Reality Intrudes Pt 9 (Patreon)

Part Nine: Investigations

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

[A/N 2: Because the chapters for this story are deliberately short, there will be two. I'll be posting the second one tomorrow.]

The Next Morning

Medhall Tower

Looking down at the two bodies, stretched out on metal tables in the in-house clinic Medhall maintained, Max Anders clenched his fists. "What in God's name happened?"

He felt fully justified in asking the question. Where Alabaster should've had a head was … nothing. Just a ragged stump, as if someone had hacked his head off with the world's bluntest paring knife. But Max knew that wasn't what had happened, because it wouldn't have worked. (Also, Alabaster would've had something to say about it).

Victor's death hadn't been as dramatic, though his head was a distinct mess after the shotgun slug had removed a good deal of the contents of his skull and spread them over the wall. That bit, at least, was understandable, at least technically. But he'd been working alongside Alabaster for years. They'd been an extremely effective team.

Which made their deaths all the more shocking, along with the takedowns—some lethal, some otherwise—of the rest of the men in that stash house. They'd gotten word that some 'scary woman on a rooftop' was going to make a run on it, so he'd ramped up the guard force. Extra guns, a visible presence, and two of his best close-quarters guys on site. It should've been a combination that either convinced the wannabe raider to go elsewhere or put her down for good once she entered the house.

She'd torn through them like an out-of-control bandsaw.

Now, he was down the money and guns that had been stored there, as well as two members of the Empire Eighty-Eight itself. And he didn't know who to blame, who to send his people after for bloody vengeance. The only thing he had was a single fact, repeated by every person who'd survived the massacre.

It had all been done by one person. The woman on the rooftop.

Cape or not, he couldn't stomach the idea that just one person had shredded his assembled guard force like wet newspaper, then taken down Victor and Alabaster like she'd trained to do that exact thing. The Empire Eighty-Eight happened to other people. This sort of thing didn't happen to them.

Hookwolf didn't look any happier than Max felt. While he hadn't been drinking buddies with either man, they'd all still been part of the same team. Looking down at the pair of cadavers, he shook his head. "I got nothin'. Cops in that part of town are paid off. Nobody goes near our stuff. PRT op would've been a lot louder, with choppers. None of the other gangs have anyone who could do what this bitch did. My guess is, it's an out-of-towner looking to make her mark."

Well, she certainly fucking did that, Max managed not to say. "Did we get any description at all?"

Hookwolf looked around at him, his expression even less happy than normal. "Yeah. But they don't add up. Morry and Joe, the fuckwits who met her first, thought she was a schoolkid. Dragged her into an alley to mug her." He didn't say what they both knew; when two grown men drag a teenage girl into an alley, it rarely ends well for the girl. Neither of them cared at that moment. "But she went cape on them. Bullshit martial-arts movie stuff like running on walls. Beat fuck out of them, broke some bones, then dragged Morry up to the rooftop and questioned him. Morry swears she was like seven feet tall then. Holding him out over the alley with one hand. There's no way a normal kid has that kind of muscle."

Max nodded. "Okay, so we're looking at a Brute, maybe a combat Thinker, possible Changer. What did she look like?"

"Uh, hang on." Hookwolf dug a grimy notepad out of his pants pocket and thumbed it to the right page. "A bit of a weed, tall for a girl, curly black hair, glasses. Totally harmless until she started kicking their asses. Joe says he saw her jump like ten feet in the air, do a triple backflip, and kick Morry in the face."

"That's something to go on with." Max knew, though, there were literally hundreds of school-age children in Brockton Bay who fit that description, and fake glasses were a thing, especially if she'd been trying to bait them into grabbing her. Which, considering her later actions, seemed likely. "How about the survivors from the stash house?"

Hookwolf turned to the next page and squinted at his handwriting. "She had a hat and a long coat on. Nobody saw her hair, and she was wearing shades this time. And she had a shotgun and pistols. They said she was like seven feet tall, and nothing slowed her down. You know that Stallone movie, Terminator? They said she was like that."

"Fuck." Max ran his hand through his hair. "So, you think two different people, or a Changer?"

"One person." Hookwolf's voice was definite. "No way an adult would let the sidekick handle the mugging alone."

Max nodded to concede the point. "Okay, so is it a kid who can Change to look like an adult, or an adult who can look like a kid?" The answer to this would define who they'd be looking for.

Hookwolf grimaced in thought. "Adult, for sure. There's no way a kid can have that much training under their belt. But she's good enough of a Changer to look like a kid close up. So she might be hiding out like that. I mean, who looks at a kid?" His tone turned scornful.

"We start looking at them, as of right now." Max set his jaw. "Kid or adult, I want her tracked down and made an example of. How many outsiders know we've lost people?" By 'people', he meant the bodies on the tables, not the faceless mooks. He could always get more minions.

"Only thing that travels faster than light is the fuckin' grapevine," Hookwolf quoted in his own inimitable fashion. "People know shit went down, and that maybe someone died, but we've managed to keep details sketchy. But it's gonna get out sooner or later. Sure, Victor could be laid up, even with Othala healing him, but nothing keeps Alabaster down. We can't keep it secret forever."

Max growled under his breath in agreement. "True. How is Othala holding up, anyway?"

"She's a fuckin' mess." Hookwolf shook his head. "Blames herself for not being there."

Technically, Max agreed with her. If she'd been present to give Victor invulnerability or super-speed or one of the other powers she could bestow, the fight may have gone much differently. But she wasn't a combat cape, so he'd kept her out of what he figured would be a close-combat situation. Still, what was done was done. "How soon before you think she'll be on deck again?"

"Fucked if I know." Hookwolf shut the notebook again and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Maybe after we find this bitch and rip her head off? Nobody comes after us like this. Nobody."

Max nodded. "Put the word out. Everyone keeps an eye out for a tall woman with curly black hair and maybe glasses. Or a girl. Once we've got some names and photos, we show them to Morry and Joe, and see if anything rings a bell."

"Why not just grab up everyone who looks like that?" Hookwolf cracked his knuckles. "Get 'em all at once." From his tone of voice, he wasn't advocating letting the remainder go. Dead women told no tales.

"Because if she realises we're doing it, she'll go underground. Or hit us from another direction." Max couldn't believe he had to spell this out. "She killed Alabaster. If she can do that, nobody's safe."

"Once I'm bladed up—" Hookwolf began to boast.

"You can die, too," Max interrupted him. "An armour-piercing round through the right section of your body will kill you just as dead. If she can take on Victor and Alabaster and murder them both with zero prep, we have to assume she can figure out how to take you down as well."

Hookwolf didn't like it but as far as Max was concerned, he didn't have to, so long as he did what he was told. "Okay, fine."

"Good." Max raised his eyebrows for emphasis. "And when you do go after her, make sure there's at least three of you. Got it?"

He received a reluctant nod back. Hookwolf did like his warrior code bullshit, but the law had been laid down. "Got it."

"Good." Max looked down at his deceased henchmen one more time, then turned and left the impromptu morgue. "Now go find that bitch, so we can kill her."

<><>

PRT Building

Wards Area

Shadow Stalker

"Hi, Sophia."

Dean's expression as he offered the greeting was bland, with no hint of secret amusement, but she glowered at him anyway. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

Stopping at the entrance to the kitchenette, he turned and came back to where she was sprawled on the sofa in front of the large-screen TV. "It's supposed to mean, 'Hi, Sophia'. It's a friendly greeting. You looked a little unhappy, I thought people might've been ignoring you, so I said hello."

Sitting up, she intensified her glare. "You thought I looked unhappy? Keep your fucking empathy powers to yourself, Gallant."

"Jesus, what's your problem?" He stared at her. "I was being polite. Courteous, even. And my powers didn't even come into it. You're sitting there with an expression like you just found half a worm in your apple. We haven't been briefed on whatever shit happened to you yesterday, but don't take it out on us."

"There's a reason for that." Triumph came out of his office, fully costumed up. "There were details that needed to be cleared up. That's now happened. Costume, please, Sophia. The Director wants to see us."

All her bad temper fell away as she came to her feet. "Fuckin' A! Best news I heard all day. They finally catch that bitch?"

"Well, the Director said to get up there as soon as possible, so I'm going with 'maybe'."

But Triumph was talking to her back. Sophia was already on her way to her room, where her costume hung on its rack, waiting to be donned. Hebert was going down, and Sophia wanted a ringside seat.

As she put her mask on carefully, she could feel the tenderness in her nose. It had been reset, but she'd refused a splint, mainly because she didn't want anyone else knowing her nose had been broken in the first place. Nobody gets away with that shit.

Fully costumed, she headed back out into the common room. Kid Win waved as they passed the monitor console, but Sophia ignored him. People who fucked with Wards got the Birdcage, right?

The ride in the elevator passed by in silence; Sophia couldn't tell what Triumph was thinking behind that stupid lion mask, but she was impatient as fuck. She was first out of the elevator at the top, nearly bumping into a PRT trooper. With a muttered, "Sorry"—didn't want Triumph telling tales out of school to Piggy, after all—she dodged around the guy and headed for the Director's office.

He caught up to her after she'd only been waiting somewhere between twenty seconds and a fucking eternity, and opened the door to the outer office. "Triumph and Shadow Stalker to see the Director, please."

The secretary didn't even look up. "Go right in. Everyone else is already here."

Everyone else? Before Sophia could do more than ask herself the question, Triumph opened the door and ushered her in.

'Everyone else' turned out to be the Director, the Deputy Director, and Armsmaster. The two extras were standing on either side of the desk, while the Director sat behind it.

"Good, you're here." Piggot wasn't one for pleasantries. That was one thing Sophia actually liked about her. She didn't piss in your pocket and tell you it was raining. "Shadow Stalker, we've gotten a break in the case you were involved in yesterday."

"So you caught her?" Sophia looked around, wondering what the big fuss was all about. "What's going on? Is she going to the Birdcage?"

"It's too early to tell," Armsmaster cut in. "If you could do us a favour, and tell us what happened yesterday, from your point of view? We need to fill in a few gaps."

"Sure, okay." Sophia took a deep breath, trying to recall exactly what she'd told them the day before. "I was in class, and one of Emma's friends texted me to say Hebert had come into the classroom and dragged Emma out by the ear. I went looking for them, and tracked them down in one of the girls' bathrooms. Hebert was in her underwear, and making Emma wash her jeans."

"Why?" interrupted Renick. "What was wrong with them?"

Sophia shrugged as casually as she knew how. "They were dirty? She didn't know how to do laundry at home? I don't know why Hebert does the shit she does. Anyway, I came in there, and Hebert went nuts on me. She'd already busted Emma's nose, and she went after me as well. I'm good. I know I'm good. But she cleaned my clock hard. Busted my nose and all. She's gotta be a cape. It's the only explanation."

"Understood," Piggot said. "Now, you contacted your PRT liaison and told her that you hadn't outed yourself using powers, correct? Taylor Hebert has no idea of your real identity?"

Shit. Umm … Behind the mask, Sophia grimaced. "I might've gone to shadow once, to get out of a hold. It happened real fast." Part of her wanted to claim, wanted to believe, there was no way Hebert would've noticed and connected the dots.

"So she could know you're a cape." Armsmaster's voice was hard. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I was all hyped up, and it slipped my mind," Sophia retorted. She was lying, but he had no way of telling that. "Has there been anything …?"

Renick shook his head. "Nothing."

Sophia let out her breath in a huff of relief. "Good, then she doesn't know. Hebert's a coward and a wimp. If she knew something like that, she'd shout it out loud then run and hide."

"That remains to be seen." Piggot nodded to Sophia. "Keep going."

"There's not much else to tell." Sophia shrugged. "When I came to, Hebert had stolen our clothes, including my phones. Cops showed up, and we raised the alarm."

"That's right," Renick said. "We put a trace on the Wards phone, and it showed up alongside a bus route, on a store awning." He leaned forward slightly. "The passcode registry showed it had been opened once since you lost track of it. One attempt, correct first time. How did Miss Hebert know your passcode, Shadow Stalker? Did you tell her?"

"What?" Sophia looked around at the three adults staring at her. "She didn't! I didn't! That's a six-digit code! There's no fuckin' way she could've guessed her way in!"

"That's what Deputy Director Renick is saying, Shadow Stalker," Piggot pressed. "She knew your code. How did she know your code? Did you set it to your birthday?"

"Oh, puh-leeze," scoffed Sophia. "I'm not stupid." It was what she had had it set to, until Emma had explained how many people did just that. So she'd changed it. "I had it set to the date I leave the Wards." That was a date she would never forget.

The three adults glanced at each other. "Reasonable," allowed Renick. "And not blatantly obvious."

"Except to someone who knows Stalker well," Piggot responded. "And has access to that information."

"Hm," Armsmaster said. "Only someone who's on the inside would know the first and have the chance at the second. Neither of which, if our information is correct, fits Ms. Hebert. Shadow Stalker's end date isn't exactly widely known."

"Unless she's an intuitive Thinker," Sophia pointed out, in as reasonable a tone as she could manage. "She's already a combat Thinker, maybe a Brute. Why not a brainiac, too?"

Renick nodded. "Well, that would cover how she knows those details."

"True," the Director agreed. "Which brings us to the other matter." Piggot fixed her eyes on Sophia. "When police were called, they found a locker filled with … extremely unhygienic matter. Ms. Hebert's footprints led directly from that locker to the classroom in question, and then up to the bathroom where you had your scuffle with her. The locker was assigned to her. It is my personal belief that she had been locked into that locker with all that material and left there. When she forced her way out, she went directly to where Ms. Barnes was, and dragged her directly to a bathroom, where she forced Ms. Barnes to clean her clothing." She laced her fingers together in front of her. "Would you like to give us any reason you might be able to think of as to why she would target Ms. Barnes?"

Sonovabitch. Motherfucker. Sophia was teetering on a cliff edge as it was. The only way through was to brazen it out. It wasn't like they'd be able to search her phone. "She used to be besties with Emma, but she got too freaky, so Emma walked away from her. Maybe she blames Emma for whoever locked her in there?"

"You know, I like that." Piggot's voice was ruminative. "It covers the facts without actually paying attention to the details. Except, there's one tiny problem. We decided to work on the idea that she had a logical reason for doing it. We couldn't check your phone, but we could apply for a warrant to search Ms. Barnes' phone. And we got that two hours ago. We finished searching it fifteen minutes ago."

Fuu—

Armsmaster stepped forward, halberd snapping into line. "Shadow Stalker—"

—uuu—

Sophia spun around, lunging for the door.

"STOP!"

Even as she went to shadow, Triumph's shout hammered into her from the side. It disarranged her and flung her into the door frame. She collapsed to the floor, and Armsmaster's net closed over her an instant later.

—uuck.

"You're under arrest for multiple violations of your probation," Armsmaster continued. "Including—but not limited to—conspiracy to commit a crime, theft of property, destruction of property, assault, and false imprisonment."

Still dazed, she was hoisted up in the net like a fresh-caught fish. She could feel tiny jolts of electricity from it, so she knew better than to try to phase through. "B-but Hebert," she tried to say.

"Is still our problem." Piggot had come out from behind the desk. She looked at Sophia with no emotion at all. "You're the one who probably triggered her in that locker, so I hope you're proud of yourself. But you've got nothing more to worry about on that score. By the time I'm done with you, you won't be a Ward anymore. You'll be a number in a cell." She paused, then fired one final shot. "And with any luck, Taylor Hebert will be your replacement."

As the door opened and Armsmaster stepped outside, Sophia began a singular rant which continued as they went down in the elevator, was uninterrupted by her being processed through into the holding cells, didn't stop as she was locked into secure holding, and went on for some time thereafter.

But nobody cared.

Part 10