I never liked lying to my father.
There was a lot I didn't tell him: my lack of friends, the bullying, the way I blamed myself for my mother's death, how I'd been starting to avoid school altogether. And the superpowers. I didn't tell him about those either. Losing Mom had been... bad. For both of us. I didn't want to burden him with things he couldn't fix, but I didn't like lying to him, so I just didn't talk about some things.
A lot of things, actually.
Which is why, when I all but skipped out the door with a smile on my face and he called after me "Have a good day at school, honey!", I didn't bother to correct him, and just waved a "You too!" back.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd smiled on my way to school. And neither could he. But he hoped, desperately, that my life would get better somehow, and I could give him that hope at least. For today.
And while joining the Wards would mean talking to my Dad about most of things we never talked about, ripping the scab off of wounds that hadn't yet begun to heal, and locking myself into an organization that might combine the regimentation of a barracks with the pointless, vicious, drama of school, that wasn't a decision I had to make today. Today, today I had a good excuse to skip school. Not out of fear, or anxiety, or pain… but to be a hero. To work with other heroes.
And that was reason enough to smile.
I found a quiet alley between two abandoned warehouses, and swept the surrounding area with my bugs. No one was watching, so I changed into my costume, pulled out the card, made a call from a nearby payphone (the numbers spelled A-R-M-S-M-A-S-T-E-R — cute), listened to a recorded message stating "Your Protectorate Patrol will be with you shortly" (followed by some minimalist electronic music) and then went for high ground.
Eight minutes later, a young man in dark red and silver dropped onto the roof of the building where I was standing, followed by a neon blur that resolved into a woman in some kind of high-tech looking spandex, with computer-chip-like lines that pulsed softly, and then dimmed.
Aegis, current head of the Brockton Bay Wards, and Battery, one of the Protectorate heroes. Flight, strength, and toughness on the one hand, and invulnerability, superspeed, superstrength, and magnetism on the other. And here I was with my bugs. And pepper spray.
And... nothing to say.
Battery tilted her head toward Aegis, who spread his arms "I'm Aegis, this is Battery. Armsmaster asked us to take you along on a patrol and talk to you about life in the Wards, but he didn't exactly give us a lot of details. You're?"
I shook my head. "Hadn't picked a name yet."
Aegis whistled. "Your costume looks expen-sive. Usually, a cape picks a name and then builds a costume around that."
I looked down. "I made it."
He laughed. "Maybe we should call you Taylor?"
My face froze.
"I mean, unless your superpower really is making clothing, we probably won't call you Tailor." His voice lowered "That isn't your power, is it?"
I flushed, and was again grateful for my full-face mask. "No." A flood of insects surged up my legs, gathering along my arms as I raised them. "I do insects. And spiders have silk. But have you ever tried find a bug-themed name that doesn't sound villainous?"
Aegis laughed again, and there was muffled snort from Battery. "Well, maybe we'll come up with a name on the way. You have any movement tricks?"
"Mostly, I run."
He nodded, lifting slightly off the roof and drifting north at a walking pace toward the adjoining building. "We'll take it easy, then. Walk, talk about the Ward life, thwart anything we see that needs thwarting..."
I followed, Battery a silent presence at my back.
···---···
Aegis turned out to be chatty enough for the three of us. Maybe that's just how he was, maybe he was trying to make me feel welcome.
If so, it was working.
I'd make the occasional 'mm-hmm' noise while he talked about the food (cafeteria, but good cafeteria), the salary (well, college fund), and the medical package (world-class). He was starting to discuss good lunch options in the area (and none-too-subtly trying to steer us toward a taco truck), when he paused. I focused, feeling all the disparate insects in my range that I'd been half-paying attention to, moving them about, feeling for the people in the area, looking for running, or fighting or... nothing. Normal foot traffic on the street we were paralleling, people in shops and apartments.
He waved me over, and pointed into the alley beneath where I could feel two people leaning against the concrete wall of a dilapidated apartment building, next to a badly torn chain-link fence. Another waited at the alley's mouth. As I reached the edge of the roof, I looked four floors down.
Azn Bad Boys, by the gang colors and the complexions.
He waved me back from the edge, and spoke softly. "Drug dealers. The PD can clear them out, but hey — can't exactly show you a day in the life without some action." He smiled until Battery whapped him on the back of the head.
"We'll go in first and take them down. You keep an eye out for runners. Join us afterward. We'll debrief over falafel; talk about what we did and why."
She stared at me until I nodded, and then the lines on her suit started glowing. Five long seconds they grew brighter, while I desperately reached out my senses, identifying concentrations of bugs in the area, feeling the people within my range, trying to notice those with bugs on them, or add a bug or two to those without. Suddenly, she all but vanished, throwing herself over the side faster than I'd ever seen anyone move. From the bugs on her, I could feel her pushing off the underside of one of the fire escape landings, jumping straight down, as if falling wouldn't be fast enough. Aegis flew after her, diving to ground level. By the time he reached them, Battery was again standing still and one of the dealers was on the ground, retching, with a pistol crumpled like wastepaper beside him. The other was running for exactly as long as it took Aegis to fly by him and smack him on the back of the head. He pinwheeled down, and slumped — limp and unconscious. So fast. And strong!
So that's what the Protectorate was like in a fight.
Scary, but reassuring too.
I focused my attention again, feeling my bugs, trying to sense any of them on people who were suddenly running. As I started clambering down the fire escape, I found two. The one at the alley's mouth, probably the lookout, broke into a dead sprint. Someone else, on the dirt lot on the other side of the chain link fence had also gone from lounging to rapid movement, though in his case it was more like a slow and wheezing jog. I only had a handful of bugs on each of them, but even the sprinter would take several minutes before he could clear my range — unless there was a car waiting.
With the directions they were running... there.
A small park, with a pond, and trees carefully trimmed clear of the power lines. A drifting haze of dragonflies swept in front of the sprinter, and the double handful of spiders that was their cargo leapt onto him, skittering under his clothes and biting — no venom, not that he knew that. He shrieked, and fell to the ground, rolling about. The other saw, and then turned to cut through the space behind a restaurant. A tidal wave of cockroaches boiled out of an overstuffed dumpster in reply. He was swarmed under, and promptly fainted. As I reached the last landing before the street, I frowned.
There was someone running, in the building across the street.
And behind him, wind — coming through a door left open. Fleas and roaches swept the abandoned apartment as I turned to look: the open window was six stories directly above where the two captives lay groaning while Aegis cuffed them. I vectored more bugs onto the runner, building up a more detailed picture. A young man, with a duffel bag. And in the apartment he'd left behind, fleas and cockroaches found... dust. And small vials.
Enough to guess why he ran.
I tracked his progress, mapping the building with my insects: stairs, leading to a fire exit on another side of the building. I gathered a dense swarm above it while I dropped to the ground and walked over to Battery — Aegis was twirling a third set of handcuffs around one finger.
I should probably start carrying those.
But until then, I'd have to improvise. The one who'd passed out was easy: he didn't even notice as spiders began cocooning his hands together. The other one was a little more troublesome. I only had the spiders biting him when he moved — you'd think that'd be a clear enough message to stay still, but it wasn't. And it wasn't like I wanted to hurt him: so far, he'd gotten what was basically a dozen mosquito bites. I couldn't even be sure he'd noticed the bites — he might just be rolling around trying to get the spiders off him — and I didn't really want to escalate to using venom.
Unlike Lung, he wouldn't regenerate.
So, something that would get him to stay still, without really hurting him... I reached out. There. The buzzing of a swarm of bees the size of his head six inches from his face did make him freeze up, and after that it was easy to start webbing his hands together.
Battery turned to me. "First time out?"
"Second."
She nodded. "It takes a bit, before you can just jump in. Training helps."
I blinked.
Aegis spun the cuffs. "There was a lookout at the mouth of the alley. Could have picked him up, didn't have to — why Battery put you on him. I could have gotten him, or Battery's more than fast enough to have done all three… but she didn't want to leave you out."
I tilted my head. "He's down and bound, over there." I pointed through the building. "And the lookout for the escape through the fence is... there." I pointed again.
A piercing shriek and thud announced that the runner from the stash apartment had exited the fire door and found out what it's like to have a mass of bugs half again your weight fall on you. He managed to knock himself out by headbutting the wall trying to thrash his way clear, so I started right in on binding him and continued "And the one who was trying to escape with this place's stash is just around the corner."
The cuffs lost momentum and dropped.
Battery, as expressionless as ever, grunted "Show me."
I hunched my shoulders and began walking, sorting the swarms I'd gathered at each runner. The useful bugs I separated out, to join the swarm I had on me as I passed nearby; the rest I scattered. The one runner still awake did try to move, but sat right back down again, hyperventilating, after I had a single bee land on his nose.
Aegis cuffed the stash runner and opened the duffel bag, closing it and slinging it over his shoulder with a low whistle.
Battery nodded, and followed me to the next closest, the fat one behind the restaurant. "Spider silk?"
I nodded.
Aegis used his last pair to cuff him too, smiling. "Second time out? What was the first one like?"
I thought about that on the way over to the last one. "Scary."
Battery smiled as she cuffed him, the kind that didn't show teeth. "Lung was brought in last night."
Aegis' smile did show his teeth. "That's a story you're going to have to tell me over a drink."
Battery's glare could have chilled ice.
"A perfectly non-alcoholic beverage. Fruit juice, possibly. While we enjoy a nutritious lunch." I'm still not sure how Aegis managed to deliver that in a respectful tone and with a straight face, but he did.
Practice, probably.
I'd raised my eyes, and had even cracked a smile, secure in the knowledge that my mask would hide it.
If this is what being a Ward was like, maybe I would think about joining after all. Sure, they were probably putting their best foot forward, but I could work with Aegis. And while both Battery and Armsmaster seemed pretty serious, they also seemed... reliable. I raised my head to look at the cloudless sky, and saw a cape on a building across the street from the park we were in. She leapt down, black cloak billowing, and floated more than fell. Landing lightly, she crossed the street beneath the arch formed by branches and power lines and stood over our final prisoner. I ran through the list I'd memorized from the wiki.
From her outfit, she'd have to be... Shadow Stalker.