Chapter Text
14th May 2011- Taylor Hebert
The city was devolving into chaos. Brockton Bay had always been a cesspit but the last weeks had seen it evolve into a throbbing stew of fear and hate and desperation. It bubbled over the edges of its pot, sizzling and burning down the sides until the blackened overflow spilled into everyday life.
For three city blocks around her, this seething filth poured into her heart in a torrent, but the gangs were starting to learn. They were decentralising. Anywhere there was a gathering of human scum was a beacon for her, but an individual person might have just been a piece of shit rather than a criminal piece of shit.
Taylor peddled her bicycle, stolen from an aforementioned criminal piece of shit, through the boiling shithole of Brockton Bay. Her power let her selectively remove herself from people's perceptions by essentially making them hallucinate that she wasn't there, allowing her to ride past them unnoticed. She was a ghost to them, something that haunted the wicked and dealt justice.
She was riding through Downtown, aimlessly, as usual, dodging foot traffic and weaving around cars, when an odd feeling of worry coming from deep underground. She peddled toward it, a few others coming into her range near it. They were beats she didn't recognise, and the location itself was more than strange. Why were there people under the city? And the way they were laid out, they weren't workers in a storm drain; not with those fears. They read like criminals. Experienced criminals.
Taylor opened them up as wide as she could without alerting them, fingering through their layers. The bitter taste of fear of being discovered for past war crimes wrung a disgusted sneer from her, but she didn't know what to make of it. Why were all these horrible specimens gathered underground? She continued riding until she was right on top of them, under some parking garage.
Should she open the floodgates and let them have it? Should she, for the first time in her cape career, call it into the authorities? Wait and monitor them to find out when best to strike?
Taylor didn't have the slightest clue as to who they might be. They were spaced out like they were inside some kind of large underground building, but that sounded stupid. Perhaps they had access to a parahuman who could shape earth who had created the space for them? Maybe they had found what was already there, a relic from Brockton's earlier days?
Taylor made to leave, but an irregular signal from underground caught her attention. It was someone just waking up, and their conscious signal was nothing like the others. Guilt, fear, yes the others had these too, but these were… fresher. Younger. Fewer layers, but…
Someone whose power was ruining their life. They didn't fear where they were, so they weren't a hostage. They were scared of eating? Throwing up and getting fat? This wasn't making a whole lot of sense. One of the most aggravating aspects of her power was that if she couldn't see her target it was hard to gauge when to use subtlety and when to slam them with everything she had. She continued peddling, deciding that this was something best looked into. Surely there would be city records of a great big underground space like that.
15th May 2011- Damien Veder
Damien lay in his uncomfortable, unfamiliar single bed in a Protectorate safe house. He hadn't been sleeping well this past week so it wasn't becoming uncommon for him to be awake far, far earlier than he was used to. The cheap clock on his bedside table informed him it was just past six-thirty but he'd already been awake for hours.
Brockton Bay was cursed. It had taken everything from him. His beard, lovingly cared for and shaved away by stress. His job, the engineering firm he and Veronica both worked at had gone under recently. His wife, his darling Veronica in a coma due to gang violence. His son, his baby Greg growing distant and quiet after repeated attempts on his life.
It was for the best they were leaving. Tomorrow both he and Greg would fly to Los Angeles, never to see this wretched city again, with Veronica being moved to the best hospital in LA the PRT could provide shortly thereafter.
Damien yawned and rolled over, facing the framed photograph of a vase of flowers dimly illuminated by the first slivers of dawn. He closed his gritty eyes.
His fitful half-sleep was cut by the ear-splitting wail of an air raid siren.