Another Way Pt 18 (Patreon)

Part Eighteen: Friends and Family

[A/N: this chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Robert

Vivid dreams swirled across his mind’s eye. An urgent voice was telling him that he had to be a dragon, and for the longest time he believed it. But then another voice intervened, saying that he was there to slay dragons, not be them. None of it made any sense, but he somehow knew it was all exactly as it should be.

He drifted. Sleep was like being submerged in a deep pool of not-water, with the fragments of his dreams flitting by like brightly coloured fish. Or maybe tiny dragons.

Robert, the voice who had told him to slay dragons whispered. It’s time to wake up.

He resisted the impulse to obey the voice; it was nice and warm and comfortable in his dream, and he didn’t have to do anything except watch the dragons go by.

Wake up, the voice insisted. If you don’t wake up, you’ll never know how the story ends.

Oh, well, that was different then. He stopped resisting. The dream fragments scattered like autumn leaves or startled dragons as he began to move. He ignored them, kicking for the surface.

Opening his eyes was harder than he’d thought it would be. Light was a lot brighter than it was inside his head, too. He blinked, bringing up his arm to shade his eyes. That was harder, too. It felt heavy as lead, though there was nothing restraining him.

“Uh,” he grunted, and realised for the first time that his mouth was horrendously dry and that there was a foul taste in it. “Blagh.”

A face swam into view above his; a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen? He wasn’t good at telling age. There was a dash of freckles across her nose, while frizzy auburn hair was tied back in a businesslike ponytail. As far as he could tell, she was wearing a hooded jacket. Her hand slid under his head and helped him sit up, then a squeeze-bottle came into view. He accepted the tube into his mouth and sucked greedily at the pleasantly cool water. She let him take a couple of mouthfuls, enough to clear out the horrible aftertaste and re-hydrate his tissues, before she removed it again.

“Better?” she asked, letting him lie back again.

“Yes, thanks.” He nodded to her, then realised her didn’t know her face. Didn’t know her name. There was a lot he didn’t know, in fact. “Uh, what …?”

She did something out of his view, and the bed smoothly elevated him until he was half-sitting, looking across at her rather than up at her. “My name is Claire Marchant,” she said, as if she’d plucked the question out of his head. “You’re in my father’s house. Do you remember your own name?”

“Robert,” he ventured. It sounded right, anyway. But there was something missing. “Robert … Robert … uh, why can’t I remember …?”

“Your last name? Don’t worry.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “It’ll come to you in its own time. There was a car crash.”

“Uh, car crash?” He frowned. “What car crash?” Something had happened, that he was sure of. He vaguely remembered … flames? “Did it catch fire?”

“It got pretty hot for a while there,” she confirmed. “We were nearby and helped you get out of the situation after you lost consciousness.”

Far from putting his mind to rest, her answers were only generating more questions. “If I was in a car crash, why am I not in the hospital?” He looked down at the swathe of sheet covering him. Surreptitious twitches proved that his legs and other arm were present and correct, and there were no obvious messages of pain coming back. However, something that wasn’t present was any kind of IV leading into his arm. “How badly was I hurt, if I was unconscious?” He put his hand to his head. There were no bandages there, which only confused him further.

“Something needed to be done immediately,” she said, her tone serious. “But there were two reasons why we brought you here instead of to a hospital. First, you’re a parahuman. Second, no hospital can match what I can do, so it made sense to cut out the middleman.”

“Wait, what again now? I’m a parahuman?” He stared at her. “Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said cheerfully, nodding to add emphasis. “As far as I can understand things, you manifest some sort of metallic scaled armour, along with a flaming sword. Pretty sure that’s something ordinary people can’t do.”

“… oh.” He looked down at himself. There was a certain lack of scaled armour and flaming sword, but somehow he knew she wasn’t pulling his leg. Then something else she’d said came back to him. “What do you mean, no hospital can match what you can do?”

“Oh, that?” She chuckled warmly. “This would be extremely awkward to keep secret, so I’m going to need you to stay quiet about this.” Reaching up, she pulled the hood up, tucking her hair into it. “Just one moment …” Giving him a smirk, she turned her back to him.

Not entirely sure what was going on, Robert continued to lie on the bed. It was warm and comfortable, and Claire seemed to know what she was talking about. Admittedly, she was being a bit mysterious right now, but teenagers loved their drama. He wondered absently how he even knew that, when he didn’t know his own last name.

“Ta-dah!” She turned around again, pulling the hood back down. Midnight-black hair, long and wavy, spilled out over her shoulders in a glossy tide. He blinked, registering the fact that she was taller and had a different face, and even her voice was subtly more musical. “Marchioness, at your service.”

“… wow, that’s a good trick.” Robert was very impressed; but more than that, he knew that name. Once again, he didn’t know how he knew it, but Marchioness was definitely a name that had lodged in his memory. “You’re the healer, right? Marquis’ daughter?”

“That’s correct.” She gifted him with a cheeky smile. “Though one day I think it would be pretty cool if someone called Dad ‘Marchioness’ father’.”

“I wouldn’t object to that, so long as they said it with the appropriate respect.” The new voice belonged to a tall man with neatly styled brown hair. He was dressed casually enough, but there was a glint in his eye that told Robert he would be far better off never crossing this man. Moving over to the bed, the man held his hand out. “Earl Marchant. Also known as Marquis. You’ve met my daughter already, I see.”

“Ahh … yes, sir.” Robert grasped his hand and shook it. “I’m pleased to meet you, and grateful that you’re helping me … but I still really don’t know why I’m here. Is it because I’m a parahuman?”

“Essentially, yes.” Marquis indicated Marchioness, who nodded to acknowledge the gesture. “As Marchioness already mentioned, she had to perform extensive work on you. Work that would’ve been beyond any hospital. But on top of that, your status as a parahuman would’ve been outed not long after you went in through the front doors, and the PRT would’ve been all over your case in very short order. No matter how that turned out, you would be on their radar. And do you really want to trust their information security to keep your identity as a parahuman secret?”

“Um, okay.” It made sense in a sort of bizarre, backward way. Of course, he’d never had to worry about a secret identity before. Or at least, he didn’t think so. “So, uh, why are you unmasking to me like this? I mean, you barely know me.”

Marchioness fielded that one. “Because if we tried to keep our identities secret from you while you were living in our house and we’re trying to do our thing, the cover stories would rapidly grow out of control, and we’d lose sight of which lies we’d told last. Dad and I both think you can be trusted; and besides, we both know your secret. Fair’s fair, after all.”

“Your thing …” Robert blinked, then looked at Marquis. “You’re a villain, but you’ve been out of town for some years.” He switched his attention to Marchioness. “And you’re a healer, but you’re also his daughter. How do you even make that work?”

“Because, despite their best efforts to convince the world otherwise, the PRT isn’t actually run by drooling idiots,” Marquis said dryly. “With a little luck and a lot of chutzpah, my darling daughter engineered a confrontation with Armsmaster himself inside the Brockton Bay General Hospital. Everyone left peacefully, and Armsmaster undoubtedly had a lot to tell Director Piggot when he got back to the PRT building. Including the fact that she would be attending Endbringer battles as an area-effect healer, for free. That makes for a great deal of goodwill, which I am entirely willing to capitalise on.”

“Oh. Right.” That made a lot of sense. Which only raised the next question. “Okay, so where do I fit into all this? I mean, now that I’m healthy, do you want me to move out? Am I expected to join your team? What’s the situation?”

“Neither.” Marquis waved his hand around the room. “You may stay as long as you like. I will make enquiries as to your true identity, if you so wish. My only condition is that if you leave us to become a full-fledged superhero, that you do not invade our home to capture us. That has happened once before, and did not turn out well for the team that attempted it.”

“Wow, nope.” That sounded like a totally dick act to Robert. “I’d never pull something like that. But yeah, if you can look into who I really am, that would be great.”

“I will set the ball rolling the moment I leave this room,” declared the supervillain. “My best wishes for your speedy recovery, young man.” He exited the room, leaving Robert more than a little bemused.

A feeling of lethargy stole over Robert. “Um, I think I need to get some more sleep,” he confessed to Marchioness. “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“That’s fine,” she assured him with a knowing smile. “You’ve been through a lot. Sleep’s a great healer.” Reaching out, she placed her hand on his forehead. It was cool and comforting. “When you wake up, you should feel a lot better.”

As he drifted off to sleep, he didn’t even consider doubting her words.

<><>

Claire

“You impress me more and more every day, Claire-bear,” declared Earl. Leaning back in the sofa with his arm around Kayden, he raised his glass of champagne. “How did you create that young man from the faux Lung that we fought?”

“It was easier than I thought it would be, Dad.” Claire sipped at her fruit juice. On the one occasion that she’d tried champagne, she’d coughed so hard bubbles came out of her nose. As far as she was concerned, any drink that required a physical upgrade to enjoy wasn’t worth drinking. “I mean, Blasto was a total butcher. Sure, he could clone literally anything, but the hack job he did in giving the poor guy his mindset was like scribbling with crayons where you and I are like a book. Well, I’m like a book. You’re like a stack of encyclopedias.”

He gave her a suspicious glance. “Are you accusing me of being old again?”

“I prefer to call it ‘rich with experience’.” She smirked at him. “I couldn’t give him the required life experience, not without basically leading him through fifteen years’ worth of pretending to do stuff, so I cheated. I dumped a bit of my actual knowledge in there, then filled in around the edges with memories of memories of having done stuff. Then I covered over the rest with some retrograde amnesia. So when he does something he knows about, he gets a few tag-along memories that I planted there, but for the most part, he’ll blame not knowing stuff on the car accident. And I made sure to give positive reinforcement for some things he ‘remembers’ doing, and negative for other things.”

“You’re right about it sounding easier than I thought it would be,” Kayden commented. “Is it going to stick? Will he revert to being ‘rawr, Lung’ after a while, or if he gets traumatised?”

“No more than you’re gonna revert to being a ten year old child if you’re traumatised,” Claire said. “He didn’t have any underlying memories or personality that are likely to crop up. What I laid in there is like ripping the middle pages out of a comic book and gluing in a doctoral dissertation. It’s a lot more sophisticated than what he had before, and it’s not going anywhere.”

“So, is he going to join us?” Earl held up his glass and studied the bubbles. “I didn’t want to queer your pitch in there, so I played it by ear.”

“I don’t know,” Claire confessed. “He’s definitely inclined to be loyal to us, and there’s a good chance of it, but I’m going to leave the final decision to him. Maybe if you ‘find’ information that he doesn’t really have much of a family to go back to, that will tip his hand.”

“That’s certainly doable,” her father declared. “Let me get back to you on that. But speaking of clones, how is the other one doing?”

Claire took a deep breath. “I’ve still got him in stasis. While I’ve more or less planned out what I want to do with him—specifically, de-age him and make him my younger brother, so we can both watch over him as he grows up—I want to observe Robert and make sure nothing goes dramatically wrong with the personality implant or anything else before I start working on your clone.”

That got her father’s attention. “Your younger brother? You intend to make him my son?” He shook his head slightly, as if to dislodge something inside. “That’s … I never even thought that would ever happen.”

“Should I be jealous, Dad?” Claire’s dig was accompanied by a cheeky smile. “I barely mention the idea of you having a son, and you’ve already gone all goo-goo eyed.”

He snorted. “Not jealous. Never jealous. You are my firstborn, and my only daughter. Raising you has been a privilege and a delight. With a son, I can do that all over again. And this time, I can actually teach someone how to use their powers without feeling like I’m making it up as I’m going along.”

Kayden chuckled. “For someone who spent so much time as a solo act, you’re certainly gathering a team around yourself now.”

“And that is in no way a bad thing.” Earl clinked his glass with hers, while Claire sipped at her juice.

<><>

A Few Days Later

Mega Girl

I’ve got every right to be here, Vicky told herself as she swooped in for a landing at the Brockton Bay General emergency room. I’m a hero and she’s doing good things. We’re colleagues, comparing notes. And the paper did post the times she’d be here, so it’s not like I’m stalking her.

Still, as she walked in through the doors, she couldn’t help feeling nervous. Marchioness was an unknown quantity in more ways than one. She was the best healer Vicky had ever heard of, and she was at the same time the daughter of an infamous supervillain; one who had severely embarrassed the team Vicky called her own. The first time they’d met, she’d known basically everything about Vicky, while Vicky had known nothing about her. But she was so nice to me. And that was the deciding factor, here.

“Oh, hey, Mega Girl.” Vicky could’ve sworn Marchioness had been looking in totally the wrong direction to see her come in, but she was already sitting up on the folding recliner and turning around in greeting. “Good to see you again. You’re looking well. No casualties this time, I hope?” The smile, which could’ve been mean, was broad and welcoming, with just a hint of cheekiness from the question. As Vicky approached, she stood up.

Vicky felt her apprehension melt away. “No, no casualties this time,” she assured Marchioness. “That was a real wakeup call for me. I’m a lot more careful, since then.” She grimaced. “Though Traction never made it to prison. The Empire Eighty-Eight attacked the transport, murdered some of the guards, and broke her out.” She wasn’t quite sure how many of the guards had been murdered, but it had been at least one.

“Huh.” Marchioness suddenly looked introspective. “That’s kind of funny.” Blinking, she met Vicky’s eyes again. “Not funny ha-ha but funny weird. Dad and I had a run-in with the Empire not long ago, and we kind of dispersed them. But Traction wasn’t among the ones we dealt with.”

“Oh. I see.” Vicky had been aware of the way the Empire Eighty-Eight’s presence had been fading away from the Brockton Bay gang scene, but it hadn’t occurred to her to ask exactly what had happened to a gang that strong. Now, unless Marchioness was pulling her leg hard enough to dislocate the hip joint, she was looking at one of the people who had happened to it. And while Marchioness clearly enjoyed the hell out of being enigmatic and just a little silly, Vicky hadn’t caught her in any lies yet.

 “Yeah. Thanks for that. I’m gonna mention it to Dad when I get home, so we can look into it. We don’t want any remnants of the Empire sidling around here under the radar and causing trouble. Look at the hassle they made for everyone when we could see what they were doing.” Unbidden, Marchioness gave Vicky a hug then waved her to a seat on the recliner. “Want a soda? Gummy bear? I’ve got plenty. So, how’d your mom take things, the last time we met?”

Vicky took the seat, accepted the soda but declined the gummy bear. Marchioness sat down beside her and opened one for herself, observing Vicky expectantly.

“In a word … badly.” Vicky grimaced. “She’s still very unhappy about what happened back then, I think. I mean …” She glanced around and lowered her voice, even though the emergency room was more or less empty. “She’s gone through therapy, and I think she’s a lot better than she used to be, but … some things still trigger her. And by ‘some things’ I mean any mention of your dad.” She popped the cap off the soda and took a long drink in an attempt to cover the awkwardness.

“Ew. Um.” Marchioness raised an eyebrow. “Is this gonna be a problem? I don’t want it to be a problem. I want us to be friends.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Vicky hastened to say. “We'd already been to see Deputy Director Renick, and he said that your dad’s off limits so long as you’re around, and she seems to accept that. Most of the time.” She paused a moment later, as the realisation that she probably shouldn’t have said that crossed her mind. “Um. Crap. I’m bad at this.” 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Marchioness grinned and draped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a side-hug. “We’d basically figured that one out already. It’s why he hasn’t been going out without me, unless he really has to. And he hasn’t been committing crimes … well, not against normal people, anyway. We did kinda mess up the Empire when they tried to kill him, but nobody died. And hey, we recruited one of them.”

Vicky blinked. From ‘dispersing’ the Empire Eighty-Eight to ‘messing them up’ was a big step, but the other one was pretty big, too. “Wait, what? You recruited one?”

“Yup.” Marchioness beamed sunnily at her. “Everyone’s gonna figure this out pretty quickly, but me and Dad have a new team member. Probably more than one, soon. She used to be Purity, but now she’s calling herself Palatina, and she’s not a Nazi anymore, so you’re not allowed to call her that.”

“You recruited Purity?” Vicky was severely impressed, despite herself. Purity was—had been—one of the big hitters in Brockton Bay, short of Lung himself. He was tougher, but she had flight all the time and her blasts had much longer range. Of course, her stealth was non-existent, but she couldn’t have everything. “How’d you pull that one off?”

“Kaiser was a dick,” Marchioness said airily. “She realised that, so when we made him leave Brockton Bay, she stayed behind and joined up with us. She’s a really nice person, once you get to know her.”

Vicky shook her head. “Do you mind if I tell the rest of the Brigade about this? It feels like something they should know.”

“Oh, totally.” Marchioness nodded earnestly. “I’m not telling you anything that I don’t think your folks should hear. Unless you want to keep some of it to yourself, like us being friends and all. I mean, I’m not a villain, but I’m not so sure your mom would see it that way, seeing how I help Dad out with stuff sometimes. And I don’t want you getting into trouble.”

“Aww, thanks,” Vicky said. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in like, ever. Well, except for all the other nice stuff you said when we first met.” She leaned against Marchioness slightly, enjoying the company of someone who really got her. “I’m glad you’re not really a villain. I’d hate to have to arrest you.”

Marchioness snorted. “What would the charges be? Reckless healing?”

That got a giggle from Vicky. “Being suspiciously nice to people?”

“Loitering in the emergency room?”

“Healing for fun and profit?”

“Making heroes look silly?”

Vicky was laughing too hard now to keep going. She wiped her eyes, snorted with laughter, and wiped them again. “Oh, man,” she said once she managed to get herself under control. “I so needed that. Thank you.”

Putting her soda bottle down, Marchioness booped her on the nose playfully. “You’re welcome. I’ve got friends here, but you’re my first friend in costume who’s my age. It’s nice to talk to someone who gets it, you know? What it’s like to be a kid with powers.”

“Aww.” Vicky put her arm around Marchioness and hugged her right back. “I’m totally good to talk about that all day long if you want.” She shifted a little with discomfort and put the empty soda bottle on the floor. “Though I’m gonna have to get up. Bathroom break.”

“That’d be right. Abandon me for your bodily needs.” Marchioness rolled her eyes as she let Vicky go. She pointed at a discreet door in the corner of the room. “It’s through there.”

“Oh, thanks.” Blessing the fact that her costume had been designed with ease of access for this specific instance, Vicky headed into the bathrooms.

As she settled down to do what needed to be done, she reflected that this had been a really good idea. Marchioness was fun to be around, and there was even stuff she could tell the rest of the Brigade. She’d heard stories about heroes having unofficial backchannels with villains and vice versa, but she’d never understood how that worked without the hero compromising their ideals. Now, she was starting to get a better idea of it.

Of course, Mom might be harder to convince. She was just starting to try to work out exactly how to elide over this specific instance without actually lying when there was a tremendous crash that shook the building.

What the hell was that?

<><>

A Few Moments Earlier

Panzer

“Okay, there she is. Right where the newspaper said she’d be.” Sherrel tapped a control and the screen zoomed in. Inside the glass sliding doors of the hospital emergency room, a slender form lay on a recliner, soda bottle in hand. She bared her teeth in atavistic glee. Fuckin’ take away my drugs will you, you little bitch?

“You sure this is the best way?” asked Crusader over the radio link. “I mean, my ghosts could've gone straight in there and dragged her out, and she couldn’t’ve done a damn thing about it.”

Sherrel puffed out an aggravated sigh. “This is the best way because I fuckin’ said it was the best way, capisce? That little skinny cow fucked with my high. Nobody does that. So we’re grabbing her my way. Because I know my way works.” She checked to make sure she was broadcasting to everyone at once. “Does anyone else have a problem with that?”

Alabaster's voice was the epitome of no-fucks-given. “Ain’t no skin off mine. Grab her how you want to grab her.”

Night and Fog didn’t even bother answering. She’d made it clear that she wanted Marchioness alive, so eventually they’d stopped volunteering innovative ways to kill the girl. Once she had the little bitch in her clutches, she had no doubt they’d move on to suggesting how best to torture her. She was definitely on board with that aspect of matters.

“Okay, good,” she said. “You can start your distractions now.”

This time, there was a round of replies in the affirmative. She waited until the scanner reported that BBPD and PRT units were responding to all three incidents, then made her move. Under her direction, the stealthed tank rolled off the main road and across the grassy verge before it clattered down on to the asphalt of the parking lot. She could’ve used the armoured vehicle to shove cars out of the way, but she didn’t want to give away her hand too early. Using careful hand movements, she guided it between the rows of cars until the entrance to the emergency room was dead ahead, the only obstacle a few scrubby little bushes.

Taking a deep breath, she rammed the control forward. “Woo hoo!” she yelled as the image of the emergency room doors loomed large on the screen.

<><>

Marchioness

The first Claire knew of what was going on was when the emergency-room doors, along with part of the wall, shattered inward with a tremendous crash. A large metallic prow with ‘FUCK YOU’ painted on it, with a hand flipping the bird between the two words, protruded through into the room. Heavy caterpillar tracks ground forward, pushing the large vehicle further in.

“Marchioness!” The voice was feminine, despite the distortion from the speakers. “Surrender right the fuck now, or I kill everyone here!” Giving substance to the threat, a turret motored upward from the top surface of the tank, and a gun barrel rotated to line up on the nurse’s station. At the same time, a large horizontal hatch dropped open at the front of the tank. Within, there was a cavity about the same shape and size as a coffin, with heavy padding. “Get in, or else.”

Claire looked at the gun. She didn’t know all that much about them, but that one looked like it meant business. The nurse was currently hiding behind her desk, but against something that size, mere wood and glass would do nothing. And even if it missed her, there were people farther back in the building who were at extreme risk.

“You realise if you go through with this, the Birdcage will be the least of the problems you’ll be facing.” Keeping her voice calm, she pushed hard on her power, trying to find whoever was driving the tank. “My dad will make whatever the PRT does to you look like a gentle pat on the wrist.” She was coming up blank on the ‘people inside the tank’ thing. Either there was nobody in there, or they had it somehow cloaked against her power, in the same way she’d neither heard nor seen it until it busted through the door. Which meant she couldn’t oppose them directly.

The gun angled around, then fired. On the wall, the TV exploded in a shower of sparks, but that was nothing to the shockingly loud sound inside the confined area. Claire felt her ears ringing, and fixed the minor trauma. If she was going to get out of this, she needed to have all her faculties at top capability.

As the gun motored back around, the voice spoke once more. This time, the menace was far more than a mere suggestion. “Get in the damn capsule, or I kill everyone in the damn hospital.”

Jonas, Mega Girl, where are you? Not daring to even glance toward the bathroom door, Claire went over to the front of the tank. Once she was inside the capsule, she could become her battle form and maybe even burst out. Though, from the thickness of metal, it looked unlikely. Someone was going all-out on capturing her; from the looks of it, they weren’t taking any chances.

The question was, who? The Merchants hadn’t had any Tinkers, and they were shut down anyway. The gun jiggled impatiently, and she carefully climbed into the capsule. Was it the Empire, maybe? She and her father had broken the gang up pretty good. Though …

Oh, shit. As the capsule closed around her, the padding pressing in from all sides, she realised what was going on. Traction. She was recruited into the Empire, and we never mopped her up with the rest of them.

The capsule clicked shut and locked, and the tank’s engine revved, preparing to reverse out of the hole. She felt the jolt as it went over some rubble. Then it lurched again, swerving sideways and jamming in the side of the hole.

<><>

Mega Girl

With the bathroom door barely cracked open, Vicky watched as Marchioness climbed into the capsule of her own accord. The girl had guts, she had to admit. Willingly allowing herself to be taken hostage to save others was something that even heroes had trouble doing. Normally, she would’ve been out there taking on the tank from the word go, but there were far too many things to go wrong. Whoever was driving the thing clearly had their finger on the trigger right now, and she didn’t want to cause another live-fire incident. The next one might go through people.

She watched as the tank began to rumble backward out of the hole it had made, the cloaking field settling over it again to make it almost impossible to see or hear. Then it stopped, swinging sideways, and she heard the tracks grinding uselessly against the concrete.

Okay, it’s hung up somehow. This is my chance, while the driver’s distracted. Wrenching the door open, she launched across the room and out through the hole. The gun barrel was pointing in entirely the wrong way, and it had only just started to swivel to her before she grabbed it and tore it out of its mounting with a loud screeching of metal on metal.

That was when she realised there was someone climbing on to the back of the tank; a big man, wearing dark clothes and a balaclava. Staring at the guy, she opened her mouth to ask questions but the person driving the tank got in first.

“What the fuck? Where did you come from? What’s going on here?”

<><>

Jonas

Sitting in the driver’s seat of the town car with nothing to read, and only soft music on the radio to listen to, might have been terminally boring to some people. Jonas Hart knew better. He’d lived through incidents in Africa that would’ve made the worst of Brockton Bay look like a Sunday afternoon picnic at the beach.

As it was, his entire job was to watch over his little chick and ensure that no harm came to her. She’d forbidden him to come into the emergency room and keep people away from her, so his only other option was to stay outside, as close as he could manage, and keep tabs on her. She was tough, he knew that much; any normal person trying to pull shit with her was going to end up on the wrong end of a lot of hurt before Jonas even got to them. But it was the powered ones that promised to be problematic, so he kept an especially sharp eye out for them.

Which was why he was horribly shocked and surprised when he heard a rending crash from the direction of the emergency room doors, after glancing away for just a few seconds. Before his disbelieving eyes, an entire small tank had materialised, ramming its way into the emergency room door, right where his little chick was. Swearing luridly at himself—you had one goddamn job, you useless fucking idiot—he grabbed the balaclava from the passenger seat, checked that the pistol was safely in his shoulder holster, and leaped from the car.

Not that he thought a pistol would do a goddamn thing against a fucking invisible tank, but who knew; he might need it.

Sprinting across the parking lot, he paused at a Yield sign and grabbed it. With a powerful twisting heave that would’ve left the old Jonas slack-jawed with disbelief, he tore it from the ground, then kept running. Distantly, he could hear the demands of the tank driver for Marchioness to surrender. He hoped she would remember the words he’d drummed into her for if she was ever kidnapped, over and over again.

Do whatever it takes to stay alive, chick. I will come for you, and I will get you back.

Then he heard the metallic clank as something closed up, and the engine note changed; it was about to go into reverse. You’re not getting away, not if I can help it.

Bracing himself, he took hold of each end of the pipe holding the sign and heaved. The mild steel bent like putty in his hands, and he crimped it into a hairpin shape. Then, just as the tank began to move, he shoved the bent pipe into the gap between the tracks and the road wheels. The tank moved a grand total of two feet before the pipe got jammed up against the road wheel. A single pipe may have been able to deform enough to make it past the obstacle, but with two it had no chance. The tracks ground to a halt and the tank began to swivel on the tracks until the nose jammed against the far side of the hole it had made.

Just as he leaped up and began climbing up the back of the tank toward a promising-looking hatch, he heard a rending screech. For a second, he thought the tracks had somehow chewed up the pipe he’d used to jam them, but it had come from the front of the tank. Then a familiar face came into view over the top of the tank; or at least, a familiar costume.

“What the fuck?” squawked the speakers. “Where did you come from? What’s going on here?”

The blonde teenage girl facing him looked as though she had the same questions in mind. He got in first. “I’m an ally, Mega Girl. Where’s Marchioness?”

“Down in the front,” she said automatically. “Some sort of holding space.”

“Get her out. I got this.” He grabbed hold of the edge of the hatch he’d been crawling toward, and wedged his fingers underneath. While he didn’t pretend to understand the specifics of what Miss Claire had done to his physiology, he knew what was strong and what was weak. His bones and tendons were tough, but his fingernails and his flesh were weak (though subdermal armour took care of the former for the most part). So he didn’t try to claw it open; he just set himself and heaved.

Bolts gave way, one after the other, and he tore the hatch off, holding it in front of him as a shield, just in case whoever was inside decided to start shooting. No such thing happened. In fact, as he looked down into the tank, he could clearly see there was nobody in there. The interior of the tank contained a lot of what he suspected was Tinkertech … and something that anyone would recognise. A blinking red readout, counting down. One minute thirty on the clock.

“Self destruct!” he bellowed, tossing the hatch aside and leaping forward over the front of the tank. Just as he landed, Mega Girl forced a hatch open with a crunch of bending metal. His little chick climbed out, looking as healthy as ever, and he heaved an inward sigh of relief. But there was still the other problem.

“Self destruct?” repeated Mega Girl. “I hate those things! How much time?”

“Minute twenty,” he told her, glancing at his watch and dropping ten seconds off the time that he’d seen. “I can help you push it into the parking lot …”

“No, I got this.” Stepping forward, she put her hands on the nose of the tank and shoved, driving it backward out of the building with a sound of metal tearing at concrete. Jonas had no doubt that this would be an expensive interlude for the hospital, or at least their insurance provider. He also had no doubt that his strength was simply no match for hers.

Once the tank was clear of the building, Mega Girl lifted it up over her head and took off; not straight up, but angling toward the east. As if drawn by a magnet, they followed her out into the parking lot. Marchioness looked up in the sky, while Jonas kept a close eye all around for any attempt at a repeat performance.

“How long?” she asked.

He checked his watch again. “Thirty seconds, chick.”

“Thanks for being here, Jonas.”

“My pleasure and my job, Miss Claire.”

“Do you think she’ll be okay?”

He checked his watch again as he answered. “Mega Girl has shown she can take a hit before, miss.” Fifteen seconds.

“Yeah, but this is an exploding tank. Who makes an exploding tank, anyway?”

“I’m certain your father and I will find out, chick.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure—”

The splash was distant, only made audible by the quiet of the night. About a second later, there was a long drawn-out eruption of sound. Jonas fancied he saw a brief glow in the sky to the east.

“Did you hear that?” asked Claire, pointing. “I think it just went off.”

“I believe it did, chick. She threw it in the bay first.”

“Oh. Good. Hey, look!” She raised her arm and pointed. Jonas saw it immediately; a grey-clad figure, vaguely illuminated by the city lights, flying back toward them. Side by side, they waited for her.

Mega Girl came in for a slightly wobbly landing, looking absolutely bedraggled. Her hair was a mess and had seaweed in it, and her costume was drenched.

“Wow, you got a bit close to the explosion there, huh?” asked Claire, the devil of amusement dancing in her eyes.

“WHAT?” asked Mega Girl. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Claire sighed and stepped forward. She laid her hand on Mega Girl’s arm, and the blonde blinked. “Wow,” she complained at a more normal tone. “Never gonna do that again. I thought my ears were gonna be ringing forever.”

 “Well, I can fix your ears,” said Claire with a smirk, “but you’re going to have to deal with the rest of it yourself. Love the seaweed, though. Really sets off your ‘drowned rat’ effect.”

Mega Girl blew a raspberry at her, then grinned. “Mom’s gonna have absolute kittens, but I don’t care. I had a good time tonight. Even with the exploding tank. Who do you think sent it?”

“I’m thinking Traction,” Claire decided, rubbing her chin. “She’s the only Tinker I know of who might have a grudge against me. The trouble is, how do I track her down if she’s gonna be using stealth tanks?”

“We’ll figure out a way.” Mega Girl pulled her into a sudden hug, ignoring the squawk of outrage as her evening dress got soaked with the seawater still dripping from Mega Girl’s costume. “In the meantime, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Pfft, get off,” protested Claire, shoving her away ineffectually. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re okay too, you great lummox. Thanks for being here.”

“Hey,” said Mega Girl. “What are friends for?”

<><>

Panzer

“Well, that was a waste of time and effort.” Crusader rolled his eyes. “Great timing there, Sherrel. You showed up at exactly the same time as Mega Girl did.”

“What I want to know is, why didn’t you blow the tank as soon as you saw it was over?” asked Alabaster. “It’s what I’d do.”

“Because Tinkers who don’t allow for timers on their self destructs are otherwise known as ‘casualties’,” Sherrel told him tartly. “We always need a chance to shut it off, in case some smartass figures out a way to remotely activate it.”

“Well, what are you gonna do now?” Justin leaned back and swivelled on his chair.

Sherrel sneered at him. “Set up another tank, of course. It was bad luck that screwed me up this time. She has to be lucky every time. I only have to be lucky once.”

“Says every failed gambler ever,” jibed Alabaster.

“Screw you,” Sherrel told him without heat. She aimed her finger like a gun at the frozen image of Marchioness on the screen. “I’ll get you. Sooner or later, you little cow, I will get you.”

 Part 19