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Sally had to admit, she’d done some pretty awful things in her life.
”Stay down, my hawk.”
The title dripped with malice as it rolled off Ace’s tongue, a gun pressed against her forehead.
Like this, she thought, as she grabbed a civilian with some telekinesis and threw them behind her, another in the line of short lived human shields she’d been using in her flight. On foot.
”I think things are going to change around here, don’t you?”
“What, dear shrike, do you think you’re doing?”
“Something I should have done a while ago.”
She was bleeding from somewhere. She wasn’t sure where. She’d heal herself when she was safe. Which might well be never, judging by how light headed she was becoming.
”You tried to take something that was mine. And now… I’ve found myself quite interested in something of yours.”
“The magpie isn’t yours, Ace.”
Her strides were uneven, but it seemed to be balanced out by her shifting centre of gravity. She just wanted to stay upright. Keep pushing, just for a few more minutes, even if she was pretty much running on empty.
”I’m going to enjoy ripping you apart until I find every reason people were so scared of someone as pathetic as you.”
Her penthouse was out. She wasn’t a fool, if Ace had found her once, he absolutely knew where she lived. Her girlfriend was probably dead too. No time to apologise to her parents.
”Nothing to say, Scarlet?”
She’d like to say tears stung at her eyes. But they didn’t, and she carried on running, feet stinging against the pavement. She’d lost her shoes a while back. Her mask too, so she was settling for her hair and hoped speed would hide her features.
A shot through her side. Her thigh. Her shoulder. A knife, slicing at her hair, carving across her face. Ace could be sadistic when he wanted to.
There had been a moment there. When her fear had been real. When she’d felt the same terror as when she was a child, a little girl, confused by the advances of someone so much older and stronger than her. Never again. Thankfully, Ace had seemed occupied with physical pain. Which she was feeling every bit of.
Her career was over. That was a fact she’d have to accept. Everything she’d built for herself, gone. Most of her life, too. Lucky she had deposit boxes all over the country.
So, what came next?
Now wasn’t the time to think about that. Sally’s eyes found a house with a for sale sign outside a house, and darted into it, unlocking the door with a handy little minor power she’d picked up a few years ago. Thank god for her scavenger nature, or she’d have had to break in, and that would have left a trail.
She wasn’t sure if Ace was still hunting her. But she wasn’t someone who liked to take risks. So, once she’d locked the door behind her, she spent a long few minutes methodically checking every possible point of weakness in the house. No alarm. Plenty of windows- best to stay away from those. A small garden. It was terraced, so the side rooms were safer. At the back.
Finally, Sally checked the locks for the last time, staggered into the small living room she’d found, and collapsed, sinking to her knees as she sobbed, hoarse and raw with pure frustration. Stupid. She was better than this. She should be better than this. Yet here she was, crying dry tears, alone and hurt beyond belief.
Time to fully assess the damage. At some point, she could rest. If that point ever came.
(She ignored the feeling in her gut that told her this wasn’t over. That her rest wouldn’t come for a long, long while yet)
Bullet wounds in her left shoulder, hip, and right leg. Blood dripping down her face, and the back of her neck. Her hair didn’t count. She couldn’t fall apart over that. Stab wound in her left thigh, possibly down to the bone. Talon scratches across her collarbone. Easy fixes.
Closing her eyes, she used every bit of her energy down to the last few drops to heal every injury she could, bullets falling to the wooden floor with neat plinks as they were pushed out. Most of them were left a half centimetre deep, but they were scabbed over, and that was all she could hope for without using the same energy that was just about keeping her heart beating. But there was one thing she couldn’t heal quite so easily.
Her wings. She couldn’t hold back the agonised, keening sound that escaped her as she shook her wings, feeling yet more feathers drift to the floor.
Ace had cut her flight feathers. She could still feel where his knife had ripped through the thin cartilage of her rusty hued wings, tearing a hole straight through.
If she’d been the same villain she had been just a few hours ago, that alone would have been enough for her to justify ripping the shrike limb from limb, leaving him as an example for whoever stumbled upon the remains.
But she wasn’t. Ace’s words still rang in her head, echoing and driving her insane. His touch was etched into her skin, making her want to hide away from herself, flee to deep inside herself where she could curl up and cry with the little girl who’d stolen her tears.
What came next?
Something told her she wouldn’t be returning to villainy. And it hurt, but she couldn’t deny her hawk, gentle and supporting as ever, nudging her into action, making her think. Think her way out of this.
No more number one villain. At least, no more Scarlet, the number one villain. Just that simple admittance to herself felt like a part of her ripped away, exposing the emptiness underneath. Who was she without that rank? Who was she without the persona she’d created for herself?
The next soul shaking sob felt more cathartic, like letting go of a demon she thought she’d caged and tamed long ago. But now she saw she’d ended up within the cage herself.
Ace’s now. The realisation came with a dry, broken laugh of hollow mirth. His turn. His turn to lose himself, his turn to wonder what it was like to be normal, his turn to realise humanity wasn’t so different from monsters, in the end.
Her thoughts fixated on the name. Scarlet. She’d never loved it. She probably needed a new one now. But that could wait. A lot of things were going to have to wait.
If Ace did as he said he would- and, he would- a lot of things were about to change. Wilbur. His mere name made her twitch, sniffing pathetically to herself as she pulled her knees up to her chest, like some high schooler crying over a crush. He didn’t deserve this. He was so sweet, so innocent. But there was no saving him from Ace.
Ace would force him into a debut, of course he would. Getting rid of her was probably another item on his to do list on the way to number one. But then what? Sally kept pushing herself, trying to see the future, find her place in whatever was going to come.
Finally, she gave up, burying her face in her knees in utter defeat. Useless. Utterly useless.
What could she do? She could fight, she could kill, she could hide. And that really was about it. But she could use those skills to make Ace pay. Even if she was going to have to abandon villainy, that didn’t mean she needed to abandon her cutthroat spitefulness.
But even the thought of making the shrike feel half the pain still pounding through her made her go still. She couldn’t do that again. Her wings wouldn’t survive, she wouldn’t survive.
Maybe... she needed help.
Who? Questions, questions, and that was a tricky one. None of her hookups would be of much use, and those were pretty much the only people she’d interacted with personally since villainy. That was pretty tragic, actually.
No villains. Without her reputation, they’d probably hand her over to Ace on spec. And if the shrike had her magpie too, the vigilantes were probably the same. She couldn’t exactly muster an army of civilians without being turned into the heroes in a heartbeat, so…
Shit. That left the heroes. But that wasn’t an option at all, not really. Then again, the heroes would kill her, but Ace would kill her worse.
So, which hero?
Something that might have been a laugh slipped out of her. Ridiculous. This was ridiculous, to every degree. It felt like some bad dream, janky and pulling together everything she hated most. Ace, finally getting it into his head to make a move? Her, unable to protect herself? Overpowered? Wilbur… alone.
(There was a burning ember in her that said she wouldn’t stand for that. The magpie could still be saved. But she couldn’t be the one to save him)
Oh. Wilbur had a brother, didn’t he? The one Crow was always mentioning, although always just to emphasise how involved the family was in heroics. The mockingbird. Blond.
Tommy.
That was his name. A trainee, if her memory served correctly. But he could work. Right? He probably wouldn’t even turn her in, not if she scared him, just a little.
Her knees went weak with relief as she slumped, the last vestiges of adrenaline draining out of her. A solution. She was pinning all her hopes on some teenager she’d never even met, but it was enough. It should be enough.
But even as her vision clouded over, she had more questions.
What came next?
——————
Sally woke up in an unfamiliar house, with unfamiliar wounds, and an unfamiliar feeling inside her.
She’d call it hope, but it was grimmer than that. Spite, maybe. Vengeance. Hatred. And maybe, just a touch of whatever the heroes force fed their children, that dose of ‘greater good’ that drive them to atrocities.
The first thing she did was find a mask. Bit of torn off fabric from a curtain, the wrong shade of burgundy, but it would do. The next was to find some food. That one went down less well, but she put it as a number one priority, unless she wanted to collapse halfway to wherever she went next.
Third, she turned on the television.
And froze.
Crap, things moved fast these days. No- wait. How long had she been out?
But it didn’t matter, not as she sank to her knees again, watching in horror as Persephone’s debut replayed, watched Ace promise that things were going to change, watched Crow, Blade, even the number one hero vow to fight this new threat with everything they had.
They all saw the same thing in Ace. What she’d never had, what had kept her safe, in some way, from the full might of the agency. That glimmer of madness, of not just disregard for life, but a brutal pleasure in taking it.
She enjoyed killing. Came with the territory, seeing the light go out in someone’s eyes, all that jazz. But when the shrike said it… it was twisted beyond belief. And for a moment, there was no future Sally could think of that didn’t end with Ace standing in the ashes.
It was like a jerky slideshow, sitting there, staring at the TV. This couldn’t be happening. Blade had disappeared. Presumed dead. Ace got the blame, and made no effort to deny it. Vigilantes were going over to villainy. Civilians were told to stay in their homes.
They were at war.
District twelve was to be avoided. Police were told to prioritise quelling any villain activity. The city’s borders were closed, trying to keep the revolution contained. But it was already too late, as a montage of riots and protests up and down the country flashed before her eyes.
All hero trainees to be deployed, to cover depleted numbers.
Tommy.
She clung onto his name like a lifeline, her one glimmer of hope in this world she was drowning in, now she’d fall from her ill-gotten grace. He knew Wilbur. He was innocent. He could save them.
But first she needed to do some saving herself.
She watched the broadcast intently, keeping her eyes trained on the locations of protests. She wouldn’t be a hero. Not now, not ever. She knew what they did. But that didn’t mean she had to be a villain.
A few hours later, a hawk avian was seen walking out of a store police would only arrive at hours later, to find a cashier long since bled out and a decent amount of stock missing.
She had some things to take care of.
——————
Two weeks later, the war wasn’t letting up. Good. At least she had a place in this world.
Sally met her own cobalt eyes in the mirror of the flat she was staying in- it wasn’t like anyone ever checked tenancy around here- and eyed her hair with disdain.
Her flight feathers were beginning to grow back. She could glide, but she was still a month or two off flying, and that was being optimistic. Her wounds were beginning to heal, even if the bullet wounds had been a bitch to keep from getting infected.
But her hair had been bothering her. Where it had once gone down to her tailbone, it was now jagged, slanting between below her shoulders and the base of her neck. It was only now she’d had the time to address it.
As she raised the scissors, she noticed her hands were shaking. That was new. No matter the traumas, she’d never been plagued by tremors like other villains and heroes. But things were changing now.
She kept an eye on the news. Even now, a live feed was playing on her stolen phone. She kept it tuned in to her city. She may be on the other side of the country, but some part of her couldn’t bear to not know what was happening in her own home.
It wasn’t like it was anything good, or different to here. More deaths. More heroes going missing- frankly, she reckoned the agency just didn’t want to admit to so many deaths. More kids being forced into the streets. And Ace was getting stronger.
With Persephone’s debut, a small group had formed around the TNT villain. His inner circle, if you would. Persephone, obviously. Her heart still ached when she saw him. A fox hybrid by the name of Vos, and a shrike avian who called herself Cassandra. It was theorised they were both Ace’s children, judging by their youth and unwavering loyalty. Two more kids, Bee and Blink, acted as some sort of henchmen, always together, and patrolling routes not unlike the heroes’ own. Pyro, too, although he didn’t seem as close to the shrike.
Mr President was dead- his body had been found impaled on a flagpole of a town centre. Smile hadn’t been seen in weeks. She knew where she was, but no one else did. To the world, Scarlet was another casualty of Ace’s crusade against any possible opponents. Idly, she wondered if the other missing villains and heroes had taken a similar route. But she was yet to stumble upon any kind of survivors’ underground, so she presumed not. Good. She fought alone, always.
Loki and Anarchy had been two villains she’d kept an eye on. The Grey villain had immediately fled to the heroes, only to turn tail and kill five when they switched sides yet again, and they’d been loyal to the revolution since.
And Anarchy. Sally had always liked Anarchy. The Arson villain had promptly dropped off the radar, almost at the same time as Persephone’s debut, but there were rumours. The hawk avian had rarely bothered to grace villain conferences, but she’d heard they’d been shut down. Someone said Anarchy had tried to assassinate Ace, and the shrike villain had taken it as too much of a threat. Clever girl. Sally might try to track her down, when she had time.
She’d have time once she got this over with. Taking a deep breath, she moved the scissors through her garnet red hair, watching the split ended strands fall to the floor. Then again, trying to get some shaping into her movements. She had standards.
By the end of it, she had a slightly messy hairstyle, bangs going down to just past her temples, and a kind of layering past her ears. The rest of her hair went to just past the base of her skull, a jagged edge where her hand had slipped. She’d always had thin hair, but at least she looked the part now. A solider, battle hardened and fierce. She kind of liked it.
Gathering the remains of her hair into a small ponytail, she shook her head slowly, feeling the lightness. Better for movement, at least.
Her outfit had to change too, but that was mostly sorted. It wasn’t like Scarlet had stuck to a single design, more just the colour. And clothes were easy to steal.
She’d gone for more leather, as her core theme. Crimson leather jacket, one that was comfortingly similar to one she’d once owned. Armoured base layer she’d grabbed from one of her drop boxes. Short, tight skirt and thick pants, with as many pockets as she could find on something that was still form-fitting. Fingerless leather gloves. Thigh high boots.
Outfit, and hair. She finally felt the part again. Oh, and weapons. Funnily, those had been the easiest part, with her stashes in every bank or self storage facility she’d been able to find. A few guns. A sniper rifle she’d forgotten she’d bought. Every knife she could ever need. And enough ammo to survive the apocalypse. Which was going to be necessary, by the looks of it.
She favoured the guns.
Finally, her last weapon, her last possible friend. Not that people had friends in this world, and especially not these days. But still, she had hopes for the mockingbird.
Mimicry had been among the most successful of the deployed trainees, managing to first stay alive, then start actually taking down villains, both of which were pretty impressive given how his peers had done. There were a lot of grieving parents in this country.
Sally liked to think she understood the golden haired hero. Tommy fought because he had to, because that was his life. And when something consumes you like that… well, you make damn sure you’re good at it, and that was all she was going to say.
Irritatingly, she still hadn’t gotten in contact with him. Scowling, she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, only for it to drift down again. In one swift movement, she cut it short, not caring if it looked weird.
Right. That was done. Back to work.
And what had work been, for her? As much as it pained her to say it, Sally was beginning to circle in on vigilantism. Not what she would have liked, but these were strange times.
Snatching up her phone, her knife, and her new mask, she paused for only a second before grabbing her gun too, twirling it, and slipping it into the holster on her waist.
Off to kill some assholes.