interlude& 8.0

Interlude: The Heist

It was dark.

The plan had been to come under cover of night, for obvious reasons, but that didn't make Clayton any less unnerved by it. There was a way that the darkness could be a cover for all sorts of things, and it never failed to set him on edge, even after he'd triggered.

Waiting would have allowed for support, he knew that. Father's connections were strong enough and his word prominent enough that basically anything Clayton wanted to happen, could happen, as long as he was willing to have a little bit of patience and potentially listen to some boring speech about precaution.

He didn't want to wait. He didn't want to sit through a speech. He absolutely didn't want to have the share the glory with anyone; his plan, he knew, would reflect best on him if he did it solo. Father would have to acknowledge it in retrospect, and everyone else would remain in awe of what he had managed. It would be enough to redeem him in their eyes, he knew.

Clayton sat in his car, an older model which he liked for both its spacious footwells and its effective air conditioning, watching.

Security around the Capitol was pretty good. He'd scoped it out a few times, and while the actual schedule was pretty loose, there was always a guard in sight and he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could just completely get past them without being seen or spotted. Doing it in costume wasn't an option either; the red, white, and blue of his official get-up would have been far too obvious in the dead of night and while he knew that achieving what he wanted would be a coup for his position in the gang, getting the entire thing linked to Inheritance would see Scattershot putting a bullet in the back of his head, nepotism be damned.

Miss Freedom.

The statue sat up there, and it watched. It never did anything. Promised a lot, did nothing. Clayton had never been a fan; it hadn't helped him when he was younger and Father had been beating him within an inch of his life. Hadn't helped him when he'd found himself realising that he was a monster, and hadn't helped him atone for it. Not until now.

As the security guard turned the corner, Clayton got out of his car. He knew that they wouldn't be gone for long; there was always more than one active at any one time, and there was usually only a minute or two between one vanishing and another appearing. If he wanted to make a move, he would have to do it now.

Pulling his balaclava down over his face, he blended in with the night. Sticking to the shadows, he approached, and shied away from the lights that surrounded the building itself. One of the bigger obstacles of trying to interfere with somewhere like the Capitol was that its own arrogance was often enough to protect it; lit up like a Christmas tree, right there in the open, it was damn near impossible to get the drop on the thing. Everyone knew it was there because it announced itself, and just being nearby meant you lost the element of surprise.

Clayton raised his hand and cut a line through the air, a shimmering white line that burned his retinas to look at before solidifying into a bar that spread horizontally until it was wide enough for him to fit behind. Light hit it, and didn't emerge again.

He kept moving. Speed wasn't necessarily of the essence, but it was definitely helpful, and he had a long way to go; climbing the exterior of the building wasn't going to be possible, and it had taken him all of his contacts to ensure that a window would be open for him to sneak through. Once inside, he could make his way almost to the top before having to emerge and ascend the dome in plain view.

The darkness that hid him on the ground would be a clear indicator of his presence when pressed against the gold of the dome, and so it was imperative that no attention be sought until he was already there. Then, a quick action to get the statue detached, and he could flee; it was fine if they saw him, an anonymous man in black. It wasn't fine if it they saw his power at work. It was too distinctive, and every time someone saw it was another chance for them to work out what was going on.

Clayton slipped through the opened window and began moving through the halls. It was darker inside than out, and quiet. Even the shuffling of his clothes against one another, fabric on fabric, was loud enough to be ruinous, and so he settled for walking with his arms held slightly apart from his body and his legs bent enough to prevent his thighs from touching even the smallest amount, resulting in a kind of awkward crab-like posture that he was grateful would remain in memory only.

If Father saw him doing it, he'd hear no end of it. If Crumplezone saw it, he'd have a new nickname by the end of the week.

No, he kept the noise down and resigned to erase the entire embarrassment from his memory.

The hallways passed without meaning. Nothing in the building, an edifice to disgusting modernity, was worth a jot to him; the entire city was like Sodom, Father told him, and Clayton had internalised that message from a young age. There was to be no respect for any of it.

He didn't even need to know exactly where he was going. The dome was on top, and that meant that as long as he was going up when the opportunity presented itself, he was getting closer. If he had to pull some tricks right near the end, he would, though that was the backup plan. Making noise like that would attract some more attention, and he didn't really want to risk that, if he didn't have to.

Eventually, he emerged from a stairwell on to the roof. He thought he was on the Western wing of the building, but it was hard to tell from above; it was too dark to see everything in the distance and the lights that lit up the Capitol itself actually made it harder to see the skyline beyond it. There was too much glare. The gold of the dome shone above.

Clayton breathed out a deep, shuddering sigh. Part of him wanted to turn back, and pretend he hadn't come. He could hear Father now. You always were a little sissy, Clay. He couldn't let that happen. Even if Father never knew he had come, the voice was enough. The him that lived in Clayton's head would know, and that couldn't be allowed. He'd rather die than live with more of that. He'd come so far, so he had to finish.

Undoing the pouch at his belt, Clayton fished out the climbing gear he'd brought. He didn't really need it – his power would do the job, really – but he found that working was always easier if he had some kind of vector for the power. Something that would let him focus.

An ice pick and some cleats were enough. There was nobody else around to help with a line or a pulley, so ropes weren't an option. He'd just have to rely on the force of it all.

And so he ascended. The ice pick crackled with white, burning energy that solidified into a layer of black, obsidian slicing into the stone in deep gauges that left the rock crumbling as he made his way up the marble towards the top of the dome. His feet dug in with biting teeth in the same way, his power flowing through them. When he emerged at the lip that transitioned to the golden dome, he didn't dare look down.

The statue was bigger than he expected. Atop the dome there was another marble platform, leaving up to a miniature dome on top of that, which Miss Freedom sat on, and while he couldn't really judge well from his lower angle, the thing had to be nearly twenty feet tall. He'd known it was big, it just stood to reason, but it was hard for him to picture before it was actually in front of him. It was enormous, easily the same as one of Stalwart's mech suits, and Clayton began to have some doubts.

His power had limits. He hadn't really run up against them yet, but as a child he'd once tried to work with an entire house, largely out of youthful exuberance, and it had crapped out on him before even taking the entire second floor. Fewer cuts made it easier, so he'd take the entire marble crow's nest the statue rested on. Easier than trying to separate it. He'd do the first stage by hand, too – no need to stretch the range early.

Clayton dropped the ice pick and allowed his power to coat his hands, burning white hot in flames that rippled like the ocean, before bleeding black and settling across his hands like gloves. He reached down and pressed one to the floor before curling his fingers into a fist, and he felt the power seize; instantly, the ground shivered, and cracks appeared in the marble.

Clayton pushed the power through it, and reached out through his mind. Neither he nor Father had ever quite understood exactly how his power worked but they understood it well enough to work it. The vial he'd drunk hadn't come with instructions, really, and he considered himself lucky that he hadn't gotten something useless.

No, whatever mechanism it used, his power was very useful indeed.

There was a scraping sound, and Clayton saw the marble shifting; it was loose. A rush of exhilaration ran through him. If he did nothing, the entire construct would just slide off the dome and collapse down into the roof below, probably smashing through it. It wouldn't be what he came for, but it would be exciting, there was no way to deny that, and it would let him get a head start on a getaway. Remaining to complete the job now that some noise was made would only give the security a chance to investigate, and while he would be willing to do it if he must, he really didn't want to have to kill the boys in blue.

Instead, he rushed. Projecting the power out further than his hands was always a compromise; either it took a long time to get things cleanly sorted, or he could go quickly at the expense of precision. Clayton took the second option; he'd take more with him than he really wanted to, but he could sort that out later.

Waving an arm, an array of large panels, like the one which had covered him on the ground, began to appear in the air, growing at angles from one another. Burning white, at that scale they couldn't settle into complete blackness, and instead remained shot through with veins of white like lightning across a storm-ridden sky, and outlined in blazing ripples. Three, four, five, six of them, intersecting like the swords through a magician's box, piercing through Miss Freedom and dividing her body, the far edges of the panels gauging strips of gold from the dome beneath. From his angle, and in his rush, it was difficult for Clayton to avoid that; he'd just have to live with it.

One by one, he pulled on the panels, and they receded into nothing, pulling with them the portions of the statue which were in direct contact – as well as everything else. The rooftop lost its shavings as the intersected portions were swept away with the statue, and after only a minute or two, Miss Freedom and her plinth were gone. Secreted into Clayton's abstract world.

He turned. With no marble observation deck left, there was just a disc of rock atop the dome, and swathes of the dome itself had been devoured by his power. It couldn't have been subtle, not at the scale he'd used it, and he didn't have much time to get away. The security guards would be making an appearance sooner rather than later, if nothing else, and he didn't really fancy getting into a fight.

So instead, he slid down the dome, grateful for high school swim class keeping him in shape, and rolled as he hit the roof, before diving into the shadows.

Concentrating for a moment, Clayton allowed the blackness that coated his hands to expand, slowly covering his entire body like oil, before stepping up on to the edge of the roof. He wasn't sure if he could really hear the footsteps coming up the stairwell, or if it was just his overactive imagination, but he didn't particularly want to find out.

Instead, he took a step off the roof and allowed gravity to seize him. He'd meet the ground at the bottom and make a bee-line to the car.

Maybe Father will be proud this time, he thought. The ground came up to meet him with pace.

8.0 - Quenching

'Are you sure?'

Even asking felt stupid, but you felt that you owed it to yourself to at least make sure that you had heard right.

'All of the evidence speaks to that, yes. I'm sorry, Penumbra.'

You didn't respond immediately. Your brain was working on overdrive. There was a tense duality in your mind: on the one hand, your commitment to attend the next Endbringer fight could only swell in strength given the target. Brockton Bay was imperfect, and you were glad, in many ways, to have left, but the reality was that a piece of you would always live there because it was the place that had shaped you and where your memories were. The happiest times of your life happened within those city limits, and it was impossible to wrench yourself away from them.

But on the other hand, you couldn't deny that the moment was intimidating. It was easy to pledge yourself to an Endbringer fight when that was an abstract concept, an emblem of your heroism and your resolve for justice. Much more difficult to face the moment.

You grimaced, a bitter taste in your mouth. Cowardice? Not really. Cowardice was something unjustified, and there was very little in life more justified than the urge to avoid one of the planet's three biggest threats. Still, whatever you were feeling was close enough to cowardice that you couldn't accept it. Were you not wearing a helmet, you would have spat the flavour of that shame into the ground.

'How do I get there?'

Skýla and Regent looked to you sharply, apparently having at least feigned giving you privacy beforehand but no longer willing to do so.

'Penumbra, I have to warn you that while your presence would be appreciated for various reasons, you are not expected to attend. I informed you because I knew you would want to know, not because you must come. We've dealt with them before without you, and it isn't our habit to invite minors.'

'I know. I'm going. How do I get there?'

There was a brief moment of quiet, as though Dragon might have been considering her options, but the space between the question and answer was small enough that it didn't even allow for your anxieties to grow.

'Atlanta doesn't generally participate, so I'll have to put the request in myself. You won't be immediate priority. Make sure that you're at the Protectorate Headquarters in roughly twenty minutes – Strider will come for you.'

'Twenty minutes is fine,' you responded. 'I have to let people know where I'm going first.'

Part of you was considering just going and telling Dad later. It would have been the easier way to do things, the way that led to the least heartache. He would be shocked and appalled when you told him, but at least he wouldn't have to sit there in panic the entire time. You couldn't do that to him though. You'd promised months earlier that you would keep him informed, especially before you went and did anything too dangerous should there be at least the chance to warn him, and you had the chance. Home was only five minutes or so away, at full speed – not even that, really. You could make it there and back and tell him to his face.

'Before you leave,' you stopped Dragon, 'when I get there, who should I be overcharging?'

Dragon's puzzlement didn't last – presumably she was able to work out from context what you meant. 'I can't say, as I'm not in a command position. Alexandria takes mission lead on all Endbringer fights; you should seek her out as soon as you arrive for further orders.'

You nodded, knowing that Dragon couldn't see, but feeling the need to move. Already, your skin was developing the fine pinpricks of sweat and nerves that you knew weren't going to be shaken until long after the fight was over. Even if everyone lived and there was no damage at all – even if Leviathan simply touched the ground and then changed his mind, deciding not to bother and wading back into the ocean – you were still going to have nightmares about the feeling. Doubt didn't even enter your mind.

'Thank you.'

'You're welcome Penumbra. I'm sorry.'

The connection dipped and you felt a silence in your helmet, the subtle reverberation of space.

'What was that?'

Regent's voice was softer than you expected, as though he could tell enough about your current state to at least pretend to be tactful.

'Endbringer. Leviathan's coming to Brockton Bay.'

'Oh.'

A temptation to laugh bubbled up in your chest, but you suppressed it. Trust was one thing but you didn't really want to give your team the sense that you were being driven off the deep end, especially not given the context.

'You're going?'

Skýla's gruffer tones cut through the inner turmoil, and you immediately considered the situation.

Skýla was tough, but you didn't think she was tough enough to take on an Endbringer. Hookwolf had managed to give her real troubles, and you didn't think that Hookwolf would be able to do much against something like Leviathan either; you didn't want her there, not unless there was no other choice. Regent was even worse; as useful and versatile as his power was, putting him up against an Endbringer was just asking for him to get reduced to component parts. Again, it was something you weren't willing to countenance.

'I am. I have to go tell my Dad first, and warn the others back in Brockton Bay. They need to know. Can you guys make it back to headquarters yourself?'

'Sure,' Regent said. 'Try and take a few deep breaths. Doesn't help anyone if you're freaking out. Go tell who you need to tell, I'll call a car and we'll meet you back there.'

'Thank you.'

'Stay safe.' Rachel added. You weren't sure you had ever expected her to say something like that to you.

'I will.'

With that, you didn't even bother standing up before summoning your wings and catapulting yourself into the air. They buzzed loudly enough to almost deafen you, their pitch squealing into the upper registers of your hearing, and you wondered just how close you were pushing your maximum speed.

'Call Vicky.'

Your helmet's microphone was apparently sensitive enough to pick things up even through the high pitched whine of your flight, and you heard the ringing tones begin. For a brief moment, you worried that there wouldn't be an answer, and you were tempted to hang up and call back again as though it may not have gone through. The possibility that Dragon's timing estimations had been wrong flashed into your head, and you wondered if the monster had already touched down, but you quashed the thought. Regent, of all people, was right – you couldn't really afford to panic in the moment.

Concerns were cut short when the line picked up. In an eerie echo, you could hear the sounds of sirens in the background, their whining drone peaking close to the lower tones of your wing's hum, as though sound were reaching out between the two points in space and tying everything together. As though you were already there.

'Taylor, are you there?'

Snapping you out of your worry, you answered.

'I'm here. Vicky, Leviathan is coming to Brockton Bay, you need to get out of there.'

'Get out? No way.'

The stupidity of the response struck you, and you grit your teeth in frustration, but before you could lambast Vicky for her obstinance she was already pushing through your concern with arguments that were too familiar for you to dismiss.

'This is our home, Taylor. As soon as the alarms went off, New Wave started suiting up. We're going to be there.'

Her voice was steel, and not for the first time you found yourself in envy of her easy confidence. As much as you liked the other members of New Wave, it wasn't really a mystery why Vicky was considered the next in line for leadership. She just had whatever it was that made a hero seem larger than life. There was a fire inside of her that you didn't think would ever burn out.

Arguing felt futile in the face of it.

'I'm coming too,' you settled with. 'I'm on my way to tell Dad, I'll be there as soon as I can. Please, please take care of yourself. Don't do anything reckless. If I find out you put yourself in danger without a good reason I will be furious.'

'I know, don't worry about it.' The same tension that was colouring your own voice and driving your temper short was clearly simmering under the surface of New Wave too and you could hear some commotion in the background – you could almost picture Carol bossing everyone around into costume. 'Go talk to your Dad. Something tells me it won't be as easy as convincing Mom.'

'I will. Please stay safe.'

'I will. I'll see you soon.'

Your teeth worried your lip, but you allowed the call to lapse. It was in good time, as your house was appearing in the distance; you were lucky that you had gained enough familiarity with the city in recent weeks to allow yourself to travel to at least home on autopilot because you had absolutely none of the mental wherewithal to navigate soundly at that moment. Everything was dedicated to either conviction, worry, fear, or concern.

It was an altogether uncomfortable place for your head to be.

Home was oddly quiet. You morphed through the wall as usual, barely remembering to conjure enough of a sensory field to keep people from spotting you, though you had to admit that your flight had been so fast and you had put so little effort into slowing that even upon entry you were probably still a blur. You removed your helmet rapidly, needing to breathe.

Were it up to you, you would have spent at least half an hour in your room, psyching yourself up. Working out what to say to get the best effect. Planning things out in detail. Making sure that when you spoke, you were saying the things that got you where you wanted. If you had three hours of notice, that was what you would had done.

You didn't. You checked the time – you could only really afford to spend maybe eight minutes at home before needing to leave, and that would be cutting it fairly close. Deliberation was a luxury you didn't have, and so you didn't attempt to take it. Tempting fate felt like a very bad idea given the circumstances.

Instead, you tucked your helmet under your arm like a receiver and immediately made your way from your room, breathing hard enough to shudder.

When you got downstairs, Dad was sat in a chair in the living room, working on a carving. There was a small porcelain bowl sat below his hands to catch the shavings and he was wearing his reading glasses, a look of concentration on his face. A warm glow was coming from the nearby light, but the blinds were drawn in anticipation of the setting sun. It wasn't dark out, but there was probably not much longer left before things started drawing in.

When he saw you, the look of contentment on his face dropped. You couldn't blame him. Your body language must have been despicable, and if the mood you were feeling was currently at all palpable, you were only surprised that he hadn't spontaneously developed a some kind of disease.

'What's wrong?'

'Leviathan, Dad.'

He recoiled like a tortoise, and in another context it might have been humorous. You couldn't muster a smile.

'You're not going.'

There was a solidity to his answer, a firm and dull sound that nevertheless rang with the hollowness of a wooden box. It took up space, but was mostly air. The motion of his knife had stopped, and the quiet scraping that had previously sat below the room's ambience had died away.

'I am.'

'No you're not. I'm not giving permission.'

'I'm not asking for it, Dad. I have to go. If I don't, people are going to die that don't have to. I don't like it either, but I can't not go.'

At some point, he had stood up. There were wood shavings on the floor at his feet.

'No, listen Taylor, you don't understand. You can't go.' His face was a mask of desperation and you didn't allow yourself to flinch when he moved forward and placed his hands on your shoulders. 'I know it sounds mean, but I don't care about those other people. Not when it comes to you. You can't go. Please listen to me.'

'Dad,' you started, before noticing that your voice was nearly as choked up as his. A warmth tickled at the corner of your eye, and you blinked it away. 'It's in Brockton Bay. I can't just leave it. If I don't go, I don't know how I'd even be able to call myself a hero anymore.'

'Then don't. It's not worth your life, Taylor. You don't know what you're getting yourself into.'

You wanted to agree with him, but you couldn't. It was from a distance only, low quality rips, but you had seen as much Endbringer footage as Dad had. Probably more. Out of the two of you, there was a strong argument that you knew much more what you were getting into than he did, and you also knew what your questions have told you. Percentile's knowledge had placed upon you an obligation; there was no shying from the moment, not unless you wanted to accept for certain that you were condemning people to death. There was too much that you could do. It wasn't an ambiguity; any hero could argue that, at least in theory, their presence could save someone, but in many cases it was purely theoretical. Realistically, there was very little chance that Tattletale was going to have success against an Endbringer.

Things were not the same for you. You had asked, and there had been answers given, even if they weren't completely reliable, and even if they were occasionally inconclusive. The fact of the matter was that your presence made a definitive difference. Choosing to stay away in a situation like that? You might as well have killed them yourself.

'I know I can make it, Dad. I've asked myself before, with my thinker power. Me being there changes things.'

'Taylor,' he began, voice sodden and thick. 'I need you to understand. I can't lose you. I can't.'

'I know.'

You wrapped your free arm around him and drew him in. You wondered how long it had been since he could look down on you properly in a hug. Now, while he still had an inch or two of height on you, things were surprisingly even and he couldn't rest his chin on your crown like he had done when you were a little younger. It made you feel strange, in a way you couldn't quite describe.

'I'll come back, Dad. I promise you that I will. If I have to, I'll even run away. I won't let anything bad happen to me. But if I don't go and someone dies that I could have saved, that would be like killing myself anyway, in a little way. That's home, Dad. Sometimes you have to put yourself in a difficult spot to do what's right. You taught me that.'

He shuddered and inhaled deeply, hugging you tightly enough that you wondered if he even could let go, or if he was going to fuse with your costume permanently. Something about the situation had a way of calming you, as though he was leeching all of the stress out of your mind. There was no room for the panic you had felt not ten minutes earlier; you had bigger responsibilities.

'I'm so proud of you.'

His voice was quiet and if he hadn't had his head pressed near yours, you might not have heard it.

'I love you, Dad.'

'I love you too Taylor. Please be safe.'

'I will.'

You squeezed him tightly, as much as you dared, before letting go. He took a little longer to unwrap his arms, but eventually he did. Red faced and tear-streaked, you looked at him and had to stifle a sob of your own.

'I'll be back soon.'

Lips downturned, he gave a juddering nod. Words weren't available.

You raised your helmet to your head and lowered it down, the quiet click of the panels connecting putting an end to the moment. Your wings, bright green and buzzing, flickered into life and cast the room into a chlorous relief. You couldn't bring yourself to speak anymore, so you didn't, and blasted forward, phasing through the front wall of the house and bursting back out into the street. There wasn't much time remaining. You had to get to headquarters.

Arriving as quickly as you could, you didn't even dignify it with stopping on your feet and walking through the doors. Instead, you simply phased through the wall at top speed before coming to a screeching halt in the foyer. Almost all of your twenty minutes was up, and there was very little time to waste.

As you had flown, you had run through a number of questions using Percentile. You weren't sure what the best questions to ask were, and so you resorted to just finding out if any of your powers could be helpful.

Unfortunately, you weren't getting stable answers. You received tentative confirmation that Power Hand Kill would do something, which was better than nothing, and Fairy Dust came back with a sort of confirmation, but nothing was clear; even more fundamental powers, like Force Push, were telling you uncertain numbers. It was looking as though while you could use any power, and they would probably do something, the exact efficacy was up for debate. Maybe it depended on how you used them, or maybe there was just something strange still going on with the Endbringers that was casting Percentile's ability to get firm answers into shadow. Whatever it was, it did very little to alleviate your panic.

Upon your stopping, you looked around to see who else was present. Strider, whoever that was, didn't appear to be there yet, so you concluded that you weren't late at least. Cinereal was there, however, looking distinctly out of place in such a mundane location, and both Rachel and Alec were stood nearby. As far as you could tell, they were the only ones.

'Penumbra,' Cinereal began. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to fight Leviathan, ma'am.'

'Dragon informed me. I haven't given authorisation for that.'

You felt a moment of sympathy for Dad – he hadn't either. You couldn't very well dismiss him and then suddenly accept it from Cinereal. Nor did you have any desire to do so. It was strange how you had been so intimidated by her, even knowing that it made no sense, upon first arrival. At that moment, given the stakes, her authority seemed to be nothing but smoke in the air.

'With all due respect, I wasn't asking for it.'

A sneer began to take shape on the older woman's lips, outlined as they were in black paint, before she schooled herself and her expression gained its trademark placidity. Her eyes burned, though, and you met her gaze with your own, though the blankness of your helmet prevented her from seeing them truly.

'I see. Should you die, I accept none of the blame.'

'I wasn't expecting you to take it.'

'Very well. I expect you to represent our division well. Don't let me down.'

There was something myopic in her framing, but you didn't see the need to argue. If Cinereal wanted you to be a representative of Atlanta, she could think of it that way. Whatever got her to let you go with the least argument. In your own head, you were always representing Brockton Bay.

With that, a sharp crack rang out in the room, and when you turned to see the cause, you were met with the man who had Strider. His long coat, dark with hems and accents all in dark blue, cut a dashing figure, and his domino mask did very little to disguise his sharp features. A wide smile, all teeth, reminded you a little of Tattletale in a way that you didn't find entirely comforting, but his eyes were warm enough and he seemed quite casual given the situation.

'All aboard,' he said, raising his hand to tip his cap. 'Strider, at your service.'

You moved forward, not really sure how his ability worked. Obviously he could teleport, that much had been made clear by his arrival, but you knew that there was as many ways to teleport as there were teleporters, and whether he had some kind of proximity teleportation device, or needed to carry you, or would simply send you independent of him, was beyond you.

'What do I need to do?'

'Nothing at all, just stand there and I'll take you with me. Is it only you?'

He looked around expectantly, giving a particularly sharp eye to Cinereal, whose simmering gaze didn't seem to deter his judgement at all. From what you could gather, both by Dragon's trust in him and his demeanour, Strider had been in his fair share of difficult spots and probably had taken part in Endbringer fights in the past – it would take more than an angry regional head to truly perturb him.

'Yes, just me tha-'

'We're coming too.'

You turned so quickly you almost broke your own neck, and saw both Rachel and Alec moving towards Strider.

'You guys really don't have to come, it's way too dangerous.'

'We know,' Alec said. 'We're coming anyway. She can do search and rescue if nothing else and I,' he paused, as though in contemplation. 'Well, I can probably do something. Medical, maybe, backline support. I'm not fighting the thing but everyone needs a cheerleader.'

You looked between the two of them, eyes manic. That sounded like the worst of all possible worlds. If it was just you, it was easy to rationalise. While you didn't think yourself immortal, you knew that you were tough and if Alexandria – the one Percentile had confirmed you were stronger than in at least one way – could survive Endbringer fights, you were sure that you could make it out at least alive, even if not unharmed. The same could not be said for them.

'Guys, I appreciate it but you really do not have to.' Even as they spoke, though, you felt some of the urge to argue die away. There was a warmth in the idea of them coming with you, and though you couldn't deny that you were worried too, they had a point. It wasn't as though everyone had to be an up-front fighter, and Rachel's enhanced senses made her a natural for search and rescue. If there was anyone in your group that could find people in the middle of a disaster zone, and have the strength to actually extricate someone from a collapsed building, it was her.

Alec, well. He would appreciate the opportunity to see Vista, at least. How effective his particular brand of deadpan would be in cheerleading, you weren't sure, but maybe someone would find him amusing.

'I understand you kids are having something of a dramatic moment right now,' Strider interrupted. 'But you have twenty seconds before I'm taking off, so figure it out quick.'

'No figuring it out, we're coming.' Rachel spoke before you got the chance.

'Great, everyone gather round.'

You didn't have time to argue, and before you could attempt another round of persuasion, both Rachel and Alec had bunched up close to you, and even as you opened your mouth to protest, your ears were filled with pressure before they popped and you heard Strider's thunderclap once more. The world went black.

Actions Remaining:

- Once you're in Brockton Bay, prioritise the Brute team (tentative commitment). If Scion arrives, focus on restraining Leviathan.

- Get instructions from Alexandria on how to proceed

- Empower Lung