

“Atlas and Titan are both taken, Atlas is a hero in Greece and Titan is a Rogue who works in ship salvaging, but I’ll have to look at both Chort and Prometheus. Now, these are the standard Ward agreements,” she moved a pair of manilla folders to Danny and I. Neither of us touched them.

“I’m afraid that we won’t be signing until after he’s had a chance to meet the Wards,” Danny said, before launching into his Union-babble.

I barely understood a word of the conversation, so I took the poker off my arm and started playing around with it to pass the time. It was only a few moments in that I realized that both Danny and the woman had stopped talking. Looking up, I saw the woman staring at me.

“What?” I asked, wondering what the issue was.

“I only just now noticed, is that a fire poker?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Bending it is soothing.”

She continued to watch, until Danny asked, “Something wrong?”

“No, no. It’s just unusual for a Brute to have such ease and control of their strength so early,” she explained, before pausing. “No, that’s not quite it. I suppose a better way to phrase it is that you can use your strength more… casually, for lack of a better word.”

I blinked, because that made no sense to me. Regardless, it appeared that Danny had talked her into meeting with the Wards before signing anything. I coiled the fire poker back around my right bicep as we followed her to another part of the building, and I vaguely heard voices talking on the other side of the wall. My eyes narrowed, as she pushed a button and there was a buzz on the other side. Was my hearing getting better as well? I hadn’t specifically noticed anything, but maybe it had? I’ll talk to Danny about it later, depending on how this meeting with the Wards went.

The door by the button slid open, and Danny and I followed the woman with the stupid scarf inside. If I could emote like normal people, I’d wince upon seeing the get ups that they were wearing. Two of them were sensible enough to wear armor, one looked like he was wearing a leather, skin tight racing outfit, one had a decorative helmet that looked like a lion’s head and had to be far too restrictive on his peripheral vision, one linked like he had a fetish for clocks, a blonde girl was dressed like she was some sort of futuristic Disney princess, and the last girl looked like she was in the middle of her goth phase. I looked towards Danny and raised an eyebrow, he responded with the expression we’d agreed beforehand meant ‘give them a chance’ and I took in a deep breath, before turning back to the Wards.

“You the new guy?” the one in the stupid lion helmet asked as he approached, hand outstretched. “I’m Triumph, the Ward leader for the rest of the month, at which point Aegis will take over.”

I shook his hand, taking care to control my strength, and answered, “Haven’t signed anything yet, may not join.”

One of the two armored Wards, the one with his chin exposed, walked up next, “I’m Kid Win, a Tinker. What can you do?”

“Fly, break shit, take hits,” was my response.

“So you’re like me?” the one Triumph had pointed as Aegis asked. “Never a bad thing to have more Alexandria Packages.”

“I’m Vista,” the faux Disney princess introduced herself. “The most senior Ward here.”

I stared at her, waiting for her to continue or explain why she put emphasis on the word senior. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to, I said the first thing that came to mind, “You are very short.”

There were some snorts and chuckles throughout the room as Vista’s face twisted. I… think she’s glaring at me, but without seeing her whole face I can’t tell for sure. The goth girl walked up next, coming far closer to me than I was comfortable with. I looked towards Danny, but he still had the ‘give them a chance’ expression, so I grit my teeth and returned my focus to her.

“Shadow Stalker, think you can take me in the sparring ring? Best of three?” she asked, leaning up to try to get into my face. She didn’t quite have the height to make it work.

“You are very close to me,” I noted, reaching up, putting two fingers on the forehead of her mask and gently pushing her away. “Not interested.”

I looked again at Danny as the one dressed like a tech themed knight approached. It was strained, but he still had the same expression on his face. I took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, then let it out. If there was a third issue, that was it.

“I’m Gallant,” the tech-knight introduced himself, having paused in his approach. “Good to meet you.”

I shook the offered hand, giving him a nod in return. The one with the clock fetish was last, and something about him made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as he approached.

“Hey there, I’m Clockblocker, the fun Ward,” he loudly declared, his volume making my right eye twitch. He moved like he was going to pat me on the shoulder, but I’d had enough of being touched today, so I reached up to push his arm aside.

“Don’t like,” I began, my hand touching the side of his arm, the moment oddly seeming to stretch out far, far longer than it should have. Before it ended, but his arm was gone, “being touched.”

I looked around, most of the Wards were gone, only the clock one and the goth girl remaining. Danny immediately moved in front of me, not touching me, not in my space, but making sure he took up my focus, “It wasn’t an attack, it was a stupid joke. Okay? It was not an attack.”

The fact that he felt the need to reiterate… I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, counted to five, breathed out. I turned around, took another deep breath, walked out the doorway, counted to five, headed for the elevator, breathed out. Can’t punch Clock Ward, with emotions at current state, liable to punch through costume, cause serious injury. Would either be sent to juvenile detention or be forced into Wards. If the Wards, I would be sent to another city, away from Taylor. Still legally a foster child, CPS would probably decide I can’t be trusted around Taylor. Unacceptable, can’t protect Taylor if I’m taken away or in another city. Won’t be taken from my sister again.

I heard Danny reach me, he refrains from touching me, speaks, “You showed serious restraint back there, I’m proud of you.”

I grunted, still too angry to properly communicate. He understands regardless, safe assumption he knows I’ll be going to the Boat Graveyard. Need to break something.