Valentine's Day

Taylor Hebert/ Skitter
February 3rd, 2013

The door closes shut behind Aisha and we all shuffle into our designated seats. We built this meeting room back when we renovated the tower almost a year ago but this is the first time we’ve actually had to use it.

I take a moment to do a mental roll call as my eyes scan over the other filled chairs. Blasto and every single powered Undersider is here, Parian, Foil, Vex, Glory Girl, Panacea, Gallant, Scribe, Chariot, Crucible, Imp, and even the two… indentured members, Shatterbird and Ubermensch.

And of course, there’s me, Lisa, Rachel, and Brian all taking the head of the table, with Brian on my right, Lisa on my left, and Rachel deciding to stand behind me.

“Thank you all for coming.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel at all the nods I receive, I take a deep breath before continuing. “I’d like to get down to business as soon as possible, this meeting will only have one topic so if anyone has any other grievances to bring, I ask you to please save it for another time.”

No one objects to what I’ve said but Imp raises her hand in question before I can move on to the actual topic. I suppose I should be thankful she actually remembered not to just interrupt so I gesture for her to speak.

“Where’s Alec?” She asks, head turning and looking right at the thralls before turning back to me. “I remember you saying that he wasn’t allowed to send in stand ins to listen for him.”

Regardless of her ignorance, her question still feels like someone took a tack hammer to my ribs, my heart being crushed by a guilt that makes me gulp before replying.

“We’ll be discussing that in just a moment,” I answer, cursing myself for the shakiness in my voice, enough of it present that Imp tilts her grinning mask in concern.

“Last February…” I pause for just a moment, not to build up suspense but just to gather what strength I can. “Heartbreaker came to Brockton Bay.”

The news hits everyone a little differently but the outbursts all carry the same emotions, confusion, disbelief, and a healthy smattering of fear.

“Bullshit,” Chrissie, or Vex when she’s in costume, replies louder than the rest of the clamoring, shaking her head like she just heard a really bad joke. “I think I would’ve remembered if some fucker like that came into town. If this April Fool’s or something, you’re off by a couple months.”


“I have to agree with Vex,”  Chariot says, getting a nod from the sharpness Shaker as he takes the floor. “Heartbreaker’s loud, obnoxious, he’s… he’s supposed to be the Master equivalent of a hurricane. Why would he even want to come here?”

There’s a general murmur of agreement at the Tinker’s words but I quickly take reins of the conversation before anyone can start asking circular questions.

“Please…” I get them all to quiet with just the one word and when all eyes are fixed on me, I lean back in my chair as I try to tamp down the gnawing hate. “Save all questions until after we’re done.”

“Heartbreaker left Montreal at some time between late January and early February of last year, he went to ground some time in the October before and kept his operations to a minimum. He’s had quiet months before and neither the Guild nor the Protectorate saw his lack of movement as an oddity, it was never reported.”

Everyone stares at me with rapt attention and it’s a fight to keep the bubbling anxiety down as I answer Chariot’s question.

“He came here to retrieve… his children, Cherie Vasil and Alec Merceau.”

The reveal gets some more murmuring but that quiets down almost as soon as it started, with  most of them waiting for me to continue with bated breath.

“He enacted his plan on Valentine’s Day, the day the five of us moved into the penthouse. That’s as far back as Tattletale has been able to trace his influence.” My eyes scan over the room and I gulp as I explain just what exactly Heartbreaker is capable of, given that most don’t have a strong enough stomach to read his wiki. “As some of you might know, Heartbreaker is a Master capable of permanently manipulating the emotions of anyone he’s directly looking at, his range is only defined by his line of sight, not radius.”

“We’re still not sure where he watched from,” Lisa takes over for me and I try not to break down at the feel of her hand on my knee, the quiet show of support just making the guilt feel more real. “But we’re sure he used a telescope well outside of Skitter’s range to monitor us.”

Her hand squeezes me under the table and I lay my own hand on top of it and curse that there aren’t enough bugs in this building for me to send my emotions into.

“The lack of exterior walls gave him an almost constant ability to manipulate us.”

Everyone tenses up at Lisa’s words, Blasto’s hand wanders to the pistol on his hip, the air glitters with sharp force fields around Vex’s head, and I would’ve sworn there was someone next to Scribe just a moment ago.

And then, AIsha reappears, her posture rigid like it’s taking all of her effort to listen and keep herself visible to the room.

I can’t blame any of them for their reactions, Heartbreaker is an almost universal fear, the only people that aren’t afraid of him are those that don’t know about him, that don’t know he can essentially kill you with a look and replace you with an almost identical imposter.

And as someone who has actually felt his presence in my mind, felt his hands guide my thoughts like they were his to write… my fear has only grown alongside my rage.

“He didn’t use his usual approach,” Lisa says, her voice steady despite the white knuckled grip she has on my knee. “With Alec, who has experience with his father’s power and myself in the building, he had to be more subtle.”

Her words aren’t enough to describe the insidiousness and the swarm in the bug jar isn’t enough to keep me quiet, I heave a soft and dry sob. I tried to keep it as quiet as possible but given Brian’s hand on my other knee, I know he wasn’t the only one that heard it.

I turn my head down to the table and try my best to keep calm, eyes closed as tight as I can get them when Lisa continues.

“For approximately four months, Heartbreaker twisted our emotions towards Alec. First, we started to enjoy his company less, then we didn’t enjoy it at all, then it became an active dislike, and finally, it turned into hate.”

The silence is deafening and Lisa let’s her words digest for just a moment before she keeps explaining.

“It was done on a subtle enough curve that—” she chokes a bit here and I look up to see her own eyes shut tight behind her domino mask, the black eye paint turning them into a sad abyss. “That it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, especially when he twisted other feelings.”

That actually gets Scribe to speak up, the weight of the topic making her forget the decorum and interrupting her boss.

“What other feelings?” She winces when Lisa’s eyes snap open to her and the blonde Thinker barely hides her frustration as she answers.

“He made us… enjoy spending time without him, he made us like when he was sad, he made us thankful when we kicked him out and—” Lisa sucks in a breath and her lips thin as she tries to regain her composure. “He isolated us as best he could, made us… not quite agoraphobic but more content with just our own company, it wasn’t quite an aversion to people but… it’s like the enjoyment of canceling plans for somewhere you didn’t want to go.”

“That’s why you never reached out,” Diane speaks up, sounding shell shocked as her eyes fix dead on the table before rising up to meet Lisa’s gaze. “Why you’ve been so isolated the past year, I thought… oh my god.”

Diane’s the only one here who knows the whole truth, that in addition to enjoying when Alec was hurt… we perpetuated that. We isolated him, we shunned him, we were curt and rude and at times… even physically abusive.

The sound of Brian’s slap echoes in my mind but thankfully, Lisa’s able to snap me out of it before I can spiral.

“Yes,” Lisa swallows and I reach out with my left hand and set it on her shoulder, squeezing as firmly as I can without hurting her. “He was… I can’t confirm it but it’s likely he was extra careful in regards to you and Victoria. He likely has experience in how other Master powers can disrupt his own.”

Diane swallows thickly and her eyes look further away as she takes that in. It’s gotta be a terrible feeling, to know that you and your powers were already considered and that you were thoroughly planned around.

“This all came to a head on June 16th,” Lisa continues, sighing at the next truth she has to reveal. “The day Cherie Vasil was released.”

And the same day I turned seventeen.

There’s a bit of a commotion when Lisa says that the Butcher was freed and my whole chest feels like it’s being weighed down as I lift my head up.

The day she left with her father, Lisa came up with a plan, one that I probably would have disagreed with had I been in a better headspace. I would’ve disagreed with a lot of things that day though.

I would’ve said no to destroying SHatterbird and Ubermensch’s minds, I wouldn’t have let Heartbreaker escape the city, and I wouldn’t have taken the fucking money if it meant giving him back to that madma—

“Now I know what I told you all, that Cherie Vasil had died in her containment and with Mannequin dead there was no one for the mantle to go to but… that was a lie.” Lisa doesn’t wilt at the glares being sent her way, she doesn’t even react to them. “At the time I thought it was the best possible solution, that it was the best way to keep panic down. I… wasn’t myself then.”

And with her closing statement, the vast majority of glares puff away and turn into conflicted expressions of shame as Lisa finally discloses just what exactly happened.

“She breached containment and nearly killed Browbeat, the Protectorate called us in to deal with her. We went in without backup and though at the time I rationalized it was because we didn’t want to up the chances of any of you being Mastered… now I think that decision was never really in my hands.” 

She gulps and Rachel steps over to put her hand on Lisa’s other shoulder, with the Thinker’s free hand rising up to lay on top of it. I remember thinking the exact same thing and it feels alien to know I made that choice then but wouldn’t do so now.

“But when we arrived… “ Lisa’s voice gets too choked up to maintain the authority in her tone. “she wasn’t alone, her father was there too. He didn’t attack us, instead, he offered a deal, 100 million dollars, the enslavement of Ubermensch and Shatterbird to the Undersiders, and all we had to give him was Alec, Cherie, and a free flight out of the Bay.”

“You didn’t take it though…” Chariot speaks up, eyes flicking between the four of us and the two thralls opposite him. “Right?”

“You have to understand,” Brian answers him, speaking for the first time since the meeting began. “By that point… we hated Alec, we wanted him gone and…”

“You took the deal,” Aisha finishes, confliction warring with the revulsion in her tone.

"Yes," I confirm, my head hanging as shame screws tight in my chest. "We did."

My declaration makes the whole room quiet again and my eyes start to water as the memory replays.

He was begging us to stay, begging us to at least let him leave by himself, and we… we forced back into the arms of that monster and there's no way to know if he knows Heartbreaker was in our heads.

We hated him so much… and he must've thought it was genuine.

He was crying, actually sobbing at my feet and sniffling and I… I thought he was pathetic, I thought he was just as bad as his father and when it was all over I felt relieved to have him gone.

And that's one of the worst parts, for almost eight months… I was glad he was gone.

I laughed when we cleared out his room, I made fun of how he bawled, I remember feeling proud that he was no longer in my city.

And all of that, all of that hatred and spite… it was all me.

Heartbreaker might've started that fire but I'm the one that kept it going. Before my thoughts can stab at me any deeper, Scribe coughs from the other end of the table.

"Okay, so if no one else is going to address the elephant in the room, I guess I have to." Cassie looks up at me and the gnat I've got the inside of her sleeve starts to move. "You keep talking about it like it's past tense, Heartbreaker is a permanent Master so how the hell can we trust that you're better now?"

"We got hit with a Trump," Rachel answers her, taking the burden of talking away from Lisa and I. "Yesterday morning, we went in to talk with the Director, to meet their new cape. She's able to stop powers, both the ones you have and the ones that are doing shit to you."

"Was it intentional?" Amy questions, "Did she… I dunno, did she sense something like Gallant can?"

"No," Lisa speaks up, her voice steady again as she looks at Amy. "Fullstop attacked us because she's a zealot, a fresh trigger that couldn't believe the Protectorate would willingly let us stick around."

That actually gets me to bring my knees up and I don't care how ridiculous it might look as I do so. 

Pure coincidence, that's the only reason we know now. If Fullstop hadn't been transferred here, if the meeting was delayed long enough for her to get a handle on her emotions, if— there's a million little ifs and all of them would've meant that we'd still hate Alec.

The thought of that makes me want to throw up, that if it weren't for pure fucking luck… we wouldn't care what happened to him, what's probably still happening to him.

"So you've been lying." 

All eyes turn to Aisha and the Stranger doesn't buckle under the stares. Her girlfriend tries to reach a hand up to her but she just brushes it off as her hands clench into fists.

"Imp—" Brian tries to calm his sister down but she just talks over them as she starts walking the length of the table.

"Every time I was sent out for recon, every time I wanted to visit and the Penthouse was under 'renovations,' Alec not wanting to text me back because he was 'busy,' all of it was a lie."

There's a beat but before any of us can reply, Aisha's hand whips out to point at Shatterbird and Ubermensch.

"They're a lie too." She shakes her head with a mirthless chuckle as she passes Alexi and Rey. "Y'know, I never came back to check on him because they were still here, and if they were still here, that meant he was too. It all made sense to me y'know? I just figured he ghosted me because he outgrew me but that's not it, this whole fucking time, it's been a lie."

She turns her head back to Brian and even with the full face mask, I can tell that she's glaring.

"I even asked you about him, I asked you and you said—" she lifts up her hands for air quotes, "'he was just being himself.'" 

Her hands fall to her sides with a dull clap and her head tilts down.

"And— I know I shouldn't be mad at you, Alec told me what that man can make people do and I never blamed him for all that shit Cherie told us about. I didn't blame him and I can't blame you but— fuck."

And that pretty much sums it up, fuck. Fuck in every sense of the word.

The silence stretches on for nearly a minute, getting tenser and tenser even when Aisha makes it back to her chair.

Everyone at this table has been a cape long enough to know you're never supposed to blame a Master victim. 

Fighting a Master isn't like fighting a Brute or a Mover or any other kind of cape. In a lot of ways they can't really be fought in the traditional sense.

Most have tangible conditions or time limits or constraints but Heartbreaker… he isn't a normal Master.

Like Aisha, we didn't blame Alec for the things he did under his dad's thumb and we didn't blame him for anything he had to do to cope with that pain.

But we're different.

We knew about him, we knew what he could do and we should've— I don't know what we could've done but we should've done something!

"Okay…" Chrissie speaks up again, "what about the other elephant in the room? You four might be cleared from the mind whammies but what about us? I never met this Fullstop chick and the way you guys are talking, I wouldn't know if Heartbreaker already got to me or not."

"As far as we know," Brian starts to answer, his power barely seeping into his voice. "Besides us, Heartbreaker also mastered close to three dozen homeless people when he freed Butcher XV, none of them survived but it's likely he had more thralls embedded in the city, people that could hand him information."

"I'm not talking about the civvies," the ex Teeth member replies, "I mean us, as in people in this room."

"That's not likely," Lisa takes over for Brian and starts to explain. "Heartbreaker has been around this long because he understands the cape scene and the limits of his own power, the more capes he Masters, the more likely he's either discovered or the Protectorate sends in Legend to glass him from orbit."

The answer seems to placate Chrissie but as she leans back in her chair, Blasto leans forward.

"Okay," he says, taking off his goggles to pinch at his nose. His eyes are the clearest I've ever seen them as he stares me down, deadly serious. "What exactly do you expect us to do with this information?"

"We kill the fucker," Rachel answers him, spelling it out as simply as she can. "We're going up to Montreal, we're getting Alec back, and we're gonna fucking kill that piece of shit!"

Rachel barks the last few words, her face red with anger as her power tugs on her body, the muscle growing just enough to be noticeable as she slams her hand on the table.

The wood cracks at the blow and I can feel the swarm buzz with my excitement. I can't wait to get there, to shove so many cockroaches down that monster's throat he bursts from the inside.

I will show him that he can't take people anymore, that taking Alec from us was like signing his death warrant!

Brian and Lisa's hands squeeze tight on my knees and I know instinctively that they're just as willing to kill as I am, that they're willing to go to the same lengths to bring him back to us.

But then I look up and see that the rest of the room… isn't as ready.

Amy shifts in her chair, Diane and Victoria both wrap their arms around her, Chrissie grows and sheds a layer of her power, Alexi looks away from us, the hem of Sabah's sleeves unravel and restitch themselves in seconds and Chariot fiddles with a panel on his gauntlet before he speaks up.

"So…" he wilts when I look at him and I tilt my head in confusion. For some reason that makes him flinch. "I understand wanting to get him back, I mean, I would want you guys to look for me if I ever got taken but… he's Nikos Vasil, right?"

"He's just a man," I reply, "You'd still be able to run inside, slit his throat, and be out before he could even blink."

The compliment gets the exact opposite reaction I want and Chariot gulps before continuing.

"I know that, I know he isn't any more bullet proof than I am but he's still Heartbreaker, he's the highest rated Master in North America … I might not have been in the Wards long but I remember what they said about him. He's supposed to be taken out with long range missiles, the kind've stuff that you press miles away from him."

I try not to grind my teeth as he keeps talking. Doesn't he understand? I don't care how strong he's supposed to be, we need to get Alec home, it's the only way to make things right again!

"It—" Victoria at least has the courtesy to look conflicted as she grunts in frustration, "now might not be the best time and you have to understand, if it were anything else, I'd be lacing up my boots to go right now but the Elite's been pushing hard lately, with the trains starting up again, they smell money to make."

"We've beaten the Elite before," Brian growls, "If Uppercrust wants to try his luck again, it can wai—"

"It's not Uppercrust, some of my guys have been calling me in to deal with disturbances and I'm almost positive it's Bastard Son."

"Bastard Son?" Blasto asks for clarification, "you're sure it's him? That psycho's supposed to still be in Oakland last I heard."

"Given that a junkie almost killed me with a pair of rollerblades last week, I'm sure it's him."

"Fucking hell," the wet Tinker leans back and fumbles for something in his labcoat as he sighs. "Just another reason we need our heavy hitters here, I didn't want to bring this up here but things are getting really bad down in Boston."

He pulls out a gold plated squeeze lighter and ignites it before letting go of his grip. The lighter snaps shut and he turns his head to try and look out of the opaque window.

"How bad?" Lily asks and I can feel my hands start to shake as I settle them down on Lisa and Brian's own. 

"Really fucking bad, like, fuck up the whole eastern seaboard bad. Bad Apple's moved back in with me just to get away from those fuckers. The Chain Gang have some kind of Master named Brand and rumor has it, the Horsemen are experimenting with a piece of Echidna."

“It’s War isn’t it?” Amy asks, practically spitting the deranged biotinker’s name.

“Yep, Bad Apple swears he’s trying to make himself a new Butcher, something to get the ex Teeth in the Chain Gang on his side. I don’t think he can do it but that psycho’s proven me wrong befo—”

“None of that shit matters!” Brian shouts, finally stopping the conversation happening around us. Everyone’s staring at him with rapt attention and he wears their gazes like his own leathers. “The city is secure enough with Dauntless, Ubermensch, and Shatterbird, it can stand on it’s own for right now. We need to get Alec home, we need to leave as soon as possible, and that’s the end of it!”

His voice echoes in the silence and he turns his skulled helmet towards everyone in the room, the black pits inside and the wafting smoke leaving the teeth dare anyone to speak up. It cows a lot of them, Vex sits up straighter, Foil nods, and Parian hesitantly does the same.

It doesn’t cow everyone.

“We will save him,” Diane speaks up, her voice stoic and calm even when Grue turns all of his focus on her. “You have my word on that, but right now the city—”

“Fuck this city!” Brian slams his hands on the table, his own considerable strength widening the crack Rachel made. “Fuck this city,” Brian repeats, his knuckles popping as he clenches his fist. “It can all burn, down to ashes… we need to save Alec. That’s all there is to it.”

He was running out of steam by the end but he finds his voice again as he stands up out of his chair, surveying the room.

“This is not up for debate, we don’t leave men behind. That’s a fucking promise.”

This time, Brian’s declaration gets the opposite reaction, instead of loyalty, now all he’s bred is fear. Amy flinches, Blasto twitches, and Diane gulps just as Lisa stands up too, her green eyes searching.

“So… who’s going to go?”

Her simple question gets a lot of people shifting, all of them trying their best to look inconspicuous, like when a teacher says he’s just going to call on someone random.

“No one,” Diane defies us again and this time, she stands up to look eye to eye with Lisa. “The four of you can’t go, at least not right now.”

I’m about to object, about to tell her to sit back down and remember her place at this table when she waves a hand towards me. I’m struck silent more from her audacity than any actual authority she has over me and she continues, her elaborate, deep purple princess dress swishing as she steps closer.

“You told me to watch you for any trace of Heartbreaker’s influence and though I can confirm that it’s gone, I can also say that none of you are in any condition to leave. Your emotions are bouncing between suicidal depression and homicidal rage… until you calm down—”

“How can we do that?!” I scream, finding my voice and standing up to glare at the ex-Ward. “He took Alec from us, he made us… he made us forget about him, about how happy we were together, he took that and turned into shit! How can we calm down knowing that he’s still up there, still with that monster?”

“I—”

“What if it were Amy?” I ask, pointing a finger towards the healer, “Or Victoria? Would you be able to calm down then? Would you just let them rot?”

“Of course I wouldn’t!” Diane shouts back, anger staining her voice as her hands flash a fiery red. “But I’d wait, I’d try to approach it as best—”

“Then you don’t love them the way we love him!” Rachel steps around the table to loom over Diane, her body growing by the second as long, sharp lengths of bone extend from her nails.

The blue eyed girl looks up at Rachel with barely constrained fury, her hands start to blink like circus lights, flashing between a sickly green, a sagging blue, a noxious orange, and a deep black. Her eyes start to smoke with the same lightshow and then, just as quickly as it started she calms with a slow exhale

“I know how scared you are,” Diane fires back and Rachel lifts her head up to sneer when Diane’s power leaves her hands. With a few blinks, the whites of her eyes return to normal as the empath tries to sympathize. “And because of that, I’m gonna let that slide. I care about the team, I care about you four and… I care about Alec too. Which is why we need to hold this off, we can’t just go in half cocked, we—”

“You’re trying to stall us.” Lisa says, her voice far away as her mind connects the dots. Diane flinches and Lisa gestures to her hands, or rather, to the hand behind Diane’s back. “You’re…” she looks up just as Victoria stands and I flinch as the blonde Brute starts to float off the ground. “You’re putting us under house arrest.”

I turn my head away from them and to the other side of the table, anger clawing out of my chest when the others start to get up, their postures bent and ready for a fight. No, not just ready for a fight, ready for a capture.

Blasto’s got a hand on his holster, some strange, twisting plant gun already in his grip. Foil behind him has her hands up, her rapier still on her hip. Her girlfriend’s already got cloth floating around her and the Scribe opposite her has a net floating in the air.

Chairs scrap as they’re pushed aside and a few floors down, I’m calling the bulk of my swarm to me. Atlas is scuttling towards the window, ready to break through it just as Brian sighs, his voice slick with his power/

“So, this is how it’s going to be.” He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck as he sizes up the room. There’s no real point, in a straight fight, the four of us will lose every single time. There’s just too many of them.

“Please,” Diane begs, her hands up and placating as Rachel steps away from her, the red haired girl growing more and more as Atlas breaks free of the bug jar. The rain outside beats down on his carapace but he flies up to me anyway, unbothered by it. “Just take a week at least, then we can—”

Lightning flashes from outside and the resulting glow is enough to illuminate the shadow of Amy’s gift. Diane’s eyes widen as Atlas speeds towards the window, her hands fly up with an ashy gray glow just as Brian floods the room with his power.

The window shatters behind me and Lisa doesn’t hesitate to run the short distance to our ride. A quick glance behind me makes me wish I never listened to Lisa’s no bugs in the penthouse rule. Rays of grey and bolts of green fly out from the dark and Brian just barely ducks under a shot from Blasto’s plant gun before he rolls into the dark.

Gnats, wasps, and beetles fly out from divots in Atlas’ body to chase into the dark, marking everyone under my power just as I sense Brian grab on to someone.

Rachel’s grown enough that the floor buckles and groans under her weight, I take my seat behind Atlas’ wings just as she scoops up her three main dogs. Judas and Brutus look about Angelica sized in her grip and I’m running ideas through my head on how to get them all out when Brian flies out of the dark.

He’s got Victoria held to his chest with one arm, his elbow buried under her chin and one hand free to hold on to Rachel. He pauses in the air just off the edge of the floor, with a thousand foot drop just below him. He turns his head to look at Rachel, and with a nod, she resettles her grip on her hounds and holds a hand out to him.

The darkness in the room billows away, the wind pushing it back and separating it from Grue just as he takes Rachel’s hand. The dark clears and Lisa’s blasted with a beam of grey just as Blasto misses another shot with his knockout gun.

“We…” Lisa shakes behind me, her arms tightening as a cry starts to boil up her throat. “We n-need to go, w-we need to get him back.”

“We will,” I promise, “We will.”

I spare a look towards Brian and with a nod we start to fly off. Without Victoria, the others can’t follow us as easily, Cassie might be able to make a platform out of the table but there’s no way she can get it to make a hole large enough to chase after us.

We’re home free and I can’t believe how badly that went.

Have we really been that far removed from them? That our team was willing to commit mutiny? Part of me knows it isn’t that simple, that they weren’t making a grab for power so much as they were trying to keep things stable.

The rain soaks my costume and presses my hair flat against my head as the buildings soar past us. Brian looks like a dark comet, the darkness trailing off of him as he maintains a pace Atlas can keep up with.

Rachel swings pendulously in his grip, swaying like a wrecking ball as she flips her hair away from her eyes. Her hounds shake and shiver in her grip and I know she’s going to feel terrible about holding them like that.

Our short flight ends just as we approach the northern city limits, the businesses, apartments, and houses slowly giving way to the woods and mountains.. Brian doesn’t let go of Rachel until her feet are firmly on the ground and I try my best to push my panic into the bugs sleeping beneath the soil.

Lisa’s just about got her breathing under control when Atlas lands though her eye black still runs down her face in a mixture of rain, make-up, and tears.

"You—" Victoria tries to get leverage on the muddy ground but her feet just slip without any traction. "You don't have to—- you don't have to do this!"

Her face is bright red and I can see the whites of her eyes slowly growing pink as she thrashes in Brian's grip. It's no use though, with her strength suppressed and him borrowing her actual power, the blonde has no hope of escape.

"Please! We can— we—" whatever else she was trying to say peters out into a choked gasp as Brian's sleeper hold tightens.

"I'm sorry," Brian apologizes softly just as Victoria's eyes flutter closed. He keeps the hold steady for another few moments, just to make sure she isn't faking it before gently laying her down on the ground.

His darkness puffs away and thunder rumbles just as the adrenaline starts to leave my system.

"What now?" Rachel asks, her voice gravelly. "We can't ride the dogs all the way there."

"No, we can't." Lisa confirms just as she gets off of Atlas. The dull yellow light of the city barely pierced the trees but it's enough that I can see her hand when she reaches out for me. "Okay, PHO says Hijack made a brief reappearance back in July but has been dead silent since, chances are he's still there."

"So we steal a car," I suggest, "make the drive there ourselves and—"

Lightning interrupts me but this time it doesn't sound from the sky. The four of us turn to face the sound and I summon as many bugs as I can.

Chariot stares us down, lightning crackling off his suit and into the ground below him. His suit has changed a lot since Coil tried to use him as a bomb.

It's form fitting, a gun metal gray with electric white accents along his shoulders and back. The armor is segmented around his torso and arms but is still solid enough to form a chestplate solid enough to brand his logo on.

His helmet covers his whole face and looks as if someone tried to shrinkwrap an astronaut's visor, the dull black glass clinging to his face and wrapping around the back.

The visor turns completely clear to give us a look of Trevor’s narrow, triangular face, his features screwed up in indecision.

"Do you really think you can take us?" I ask, having Atlas scuttle behind and raise his horn until it’s well above my head.

Chariot's lips thin as his visor swaps back into blackness. He gives me a tight nod and lowers himself until his hands touch the ground in a runner's stance.

Without a word, he kicks off the ground and rushes past me. Even with my hair weighed down by the rain, it still kicks up in the wind he brings and for a moment I’m left to swipe it away from my lens when I turn to follow him.

He’s already long gone, with nothing but lightning zapping to the ground where his feet just were. The bright white and gold forks dissipate as the rain lays into them and I snarl under my breath when I realize what he’s done.

He took Victoria.

Without her for Grue to feed off of, Brian’s powers won’t do much for us here. The Shaker makes the same realization I do and he rolls away from his spot to get closer to the three of us.

“Damnit!” Brian shouts, stepping closer to Rachel and turning his head in every direction. “He got Victoria!”

“He’s got a pecking order!” Lisa shouts back over the rain, “He’s going after Skitter next!”

I’ve just barely got a veil of gnats and flies around us when my a whole line of them are killed within seconds. The streak killing them is smashing through the horde like they aren’t even there and that’s because, for the most part, they aren’t.

There might be more bugs out here in the wilderness but it’s still February and the snow’s just barely melted from last week, the army I was able to muster is barely a twentieth of what I could do in the Spring and it shows.

Chariot’s carving a path right towards me and I can barely turn my head before he’s jumping over Atlas’ left forelimb and tackling me to the ground. Despite the lack of traction my boots get, the mud doesn’t feel soft at all as my head slams into it. White pain is all I can see and then, just as I try to roll on to my stomach, one arm wraps around my middle while the other lays flat on the nape of my neck.

I bring my elbow into Chariot’s stomach but all that accomplishes is making my funny bone scream out in pain when it hits the tinker alloy. That pain stops being a problem though when the world starts to woosh by me, the trees become an indistinct, messy blur as the speed makes the rain feel like I’m walking through a waterfall.

I keep thrashing even as Atlas starts drifting out of my range, in a couple more second I won’t be able to call to him and at his top speed, he’s still several times slower than Chariot. In the city we had the luxury of flying over building while Chariot had to take corners, side alleys, and out of the way routes, out here is nothing but straight lines, there’s no reason for him not to keep accelerating.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Trevor says, his voice turned tinny by the transceiver in his helmet, “Please— we can—”

He yelps when the roaches I have hidden in the layers of my costume and hair start to crawl over him. It doesn’t matter that his suit is airtight, no one reacts well to being covered in bugs, even if they’re wearing a hazmat suit.

Even startled, he still has the sense to slow down and that’s not just for my sake, Chariot’s tech is really good at speeding up… slowing down on the other hand? He skids as slowly as he can, losing more and more speed until Atlas starts to keep up, then he starts to overtake us.

Chariot drops me just as Atlas is able to scoop me up in his pincers and my mount starts to hover upwards with me held in his grip. I take the brief reprieve and look around for anything I can use to my advantage but all I can see past the rain and trees is an old radio tower, the metal rusted and decrepit.

A grunt makes me look down and I catch the angry face of Trevor staring up at me, the roaches covering his visor aren’t enough to block his view of me completely and with a frustrated grunt, lightning starts to gather in his cylindrical backpack.

His hands become a blur and one by one, all of the roaches, ants, beetles, wasps, and anything else I’ve got on him are squashed. He’s thorough too, having spent nearly two years fighting with him, he knows all my tricks, he knows exactly where to look for any tracers.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeats, his voice warbling in an odd way as he smashes another gnat. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, but you aren’t yourselves right now, there might be lingering effects we don’t know about.”

I don’t reply, I just release what little bugs Atlas and I have hidden to drop on top of him. Chariot’s eyes widen for just a moment before sharpening into a harsh glare and his hands snap up face me. For a second, I’m worried he’s finally managed make a ranged weapon, something that should be out of his speciality.

But then he starts moving each fist in a circle, fast enough that by the time the first bug lands on him, he’s created enough speed to force out two cyclones from either arm. The wind kicks the rain and bugs away from him and the gales feel icy against me, the rain soaking my costume feels absolutely frigid as the tornado becomes opaque with speed.

The only reason Atlas and I haven’t been knocked out of the air is because the cyclones don’t have the reach to do much more than buffet me but I know if he’d done that just a bit earlier, I’d have been knocked out from the fall.

He must realize his attack isn’t doing anything because the winds stop just as my arms get tired of holding on to Atlas. Carefully, I get his pincers to move underneath my armpits to hoist me up when my bugs make note of something.

Chariot isn’t below me anymore.

The realization makes me snap my head down, my eyes scanning for him or at least the lightning he leaves behind when something crackles behind me. Atlas turns us around so fast that my spine twinges at the rotation and that’s when I see him, moving like a speed up video as he climbs the rusted ladders of the radio tower and eventually parkouring between the railings when there aren’t any left.

I try to fly away as quickly as I can but Chariot has already leapt towards me by the time I have Atlas moving. In a moment, I’m gonna be back at square one, and without any bugs to draw on, he’ll have me back at the tower in less than five minutes. And that’s if he doesn’t decide just to knock me out.

The next few moments happen in slow motion, the adrenaline running through me makes the world start to crawl. 

Lightning forks behind Chariot, the energy firing backwards and banging harshly against the radio tower. His arms windmill in the air, little puffs of air shoot out from pores in his armor, correcting his trajectory as I make a last ditch effort to turn.

He's got his arms down and his hands outstretched, the visor stares at me, completely emotionless and despite the lack of eyes, it feels like I'm staring down a bird of prey, like a hawk is literally snatching a bug out of the air.

The beating in my ears drones on, one long blubdub as Atlas feels the heat coming off of Chariot's suit.

And then, just as he's about to grab me, a figure of muscle and bone slams into him, one titanic hand squeezing his neck. It's big enough that just the index finger and thumb can comfortably wrap around it.

And then the world speeds up and Chariot screams as he's taken back to the ground. Rachel flips them so they land hard on her back, there's a loud snap and I scream for her as Atlas flies me down to the duo.

Rachel groans in pain as she lays there, her body doesn't resemble how she usually is, to be honest, it doesn't even look like what she had grown into after Fullstop either.

Then, she was something of a werewolf, with long, sharp claws, a hunched back, and an almost dog-like maw.

But much in the same way as her hounds have been described as lizard-like, Rachel's form has evolved into something else.

Her skin has been replaced with an even mix of muscle and bone, the major muscle groups have expanded to nearly five times their usual size and the gaps between them have been filled with a lattice of hard, spiked bone.

She's grown to nearly ten feet tall but it's hard to tell the exact dimensions when she's that far in the ground.

She turns her head to look at me and I can see agony in her face as she opens her mouth.

Inside, past rows of razor thin teeth, I can see her actual mouth deeper in, with blood red strands almost at her lips.

"Are you—" she whimpers and shifts, "are you okay?"

Her question stuns me out of the metamorphosis I've witnessed and I nod my head just as her jaw— her second jaw snaps closed.

The teeth click together as they interlock and Chariot starts to thrash in Rachel's grip as she pushes her arm out and away from her chest.

Most of the strength in his power armor is diverted to his legs and without anything to push off of, Chariot starts to gather more charge in his backpack.

"That's not going to work!"

I turn my head and spot Lisa and Brian coming in through the trees, both of them riding on top of Brutus as Judas and Angelica trail after them.

Lisa's got her arms wrapped around Brian's middle as the Shaker pulls back on Brutus' horns, forcing the dog to slow down and heel just as Rachel gets up behind me.

I turn to look up at her and even knowing she's on my side, I still keep my bugs wary as I take her in.

Given what she looked like yesterday, I would've figured her full form would be more dog-like.

But the monster standing above me is only vaguely like a dog, it has a long tail like one, it's maw extends a bit and the ears are pointed and flared like husky's but that's about where the similarities end.

It's more like a demon, twelve feet tall, covered in blood and bone, with a lipless maw filled with teeth that leave no gaps between them.

Her eyes are glowing red and if there's whites on them, the pupil's too big for me to see them. She has two long and curved horns on the top of her head and they grow just the slightest bit as the bone of her spine forces itself back into place.

Despite the admittingly terrifying sight, Chariot doesn't falter for long. 

He starts beating down on the hand holding him, his fists blurring against Rachel.

Each impact sounds like a gunshot but Rachel doesn't even react to the hundred blows that land within seconds.

She just reaches around with her other hand and rips off Chariot's backpack.

His suit groans and hisses as Rachel pulls the battery off him, lightning spasms out from his suit and tries to wrap it, trying to lock it back in like a magnet.

It’s of no use though, his tech isn’t built for raw strength and Rachel’s got plenty to spare. With the sound of a gunshot, the battery is ripped away and the lights of Trevor’s suit dim to a dull red as his suit falls limp.

Rachel sets the inert Tinker on the ground and even without any real strength to move, he thrashes just enough to lift the heavy armor inches off the ground.

“You’re—-” Trevor grunts, his voice muffled and smaller beneath his armor. “You’re making a mistake! We can—”

“We’ll be fine,” Brian interrupts him, hopping off of Brutus and walking around to Angelica. I hadn’t noticed it when they were riding up, but this close I can tell there’s someone on top of the hound, laying down and limp.

I recognize her as soon as Brian hefts her up, Victoria’s hair looks almost a pound heavier with the rain soaking through it and I’d almost be worried about her catching a cold before I remember her girlfriend back at the tower.

Brian sets her down next to Chariot and the Tinker keeps pleading with us even as we start walking back towards the city, closer to a car we can… appropriate.

“Will they be alright?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at our two… teammates.

“Should be,” Lisa answers, “Chariot’s got an emergency transponder in his suit and Victoria’s probably good to wake up in the next ten minutes, her voice might be a little hoarse though.”

“Still can’t believe they did that,” Rachel speaks up, her outer shell steaming as she starts to shrink down. “We have to get him back, they know we have to so why— I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either, Rache,” Lisa says, scrubbing at her face and holding back a yawn. “Now hurry up and shrink down already, we need to get going.”