2.12

“What the…?” Eva mutters, staring out the window with the rest of us.

“We should go see what’s happening,” Rory asserts.

“We’re not even on duty, Rory,” Olivia points out.

“It’s still our responsibility.”

“I… can’t believe I’m saying this, but Olivia has a point, right? What would we even do?” I start, hesitantly.

“Nah, fuck that,” Eva interrupts. “I wanna see what’s happening.” She slides out of her chair and marches to the restaurant’s front door, while we all scramble to follow her.

Stepping out onto the street is overwhelming. Immediately, a rush of noise and an almost physical presence settles around us with the sheer amount of people crowding the intersection. The road is packed, and almost everyone has a sign of some kind, or a banner. Up front, the crowd’s thinned out a little, but only because it looks like the crowd is marching in that direction.

Through gaps in the crowd, I can see riot vans joining the typical police cars on both sides of the intersection, and a small squad of them pulling up in front of the march. Someone at the front takes the moment to turn around and lift a megaphone to their lips.

“Justice for Simon Gorman!” They shout, and the crowd responds in turn, pushing up against the anti-riot personnel setting up on all sides of the intersection.

Rook said Olivia’s stunt with the convenience store robber was all over the internet. I glance at Olivia and something in my chest goes cold.

Did he die?

Olivia seems to shrink in on herself. It’s novel to watch.

“C’mon, let’s get closer,” Eva shouts, carving a path closer to the front of the march, where I can see another van rolling up to the barricade. This one, in contrast with the riot vehicles, is shockingly colored in the Brightheart Hero Association’s striking red and gold, with their logo plastered on the side. We reach close to the front of the march, somewhat off to the side near one of the barricaded intersections to the right side of the road, just in time to watch two heroes exit the large vehicle.

A tall woman hovers out, arms held in a vaguely regal manner. Her costume is skintight and a stark, cream color, with gold bracers and anklets. A gold headband with a small gem inset on her forehead wraps around her face and eyes. Iridescent energy warps the air around her hands, eliciting gasps from the crowd.

The man behind her doesn’t float, and in fact the concrete cracks beneath his feet as he steps down from the van, and it lurches up, relieved of the weight of his impressive-looking steel-gray power armor. The suit twinkles with points of blue light, clashing with the separate theme of the sleek silver lance he carries with him.

Stellara and Lancer, the de facto leader of Brightheart’s hero team. An electronic crackle sounds, and then a robotic tenor bursts out from Lancer, nothing like Rook’s smooth voice modulation.

“Citizens, please disperse. You are not authorized to gather. Brightheart has jurisdiction to use force if you do not comply.” The lance’s tip slams against the ground as Lancer pulls his suit of armor forward, servos audibly whirring and plates shifting along its surface.

“Fuck off, corporate hack!”

“Fucking company bounty hunters!”

“Bootlickers!”

“Justice for Simon!”

The crowd doesn’t disperse, and in fact it seems to get more fired up the longer the heroes stick around. People start yelling, chanting, waving their signs and their banners. The person with the megaphone uses it abundantly.

“Justice for Simon!” The megaphone shrieks, riling up the crowd while they push against the riot shields deployed in rows at the ends of the intersection.

“...Maybe this was a bad idea!” I comment, struggling to be heard over the noise.

“What?!” Eva shouts back, obviously not hearing me.

Then, Stellara raises her hand.

On TV, her blasts sorta look like spilled oil, or those bubble-blowers you get at the dollar store, but twisted in on itself. In real life, it starts with a flash of bright white light, and ends with me and everyone within a twenty-foot radius of Stellara on the ground. The people closer to her writhe and try to scramble away, while those at the edge rush to help them up, stumbling through a thick fog of shimmering light that stretches like cobwebs over the area. The light curves up and over the raised and cracked tarmac from the crater her blast leaves.

There was probably a sound, but my ears are ringing, and I can’t quite remember what it might have sounded like besides loud.

I use my power to fix my ears — mostly — and scramble to my feet. Sound fades in, of people screaming, shouting, Lancer’s robotic voice announcing something to the crowd — I stumble to the side. Eva and the others were knocked down in the blast, I need to help them up —

A couple people from the crowd beat me to it, pulling them back behind the front line. I struggle to stay with them, trying to ignore the occasional comment or affirmation from the people around me.

“Hey, kid, are you alright?!” Some guy asks me as I stumble farther into the center of the crowd, next to the others. He has to shout to be heard, or maybe his ears are still ringing. I’m about to answer, when static sounds from back at the front of the march, pushed back by now from the blast.

“F — fuck off…!”

The megaphone…?! They’re still going?!

In fact, the march hasn’t decreased in intensity at all. People are pulling themselves and others off the ground, producing first-aid kits from seemingly nowhere, and moving forward.

So in response, the police throw tear gas. It whistles through the air, clanks against the ground, and explodes in a fwump. The area is covered, I can’t see anything beyond the thick gray cloud in front of my stinging eyes. My throat burns, and I stumble back —

Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the clunk-hiss of Lancer’s power armor, and the scuff of boots on pavement.

—

“— riots across the city in response to the hospitalization of one Dewey Stevens, who was injured during an interaction with the United States Metahuman Coalition’s Junior Division. In spite of the USMC’s efforts to deescalate the situation, crowds of people are becoming violent in the city streets tonight, and show no sign of stopping…”

“This was a miserable idea,” I comment, trying to ignore the news blaring on a TV hanging in the corner outside the cell. Not like a prison cell or anything, it’s a large barred area with a couple benches in the back of the police precinct. Our little group sits in the corner, trying to avoid the arrested protesters crowding the rest of the cell.

Olivia snorts. “Whatever. Dad’ll get us out.”

“No he won’t. He’s too busy lobbying the government or whatever,” I shoot back.

“Fuck off!” A couple people stare at us, and Olivia ducks her head. “Fuck off,” she says, quietly this time.

“— the USMC has since declined to comment, referring to their standing policy of containment and subduing of disturbances, a precedent set decades ago in response to high-profile incidents still fresh in the public’s memory. We all remember Orca.

“Still, some voices in the community are proposing the dissolution of government metahuman regulation, seemingly as a result of a perceived history of violence among the current administration’s members. Do any of these arguments hold any water? Well, we have our very own Derek Price here on the air today, administrator of Westpoint’s branch of the United States Metahuman Watch. Derek, what do you think?

“Well, Jolene, I think that we live in a very difficult age, and it’s easy to be… frightened, I suppose, by someone with so much responsibility. But ultimately, heroes are a very important part of our society, you know, they’ve been around since 1979 —”

“Hey!” I call out to the guard sitting lazily in her folding chair outside the cell. “Can you change the fuckin’ channel!” I get a few woops of agreement from the other cellmates.

She gives me a look, but haphazardly changes it anyway.

“...attack in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Disaster colloquially titled ‘Heartbreaker’ decimated a large part of the city, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in damages. Thankfully, casualties were kept to a minimum, sources estimating closer to 200, in large part due to the USMC tower, and the Forecaster’s prior warning. Citizens were informed of the danger extremely early, and were able to evacuate into the tower’s facilities within a few days, meaning the USMC’s defensive capabilities could be raised in record time.

“The USMC administration reports huge growth in approval ratings following this attack, though we’ll have to wait and see if this growth lasts. In other news, we’ll have the Forecaster’s next report in about an hour, so stick around after these messages.”

I huff. “This is worse!”

The guard shrugs, and ignores me. I put my head in my hands.

—

It’s past evening when a USMC representative comes to collect us, and by the time we get home we’re all exhausted. Rook wants us down on the training floor anyway, but at least she’s specified we don’t have to change into our uniforms.

We filter in one by one after a couple minutes stalling in our rooms, and take our seats on the varied fake architecture.

Rook clears her throat. “I don’t know who approved your little ‘outing’, but it won’t be happening again. Not until this all blows over, at least.” She sighs. “But that’s not why I’ve brought you here. We’ve found information on the… creatures you’ve been encountering.”

I blink. “All of them? At once?”

Rook shakes her head. “Initially, we had assumed there was a new mutant super in the area. The USMC isn’t unaccustomed to dealing with supers of this variety, but the creatures we had observed during your fights seemed more extreme than usual.” One of Rook’s screen drones descends from the ceiling, extending out its TV arm. It flickers, and displays a photo of… someone. They’re wearing a well-tailored gray suit that fits nicely onto their large build, along with black leather gloves and combat boots. The photo is grainy, and taken from a distance.

They also have a wolf head.

“This is Full Moon. Some of you might recognize her, from her debut years ago or from your own personal experience. She has a form of enhanced durability and seemingly endless stamina. She also has… extra features.” The screen flickers, now displaying a news broadcast on the topic, something from years ago. “Her and her accomplice, Timepiece, arrived in the city and advertised themselves as a mercenary company using a number of high-profile robberies. Since then, they’ve been lying low, taking jobs with discretion. The USMC has made it a policy to avoid giving them publicity, and they seem content with this.”

Rook adjusts her glasses. “They are tactical, intelligent, and while their features are… abnormal, they are not as extreme as the creatures you have encountered. As such, the USMC has had our suspicions since the start, and it’s only now we are able to come close to proving anything.”

“You have proof?” Rory asks.

She nods. “We have witness testimony of a suspicious person loitering outside the Westpoint Memorial Museum. The witness describes a man of slightly-above-average height, wearing a dusty trench coat.” She clears her throat.

“As the witness tells it, they watched the suspect circle around the museum entrance for some time before entering an alleyway nearby. The witness reports seeing the creatures emerge from ‘the shadows,’ interacting with the suspect, and leaving.”

“It’s not exactly an airtight proof, but the higher ups have decided that this is sufficient to conduct an investigation.” The drone folds up and flies off, buzzing. “All this to say, you’ll likely be on standby for investigation or apprehension in the coming weeks. While you’re on the field, you’ll be expected to keep an eye out and report back anything you notice. Clear?”

“Clear!” We echo back.

Rook nods, again. “Good. With luck, the criminal will be identified swiftly.”