I'm HALPING! Pt 12 (Patreon)

Part Twelve: A Coat of Many Colours

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

Director Piggot

PRT ENE

“Emily, do you have a moment?”

She looked up as Renick leaned around the door connecting their two offices. “I can spare a few minutes,” she said cautiously. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s Clockblocker.” He stepped through, leaving the door open. “I just got an unofficial report from him.”

Emily frowned, glancing at the clock. “He should still be in school. Were the Wards called out to an incident that I don’t know of?”

“No, no, this happened in the school.” He shook his head, apparently in disbelief. “Though I’m still having trouble figuring out why it wasn’t called in as an incident.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she snapped. “What happened? Or didn’t happen, or whatever?”

He took a deep breath. “Taylor Hebert’s friend? The boy named Zachary? Glory Girl took it into her head to challenge him to an arm-wrestling match, in the middle of the cafeteria, during lunch hour.”

Emily blinked, slowly. Of course this involved him. What, in the last two days, hasn’t? “At a rough guess … she lost, correct?”

“Yes.” Renick shook his head again. “She didn’t just lose, though. He held her hand steady while carrying on a conversation with Panacea, then when he decided the contest was over, he simply … moved his arm over. To use Clockblocker’s phrasing, like closing the fridge door.”

Images flooded through Emily’s mind, of watching the footage of Zachary hefting a PRT van and throwing it faster than the speed of sound. Reading Miss Militia’s report about how he had spun Lung around his head by the tail, then hurled the oversized cape out over the ocean. And nobody in the PRT building was going to forget how he’d smacked Assault all the way to Boston, least of all Assault.

“Is she alright?” she asked. “And why isn’t this all over social media?”

“Yes to the first,” he reported with ill-concealed relief. “Though her pride has definitely taken a hit. And I have no idea about the other. According to Clockblocker, there were hundreds of students in the cafeteria, not one of whom paid the slightest bit of attention to the sight of Glory Girl losing an arm-wrestling contest.”

“That does seem remarkably hard to believe,” Emily allowed. “Some sort of Stranger power, do you think?”

“It’s the only thing I can put it down to,” he agreed. “Right alongside the incidences of people continuing to challenge him despite seeing exactly what he can do. Almost as though they’re wilfully forgetting his capabilities.”

“That … is genuinely terrifying,” Emily said quietly. “And I don’t use that word very often. Do you think it’s a slip-up on his part, to reveal the Stranger effect so blatantly?”

Renick grimaced. “If it is, it’s the first and only one he’s made. And that includes the Skidmark incident.” Where the leader of the Merchants had been hurled across town, then gone partway around the PRT building in order to smack into Emily’s window, then slid down multiple storeys to ground level, all without taking any apparent harm. The message she’d gotten from that was loud and clear. Also, the paperwork had been a cast-iron bitch.

“It’s not a slip-up,” Emily decided. “None of it is. He’s showing us exactly what he can do, though probably not all he can do, to ensure we don’t mess with the Heberts.”

“I’m not inclined to argue with that conclusion.” Renick shook his head. “To use your phrasing, the boy is genuinely terrifying. And I say that from the point of view of having dealt with the ABB, Empire Eighty-Eight, the Teeth and every other gang that’s come and gone in Brockton Bay over the last ten years.”

Emily nodded soberly. “It’s a good thing we know how to not upset him. For the time being.”

“For the time being.” He didn’t sound overly optimistic.

She knew how he felt.

<><>

Taylor

“Well, that was fun,” I said as we walked out of Arcadia.

Almost to my surprise, I meant it sincerely. Taking classes among people who were at worst uninterested in my presence and at best actively friendly was … a new experience. Zach’s unique capabilities meant that nobody tried to remove him from my side (not that that would have worked, but the fact remained that nobody had even tried) and so I’d felt safe and secure all day.

The incident with Panacea and Glory Girl in the cafeteria had been interesting and amusing. I hadn’t been in the slightest concerned with Zach’s well-being, even when Victoria Dallon had challenged him to an arm-wrestle, and I preferred to think that this was because I knew what he was capable of rather than his abilities manipulating my perceptions. In addition, I was intrigued that Zach was being forward-thinking enough to reach out to them in order to forestall what might be a future problem for me. The benefits of having an older sister who can see problems like that coming, I figured. So very handy.

“I am glad that you enjoyed yourself, Taylor.” Zach appeared quite pleased with himself. “Arcadia is a good school. The staff is motivated to teach well, and the students are friendly.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. The teachers had seemed competent and fair-minded, and had done their best to get me up to speed. I hadn’t had any other Wards attempt to speak with me (that I knew of), but that may simply have been that I wasn’t in any of their classes. To be absolutely honest, I wouldn’t have put it past Director Piggot to order the Wards to watch out for me in case there were any problems. She had to have gotten reports on Zach’s capabilities, and the very last thing she’d want would be for him to cut loose in Arcadia.

Or maybe the place really was that nice. Who knew?

In any case, the school day was over and I was free to do what I wanted. While I had homework to do, it wasn’t exactly onerous, so I figured I may as well enjoy the afternoon. Having a nice quiet day was a reward in and of itself, considering the crap I’d been through yesterday. Which reminded me.

“Uh, Zach?”

“Yes, Taylor?”

“The people you beat up in Winslow to save me. How are they doing?” Were they badly hurt, I meant. And who better to ask than someone with a sister who knew basically everything.

He beamed at me guilelessly. “Sophia is under guard in a PRT medical facility. When she recovers from the broken bones, she will still be paralysed from the waist down. Without the assistance of Panacea, she will never walk again. If she gets that assistance, she will be remanded to juvenile detention for her actions.”

I blinked. That was … a little more information than I’d expected. “And the others?”

“I did not break any important bones on either of them, so they will be out of the hospital in a week,” he informed me. “Both their families will sue Winslow for the money to cover the medical bills. The lawsuit will drag out for some time, and they will not get anywhere near the settlements they wished for. As an unforeseen side effect, Alan Barnes will be disbarred over reports that he misused his influence.”

“Whoa, whoa.” I cut him off. “Yeah, no, I don’t want to know that much detail. But they’re not going to juvey themselves?” Which was mildly disappointing.

He nodded in agreement. “There will be a trial, but as they are non-parahumans, their testimony that Sophia exerted undue influence on them will allow them to avoid imprisonment.”

It didn’t overly surprise me they’d thrown her under the bus so readily. “Oh. Still, they’re not gonna be bothering me anytime soon?”

“If they attempted to do so, I would break more bones.” His tone was deadly serious now. “However, you do not want me to kill them, so they would survive the experience.”

“Or, you know, you could just scare them,” I suggested. “I know you can do that if you want.” The look in Commander Calvert’s eyes had been … terrified.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed. “I could do that, too. While it is easy to instil fear, it does not last as long as the awareness of broken bones.”

That I could certainly believe. “Okay, good point. But we’ll go with fear until it’s obvious that broken bones are the only thing that will work, okay?”

“Okay, Taylor.” And there was the happy Zach back again. I much preferred him that way.

“Good. Now that we’ve got that settled, what do you think we should do this afternoon?” I tilted my head. “We never did get down to the Boardwalk yesterday, did we?” Of course, so much else had happened that we probably wouldn’t have had time to enjoy ourselves once we got there.

“That is true, Taylor.” Zach nodded solemnly. “But I do have another suggestion for what we could do this afternoon.”

“I’m listening.” I hadn’t known Zach for long but I’d already learned that when he expressed an opinion, it was a very good idea to pay attention.

He smiled. “Do you remember this morning, when we detoured through Downtown?”

“We’re going back there?”

“We are going back there.”

“Woo hoo!”

<><>

It was official. I was never, ever going to not enjoy Zach’s physics-defying leaps. We came down to a flashing halt in the one empty spot on a busy sidewalk, giving a street entertainer one hell of a fright. “Hi,” I said with a smile as Zach let me down onto my feet. “Sorry about that.” I dug a couple of dollar coins out and dropped them into his guitar case by way of apology, then looked around. “So why are we here?”

Zach pointed at the building we were next to. “We are here, Taylor, because the criminal gangs of Brockton Bay pose a problem for you and your father. And I was created to remove your problems and help you have a good life.”

And to spread a little chaos on the side, I thought but did not say. “Well, so far I’ve got no complaints.” I shaded my eyes and tilted my head back. “Oh, right. The Medhall building. We’re actually going to do this?” Not that I was entirely sure what ‘this’ was; I had a mental image of Zach walking into the building, and tossing members of the Empire Eighty-Eight out through the windows until there were none left.

“Yes, Taylor. Unless you do not wish to do so?” He gave me a beaming smile.

Whatever Zach had planned was clearly going to be interesting and lots of fun. For me, anyway. Anyone who ended up on the wrong end of his plans invariably had experiences that were basically the opposite of ‘fun’. Also, unless I severely missed my guess, we were going to get to mess with a supervillain. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“I am glad that you like it, Taylor.” Zach headed toward the main entrance of the building, pausing only to make sure that I was keeping up. I looked around with interest as we went inside, admiring the wide polished-marble floors and the high ceilings. While I’d seen the building from the outside many times, I’d never had a reason to go in. A little to my disappointment, it looked more or less identical to every other business premises. Though if Zach was right and this was the headquarters of the Empire Eighty-Eight (and I’d never known him to be wrong) it made sense for them to keep the swastikas and other Nazi paraphernalia to a minimum.

On the other hand, the security guards and the reception staff were all white, and half of them were blond. Before I’d known the building’s dirty little secret, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Now, I wondered if their hiring practices were as non-discriminatory as all that.

Zach ignored the receptionists and marched straight up to the turnstile entry manned by the security staff. “I am here to see Max Anders,” he announced brightly. “We are coming through now.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a minute, buddy.” One of the security guards stepped forward. “We gotta see some kind of ID, and maybe get confirmation on your appointment with Mr Anders.”

I could’ve told him that this was not the best way to deal with Zach. The best way, of course, was to step aside and let him go where he wanted. Attempting to oppose him would result in severe embarrassment (or worse) and he would still get to do what he wanted. But I stayed quiet, because I knew equally well that there was no way in hell they were going to listen to me.

“I do not carry ID,” Zach explained. “And I do not need an appointment. Please let us through.” He pushed gently at the top bar of the rotating turnstile. That gave me all the hints I needed to figure out what was going to happen next.

I cleared my throat. “You need to listen to my friend, guys,” I advised them. “If you want to keep your turnstile, anyway.”

One of the guards reached down to his waist for a taser. “If you don’t have an appointment, you’re gonna need to step away from the gate and leave the building. Or go over to the desk and make an appointment.”

Zach sighed. “They are not going to listen, Taylor.”

“I know.” I had absolutely expected this, but it had been worth a try. “Do it.”

Taking a firmer grip on the turnstile, Zach ripped it clear out of the mounting, taking half of the internal mechanism with it. The sudden noise startled the receptionists, both of whom stared over at us with wide eyes. Stepping back, one guard pulled his pistol out while the other keyed his radio and began to speak urgently into it.

Setting the remains of the turnstile down to one side, Zach stepped forward, apparently oblivious to the threat of the levelled firearm. No, not oblivious; uncaring. “Put your weapon down,” he said to the guard.

“Down on the ground, both of you!” the man shouted in reply. His gun began to move toward me, and that was when Zach acted. I’d seen him blur before, but this guy clearly hadn’t. Zach didn’t seem to move, but between one instant and the next, he held two pistols by the barrels, and the guard was standing there with his fingers crooked as though he was still holding the weapon.

“No,” said Zach, and something about him shifted almost imperceptibly. I didn’t see any difference, but both guards lost all colour and bolted toward the back of the building.

“Nicely done,” I said as Zach put the pistols on the bench. I would’ve bet a lot of money that he’d made them unworkable, like with that idiot Tagg’s weapon. “Trying out the whole idea of scaring people rather than breaking bones, huh?”

“Yes, Taylor. It is a potentially useful tactic.” Zach looked around as an audible alarm started sounding, not quite drowning out the multiple clicking of locking doors. When I looked as well, I saw the second receptionist vanishing through a doorway behind their desk. It clicked shut as well, leaving us alone in the lobby.

“Well, I’d like to say that this is a new experience,” I said with a grin. “But we both know I’d be lying. So do we keep going, or do we back off?”

“We keep going, of course.” Zach strode forward, and I followed him. “If we back off now, we allow Kaiser to continue being Kaiser.”

“I guess that’s a good point.” There was a very impressive bank of elevators, but when I prodded the call button, nothing happened. “I’m guessing they’ve locked the elevators. Should we take the stairs?” Climbing all those stairs didn’t exactly appeal to me, but we had to get upstairs somehow.

“No.” He set his jaw. “We will take the elevator.” Just for a moment, he tilted his head as if listening to something I couldn’t hear, then plunged his hand into the control panel. Metal shrieked and tore, and he pulled his hand out again with a bunch of wires. Separating them out, he stripped the insulation from two of them with his fingernails then twisted them together.

The elevator doors opened.

Not even remotely astonished by the revelation that it was apparently possible to hotwire an elevator, I checked to make sure I wasn’t stepping into an open shaft, then stepped inside. Zach followed me, then pressed the button at the top of the panel. Absolutely nothing happened. The doors didn’t even close.

This time, I was less surprised when he ripped open the panel and fiddled with the wires. Sparks flew as he tapped two of them together, and the doors closed, but we didn’t go anywhere.

“Wow, they’re really intense with their security, huh?” It seemed to me they were doing everything in their power to stop us from going up.

“Yes, they are.” He sounded unruffled, even as he separated out a third wire and added it to the other two. This time, I felt upward movement.

As we cruised upward, I couldn’t help wondering what sort of a welcoming party would be waiting for us. We hadn’t taken long to overcome the locked elevator, but it had probably been long enough to assemble whatever security Kaiser had on the top level. Still, this was Zach’s party, so I wasn’t going to second-guess him.

We’d barely been travelling a couple of seconds when Zach put one hand on my shoulder and the other on the safety rail. Then I realised what he must have already have noticed; the initial feeling of weight as the elevator accelerated upward hadn’t actually gone away. Reflexively, I grabbed the rail as well.

The elevator hit the stops at the top of the shaft with a deafening crash, but I barely felt a jolt. At my best guess, we were supposed to be flung around like rag dolls so that when the security guys opened the elevator doors, we’d be too dazed to resist being taken down. Fortunately for us, Zach was a past master at redirecting kinetic energy, so nothing of the sort happened.

When the doors opened, half a dozen armed security men were there. Helmets, bulky body armour, and laser sights … which probably meant real guns. I glanced down at the single red dot dancing on my chest, and sighed. The rest had chosen to aim at Zach, even while one was still threatening me. Truly, they’d picked the worst of both worlds.

Immediately, a storm of shouts burst over us. All six guards were yelling at us to get on our knees, to put our hands behind our heads, to not move. Zach ignored them, though I decided to give them a chance to not screw this up worse than it was likely to be.

“Guys,” I said as I casually raised my hands to shoulder height. “Step aside, nobody gets hurt. Got it?”

This did not noticeably lower the tone of the shouting. I could see fingers beginning to tense on triggers. It was going to be only seconds before some idiot applied final pressure and the rest followed suit. It wasn’t as though Zach was going to allow me to get hurt, but depending on how pissed he got with these guys, someone else might be. And there was always the chance of a ricochet.

Zach stepped out of the elevator, then leaned forward slightly. Again, I saw that indefinable flicker. “Boo,” he said, as if trying to scare a child.

Well, these guys weren’t children, but it sure as hell worked anyway. They went from screaming orders to screaming in terror. Half a dozen rifles clattered to the floor and they fled wailing down the corridor as if they’d just come face to face with an Endbringer … which, of course, they had.

I exited the elevator and wrinkled my nose at him. “Showoff.”

He beamed at me, having clearly figured out that I was just blowing off steam as opposed to being actually angry with him. “Yes, Taylor. But you did say that you preferred me to scare people instead of breaking bones.”

Well, he had me there. “Yeah, yeah. You’re still a showoff, though.” I looked to the left and right. “Which way to Max Anders?”

“This way,” he said confidently, and led off along the hallway. I walked alongside him, some part of me marvelling at how soft and springy the carpet was. How much money had gone into just making the Medhall building as luxurious as it was, and how much of that money had come from the suffering of innocents?

Max Anders’ office was at the end of a long corridor that could’ve served as a two-way street. The double doors were hefty and imposing, and bore gold-embossed nameplates; the left hand one read MAX ANDERS, while the right hand one simply read CEO.

When Zach tried the doors, they were locked. Greatly daring, I reached out and rapped my knuckles on the expensive-looking wood. No result.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “Zach, could you be a dear and open these doors for me?”

“Alright, Taylor,” he said with a happy smile. Placing one hand where the doors joined, he pushed. There was a sharp crack, echoing from the top and bottom of the door, as well as all the way down the joining seam. Now bearing an imprint from his palm, the doors swung inward at his gentle shove.

“Hello, Kaiser!” he proclaimed happily as he strode into the room. “Hello, Krieg! It is good that you are all here today!”

As I followed him in, I saw that there were more than two people in the room. I wasn’t especially familiar with the capes of the Empire Eighty-Eight, and these people were all in civilian garb, but from the furious looks Zach was getting, I guessed that everyone there was one of them. Of course, Hookwolf and Cricket were conspicuously absent, but that was because they were already residing in PRT lockup and the PRT infirmary respectively. Cricket would walk again, in time, but she would need a lot of physiotherapy before that day came.

I also couldn’t help noticing the mark that Zach had left just this morning, while we were on the way to Arcadia. Or rather, marks. Distinctively shaped cracks in the windows running the length of the office. Cracks which formed letters, and thus words. YOU’RE NEXT.

I figured I could make a reasonable guess as to the subject of the meeting we’d just interrupted.

The tanned, handsome thirty-something man at the head of the table stood up and cleared his throat. “Young man,” he stated firmly. “I’m afraid you’re working with bad information. The Empire Eighty-Eight has no connection with Medhall, and if you continue to spread this base canard, I’m afraid we will have no recourse but to institute legal proceedings—”

Zach was unfazed. “Max Anders, you are the supervillain Kaiser. You will take your villain gang and go to the PRT building and give yourselves up.” He beamed at them, clearly pleased with himself for not falling for the trick.

“I will say this one more time,” Anders gritted, clearly unused to having to repeat himself. “I. Am. Not. Kais … uh.”

Zach moved, blurring away from my side and back again, so fast I barely registered his absence. Now he held a large full-length mirror, which he held up so that the people at the table could see themselves in it. One and all, they were wearing the familiar costumes of the Empire Eighty-Eight, while Anders himself was now clad in his trademark gleaming steel armour.

The change had taken place in the same eyeblink while he was retrieving the mirror; from where, I had no idea. In addition, the two supermodel-level blondes, whom I would’ve taken as eye candy at any other time, had grown to twice normal height and were now cramped into their chairs, and the otherwise-nondescript guy halfway down the table had lost his tinted glasses, wig and the flesh-tone makeup, showing paper-white skin to the world.

“Sorry,” I sang out over the sudden shouts of outrage. “I didn’t hear that, Mr Anders. Wanna try that again?”

“How did you do that?” demanded Kaiser. “Who are you?”

Zach smiled; there was no meanness or smugness in it. He was purely happy in the moment. “My name is Zachary, and you will go down to the PRT building and turn yourselves in.”

I almost didn’t see the ghostly form emerging from the floor behind Zach. Even as I went to shout a warning, another one grabbed me from behind, putting its all-too-solid hand over my mouth. I watched as a ghostly spear was jabbed at Zach’s body … and broke. At the same time, the real deal in the hand of Crusader audibly snapped. Turning, Zach swung his fist almost lazily at the ghost that had tried to impale him. It reeled away from the impact and the one holding me let go at the same time. At the table, Crusader went over backward, blood spraying from his busted nose.

“What the hell?” It was the white-skinned man; Alabaster, I was pretty sure he was called. “How did you do that?”

“I told you.” Zach’s tone was just a little more serious than before. “I am Zachary. You will turn yourselves in. Or I will turn your lies into the truth.”

“… what the hell’s that even supposed to mean?” It was a teenage girl wearing a robe in the Empire’s red and black. I wasn’t sure who she was.

Zach’s smile widened again. “It is easy to understand, Tammi. If you keep saying you are not supervillains, I will make that a true thing. You will not be supervillains because you will not have powers. Or …” He put a certain amount of stress on the word, but did not bother finishing the sentence.

Everyone at the table looked toward Max Anders. He glared at Zach, who had leaned the mirror against the wall out of the way. “And if we turn ourselves in, you don’t take away our powers?”

“That is what I am saying, yes.” Zach sounded pleased with himself. “I—” He paused, and his gaze grew distant for a moment. “That is interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” I knew damn well that anything Zach saw as ‘interesting’ would have to be pretty world-shaking to anyone else. Or it might be a pretty pebble on the beach. Either way, it was in my best interests to find out.

“My sister tells me that Butcher and the Teeth are approaching the city limits,” he explained. “That poses a higher risk of danger to you and your father than the Empire Eighty-Eight.”

“Wait, what again now?” This was a shirtless guy with a blue and white tiger mask, who seemed to think that chains made an acceptable fashion accessory. “The Teeth? They’re coming here?”

“They are no concern of yours,” Zach said reprovingly. “Taylor and I will be going now. We have matters to attend to. If you are not in PRT holding within the hour, I will come and find you.”

“He totally will,” I agreed. “I was there when he killed the Nine.”

“We’ve got the message, already.” Kaiser seemed to be of a mood to chew up horseshoes and spit out nails. “We’ll be there.”

Zach beamed happily. “Good. Taylor does not like it when I hurt people.” He crossed the room to one of the few windows that had not been marked with a large crack, and pushed on it. Silently, it swivelled open so that Zach could climb out onto the window ledge. Figuring out what he intended to do, I climbed out with him.

“Okay,” I said as he scooped me into a bridal carry. “So what’s the plan? The Teeth aren’t known for being nice or reasonable.”

“They have come to Brockton Bay to challenge me,” he said seriously. “They saw the television broadcast where I killed Jack Slash. The Butcher wishes to add my power to hers. They are a danger to the whole city, but most especially you and Danny. They will target both of you to force me to face them. So I will go and face them now.”

I had to wonder if his power was what allowed me to face the concept so calmly, or if I was just becoming numb to the whole thing. “I know this is probably a silly question, but you can beat them, right?”

“Yes, Taylor. It is a silly question.” Zach smiled at me. “They are a direct danger to you. I will end that danger.” And he leaped. We were already pretty far up in the air, so we went high.

I couldn’t help it. “Woooooo hoooooooo!”

<><>

Butcher

The woman who had once gone by the villain codename Quarrel smiled viciously to herself. They were close to that irritating little city where a previous iteration of the Butcher had been driven out, the Teeth all but wiped out by the Slaughterhouse Nine. Now the Nine had been destroyed in one fell swoop, all apparently by a mere teenager, boasting on live television what he’d done.

The Nine had been one of the few groups to utterly best the Teeth and send them packing. Butcher found it highly amusing that for all their vaunted fear tactics, the rival gang been sniped from halfway across the country by someone who wasn’t even old enough to drink. But that raised another issue.

If the Nine had been more powerful than the Teeth (and the defeat at their hands seemed to indicate that was the case) then this ‘Zachary’ was more powerful than both the Nine and the Teeth, and Butcher wasn’t about to accept that without a quibble. Fortunately, they’d been within a day’s drive of Brockton Bay (or rather, they’d driven all night) and the confrontation was close at hand. This was a win-win situation for the Teeth; either they murdered this Zachary and proved themselves more powerful after all, or he killed the Butcher … and became the new Butcher. She kind of liked the idea of her successor being able to target anyone within fifteen hundred miles at will, especially combined with her ability to never miss.

The road twisted and turned through the hills to the south of Brockton Bay, before topping an escarpment on the shoulder of the almost-mountain the locals called Captain’s Hill. From there on it would be a long straight run, like a dagger thrust into the heart of the city. Another couple of hours, she figured, and they could start tracking down Zachary’s friends and family. Hostages always made things so much more fun. Anything that kept the heroes honest was alright in her book.

And then, just as they came up to the crest, something came lancing in from high above, rocketing downward at extreme velocity. As she instinctively jammed on the brakes of the dilapidated RV they’d stolen from a used-car yard, the object struck the road about ten yards ahead of the vehicle and resolved itself into two teenagers. A boy and a girl. She didn’t know who the girl was, but she certainly recognised the boy.

“Zachary,” she hissed, her lips curling in a cruel smile.

“What the fuck?” yelled Hemorrhagia from the back of the RV. “You just made me fall out of bed!”

“You can sleep later!” bellowed Butcher. “Out of the van, now! We got Zachary, right here!”

That got everyone’s attention. They piled out of the idling RV, Spree already popping out clones, while Vex created a cloud of razor-edged force field fragments. Once Animos was out of the vehicle, he shifted to his wolf-like form and moved up alongside Butcher.

Once they’d formed a rough line across the front of the vehicle, where nobody’s powers would get in each other’s way, Butcher called out to the pair. “Thought I’d take longer to find you! Ready to die?”

The girl didn’t answer, but the boy shook his head. “You will not kill us.”

For some reason, the words sent a chill down Butcher’s back. It was as if they’d been graven in stone, never to be gainsaid. But she gritted her teeth and snarled her reply. “Then you lose anyway.” Flicking the switch to start the barrels turning on her oversized minigun, she turned to the wolf-thing. “Animos.”

Taking his cue, the immense wolf-like creature curled back his lips in a lupine grin, then let out a roar that expanded in a visible shockwave toward the pair. Butcher knew that once it hit, they would be powerless and helpless, and she would be able to murder them at her leisure. And then, the pride of the Teeth would be once more salvaged.

But Zachary raised his hands … and caught the shockwave. It hung in the air between them for a moment, vibrating on his palms, then he began to pull it in and bundle it up, rolling it into a shimmering ball, only visible in outline. Butcher stared. How the fuck is he doing that?

Animos turned back to human. “That’s not possible,” he insisted. “He shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Fuck it,” said Butcher. She really didn’t need all this help to off one scrawny teenage asshole. The minigun barrels were spinning nicely now, and she brought it up into line. Very little was capable of standing up to a barrage from this little beauty.

Bringing up the bundled shockwave, Zachary threw it, like a basketball. It even bounced off the ground like one before it struck Animos then rebounded into Butcher. She felt the impact, as if a real ball had caromed off her; but worse, she felt her innate targeting sense just … flicker and go out. A ghostly shade drifted from her over to Zachary, where he caught it.

“Hey, what the hell?” demanded Animos, just as the ‘ball’ rebounded into Vex and back into Butcher. This time, she felt her strength wane significantly. Another shade drifted over toward Zachary. She gritted her teeth and tried to swing the gun back into line, but she was having trouble hefting it.

The ball bounced back and forth again and again, faster and faster. Butcher tried to evade it, but it swerved in midair to bounce off her every time. And each time it hit her, she felt more of her powers fade away. Worse, the voices in her head were going out.

She couldn’t bring the minigun into line; in fact, she couldn’t lift it far enough to aim it. It was that stupid ball, she knew. Somehow, he was doing this with the ball.

“Vex! Cut them to pieces!” she yelled, heaving at the minigun. “He’s done something to my powers!”

“I can’t!” The cape was standing there, waving frantically, but none of the tiny razor-sharp force fields were manifesting. “My powers are gone, too!”

In fact, as Butcher looked around, there was also a distinct lack of Spree clones on the field compared to what there had been a few seconds ago. The ‘ball’ was still bouncing crazily from one Teeth cape to the next … the ‘next’ in this case being Butcher for every second bounce.

More shades were smacked out of her, just as she made the connection with the loss of the voices. “Fuck your powers!” It was a primal scream of righteous outrage. “He’s stealing mine!”

And then it was too late. She dropped the minigun and the attached pack, barely avoiding having it land on her foot, as the ball bounced up and down on top of her head a couple of times, then zipped back to Zachary. A silence settled over the road for a few moments.

She felt for her powers, the voices that provided encouragement and reinforcement.

They were gone. It was all gone. Everything that made her Butcher was gone, along with the powers she’d possessed as Quarrel.

Rage built within her; honest, all-encompassing fury. She looked to see where Zachary was handing a brightly-coloured rubber ball to the girl. Then he started fiddling with something larger. They seemed to be ignoring her altogether.

“Teeth!” she screamed. “Get them!” Even without their powers, they had weapons literally attached to their costumes. And if they could kill Zachary, they would get their powers back.

As one, they charged.

<><>

Taylor

Zach waved his hand without even bothering to look, and all of a sudden the onrushing members of the Teeth stopped. Not as in ‘came to a halt’, but as in ‘froze in mid-step’. Almost like that Ward, Clockblocker, had been there to tap them out.

“Okay, that’s cool,” I said, then hefted the rubber ball he’d given me. “And what’s this do, exactly?”

“Oh, that is the Idiot Ball,” he said happily as he pulled and twisted at the oddly shaped space that was hanging in the air before him. “If you throw it at anyone, the ball returns to you and they lose their powers until you decide to let them have their powers back. If you throw it to someone and they catch it, they do the stupidest things possible until they let it go.”

“But it doesn’t affect me,” I said uncertainly, bouncing it a couple of times on the asphalt of the road. It returned to my hand a little harder than I’d expected. This thing could really bounce.

“Of course not, Taylor. I would never do that to you.” He gave me a smile, then yanked at the thing one last time. Space twisted weirdly, and he was left holding a stylish-looking jacket. When I looked more closely, it was made of strips of differently-textured leather, stitched together in an attractive pattern. “And this is for you as well.”

“O … kay?” I stuffed the ball into my pocket—it really shouldn’t have fitted, but it did anyway—and took the jacket. It felt real, and the texture was gorgeous under my fingers, even though I’d just seen him create it out of thin air. No, wait. Out of something he pulled away from Butcher. “Did you just … is this …?”

“Butcher was using her powers irresponsibly,” he said, straight-faced. “If you wear this, you will have full control over them. Also, as several of Butcher’s powers protected her, you will likewise be protected.”

“Oh. Wow.” I’d often wondered what it would be like to have powers. Since I’d met Zach, I’d had the best possible role model for how to use any powers I might get. Not that I needed them since I’d met him, but the thought was there.

Slowly, carefully, I slid my arms into the jacket. It was, of course, sized perfectly to me. There was a zipper, which I engaged and slid upward, closing the jacket around me. And then, as it hit the last notch, there was a soundless click and the knowledge of all the powers popped into my head.

It was almost like a menu; I could activate any or all of them as I wished. None of the powers were all-or-nothing, which was good. I didn’t really enjoy the idea of inflicting pain on someone, but now I could certainly cause very uncomfortable itching at a strategically important moment. And of course now I could not only bench press a truck, but also toss it a moderate distance. It was a heady feeling.

Which was why I distrusted it. I unzipped the jacket a ways, feeling the awareness of my new capabilities fade away from my mind. “Thank you, Zach, but I think I’ll take it easy until I’ve had a chance to learn how to use this responsibly.”

He beamed at me. “You are welcome, Taylor. I am happy that you like it. Would you like to complete the capture of the Teeth, or leave it up to me?”

I looked over at the still-charging Teeth, then down at my jacket. “Eh, screw it. I always wanted to be able to punch out the bad guys.” Grabbing the tab, I zipped it all the way to the top again. “Let’s do this together.”

<><>

Director Piggot

Several miles away, sitting in her office, Emily Piggot shivered as though someone had walked over her grave. Why do I suddenly have a feeling that things are going to get weirder than normal?

Then she dismissed the feeling and went back to work. This was Brockton Bay, after all. Weirdness was par for the course when it came to dealing with parahumans.

But as she dealt with the endless tide of paperwork, she couldn’t help but wonder; what was going to happen next?

<><>

Coil

A much greater distance away, Thomas Calvert stirred from his uneasy sleep in a no-tell motel, and felt his elbow nudge something hard beside him. When he opened his eyes, the body-bag taking up a good portion of the grimy bed had been slightly unzipped to show the dead face of Creep with the bullet-hole still showing fresh blood.

The eyes opened, showing the milky sheen of death, and sightlessly locked onto him.

“Whyyyy?” croaked the dead man.

Shrieking like a banshee possessed by all the demons of Hell, Calvert scrambled out of bed, snatched up his keys and bolted out to the vehicle waiting outside the room. This time, he left nothing behind; he was learning.

If he ran far enough, perhaps he could get away from the corpse of the last man he’d killed.

He could only hope, anyway.

Part 13