Chapter Twenty-Five - A Bit of Quiet

Emily was slowly starting to believe that Miss Headerson was something of a saint.

When she returned (after calling her mom to reassure both older women that everything was fine) the teacher had fetched a cloth, had helped clean off the ice cream stains on cheeks and mouths, then had gathered all of Emily’s sisters and her own daughter in their little classroom and had started teaching them then and there. An impromptu lesson on maths, of all things.

“I think,” Emily’s mom had said as they were heading out. “That Heather’s actually a little glad. Her daughter’s never been on an adventure of any sort you know? A mother worries.”

Emily wondered if her mother had worried about her own lack of adventures when she was younger. She had never snuck out to get ice cream before. Then again, she didn’t have as many self-reinforcing bad influences as her sisters had.

When they discovered that all the girls were missing, Emily just knew it was her sister’s fault somehow. And yet, even after finding them, she still folded and bought them all ice cream. Just a small cone.

She was probably going to be a terrible parent one day, if that day ever came around.

Her mom agreed to pick up the girls at around four, which meant that for the second time in a week, Emily had a good portion of the day all to herself. Her mom dropped her off on the edge of campus, and Emily headed out to her classes. Two in a row.

She couldn’t help but glance at her phone every so often, in case something went wrong with her sisters, but it stayed blessedly silent and she didn’t receive any horrified texts from Heather saying that Athena had scared the postman to death or that Teddy had lit the house on fire after learning about taxes or something.

Classes ended, and Emily was a little worried that she’d only taken in about half of what she was supposed to. Fortunately, as she left the room, she noticed that a few students were half-asleep even though class was over. If they were graded on a curve, she probably didn’t have too much to worry about.

Nonetheless, when she arrived in her room, she pulled out her textbooks and went over the day’s lessons and her sparse notes. A few things clicked, though they seemed mostly obvious in hindsight.

She went online and looked up her courses on the school’s forum and found that a few students from previous years had posted their notes on there, so she copied over a few of the better points she had missed into her own notebook.

There was this great feeling when working on something so diligently, it made her feel like she was being productive, taking control of her life in the only way that she could and-- and the door to her room shuddered as someone knocked on it.

Emily’s heart made a valiant attempt to burst out of her chest, but she reined it in and stood up to check and see who was there.

She found Sam on the other side, as well as an older woman she didn’t recognize. “Uh, hello?” Emily asked.

“See,” Sam said, not to Emily, but to the woman next to her. “It’s just Emily in there. I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“I received reports,” the woman began.

“Yeah, sure,” Sam said. “And six-oh-four has a meth lab in his bathroom.”

“Pardon?!” the lady asked.

Sam shook her head. “I’m trying to make a point here, that anyone can make up anything, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Also, hi Emily.”

“Uh, hello,” Emily said again. “Can I help you?”

Sam shook her head. “This is... Dorthy? She got some complaints that there were kids staying on this floor.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “Uh.”

“I told her that the only kids around were your siblings who visited a few days ago, but they didn’t stay here for long.”

“R-right,” Emily said. “They’re in school now, I guess. Uh, with my mom. She visited too. Is that okay?”

Dorthy sighed. “Yes, that’s fine, sorry for bothering you, miss Wright.”

“It’s nothing,” Emily said.

Sam and Dorthy spoke a bit more while heading over to the elevator, then Sam waved the woman good-bye and rushed back to Emily. “That was something,” Sam said.

“Someone made a complaint?”

“Yeah, one of the brats stole the toaster,” Sam said. “Someone made a complaint about that, then someone said it was Trinity, and... yeah, now there’s a rumour going around. But hey, no kids today, so we got lucky, right?”

“I guess,” Emily said. That could have been a disaster.

“What’re you up to?” Sam asked as she invited herself into Emily’s room.

“I’m studying,” Emily said, making sure to use present-tense as a hint to Sam that she was busy.

Sam nodded. “Cool, cool. I won’t take up too much of your time,” she said as she took over Emily’s chair. “Did you hear about Iron Chains?”

Emily closed the door. “No?”

“Oh, right, so, that villain that robbed a bank a couple of days ago? They tried again, but this time they hit a jewlers. You know the one next to that pawn shop?”

“I don’t know it, but sure,” Emily said. “What’s that got to do with Iron Chains?”

“Right, so Iron Chains was around that area with Glamazon--”

Emily raised a hand, interrupting Sam mid-story. “He’s not in jail?”

“Nope,” Sam said. She popped the ‘p’ in the most obnoxious way. “He’s going by a whole new name, has one of those newbie-hero spandex costumes on, and has only gone out with an escort, but it’s him. I saw the guy up close, a half-mask isn’t going to hide his ID from me, and besides, how many chain-users can there be in a single city. Though he’s using a slightly different set-up now.”

“How is he not in jail?” Emily asked.

Sam grinned. “Pissed?”

“I... no? Maybe. We arrested him.”

“Yeah, but the HRT took him in, which means that he’s being converted. I don’t think he was actually a capital-V villain, you know? Probably just a dude with the hero title and too little brains for his own good. So they’re rebranding and retraining him. Happens all the time.”

“That’s... that’s so unfair,” Emily said. She couldn’t imagine the good guys ever allowing her to get away so easily, not since she was a proper villain, at least according to her powers.

Sam nodded along. “Anyway, so he was doing a training exercise with Glamazon, right? The two of them and a pair of troopers minding them. Walk around, be seen, shake hands, do autographs, learn the ropes. Boring low-level PR stuff. Then Mister Bank Robber hits the jewellery store one road over.”

“They caught him?” Emily asked.

“No, but they did fight, right out in the open. Well, it was less of a fight and more of a running battle.”

Emily moved over to her bed and sat on the edge of it. “That sounds... kind of scary, actually. Did they capture the robber?”

“Nope, not even close,” Sam said. “Well, maybe a little bit close. I heard that they’re looking for the guy at all the local hospitals. Chainboy whipped him good. There’s video and everything. Glamazon tends to turn things into a whole lightshow, so a lot of people noticed.”

“How do you know all of this?” Emily asked.

“Internet.”

That was... a fair response.

“So, Iron Chains is back out, and we might have to fight him again. He’ll know more about us this time. Probably won’t be caught by surprise. Might even have help.”

“Yeah, but we whooped him once,” Sam said with unshakable confidence. “We’ll manage again. I’m more interested in the villain.”

“The bank robber?” Emily asked.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. He might be injured, which means that if some good-samaritan happened to make him an offer, well, he wouldn’t be able to refuse it, right?”

“And how do you expect to find this guy?” Emily asked.

“Protagonist powers.”

“What?” Emily asked. Was there another powered person around to cause her some trouble.

“Your protagonist powers,” Sam said. “You know, your ability to run into wild coincidental things that end up helping you in the long run.”

“I don’t have anything like that,” Emily said. “I wish I had something like that. It would save me a lot of trouble.”

Sam leaned back into Emily’s chair. “Know anyone that could help then?”

“Why are you so obsessed with this guy?” Emily asked.

“He robbed a bank! That’s like, the quintessential villain thing to do, and he got away with it too. I want to shake his hand, maybe give him a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the--”

“O-okay,” Emily interrupted. “I might know someone who knows a lot of things. He’s an information broker, but I really don’t see why we need to go and find this villain. Let the heroes take care of him, he’s not our problem.”

Sam’s answer was a knowing, dangerous grin.

***