Confrontation (Patreon)

 Part One: Introduction

My universe was pain.

I lay on the gravel rooftop, trying to breathe without hurting myself. It wasn't going well. Each time I inhaled, the air was far too hot and stank of burning hair, and there was a stabbing pain that stopped me getting quite enough air into my lungs.

I was fairly sure I had broken bones; my costume had protected me from being eviscerated by Lung's claw-swipe, but it had done little to nothing about the sheer force of the blow. I'd been lucky not to have gone over the edge.

This was such a fucking stupid idea.

At least my costume hadn't caught fire when his flame had washed over me. I hadn't escaped unscathed; I had felt my hair catch fire, had suffered as it burned the back of my head. There was more pain in my buttocks, down my legs, but I wasn't sure if that was due to bruises, broken bones, or burns.

I couldn't figure out why Lung hadn't finished me off; I was certainly not going to get away now. All he had to do was step on me, and he'd probably crush me like a cockroach. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

The world went away for a little bit; I sank down into warm, soft, pink nothingness, where there was no pain, no giant metal-clad fire-breathing monsters about to kill me. I was fairly sure that I would not wake up again.

<><>

“ … e even alive?”

The voice was hollow, reverberating, masculine. I wasn't alone on the rooftop, and it wasn't Lung there with me. I tried to move, tried to call for help. I might have twitched slightly; my left arm and leg were not responding appropriately. Also, moving hurt. Like an ironclad son of a bitch. My groan wasn't much better.

My head was turned to one side; one of my goggle lenses was smashed – when did that happen? - but I could see a pair of feet in front of me. More figures, at the edge of the roof. Farther off, in some other reality, I could vaguely hear snarls and growls and roars. Lung's fighting something, I decided, and congratulated myself on my deductive ability.

The owner of the feet crouched; I saw pale hair framing a black domino mask.

“He's a she,” a feminine voice answered, her voice raised. A girl, maybe my age. “She's hurt bad. Lung nearly killed her.”

“Help,” I tried to whisper. A whimper came out.

She leaned closer. “I can't help you,” she whispered, “but I'll call help for you. You did us a huge favour. It's the least I can do in return.”

Her hand touched my mask, lay gently on the mandible over my jaw where I wasn't bruised, wasn't burned. “Hang tight, bug girl. Help is on the way.”

The world chose that moment to pull a sharp Immelmann and dive into the clouds. My eyes closed.

<><>

Metal rattling on concrete woke me again. I was still lying on the rooftop, still in pain. Still couldn't move. Breathing was a little harder.

I'm dying. I'll die here. The revelation came as not much of a shock. I'd been expecting to die ever since Lung got that hit in on me, the one that broke my bones like so many cheese sticks.

I'm sorry, Dad. I wanted to be a superhero. I wanted to be a good daughter.

Heavy boots crunching over the gravel. A masculine voice. Not the same as the other voice. “ - the hell leaves a note on a supervillain's face?”

A pause. “Holy Christ.” The footsteps moved fast, getting louder. Heading toward me. Stopping next to me. I blinked my eyes, couldn't focus. A pause, then something was pressed to my neck. I heard soft electronic beeping.

“Okay, kid, you're alive.” The voice was full of relief. “I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm Armsmaster. I'm going to get you out of this. Okay?”

I may have made a sound, a movement; I wasn't sure. Maybe he was just talking for the sake of talking. “Good. Right. Now just hang tight for a second, and I'll get you down from here.”

Why is everyone telling me to hang tight?

He moved away from me. Leaving me. His voice was still audible. “Armsmaster here. Send a containment van to my GPS location, ASAP. Lung is unconscious, tranquillised, caged. He should keep till you get here. I've got someone else to bring in. Armsmaster, out.”

Armsmaster's a hero. He's not going to leave me to die, right?

Right?

I faded away for a bit.

<><>

When I came to, I was strapped to something and moving. I was on my stomach; something was pillowed around my face so that nothing obstructed my breathing, and I didn't bump my nose. Something clicked into place, and I stopped moving.

Armsmaster held the electronic device to my neck; it beeped at him. “Vitals are down,” he muttered. “Gotta move. Hang in there, guy.”

Guy? I wanted to protest. Admittedly, I wasn't very well developed, but that was almost insulting. But before I could formulate my words farther, the engine bellowed, and I started moving again.

Engine?

Oh, his motorcycle.

I was strapped to Armsmaster's motorcycle.

We started going somewhere really fast, but after the first turn, I lost interest and passed out again.

<><>

“ … and that should do it.”

The voice was light, feminine. It sounded very slightly familiar. Teenage girl, voice I've heard somewhere before. Celebrity?

I inhaled, cautiously. There was no stab of pain. The air smelled of hospital.

Which is a thousand percent better than gravel rooftop, and burning hair.

My eyelids fluttered open.

I was lying in a hospital bed, with my legs and arms suspended in the air by straps. A light cast covered my left arm, and another covered my chest. Bandages swathed my legs and right upper arm.

Beside the bed stood a doctor, a nurse, a tall armoured figure, and a shorter figure in white robes, with something red on the front.

The doctor stepped forward, his face splitting in a smile. I could pick that much up, anyway.

“Good morning, miss,” he greeted me warmly. “I'm Doctor Anderson. You had us all worried for a while there.”

I blinked at him, then realised that I wasn't looking through my goggles. My mask was off.

They can see my face.

I tried to turn my head away instinctively, but it wouldn't move. Tried to bring my hand up to shield my face, but the straps wouldn't allow it. “Face,” I tried to enunciate. “Mask.”

“What's she saying?” asked the armoured figure … blue and silver, that had to be Armsmaster.

“Hold still,” Anderson told me. “You're in a cervical collar. You had a minor fracture of … let's just say, we didn't want you moving your head around before Panacea could get a look at you.” He held up what I recognised as a squeeze bottle filled with water, with a nozzle. I opened my mouth obediently, and he squirted some water into my mouth. I swallowed; it barely made it into my throat. I opened my mouth again.

After the second and third squirt of water, I was feeling a bit better. And now I could talk.

“You unmasked me,” I told them. “Showed my face to everyone.”

“It was kind of necessary to take your mask off,” Anderson informed me. “You had third degree burns on the back of your head.”

Which was why some sort of cradle was supporting my head in the air, I guessed. I was still trying to think of a way to complain about being unmasked while still being grateful about having my life saved when Anderson raised a finger. “But we didn't out you. We keep a stock of domino masks around, for cases like yours. You're wearing one, right now. And this is a restricted ward.”

“Oh.” Now that he mentioned it, I could feel something on my face. I felt a little silly, after the fact. But then I remembered something else. “My hair.”

“Most of it's gone, I'm afraid,” Anderson confirmed. “We had to cut it back so that we could treat your burns properly.” And I would have none at all on the back of my head, of course.

“I … uh, thanks,” I told him. “And you two, too. Thank you.” I swivelled my eyes toward Panacea and Armsmaster. “For saving my life. For healing me. I … thought I was going to die.”

Armsmaster nodded his helmeted head. “You very nearly did,” he agreed. “And we're going to have to talk about that, later.”

I looked at Panacea again. She nodded to me. “You're welcome,” she told me in a soft, shy voice. “You're very lucky to be alive. Not many people can go toe to toe against Lung, and walk away.”

“I didn't mean to,” I told her. “I was trying to stay back, out of the way. He's got super-hearing or something, when he gets big.”

Armsmaster tilted his head at that. “You're sure of that?”

I tried to nod, failed. “Absolutely.”

He smiled tightly. “That's useful to know. So, are you ready to come out of those bandages?”

“Yes, please.”

<><>

They'd had cloths draped over me for modesty while Armsmaster was in the room. Once he stepped out, the nurse began removing the casts and bandages, while Anderson and Panacea observed. It took a little while; if I needed any convincing that I'd been badly hurt, that would have done the job.

Once the cervical collar came off, I shook my head carefully, then felt the back of my skull. Bare, smooth skin. I turned to Panacea. “Will my hair grow back?”

She nodded. “Of course. There won't be any scar tissue. I can grow your hair back for you, if you want. Any length necessary.”

I blinked. “You can do that?”

She ducked her head slightly. “Uh, yes. I don't offer it as a service to everyone, but … well, it's that or a wig, right?”

“Yeah, and my Dad would pick up on a wig straight away,” I told her without thinking.

She looked curiously at me. “Your parents don't know?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not yet.”

Doctor Anderson was holding out something to me. “Uh, miss, I believe this is yours.”

I took it; it was my mask. Looking closely, it seemed to be scorched but intact, except for the shattered lens. Around the opening in the back, where my hair was to flow free, there were a few stains.

“We washed it,” he told me, “but melted hair is fairly hard to get out. What's it made of? I've never seen material like that before.”

I grimaced slightly at the 'melted hair' comment. “Spider silk. Black widow dragline silk, to be exact.”

“Wow,” Panacea commented. “Can I see?”

I handed it to her; she felt it over. “It's so smooth, so flexible. Is it very tough?”

Anderson coughed. “I'd say so. We tried to cut her out of her costume. We couldn't, even with shears. Fortunately, it wasn't that hard to find the zip. Which was when we actually discovered you were a girl for the first time, by the way, young lady.” His tone was amused.

I flushed slightly. “It's not my fault,” I muttered.

“And nor is it,” he agreed warmly. “Well now, Armsmaster wants to talk to you; do you feel up to it? Would you like us to contact your parents, or a legal representative?”

I thought about that. Contacting Dad would out me, if I hadn't already been outed. But the other … “Legal representative? Am I going to need one of those?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. I was just throwing things out there.”

“I can stick around, if you want,” Panacea offered. “If it looks like you need one, I can call my mom. She's a lawyer.”

Of course, I realised, as my brain caught up. Panacea, New Wave, Brandish, Carol Dallon. Lawyer.

“Uh, thanks,” I told her. “That would be great.”

She smiled, just a little. “That's okay. I'm happy to do it.”

“Well, then,” Doctor Anderson told me heartily, “let's get you some clothes.”

<><>

“So, are you a hero or a villain?” asked Armsmaster directly. I was still in the hospital bed, this time wearing soft pyjamas, with the domino mask completing my ensemble. The bed was adjusted so that I was more sitting up than lying down. Panacea sat nearby; she had assured me that any feeling of weakness was entirely psychosomatic, but I felt weak all the same.

A rolling tray table held scrambled eggs and a small bottle of juice; I sipped at the juice as I considered my answer.

“I'm a hero,” I told him. “A good guy.”

He tilted his head slightly. “You'll excuse me if I tell you that I saw you in your costume. You didn’t look like a good guy.”

That stung, especially coming from him. It was like Michael Jordan saying you sucked at basketball. “That’s… not intentional,” I responded, not a little defensively. “I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realised it was already looking more edgy than I’d intended, and I couldn’t do anything about it by then.”

There was a long pause. I turned my eyes from that opaque visor, toward Panacea, who gave me an encouraging nod. I glanced back at him, at his chest emblem, a silhouette of his visor in blue against a silver background, and was struck with the ridiculous thought that I had once owned a pair of underpants with his emblem on the front. Who puts a male hero's emblem on girls' underwear, anyway?

“You’re telling the truth,” he observed. It was a definitive statement, which startled me. I wanted to ask how he knew, but I wasn’t about to do or say anything that might change his mind.

“Uh, yes,” I agreed. “I really am.”

“You're new,” he went on, as though I hadn't spoken. “I haven't seen you around, heard of you. What are your powers?”

“I … powers?” I repeated. “You didn't know?”

He shook his head. “You do have powers, correct?”

I nodded. “I … yes. I control bugs.”

“Bugs,” he repeated. “As in, insects.”

“And spiders,” I added. “Arachnids of all kinds. Earthworms too, for some reason. Apparently anything relatively small, with a tiny brain.”

“So what part did you play in Lung's takedown, with bugs?” he asked.

I blinked. “I, uh, you don't know?” I was getting a bad feeling, but I wasn't sure why.

“If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you,” he pressed relentlessly.

“I, uh, he was talking about killing kids. So I had my swarm attack him. Drove his men off, then I had them bite him in, uh, sensitive places. Black widows, brown recluses, fire ants, browntail moths, honeybees, wasps, hornets … basically, everything I could throw at him.”

I took a breath, and a drink of juice. “And then he went on fire, and it stopped working. So I went to leave. And he heard me. And jumped up on the roof. And hit me, and breathed fire all over me. And then … something happened. Someone arrived. Something big took on Lung. There was a guy with a funny voice, and a girl with blonde hair. Then you were there. And that's all I remember.”

I stopped. Doctor Anderson tilted his head curiously. “Armsmaster, just a question; how did you ensure Lung wasn't going to be a danger when you brought him in? Because I didn't see any restraints past the most basic ones.”

Armsmaster turned to look at him. “I have extra-strength tranquillisers, authorised for use on Brutes. Why?”

“Because Brute-rating tranquillisers of that strength could easily interact with the types of venoms she just mentioned. There could be an adverse reaction.”

“Adverse reaction?” I asked. My bad feeling was really jumping up and down now.

At that moment, the PA system blared to life. “Code blue. Repeat, code blue. Cleared personnel to room four-five-three. Crash cart to room four-five-three. Code blue. Repeat, code blue.”

Panacea's eyes got very wide under her hood, and she leaped to her feet. “Gotta go,” she told us.

Armsmaster was also on his feet. “That's the room they've got Lung in,” he snapped. He pointed at me. “Stay. There.”

Anderson didn't even bother saying anything. He just darted out the door behind Armsmaster.

And then I was all alone.

Part 2