Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was in a bad spot.

Little old me was all alone in an alley without any backup and surrounded by a gang of five men, each with guns, which was weird, most grunts didn’t have the money to afford those. The biggest guy had one leveled at my head, it was a bit hard for him to line up the shot while coughing violently but he did it well enough to put me in imminent danger.

The only thing I had going for me was the gas that was seeping out of the bullet wounds in my stomach and that I was breathing out. It was a reddish brown smoke that had settled around the alley, while I’d never felt it I knew that it wasn’t the greatest to breathe in, even with their gas masks the goons around me were having a really hard time. Quinn had called my smoke an irritating asphyxiant, it put people to sleep and even if it didn’t kill them it still stung like tear gas on the way down. 

I missed Quinn…

Anyway, the guy standing above me finished coughing for a second and from what I could gather he sneered, it was hard to tell with the mask. “Choke on this bitch.”

Haha, real funny, make a pun out of my cape name, like nobody’s ever–

The bullet entered my head and everything went dark.

In my personal opinion dying lost a lot of its luster after the first few times. There were no pearly gates, no eternal lake of fire, just nothingness. It didn’t even stretch out, the thing with nothing was that it never happened, it was just a blip and the occasional memory.

Then, in an instant my body was remade from the gas in the alleyway, my mind was yanked from the nonexistence of death and put back into a brain that could process information. I was behind the group of men that had just executed me, the same gas that just resurrected me was spewing out of my old body.

At this point my smoke was starting to take full effect, the guy who had put lead in my head had already fallen over after being blasted by my previous body’s plume and the others didn’t look like they were going to be lasting much longer. To my eyes they looked like four silhouettes but I had a secret just for scenarios like this.

My vision shifted and I could see them, the little electric impulses that ran through the muscles and nerves of the men and made up their bodies. At first it had been a bit disconcerting but I grew used to it quick enough, just like the rest of my power. I didn’t just see them though, I could see the signatures of people walking by the alley on the street and in the buildings on either side of me as well, somehow it wasn’t ever overwhelming, like my brain had been rewired to know how to digest the information.

I brought Quinn’s parting gift from my belt as one of the men turned to run, it felt weird to have it in my hands again, almost dirty. The stun gun, as I so affectionately called it, was a pistol sized, steampunk looking weapon that could shoot arcs of electricity at people, a bit like those laser things from Ghostbusters but used on people.

The runner went down without much of a fight, the stun gun might have been set to incapacitate but Quinn didn’t do things by half measures, he was out like a lightbulb. Two of the last guys had decided to claw at their throats in a panic which wasn’t a very productive use of their dwindling time but the last one started waving around his gun.

“Stupid bitch, I’ll kill you!”

He started to fire, the gunshots were wild and with my smoke obscuring me it was looking like I was in the clear from dying again this time around, lucky me!

I let out another puff of gas as I raised the stun gun and fired, there was one last bang as the zap of Quinn’s last gift caused an itty bitty muscle spasm in the gunman's hand.

I spared a glance to make sure that the two men who had panicked were down on the ground before letting out a sigh of relief. Once I’d made sure that there wouldn’t be any more problems I mentally patted myself on the back and got to work.

My smoke cleared up pretty quickly, I was almost eighty percent sure it didn’t stick around when I didn’t need it to. Once enough was gone to the point where I could see I started to rifle through the pockets of the thugs that had gone after me.

I know, stealing wasn’t really all that heroic but they had actually killed me, that deserved to have their wallets hit by the murder tax. All together they had about five hundred dollars, whatever idiot that put a hit out on the woman that couldn’t die had probably paid them in advance. I got out my zip ties and started tying their hands together, they’d last long enough that I could just knock out whatever unlucky goon woke up.

Then I moved to my last body. Its costume had taken a few hits but it was still sturdy looking enough, I’d made it to be a lot more spooky than heroic, my power kind of made being a normal hero pretty difficult and that was the next best thing. I had a burlap sack on my head that had a facemask under it, the noose around my neck which was a little on the nose but I thought it was ironic enough and the rest of the outfit could be described as vaguely scarecrow-esque with a sleeveless tunic thing and pants made of the same hempen material as my hood. It was a lot more comfortable than it looked, mostly because of the bodysuit under all of it.

I went through my own pockets and pulled out my last wallet, I took the money and IDs from it and added it to my haul. That was definitely illegal but it wasn’t like she was going to be using it and a few hundred dollars wasn’t going to break the economy or anything.

Once I had all my new money and old identification safely tucked away in my pocket I brought my phone out and dialed the local Protectorate number, made for concerned citizens and independent heroes like me.

“This is the Protectorate East-South-East hotline, is there an emergency?”

I knew that they probably knew my number by now but there was a silly thing called protocol that they needed to follow. “Nope. This is Choke, I need a pickup for some guys that killed me, think you can send someone my way?”

“...” I heard a muffled groan. “Ma’am, are you currently in need of medical attention?”

“I’m all good! I wish I could call the cops just as much as you but well, you know the rules.” Given the fact that I was a parahuman, things were strictly in the Protectorate and PRT’s court, also I didn’t really want to freak out more cops with my dead bodies.

There was a much less annoyed sounding sigh and after a moment the dispatcher spoke again. “Alright, Arborea is patrolling nearby. I can send her over, she should be there in fifteen.”

“Gotcha, thanks a ton!” Then they hung up, that was pretty common, when I first started it was a lot more of an intensive thing but after a while they got used to my antics.

As I waited for Arborea I posted up on a wall and started to scroll on PHO absentmindedly as I thought of Quinn.

I still loved her, I knew that much but even I could admit that things didn’t end as well as they could have. The problem was I had no idea why they got so bad. I knew something had happened but I could only guess what, one day we were together and happy and the next she was shouting that she hated me, it was a mystery.

It was definitely something we’d need to work through once we got back together, we both needed a bit of time on our own and it had hurt when all that happened but it was just like she’d said before things got bad, we belonged together.

The only problem was that I didn’t really have much to do outside of heroing, while I still had a legal identity thanks to the PRT I couldn’t really go back to college or anything, the Haddie Fitzpatrick that had attended was found dead. Without outing myself as a cape I couldn’t really go back, same with my family, they’d already had the dang funeral, I couldn’t do that to them.

So I was stuck being a hero, which wasn’t really that bad but it reminded me of Quinn and whenever I was reminded of Quinn I got admittedly a bit weird about things.

I wasn’t an idiot, I knew that a big part of the love I felt for her was because of our trigger events, I just didn’t really care. So what if the feelings weren’t made normally, they were still there, I still loved Quinn so much that it could almost hurt when she wasn’t around.

I needed her, I could only hope that she needed me back.

The sound of someone clearing their throat broke me from my thoughts, I looked up from my phone at where the sound had come from. 

It was Arborea, she was a monster cape, a sevenish foot tall woman made out of bark and leaves with a dress that had this sort of druid aesthetic. She had a power that adapted her to her environment, that made her the Protectorate’s go-to when involving someone like me, my smoke might have almost fully dissipated but most people were still irritated by it even in small quantities.

Arborea gave me a tentative smile, it broke slightly when she saw my corpse. “Hi Choke, can you give me the rundown of what happened?”

“Sure thing!” I liked Arborea, she was friendly enough. “I was patrolling and some of these guys here started making a commotion, only figured out they were doing their best to kill me once I went into the alley. They ambushed me, shot me in the gut a few times and well, you can see how that went.”

She looked at the five unconscious gunmen and nodded, after a second she nodded and gave me another smile. “Great job Choke, would you mind answering a question or two while I’ve got you here?”

“Shoot, I don’t got much else to do, what’d you want to know?” Usually it was Quinn who asked me questions after something like this, I tried not to hold it against Arborea.

She paused for a second, probably listening to someone tell her what to ask me on her headset. “Alright, did the men say anything about who hired them?”

“Nah, my best bet would be Beatdown though, I’ve been moving in on his turf lately.” For a moment I thought about it, Beatdown liked to make a big show of things, he went after the Protectorate in person whenever they crossed him. “On second thought, probably not, this isn’t his style.”

Arborea nodded along, this was pretty cut and dry, I hadn’t even broken into somewhere this time around. “Well, there’s not much more to say. We’ll have a few PRT patrol cars come through and pick these guys up in a few minutes, good work.”

“Thanks! Just doing my part.” With a grin that only I knew was there I went to leave, my job was done, the bad guys were being put away.

One thing stopped me though.

I turned around to Arborea, the question just needed to be asked. “Before I go, do you know if Circuit is okay? I haven’t seen her patrolling around lately.”

“I-I don’t think I should talk about that.” With a gulp her demeanor shifted, she was uncomfortable.

With a strained laugh I stepped forward. “C’mon, I just want to make sure she’s safe, can’t you tell me that much?”

For a moment Arborea stilled, whatever rat that was feeding her information was talking to her. “She’s safe, that’s all I can say.”

Anger roiled in my stomach, I wanted to be with Quinn and this bitch was keeping me from her, how dare she! I loved Quinn and she should love me, there wasn’t anything wrong with that, we belonged together, she said so herself.

“Choke, take your hand off your weapon.” Arborea’s uneasiness evaporated into determination as she spoke the command.

I looked down, I hadn’t even noticed that I was gripping Quinn’s stun gun. I took a deep breath and felt a small spurt of my gas leave my body with the exhale. “... Sorry, got a bit worked up there, can’t you just tell me where she went?”

“I’m sorry Choke, I really don’t think I can do that.”

“Fine.” And with that I turned and walked away, if Arborea didn’t want to be helpful then I was done with her.

I’d find Quinn, one way or another.

Chapter Text

I was doing the right thing.

I think I always knew that me and Haddie weren’t going to work out, that it just wasn’t meant to be. It had been fun, playing at a relationship with her but now was the time to cut ties and move on with my life. I'd miss it but I couldn’t hurt her again, not when I knew how fragile she could be.

So I left, in the moment it had been hard, I wanted so much to make her mine, to ruin her. It was scary really, that I could get sucked into the vitriolic mixture of love and hate I felt for her. Even now a small part of me reveled in the control I’d felt, after that day out on patrol something in me had flipped and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever gone back to the way I was before.

I’d hurt Haddie, I felt terrible about it, sure, but what's to say I wouldn’t do it again?

Leaving was the best option, I put in a request for a transfer and a few days later it was accepted. It would be better this way, this is what I was meant to do with my life.

Brockton Bay might not have been exactly where I’d expected to end up but I’d make it work. I was meeting with Armsmaster and a few other members of the Protectorate ENE today, in all honesty I felt a bit out of my depth. It was weird to think but it’d barely been half a year since I got my powers.

I’d already had a meeting with the director in charge of the local PRT branch, Director Piggot, an overweight woman with blonde hair and a gaze that promised hours of paperwork if I crossed her. The meeting mostly just covered the legal aspect to my new placement, she’d been pretty blunt about needing more capes but she said she’d leave information about the threats the city faced to Armsmaster. I’d gotten the impression that she disliked me for some reason, there was nothing that I could point out specifically but she seemed like she wanted the meeting to be over quickly.

I had to admit, the Protectorate ENE had a much more impressive headquarters than I was used to. It was made out of a decommissioned oil rig, from the window of the car I could see the forcefield, through it the buildings looked like one of those old technicolor movies. As we drove closer I could make out some of the details of the base through the glass of the window and my mask.

I was in my costume, it took a while but Image had eventually settled on giving me a lab coat under my armor to play up the scientist side of things. I had on one of my respirators, it had taken a while to make it look approachable enough when it covered my entire face but I liked to think I did a good job.

As the PRT car that I was in drove closer to the headquarters a hard light bridge formed between it and the city proper, a few people got out their phones and took pictures. I tensed a bit when we got onto the bridge but the car barely lurched.

“Ma’am, we’re approaching the Protectorate ENE headquarters, please have your ID ready.” The officer that was driving me had a southern twang to his voice, he seemed genial enough, if a bit tired.

I brought my identification, it resembled a passport slightly, out from my pocket and nodded towards him. “Of course.” My voice was clear despite the gas mask I had on, that had been one of the first things I added to it.

Eventually we crossed the bridge and the car stopped in front of a checkpoint, another officer came around to the passenger side and knocked, the man who had driven me rolled down the window. “ID?”

I handed her my identification, she looked over it for a moment before nodding and giving it back.

“You know this week's password?” This was the part I wasn’t that happy with, given how things ended in my last posting I’d been flagged as possibly under some kind of master-like effect, Director Piggot had said as much as she gave me the password.

“Calusa four-seven-two.” There were two passwords that the Protectorate used, one for if someone was being coerced and another actual password, I used the latter.

“Alright.” The officer opened the door and gestured for me to get out of the car, once I did she spoke again into her radio. “I’ve got Circuit here, she passed basic M/S protocol. Where do you want her?” 

A voice that I was fairly certain belonged to Armsmaster responded. “You can bring her to meeting room A.”

“Roger that.” Then the officer turned back to me. “Follow me, Armsmaster will be giving you the tour after you've been introduced.”

I gave her a nod and she began to lead me further into the Protectorate headquarters. It was laid out in a very utilitarian way, the main building took up about a third of the space and there were a few others off to the side, one was a garage and the other looked like a storage building. The architecture was nice but it looked like more of an afterthought, like efficiency was considered first and then it was made to look grand enough to house superheroes.

Eventually we made it to the largest building and the officer that was guiding me leaned down for a retinal scan, once it was done she came back up and gave me a smile. “You’ll be added to the system tonight. I hope you got your beauty sleep, you’ve got a stack of paperwork and identification to get through.”

“It is what it is, I knew what I was signing up for asking for a transfer.” We both walked into the building.

The officer led me up a set of stairs and stopped by the first door on the left, it was labeled with an A. “Well, here we are, ready to face the music?”

With another nod I stepped forward and opened the door, inside was a meeting room with about a third of the seats full. Standing near the front with a projector was Armsmaster, sitting on one side the table was a woman wearing a scarf over her face patterned after an American flag and a man dressed in gold and white armor with a Greek-looking helmet. On the other side was another man and woman, the man wore a red bodysuit and a mask that covered his upper face while the woman had on a gray and black bodysuit with blue lines like circuitry running along it.

“Circuit.” Armsmaster smiled at me as he motioned for me to come in. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine sir.” At that the man in red snorted a bit but the woman next to him shut him up with an elbow.

I sat down next to the man in golden armor as Armsmaster started talking again. “As you know I am Armsmaster, the leader of the Protectorate East-North-East. Next to you is Dauntless and Miss Militia.” The two of them nodded to me and Armsmaster pointed to the pair across from me. “Those two are Assault and Battery, Velocity and Triumph are patrolling at the moment. Please don’t take anything Assault says too seriously.”

“C’mon Armsy, I’m not gonna corrupt her or anything.” The two of them were smiling, that kind of ribbing had been common enough in the ESE branch as well.

Battery sighed. “What he means to say is that he’ll be on his best behavior, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Triumph.”

“Seriously, you pull a guy's leg one time and he hates you for months.” Assault gave me a look as if to say ‘this is what I have to deal with.’ He almost reminded me of Haddie, she was also a pretty big jokester, the comparison stung.

Armsmaster cleared his throat and everyone quieted down, he looked at me for a second before speaking. “First thing’s first, I’ve read your file but I’d prefer to hear about your powers from your own mouth, I’ve come to learn that reports sometimes don’t paint a full picture.”

“Oh, right.” I shifted slightly now that everyone’s attention was fully on me before I explained. “I’m a tinker, I mostly make things that focus on heavy electrical currents but I’m also able to do a lot with life support systems.”

Armsmaster nodded and Assault groaned. “Not that I mind another tinker but are you two gonna dissolve into technobabble? I’d rather not spend the rest of this meeting not understanding a single thing you say.”

“Of course not, I just want to make sure that everyone has a good idea of what Circuit brings to the table.” Armsmaster looked towards me again. “If you didn’t mind, could you expand on that, what are some of the things you’ve made?”

“Most of my work is weaponizing electricity, my biggest creation yet is my plasma cannon, it’s only cleared for A-class threats though. The devices I use regularly are essentially long range tasers. I’ve also worked on a lot of air filtration systems, my mask is one of the best.” The rest of the table nodded along at my explanation. I purposely didn’t go into detail about some of my work that edged the line of being wet tinkering, I didn’t want people comparing me to the likes of Bonesaw.

A small smile grew on Armsmaster’s face before curiosity overtook it. “I read that you have a secondary power, exhausting people?”

“And devices, it’s a bit hard to explain but for instance, if I touched a light source the light would dim. It’s really not that big of a power.”

Dauntless hummed for a second. “It still sounds like it could be useful enough against other tinkers, have you tried anything like that?”

“No…” Due to being in a much less parahuman saturated area the Protectorate ESE didn’t have any other tinkers and it wasn’t like Steelworker would be willing to have me make his things worse. “There was an independent tinker at my last posting but I haven’t really gotten the opportunity to test that yet.”

“It’s worth a try, Coil’s gang uses a large amount of tinkertech weaponry, I wouldn’t mind helping you test that aspect of your power.” Armsmaster’s face still had that pensive look.

For a moment the room was quiet but it was Assault who spoke up next. “So, why’d you transfer, Brockton Bay isn’t really much of a vacation spot.”

While I couldn’t see under his visor I got the impression that Armsmaster was glaring at the man. “So long as you’re comfortable sharing, I’ve read your file.”

I took a deep breath. I could trust these people, they were heroes, they should know the truth, they deserved to know.

“I had an… altercation with Choke, an independent hero. We triggered together and it wasn’t a great place for me to be.” That brought the mood in the room down, most capes went months without even mentioning their trigger events and here I was doing it in the first meeting. 

Armsmaster cleared his throat again to overcome the second awkward silence that had settled over the room. “When people trigger together something called a cluster can be formed, these clusters contain people with a number of powers comparable to the amount of people in the cluster, it’s a theory that most Grab-Bag capes are members of clusters. Multiple studies have shown that cluster triggers can also lead to adverse mental conditions. There is a chance that Choke will choose to follow Circuit here.”

That was what I had feared, that Haddie wouldn’t understand how terrible of a person I’d been and try to come after me. I didn’t know what I’d do if I met her again.

“It’s also been shown that clusters have a tendency to devolve into violence.” Armsmaster looked at me and I could swear I could hear the pity in his voice. “Circuit, would you mind explaining Choke’s powers in case she chooses to escalate matters? If not I can bring up the file but I would prefer to have your insight.”

“Of course.” I wasn’t happy giving up Haddie’s secrets like this but I knew it had to be done, if I could become such a terrible person then maybe she could too. My voice turned steady, like I was reading of a script as I described Haddie’s powers. “Choke’s power revolves around the generation of an irritating asphyxiant, it comes from her mouth and any kind of wound she has, from what I’ve seen only my respirators have been proven to filter it out. When she… expires a new body is formed in the gas and she is essentially resurrected.”

“Alrighty, so go in to detain, don’t even try to soften her up?” Assault’s voice had lost some of its humor, I was surprised by how serious he was being.

I nodded.

Miss Militia turned to me and spoke up for the first time. “What do you think are the chances of her coming after you?”

“She wouldn’t come after me.” I was sure of that, the words slipped out without my input. Before any of my new coworkers could ask why I elaborated. “She’ll probably come to the city but she’s not the one who escalated things, I was.”

My admission brought yet another moment of silence that Armsmaster had to break up again. “And that is why Circuit isn’t given clearance to interact with Choke, if somehow a situation like that crops up treat her as under the effects of an emotion altering master.”

Everyone in the room nodded, a few of them gave a murmur of assent.

“Alright.” Armsmaster began again, the screen behind him flicked to an image of Brockton Bay. “Now that we’ve covered that we can move onto a briefing on the city, most of you all know this but it’s important that we stay on top of it.”

I was doing the right thing, I just knew it.

Chapter Text

I was in the same city as Quinn!

I couldn’t stop myself from feeling a bit giddy at that, she’d made mistakes, sure but we were one step closer to being together again. How could I not be happy?

That was one of the only reasons I could stand the city, if it wasn’t for Quinn I’d be pretty confident in saying that Brockton Bay sucked.

I could tell that much from the days I’d spent staying in a crappy apartment and wandering the city. There were gunshots and car alarms blaring every night and even the atmosphere was a lot more stifling than Virginia, it wouldn’t be my first choice.

I still didn’t know why Quinn had decided to transfer to the city though, I’d watched the announcement and it hadn’t given me anything to go off. Maybe she wanted to work under Armsmaster to make her tinkertech better? That could be it.

I was having my first night out tonight, I’d spent the first few days getting a lay of the land, figuring out which places I should patrol outside of costume and learning what I could about the capes in the city. It wasn’t that hard, apparently the two biggest gangs were the Nazis and the ABB, a collection of Asian criminals that was pretty well known for being sex traffickers.

Personally I felt like going after the ABB was the safer bet, they only had three capes, that was a lot less than the fifteen or so that the Empire had. I might have been pretty used to biting the dust but I knew that one person couldn’t put too much of a dent in an operation like the E88’s. My disdain of Nazis was tempered by the fact that they outnumbered even the Protectorate.

It was late when I decided to go out in costume, that was one of the perks of not having a job, I could do what I wanted when I wanted. I got a few glances but most people had been conditioned to give capes they didn’t know a wide berth, it was almost like a good three fifths of them were willing to cause the average citizen massive bodily damage for getting in their face.

My apartment was far enough from the center of the city that I had to walk for a bit to get to where the gangs actually operated. Once I started seeing people in gang colors I locked in, even if a normal person couldn’t do any permanent damage I still wanted to have a reputation of not being the kind of numpty that got jumped.

I could definitely tell that I was in ABB territory, mostly by all the green and red, the signs being written in a myriad of different languages and the prostitutes. I was A-Okay with sex work but seriously, they could probably fill up a football stadium or something if they wanted to.

Ignoring all of the working women I shifted my vision, it was a bit overwhelming but I was able to parse the information well enough. The power that I got from Quinn went out for about half a football field or so, far enough that I could peep on the baddies without putting myself in direct danger.

There wasn’t too much happening though, at least nothing that I could go after, I was pretty sure that there were a few people enjoying certain vices in their homes but that got into technically illegal territory quickly, if someone wanted to get high behind closed doors I really couldn’t do too much yet. I didn’t want to burn any goodwill with the Protectorate until I’d at least taken some thugs down.

So I kept walking, now that I was getting deeper in gang turf some of the hooligans wearing ABB colors were giving me the stink eye but other than that not much had changed. 

Finally I came across something that looked suspect enough to warrant a closer look, there was a large quantity of people inside a warehouse with a few bodies on the ground or kneeling, I couldn’t really tell perfectly but judging by how healthy the impulses in their body were I could guess that nobody was in danger of dying anytime soon.

Well, except for me maybe but that was a different story.

I edged closer to the building, with how late it was getting it was becoming a bit easier to just blend into the background but I didn’t really want to take too many chances. Sure, I could take down more guys if I needed to but dying was still a bit of a hassle, I wasn’t going to just do it without a reason.

Once I got close enough to the warehouse I ducked into one of the alleyways next to it and peered into a nearby window.

Inside the building was a group of gangsters, about seven or so, the biggest one was waving around a baseball bat with nails in it. Arranged in the middle of the room was a slightly smaller group of people, from what I could tell they also looked Asian but two of them were knocked out and bloodied and the other three looked scared enough for me to know they probably didn’t sign up for this.

The idea that the goons could take hostages didn’t sit very well with me, I could handle it but it still wasn’t the greatest of things that could happen. I needed to help of course, I might not know exactly what was happening but I was lucky that nobody had died yet. I had to be the hero, like Quinn.

With my mind made up I walked across the alleyway, putting enough distance between me and the window, then I started to run at it.

At the last moment I jumped, putting my arms in front of me in hopes of cutting them up a bit. Once I was through the window I tucked and rolled, thankfully ending up on my feet. I started to breath out my smoke as the shattering of glass drew the attention of the grunts. The big man shouted something in a language I didn’t speak and a few of them started to surround me, they mostly had knives, easy-peasy.

Then he addressed me. “Get out of here bitch, this is Lung’s turf.”

“No can do, unless you feel like letting those nice people go?” I kept one hand on my belt, I doubted that things would be solved with words but if a fight didn’t need to happen then that’d be great.

The big man let out a laugh before slapping a young girl, she spiraled to the ground like a ragdoll. “These dumbasses offended the dragon, he didn’t forgive them and he won’t forgive you.”

At this point my gas had leaked from the cuts on my arms enough to make the closest gangster start coughing. With a sigh of even more smoke I took my baton from my side and rushed to meet him.

Between my gas and the surprise of me bum-rushing him I was able to crack him in the side without much resistance, I probably broke a rib or two but this guy was part of a group that was basically torturing people, it was hard to feel very bad.

With a grunt the big man yelled. “Get the whore!”

The one that I had hit fell to the ground like a wimp but the other two ran towards me. I spun and hit one of them across the jaw with my baton but the other got a somewhat lucky hit in and drove a switchblade into my gut. There was a whimper of fear from one of the people kneeling, their hero getting shanked probably didn’t inspire too much faith.

Now, it really didn’t hurt as much as it probably should have. Something about dying repeatedly had kind of screwed with how I felt pain, it was more a light pinch than anything. From the wound another burst of gas spewed out, I could feel the adrenaline rush as I pulled the knife from my abdomen and threw it to the ground.

Naturally I bonked the guy that had just stabbed me over the head, he crumpled down in unconsciousness as the other guy I hit in the face started to stand back up. For good measure I kicked him in the chest, with a thud he fell back to the ground.

“Stupid bitch!” The big guy didn’t seem to be happy that I’d taken out three of his goons, the smoke that was filling the room didn’t seem to help either.

Instead of hanging back and throwing guy after guy at me the big man decided to run and meet me himself. He heaved his bat and brought it down on the side of my head, I didn’t really try to dodge it.

He must have been a wonder out on the baseball field because I was out like a lightbulb, my baton clattered to the floor as my body fell to the ground dead.

I reached out to Quinn, the noose tight around my neck, why couldn’t I have just died. Blood speckled my fingers and my vision grew blurred. In my last moments I saw it, a massive kaleidoscope, it was beautiful, it was falling, it was–

Ugh, it was a memory death, I really didn’t like those as much as the nothingness ones, they didn’t really make too much sense.

Thankfully it was pretty quick, almost immediately after my death I popped back up back in full health a bit behind my last body, the big man was waving his hands wildly, trying to get the gas that was surging from my corpse out of his face.

The other grunts were nervous, one of them was already inching towards the door. I let out another breath full of smoke as I brought the stun gun from my belt and leveled it at him, with a blast of lightning he was down on the ground. The gun made a bit of a worrisome noise, like a whirring.

The last two goons looked between the already downed guys and their boss who was fruitlessly clawing at his own throat and did the smart thing, they ran.

I shot one, in another burst of electricity he was added to the tally of guys down for the count but I had to let the last gangster go. The stun gun was already running on the fritz a bit and I didn’t want to push it, Quinn’s stuff broke down kind of fast if she wasn’t there to fix it up.

I walked up to my last corpse and picked up my baton. The big guy was still struggling to breathe, at a certain point people stopped thinking straight when asphyxiating, their brain didn’t get enough oxygen so instead of doing the smart thing and running the dude just stood there coughing and spasming.

He wasn’t the only one though, the two people that had already been knocked out before I arrived weren’t suffering but the three that were still conscious were having a tough time not coughing up their lungs. I needed to end this quickly.

So I walked up to the big guy, he looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and choked out an insult. “You… Bitch.”

Wordlessly I brought my baton down across his head, with a crack he was down on the floor. I took a deep breath before walking over to the six prisoners, they looked up at me with fear in their teary eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m here to help.” While that didn’t completely dissuade them of their fears when I brought out a knife and cut the ropes around their wrists they were tied in they seemed happy enough to follow my directions.

Not that they were any more complex than getting away from my smoke, it might have been dissipating now that the fight was over but it was still irritating enough that normal people would have a tough time breathing. I brought them outside of the building, far enough from my gas that they could think and breathe.

Once it was clear that I wasn’t going to kill them a man spoke up. “Thank you very much.” His English wasn’t perfect but I could understand it well enough.

I couldn’t really smile at him so I gave him a thumbs up. “No problem, just doing my job. Would you be okay sticking around in case the Protectorate needs to question you.”

“Yes, we can do that.” The others in the group of prisoners weren’t really up for talking, it seemed like the man was some kind of authority figure to them, they trusted him enough to speak for them.

Now that the people were safe enough I started doing my usual after fight routine. Wallets got hit with the murder tax, hands and feet were zip tied together and I made sure that the drivers license and stuff on my old body were in my new pockets where they belonged.

After all of that was done I got out my phone and dialed the local Protectorate hotline, I’d looked it up ahead of time just to be sure.

“This is the Protectorate East-North-East hotline, what’s the emergency?”

Chapter Text

Haddie was in Brockton Bay.

That was the first thing I thought when I woke up, I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about it.

Logically I knew that another hero in Brockton Bay was a good thing, I’d been in the city for barely two weeks and I’d already gotten into a few skirmishes. The emotional side of me was the part that was having a hard time parsing my thoughts on Haddie being in the city. I felt a happiness that I could tell was from the cluster but at a deeper level I was scared.

I knew she’d come for me eventually, I wasn’t sure she could keep herself from seeking me out but I still had a knot of anxiety in my chest at the idea of dealing with Haddie again. I knew that I could fight it but the idea of taking her back was so appealing, the only thing that would keep me from it would probably be because I didn’t know if I’d be terrible to her or not.

It was so easy to get swept up in the passion I felt for Haddie, whenever we were together it was like an intoxicating energy that surrounded her, I wanted to make her mine, in every sense of the word. To bend and contort her being until she was like a puppet to me, even the thought of it made me want to vomit, I was a good person, I shouldn’t be feeling like that.

With a sigh I broke myself from my thoughts and wiped the sweat from my brow. I had a busy day ahead of me, I couldn’t let myself be consumed by my thoughts about Haddie, that was how things got so bad the last time around.

I got dressed, since I’d already unmasked to most of the capes I was now working with I didn't need to go through all the effort of putting on my costume and armor, I just put on one of my respirators that covered half my face and left it at that. Today I was going to be tinkering, Armsmaster had offered to join me with help from Dragon which obviously I took, it was Dragon.

I was living in the Protectorate headquarters, while most of my coworkers had lives outside of being a hero I didn't have that luxury. That was the price I paid for uprooting my entire life. Miss Militia, Armsmaster and Velocity were the other three heroes that also didn’t live in the city and they’d all unmasked to me already.

I warmed up a microwaveable meal before leaving, it was fast and tasted good enough. I tried to have a decent diet but sometimes convenience overwrote healthiness. I needed at least some energy if I was going to be tinkering all day. After I was done eating I put my mask back on and wiped all the crumbs off my lap.

Once I was dressed, fed and ready to get going I left my sparsely decorated room and began to make my way towards Armsmaster’s workshop. On my way up the stairs I ran into Hannah, she wasn’t wearing her costume except for the flag patterned bandana around her face, in her hands was a steaming cup of what looked like coffee and there was a glowing green and black knife at her hip.

“Oh, hello Quinn, how are you this morning?” She was friendly enough but we were still in that awkward state where we weren’t close enough to be more than cordial coworkers with each other.

I gave her a smile in return, she might not have seen it but I hoped she could tell what I was doing with my face. “Good, the last of my things from Virginia came in last night, Armsmaster offered to help give them all a once-over.”

“Well, I hope you two have a good time, unless it’s something my power can make tinkertech goes right over my head. Colin should be able to give you a few ideas, maybe with another tinker around he’ll be able to get more things done.” She said it lighthearted enough but there was a bite in her voice that I’d come to learn the cause of, Armsmaster might have been decent at being a leader in times of crisis but he wasn’t too good at the day to day of the job. He got too consumed by his work as a tinker, paperwork got reviewed a bit later than it should, complaints were ignored for too long before something was done, stuff like that.

I just nodded to her and went on my way, calling behind me just to be extra polite. “I hope you have a good day.”

“You too!” Hannah almost shouted it as I started walking up the staircase to Armsmaster’s workshop.

Once I got to the top of the staircase I walked to the end of the hallway, there was a light on that I could see from under the door. With a knock I announced my presence.

“Yeah!” Armsmaster’s voice came from inside the door.

I smothered my nerves and spoke up. “It’s Circuit, you offered to help me go through some of my work?”

“Oh, of course.” After a moment the door opened to an unarmored Armsmaster standing in it. Behind him was a much more messy space than I would have expected, on a table surrounded by tools was something that vaguely resembled a syringe. “Sorry about that, I was working on something.”

“No problem, I’m just happy to have another tinker to look things over.” It was the truth, I’d been mostly flying blind until now when it came to my inventions, having someone with more experience help me out was great.

Armsmaster, or Colin since he wasn’t in costume, stopped for a second before going back into his office and grabbing a large tablet-like device, once he left the room a feminine voice with a Canadian accent came from the tablet. “Hello Circuit, it’s nice to meet you.”

Holy shit, that was Dragon, I was actually talking to Dragon, the best tinker in the world. It took me a second before I was able to speak, I’d thought that Armsmaster would be the best help I got but now I had a line to the woman who was openly considered the next coming of Hero.

“It– It’s nice to meet you Dragon, ma’am.” It was embarrassing but it wasn’t going to be any better than that. It was Dragon, I was happy I was able to get out a full sentence.

Colin chuckled lightheartedly before he turned to face me, there was a smile on his face. He tossed up a ring of keys and caught them. “Well, no use in just standing around, let's see your new workshop.”

He led me down a few doors and unlocked it, with little pomp he swung it open. Inside was everything I’d made in the Protectorate ESE, a rack of respirators and other breathing apparatus surrounded by various miscellaneous devices were on one end and the other were my weapons, the largest of which was something that looked like a mix between a railgun and a tesla coil connecting to a hefty backpack that powered it.

In the center of the room was a wide table like the one in Colin’s workshop, a plethora of tools were arranged on it and to the side of the table was a crate full of electronic components and scrap metal.

“Here we are, mind showing me around?” Colin had held out the tablet and swept it across the room, I could only guess that he was giving Dragon a full view of my work.

Somewhat awkwardly I stepped in and walked towards the gas masks and other life support systems. “Well, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help you, whenever I tinker I go into this kind of… fugue I guess, I’m not totally sure how most of this stuff works.”

“That isn’t uncommon, time can even get away from me every once in a while.” I appreciated Colin trying to make me feel better but I was pretty sure he didn’t have the same problem as me.

I spotted what I’d been looking for, past a few pieces of protective equipment was a case, gingerly I took it from the back of the racks and brought it to my table. Once I was sat down I popped open the lid and took the contents out of the box.

“This is one of my magnum opuses.” It was a tray of what looked like aerosolized spray cans. “With one of these, someone can regrow just about anything. I derived it from samples I took from Arborea, a cape I worked with. It induces regeneration in affected tissue that I based on her adaptive biology.” It was also the closest I’d get to being a wet tinker, I’d had some ideas that fully crossed the line but in the interest of self preservation I withheld on making them.

I had to keep a lock on those ideas, I couldn’t let myself start falling down the slippery slope, Haddie had shown me how that ended up.

Colin hummed, for a moment the room was silent until Dragon spoke up. “Interesting… How quickly is the healing aspect? How heavy of a wound can it handle?”

“The worst thing it’s dealt with was when a civilian’s chest was caved in during a fight we had with a villain, in about six hours or so he was back on his feet. It doesn’t work instantly but it's the closest thing I’ve got to a miracle cure.” 

Now Colin piped up, he seemed interested enough in the spray. “Is it replicable?”

“Yes sir, I was actually planning on making more to supply the PRT with today if I had what I need, just give me access to a broom closet and I can make due.” That was one of the upsides of how I tinkered, since I got pretty out of it I could make what I wanted with material that really shouldn’t be able to create something that complex, it was a phenomena that some scientist in Europe had discovered.

That got a nod from my boss. “That sounds like a good idea, while Panacea is in the city we can’t rely on her. It would certainly help in getting Director Piggot off my back.”

“I live to serve.” This was the kind of joking around that I had gotten used to, Armsmaster leaned towards more of a serious persona but I’d learnt that Colin had this sort of silent charisma that put me at ease.

Dragon let out a laugh before talking to me. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you send me a sample of this regenerative solution? that kind of technology could save even more lives if I could reproduce it.”

“Of course, happy to help ma’am.” I was thankfully able to get through that sentence without stuttering.

Colin glanced at my array of weaponry and pivoted the conversation. “Now, how about you explain some of these, I’m already getting some ideas.”

“Sure thing.” 

I carefully put my regeneration gel back in its case and walked over to the other side of the room, I picked out something a bit smaller than my plasma cannon, it was still big enough to need a backpack but instead of needing to be lugged around like a minigun it was around the size of an assault rifle. It wasn’t shaped like one though, I had grabbed onto the handle of a spherical body that had three long, rotating prongs of metal attached. I had dubbed it the Spin Cannon in the private sanctum of my brain, it wasn’t the most creative name but it was what I was stuck with.

“This is what I use most of the time, she has an adjustable payload, most days she stays nonlethal but if there’s a brute that needs some special attention she can deliver. She can also rip through force fields, haven’t used her for that much but it’s worth mentioning.” I didn’t think that demonstrating was a very good idea inside a closed room.

Colin nodded his head along with the description. “From what footage I’ve seen it definitely does its job. My biggest concern is the battery pack, I imagine that I wouldn't have too difficult a time making an internal power source.”

“That’d be great, she’s a bit finicky but as long as I stick around she shouldn’t get hurt too much.” Armsmaster’s specialty was miniaturization, that could be a lifesaver when it came to my weapons out in the field.

I set the Spin Cannon down before I moved onto the next device. This wasn’t a conventional weapon, instead it was a series of hexagonal devices. “These ones are fun.”

Without elaborating I took three of them and placed them on the ground in a line, I motioned for Colin to step back and hit a button on the side of my mask. Almost immediately a wall of electricity sprung up from the devices, the smell of ozone and the sound of crackling sparks filled the room.

Before Colin or Dragon could say something I held up a finger and walked forward into the wall, the segment that I entered turned off right before my body hit it. With another press on my respirator the other two walls also disappeared. “What do you think? It responds to the signal in my mask, perfect for blocking off an area while keeping it simple for us to get in or out. It’s a mix of hard light and electricity.”

“Interesting…” Dragon trailed off for a moment before she spoke back up. “The concept is effective, they’re calibrated to be nonlethal, correct?”

“Yes ma’am.” I was starting to get into it, happy enough to show off my work to someone who could understand it, my anxieties were fading away.

The best tinker in the would thought for a moment before responding. “Normally an amount of electricity like that would almost certainly result in someone’s death, it’s intriguing that your power made up for the difference.”

“To be completely honest I wouldn’t know, before I got my powers I was studying finance.” It felt a bit silly to admit but I felt like it was probably for the best before Colin and Dragon started jumping down my throat about specifics.

Colin let out another laugh, once he was done he looked at my plasma cannon. “This definitely caught my eye, care to tell us what it does?”

“Of course.”

I had a whole workshop full of toys to show off.

Chapter Text

The ABB didn’t lack when it came to targets.

Today I was hitting a drug den, not that I had a real problem with people enjoying themselves but I’d scoped it out, this place was too fancy for the average Joe to come to usually and far too deep in ABB turf to be visited by anything other than gangsters and their buddies. Now that it’d been a while since I showed up, the PRT would be a bit more willing to look past my invasion of privacy if I brought in some gangsters.

Smoking a bit of opium might have technically been a victimless crime but I was almost fully certain that the men inside the building had pulled their fair share of victimizing crimes. Another good thing about hitting drug dens was that the guards usually also enjoyed a bit of the product, making it that much easier to sneak in.

I did so, through a back door, the air was heavy with smoke that made me stifle a cough. Almost immediately I ducked into a closet and shut the door. I wasn’t going to be fighting this one normally if I could help it.

I started to take deep breaths, my gas started to leak out of my mouth slowly, the music that came from deeper in the building covered the sound of my exhalations.

The sound of two men talking approached and I softened my breath just a bit.

“All I’m saying is that she freaks me out, sure, Lung vouched for her but I ain’t letting her near me if I can help it.” The first voice was gruff, like someone who’d been smoking for some time.

The second was higher, it had to belong to someone around my age. “I’m there with you man, heard she grabbed some wannabe from Immaculata, pulled his brain out and put a bomb in it or some shit.”

“That’s bullshit, why’d she need some fancy prep kid? We’ve got plenty of punks who pissed off the dragon running around here. She could’ve grabbed one of them, no fuss.” I could gather that they were talking about Bakuda, a new tinker who’d joined the ABB recently enough.

The younger one sighed or groaned, I couldn’t really tell which one. “Well either way, I’m not gonna let the bitch mess with my head.”

“Then we better do our goddamned job, can’t be pissing people off when she’s turning punks into fucking science experiments.” 

By that point my gas had begun to overtake the smoke in the immediate area, the two guards started coughing lightly and the younger one spoke. “Fuckers must have put something in whatever they’re smoking, we gotta open a door or some shit.”

“You do that, Imma make sure these assholes aren’t causing any problems.”

I shifted my vision and watched the body of the older man walk away. I could see back to where a mass of people were enjoying their drugs but from how the building had looked on the outside there was a lot of unused space.

Outside of the building wasn’t too much, the only thing of note was the person lounging around on a roof above the alleyway into the building. That was worth a bit of attention but as long as the roof guy didn’t do anything I wasn’t going to worry over nothing.

Once I was sure that nobody was coming to check on the guy outside I slipped out from my little hiding spot. I'd been planning to just gas them out but it couldn’t hurt to get rid of one of the guards before things really started to ramp up.

I slithered down the hall to the doorway out of the building. The guy must have been taking his smoke break because he was puffing on a cigarette when I found him. He also, more importantly, wasn’t looking back into the den, I was sneaky enough that he didn’t even hear me coming.

Quick as a flash I wrapped my arms around his neck, one hand reaching out to cover his mouth to keep him from making a peep. He tried to struggle but I was built enough that he couldn’t get out from the hold. I even breathed some of my gas into his face to get him to relax a bit faster.

For what wasn’t the first time in my career as a cape I was thankful for the bits of martial arts I’d been forced to learn when I was younger by my parents.

“Shush, shush, shush. Go to sleep.” Once he was down for the count I dragged him away from the doorframe and to the side, I couldn’t hide that he got nabbed forever but I could make sure I kept the element of surprise for a bit longer.

I glanced back to the building, nobody had come to check on the guard yet, I was still in the clear. With my back covered I slunk back into the building and closed the door behind me, I could breathe easier now, my own gas had melded with the smoke in the building. I snuck back into the closet that I’d been in before and started to take deep breaths again.

My smoke started to leak into the building, each exhalation added more and more to the mass. I wasn’t close enough to the fun to have an immediate effect but that was just as well, so long as I kept the amount of gas down to a reasonable level people high out of their minds on opium wouldn’t really notice an itch in their eyes or a cough.

About half an hour passed without too much happening, people were moving around but there was nothing of note to it, a few more people had come in but the big contingent of gangsters were more than happy to spend their time in the main room. Without being hurt or dying it took a pretty long time for my smoke to do anything, kind of ironic when I thought of it.

A body started to move towards where I was, it was the older guard, he’d come back to make sure the guy I knocked out wasn’t getting lazy. “Ty, the fuck are you?”

Poor Ty.

“I don’t have time to fuck around kid, get out here!” The man had started to yell, he cracked the door open and looked out, as he did I snuck out from my little hidey hole, maybe I could get two for two?

The guard walked out of the building and found Ty’s unconscious body. “Fucking shit, sleeping on the job?”

Quietly I walked behind the man, I’d gotten pretty good at being sneaky since I got my powers. I crept behind the guard, my hands ready to choke him out when I noticed something, up on the top of the building roof guy was standing. I couldn’t get a very good look but I saw the color red where a face should be.

Staring down at us was the demon mask of Oni Lee.

Shit.

Oni Lee pulled the pin to the grenade in his hand and dropped it into the alleyway where two of his men were.

Double shit.

Now, I wasn’t very good friends with these goobers but I knew that the PRT didn’t really like when people died during cape fights, I wasn’t going to let them bite the dust if I could help it. “Get out of the way!”

I pushed the stunned grunt out of the way and jumped on the grenade, I’d seen it in movies and stuff, it was supposed to contain the blast.

Boom.

As far as deaths went I gave it a solid seven or so out of ten, it was fast, I was out quick but It wasn’t fun to have my internal organs become surprisingly external. The pain was dull but it was still there.

I popped back up in a moment, the guy that I’d pushed out of the way was already down and Oni Lee was still standing up on the ledge of the building above me. I needed to figure out a way to get him down. I could try to use the stun gun but it hadn’t been working the greatest lately and I needed to make sure I hit the actual guy and not one of his clones, it was a last resort.

Before my gas stole away most of my vision I took stock of everything around me, lucky for me there was a not completely wrecked fire escape nearby. I didn’t think I’d get Oni Lee without catching him in my smoke but I could still get away from somewhat innocent civilians.

He wasn’t giving me the space to do much though, I could tell that Oni Lee had teleported thanks to be electrovision but that didn’t help much when he was currently dropping another grenade on me.

With a sigh I jumped on this one too, I couldn’t just ignore it when people could get hurt, that wasn’t what a hero did.

Boom.

 I died, again. This time I was pretty sure a shard of shrapnel found its way into my brain, I had a nasty headache before everything went dark.

Once I was back again my gas was thick enough that I couldn’t see the best but I still knew where the fire escape was.

I glanced back up to Oni Lee, he was popping across the buildings, he’d probably been told how my power works by someone, I didn’t know who. There were four of him, each of them were holding something in their hands, almost like–

The first bullet caught me in the leg, the next in my chest. Belatedly I realized that this was a show of force, that Lung was trying to tell me he wouldn’t take me messing with his operations lying down.

I died again when I got shot again in the neck.

After I popped back up I used my smoke as cover, now that neither of us could really see very well Oni Lee’s height advantage wasn’t doing very much for him. I darted to where I thought the fire escape was and started climbing.

Now that I was close enough to the dang thing that I could make out the general shapes around me and I made my way up, I didn’t doubt that Oni Lee would at least have an idea what my plan was so I gave up stealth in favor of being fast. I had a general idea of where all the Oni Lees were but I had to focus most of my vision on the series of ladders in front of me.

After I’d gotten out of my gas I was greeted with a pistol lowered at my head and a sneering demon mask.

Once again I was out cold as the bullet entered my brain case and I fell from the fire escape. The last thing I saw was Oni Lee evaporating into a white gas.

Thankfully the big spurt of my smoke let me pop back up even high up. There were a number of Oni Leeson buildings where I was now standing, the one closest to the back was probably the original.

I didn't have much more of a choice, I brought Quinn’s stun gun from my belt and leveled it at who I thought was the real Oni Lee. With a deep breath I pulled the trigger.

Boom.

Fun fact, tinkertech had a tendency to explode when it hasn’t been looked after by a tinker. Who knew?

So I was down a hand which really wasn’t great but at least the wound had cauterized itself, that was nice.

I grabbed my baton with my remaining hand and rushed the real Oni Lee. It wasn’t a very good plan but it was the best one I had.

The closest clone of him shanked me in the gut. Gas poured from the wound and I pushed on, the clone dissipated into a cloud of white smoke that was overtaken almost instantly by my own.

The next copy raised a handgun, I caught a bullet in the abdomen but all I took was a rush of adrenaline, the pain was just a nip. I raised my baton and brought it down on the clone’s head, he disappeared in another puff of white.

There were only three Oni Lees left but I was breaking down, my body couldn’t keep up with the punishment I was facing. The last three bad guys each raised a gun of their own and even if I couldn’t see it I got the distinct impression that he was sneering.

The bang of the handguns went off at the same time, three bullets entered my body and I felt the tear of flesh. My light flickered out and I died for a fourth time.

I was watching from across the street, a hood over my head as my family lowered my casket into the ground, I didn’t feel a thing, just empty. Quinn sat across from me, she put a hand over mine and the warmth of love ran through me.

I came back right in front of Oni Lee, with a glance he teleported away right as I went to grab him.

Then something arced into our little confrontation, at first I had thought that it was another one of Oni Lee’s grenades but then I got a good look at it. I was bigger than a grenade, a familiar hiss sounded when it hit the ground and little legs popped out of it.

Before anything else could happen there was a flash of light, followed by a roll of thunder. We both had to cover our eyes, I don’t know who was the one to look first but when my vision had cleared my smoke had retreated away from a figure standing on the now sootmarked roof where the device had been.

It was a woman dressed in a lab coat and armor, she had some kind of tinkertech weapon that had three rotating prongs in her hands and a face covering respirator. In a clear and authoritative voice she spoke. “Oni Lee, you are under arrest!”

I couldn’t help the smile from growing on my face, the ever present heartache I felt retreated as my love arrived.

Quinn was here.

Chapter Text

Patrolling ABB territory wasn’t what I’d call an enjoyable experience.

It was a mixture of wolf whistles and glares in equal measure, apparently the organization had gotten somewhat upset when I was revealed as the latest member of the Protectorate, what with me having the audacity of being an Asian woman and not joining the gang of sex slaving bastards.

At the very least it was better than patrolling Empire controlled areas, I didn’t really want to be hate crimed by superpowered Nazis if I could help it. Ever since my position was announced in the Protectorate ENE there’d been calls for action on places like PHO by people who weren’t exactly happy that another person who visibly wasn’t white was on the team.

The idea had been that the children who lived in the area might aim their aspirations towards something higher if they saw someone like them being a hero. Personally, I didn’t think it would be very effective, as harsh as it might have been, they were more or less destined to at least engage with gang activity. That was just how life worked, we got born into the world and had to deal with whatever life we were given, I didn’t judge any of them, it was just how it was meant to be.

But my personal feelings didn’t particularly matter, I had a job to do so I’d do it. My route didn’t run too near to the center of the ABB’s operations but it got close. I'd been wearing a tracking device that Armsmaster had made just in case Lung got any ideas about trying something.

I had my newly upgraded Spin Cannon with me, Armsmaster had delivered on creating a power source that didn’t have to be lugged around on my back, it was a bit heavier than I was used to but I’d gotten strong enough over the months as a hero that carrying it wasn’t too much of a hassle.

It was an hour into my patrol, so far I’d already broken up a fight between drunkards but that was it, the rank and file ABB grunts had learnt to stay out of my way after the first few days I spent time in their territory. Patrols were like that, my route had become less crime riddled but that just meant that the gangsters had moved their operations away from where I normally surveilled.

Velocity had given me some tips on how to operate with the ABB, as the only other person that spoke an Asian language he was usually assigned similar routes to mine. Apparently Lung had something of a gentleman’s agreement with the Protectorate, they still fought but so long as we didn’t overstep and arrest the people he actually cared about keeping on payroll he didn’t rampage and put multiple heroes in the hospital.

That was an adjustment compared to Virginia, sure, there were more villains than heroes but it was at the very least somewhat balanced, I wasn’t some bright eyed newbie, I knew that heroes needed to make concessions but the fact that most of the major gangs in Brockton Bay operated on a similar understanding was somewhat sad. I understood why, we just didn’t have enough bodies to throw at the myriad of problems in the city but it still felt like a failure of our duty.

As I walked through the bustling streets a young man followed by a contingent of other school aged people started to tail me. It wasn’t anywhere near stealthy enough to merit any worry but it was still a problem. “Dumb whore, the dragon’ll have you for breakfast!”

I turned on my heel to face the boy and a number of his flunkies flinched.

“Is there a problem?” I kept my voice even, I could already see people starting to take out their phones and recording the scene, I couldn’t just escalate like an idiot.

The boy seemed much less confident now that I was confronting him. “Y-Yeah, this is the Azn Bad Boy’s turf, don’t mess with us.”

I smiled, with my mask it couldn’t be seen but if Image left me with anything it was that people could hear a smile.

“You seem like a smart young man.” He did not but I wasn’t going to bully a teenager for doing what his life made him do. “How about you go home, I’m sure you have some homework you need to get done.”

That was my own personal brand of deterrent when I dealt with rambunctious youths, the character of Circuit was made to be so friendly with children that I could play the cartoon hero enough to make coming after me seem not worth the trouble.

“Shut up bitch!” The boy was now a laughing stock, shouting at me didn’t make the impression he seemingly wanted on his compatriots, a few of them even started to walk away and mutter amongst themselves.

Once the nerves got to the boy I smiled with my voice again and delivered the finishing blow as it were. “You shouldn’t use language like that young man, it makes you sound immature.”

“Fucking whatever… crazy whore.” He was drowned out slightly by the laughter, it was mocking me but I didn’t care, I had successfully deescalated the situation.

The group of teenagers migrated away from me and the boy slunk to the back of it, giving me the stink eye as he did. Then the first explosion rang out.

Boom.

The people around me started to move faster and I reached a hand up and pressed a button on my mask. “Console, this is Circuit, I have explosions near my location, going to investigate.”

“Circuit, this is Console.” The voice of the operator was ice cold, they’d been trained for this. “Lung was sighted fighting with Empire capes an hour ago, he shouldn’t be anywhere near you. You are clear to investigate.”

With the all clear I made my way closer to where the explosion had echoed from, right before I made a wrong turn there was another one.

Boom.

I came across smoke, a dark red cloud that I knew very well. Against my will my heart swelled with joy, Haddie was here, I could see her, I could have her again.

I looked up above the gas and caught sight of a man in black with a red demon mask. “Console, this is Circuit, I have eyes on One Lee. Over.”

For a moment I thought about mentioning Haddie but the part of my brain that wanted her overwhelmed the urge to do the right thing.

“Circuit, this is Console, you are clear to engage, a PRT squad is being sent to your location. Over and out.” From my belt I took out my Localized Teleportation Device, I’d modeled it after how Haddie’s power recreated her body and it was my best bet at getting to them before someone other than Haddie got hurt.

Boom.

Before I could throw it a third explosion sounded out, it was different from the first two, familiar in a way I couldn’t immediately explain.

I got closer to the building that was housing Oni Lee and probably Haddie on its roof and with a solid throw the LTD arced through the air and onto the top of the building.

It took a moment to calibrate, there was a beeping in my mask as the device made sure that I wouldn’t be teleported halfway into the roof. I shifted the Spin Cannon from my back and into my hands, I needed to be ready to fight.

Then in a peel of thunder and a blinding flash of light I was taken apart and put back together up on the roof. Standing in a cloud of her smoke was Choke, the fraying noose around her neck swinging in the wind as she turned to face me, I’d made it so my mask could see through her smoke, not that I knew how. Across a gap that led down to an alleyway was Oni Lee, he was covering his face with his hands.

In the most authoritative voice I could muster I shouted out. “Oni Lee, you are under arrest!”

For a moment no one moved, slowly I shouldered the Spin Cannon and the barrel began to spin. Oni Lee's grip on his knife shifted and with a glance he teleported forward, lunging at me with the weapon.

“Circuit!” Choke, the stupid bitch, ran forward as an arc of electricity shot forth from the Spin Cannon. The current hit Oni Lee as Haddie tackled him to the ground, the both of them got a blast of enough electricity to knock out a grown man, their bodies spasmed as they hit the ground.

But neither of them looked knocked out, the fact that there were two of them probably dispersed the electricity enough. Choke was on top of the teleporter and currently beating his face in. “Don’t!” There was a nasty sounding cracking, like the breaking of a nose. “You!” Blood spurted from the man’s face as his mask cracked. “Hurt her!”

Once Oni Lee was beaten into unconsciousness Haddie took in ragged and deep breaths, her smoke issued forth from her mouth and the cuts on her fists.

My feelings were complicated, she’d jumped in the way to protect me, I couldn’t keep a warmth from invading my body at that but she’d also gotten in my way, I felt the need to punish her.

“It’s okay Circuit, I saved you.” Haddie was looking at me now, I might not have been able to see her face but I could hear the admiration in her voice.

I tried to reign in my emotions, to rely on my logic above everything else, that was what I was supposed to do. “Get off him.”

Almost instantly she acquiesced to my demands, I brought a pair of handcuffs from my belt and approached the unconscious villain.

“I came for you, y’know…” She sounded like a child, needing my praise, it would be so easy to break her, so sweet to make her curl around my finger.

I couldn’t let that happen, I needed to be better. “Shut up.”

I clicked the handcuffs around Oni Lee’s hands and I grabbed the tool that every tinker should have on hand from my pocket, a roll of heavy duty tape. I wrapped some of it around the villain’s face, if he regained consciousness he wouldn’t be able to teleport. Just to be sure I laid an uncovered hand on his arm, I felt my secondary power leech the energy from his body, he shouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

Once he was contained I reached up to my mask and pressed my communicator. “Console, this is Circuit, I have Oni Lee detained and unconscious, an independent hero assisted me in the takedown.”

“Circuit, this is Console, we have a PRT team coming to your location, ETA at around seven minutes. I nodded before hefting Oni Lee up and over my shoulder, he wasn’t too heavy and I needed to get down on the ground.

Haddie was still shifting nervously, I felt bad, I shouldn't have been that mean. “Do you need any help?”

“No.” I knew what I was supposed to say, I needed to stick to protocol. “Stick around for questioning please.”

“‘Course.” She sounded so sad, it was like music to my ears, I felt terrible.

I walked into the first body soon after I’d picked up Oni Lee’s body, Haddie’s gas had started to dissipate. It was Choke, where her hand should have been a charred stump was and she was riddled with knife wounds and bullet holes.

I glanced down the side of the building at the rest of Haddie’s corpses, I could barely make out two of them, they were more splatterings of blood and guts than anything but the other two were much more clear, one was twisted from falling but I could make out the bullet hole in its head and the other was home to more gunshot wounds.

How could she fucking do this to me?

I felt like vomiting, seeing Haddie dead again was harsh, like having a tub full of cold water dumped on my head. Ever since… ever since we triggered there was nothing that filled me with more feelings than seeing her corpses.

I turned to her, she at the very least had the audacity to look sheepish. “I know you don’t like it but I didn’t know you’d–”

“Shut the fuck up.” Love and hate could be so similar when whirling inside of me, maybe in a better world I’d be a good person but today had taken its toll, Haddie was lucky I had a job to do.

I started to climb down the fire escape and she reached for me. “Wait, don’t go! I just found you… We can be together again.”

The pull was there, I wanted so much to drop Oni Lee and have my way with Haddie, she wouldn’t even fight it, I could relieve my stress and no one would be the wiser.

But I had to be the hero, I had to be better than that. I knew what I was feeling was wrong, I couldn’t engage with it any more, I needed to do the right thing. I started making my way to the alleyway below us with Oni Lee’s body.

“Just leave me alone, all I’ll do is hurt you.”

But she just wouldn’t let it go, she followed me down the fire escape and grabbed my shoulder. “I don’t care, I need to be with you, it… it hurts whenever you're not around, more than anything you can do to me!”

It was intoxicating, I couldn’t stop myself from turning to face Haddie. She looked so small, ruining her would be so easy, just a word and she’d come running for me. I lowered Oni Lee to the ground and took a step forward. We were so close, I could feel her breath on my neck.

She’d deserved it for what she put me through, the little bitch, making me see her dead so many times. She was perfect for me, we belonged together. I reached up and caressed her sculpted arms. “You’re irresistible…”

“I love you too.” She was almost like a puppy, a little creature that would lavish attention and care over me at the slightest provocation, the thought of it sent shivers through my body.

I wrapped my hand around her bicep and dug my nails into her flesh, a small little voice in my yelled out that this was wrong but it felt so right, I couldn’t help myself.

“Ma’am, step away from Choke!”

The magic was broken, we both turned to see a PRT officer standing in full gear in the end of the alleyway with a team behind him. Logic came back to me and I realized what I was doing, the taste of vomit filled my mouth.

I was backsliding, I was doing something I shouldn’t have, I was a terrible person. “I need to go.”

So I left her again.

I was doing the right thing.