7.X Fairy Tale
23rd of May, 2011
Honestly, life in Tallahassee was… kind of alright for Alec. Sure, he kind of didn't really get a choice once half the goddamn Protectorate fell on Brian, Rachel and him back in Brockton Bay, and he had an ankle monitor to go with his snazzy new status as a Probationary Ward, but at least Lisa had bargained with the goody two-shoes to give all of her old teammates a fair shake.
Alec didn't really know why she jumped ship, or how she had even managed to sell not carting his ass straight to jail to the hardass running the show up north, but he honestly didn't really care.
During his interview with Halbeard, the guy had asked him two questions; 'are you going to use the full extent of your power against someone else in the future' was the first one, to which Alec had answered 'not unless I feel like my life is in danger', and the second one had been where he wanted to be posted assuming he signed up with the PRT and behaved – the later qualifier had been pointedly stressed.
Alec had laughed, then answered 'as far from daddy dearest as it is physically possible, please, and thank you'. Next thing he knew, his ass was in a Dragoncraft making a beeline for Florida.
He really, really didn't know what the insufferable blonde know-it-all had done to ensure that he'd be treated with kid gloves, but he wasn't about to spit on it any time soon.
Sure, being a Ward kinda sucked ass. He had the displeasure to learn that he would be back to school starting the next school year, his movements were monitored at all times, he had to see a shrink two times a week to talk about his feelings, and, worst of all, he had to put up with goody two-shoes with a southern accent.
On the other hand, nobody gave a shit if he spent his salary on video games, the Wards were tolerable – if depressingly too heroic to his taste – and the climate was a fuckton better than back in the Bay.
Overall? A six, possibly a seven out of ten. He wouldn't get caught with his not-so-metaphorical pants down in the middle of the night by the authorities again if he ever got a redo, but things could've been a hell of a lot worse for him, and he'd have to be a moron not to acknowledge it.
"Hey! Watcha' doin', lazybum?" A too-friendly, borderline obnoxiously peppy female voice calls out.
Alec looks away from his cereal bowl while slowly chewing as one of his 'colleagues' skips into the room.
Exhausting attitude aside, Alec is man enough to admit that Brittany – the girl in question, Firegal in costume – belonged firmly in the 'upside' category of his new gig; he honestly dug the blonde, lightly tanned girl-next-door vibe she effortlessly rocked, and she wasn't afraid of bantering with him, even had been the first to make an effort to get to know him after he got his ass dropped here with not even his clothes on his back.
Still, it had been almost two months by now, but he still had no fucking clue why the girl slept on base everyday. Maybe he'll ask one day, but something tells him he probably shouldn't.
"Waking up, barely." He answers a little flatly.
"You should go to sleep earlier, darling," the blonde comments while making her way through their quarters' little kitchen, and his eyes getting drawn to her backside by reflex, "Ya know Mistah Johnson is going to put ya through the grinder!"
Alec knows the heroine is right. He hadn't antagonized the local PRT chapter in its entirety yet, but he sure had made an enemy of the guy supposed to get him into shape, or at least that's how it felt like considering how sore he felt after each session. Johnson made Brian's attempt at training look positively cozy in comparison.
"Counterpoint, my ranking on Medal of Duty will suffer if I don't put in enough hours." He retorts.
The blonde makes a little snort-laugh, and Alec's eyes snap upward barely in time as she energetically about-face with a cereal bowl of her own.
"How will ya do once September comes 'round?" she asks amusingly while taking a seat at the table, "With school and all."
"I'm afraid I'll have to make a heroic sacrifice, and forgo sleeping altogether." He answers back with a theatrically mournful sigh.
Brittany giggles at that, making her assets wiggle somewhat, and it takes Alec a supreme effort of will not to let his eyes wander down to better look at the spectacle.
"Ya dork," she says, before frowning, "Say, did ya go on PHO this morn'?"
"Nah, not yet. Why?" He answers, his spoon halfway toward his mouth.
"Someone killed Heartbreaker last night," Brittany drops, and Alec freezes with his spoon now in his mouth, "Lotta backlash all over Canada. Looks like a right mess."
Considering daddy dearest's 'contingencies', he has no trouble picturing said mess.
It takes him a moment before he finds it in himself to look Brittany's way after finally pulling the spoon out. Alec doesn't quite know what he sees in the blonde's eyes, he's kinda dogshit at feelings after all, but he's pretty sure the girl knows.
"Well," he ends up saying after a beat, "Couldn't have happened to a worse asshole. Pity for the Canadians, though."
After all, they sure as shit didn't deserve paying for his paternal getting what he deserved at long last.
The blonde gives him a look at that, and Alec starts to wonder if he messed up somewhere.
Then she smiles, before energetically nodding.
"The Guild is on the case, but yeah, this looks no fun, no fun at all," she comments, "Say, lazybum?"
"Yeah?" He cocks his head.
"Wanna celebrate?" The blonde asks while leaning forward over the table, doing some very interesting things to her chest.
Once again, Alec triumphs over his base impulses, and does not look down.
"...What did you have in mind?" He replies.
"Dunno, wanna go out?"
He blinks.
"Fuck yes."
Oddly enough, he finds that he actually means it.
…Maybe this new gig won't be so bad, after all.
***
Cherie was forced to admit it, she had made a miscalculation.
She had thought herself clever when she decided to make her way to Brockton Bay in the hope of finally throwing off Nicholas and Guillaume. She thought she could have put her hooks in the little Endkiller, maybe become a beloved big sister figure, and she'd have had a very big stick to fend her brothers off, and maybe finally kill her piece of shit of a father and be done with her shitshow of a family.
She hadn't accounted for the Blue Devil. For that matter, her father clearly hadn't too; the prick had been so sure of himself when declaring to the family that the rumors of the Mathers clan getting killed to the last man by one cape were a 'hoax' and a 'cover up for a PRT black ops team' that she had believed him.
She should have checked.
She really, really should've checked, because now she's in a shitty motel in the Bay, the news anchor on the TV keeps yapping about how Canada went FUBAR twelve hours ago, her money has nearly run dry, and the first time she tries something, the local boogieman is going to splatter her against the nearest wall without giving a fuck about any potential hostages!
…On the upside, her brothers will never be able to get their hands on her as long as she stays here, assuming they haven't abandoned their mission now that daddy got himself mulched.
"...What the fuck am I going to do?" She mutters in a daze as she sits on her bed.
Villainy… sounds like a very elaborate way to commit suicide. Now that she has really looked into it, there are hundreds of testimonies on the local PHO board about the Blue Devil, and it's kind of easy to pinpoint her modus operandi. The Case 53 clearly has a thing against those abusing their powers to fuck with someone else's freedom.
On the other hand, the Vasil name just became incredibly toxic overnight, so going to the local PRT chapter to beg for leniency – and the fact that she's even considering it speaks volume of how utterly fucked Cherie thinks she is – is also out.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" She presses the meat of her palms against her eyes in anger, her mind churning with increasingly worse scenarios–
She pauses.
"Wait."
She scrambles for her phone.
"Huh," she mutters after a quick search on the internet, "That's… an option."
A humiliating one, but an option all the same.
Pursing her lips together, she starts considering it, really considering it.
On the one hand, she'd been shitting all over her pride as a parahuman; on the other hand, she won't have to deal with parahuman nonsense if she plays her cards right and keeps her head down; the local tween-shaped nuke famous the world over allegedly has opinions about people making a mess in her city, and surely the Blue Devil has better things to do than to get in her face about slightly making things work in her favor, right?
Overall? Remaining in the Bay beats getting pimped out by her brothers after they get their hands on her. They really took from their father, and Cherie isn't saying it as a compliment.
"Fuck it. I don't have a better idea anyhow." Cherie throws her hands in the air, before decisively standing up from her motel's bed.
Now, for the hard part; how should she dress up for her future interview?
"Skimpy it is," she comments after giving a moment's thoughts, "Honestly glad I don't have any tattoos for this."
Those would've been really awkward to explain to her maybe-surely new boss!
Or maybe not. It's just a waitress job at the local Hooters, after all.
[AN: Alright, I gotta admit, I got this stupid idea about Cherish going 'fuck this shit, I'm out' about the whole lot of nonsense cape life is after one of her brilliant schemes got thwarted yet again, and telling herself 'how about working a job where people won't bat an eye about me getting the huge bucks when I use my powers?', and the whole thing kinda spiralled from there. :3