Eclipse – x.6

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Damsel’s power broke through the silence, the scream and the crackle of it so abrupt in how it came on and dissipated that she could imagine it was a continuous sound that was only audible when her power opened the door.

In the break between the use of her blasts, her toes scrabbled for footing on the brick.

Another blast, driving her up and at an angle.  The darkness rippled behind and below her like her dress flapped and whipped around in the disturbed air.  She had to work against the push, so she wouldn’t simply be pressed against the wall.  Instead, her leg extended out, some isolated muscles she wasn’t used to exercising straining, her foot dragged down, and she made her way up.

She was three stories above the ground, only a drop with nothing to grab below her.

The blasts alternated, to provide that recoil push that could drive her skyward, while her feet worked to give her traction and keep her positioned.

This blast sputtered after she tried to extinguish it; a movement of her hand she hadn’t intended, or just the power being its moody self, it continued to output power, pushing her off course.  She was flung sideways, toward the corner of the building, and beyond that- only the fifty foot drop to pavement and sidewalk.

She compensated, a use of her power to send her in the opposite direction.  So wild and reflexive a move saved her from the immediate threat, bought her a second, and threatened another crisis, her entire body out of position, her frame of reference spinning around her.

She could see the fat, rust-stained concrete lip at the bottom of a window, and she stomped on it more than step on it, in her rush to find footing.

It was another half second of time, and it gave her the ability to establish her frame of reference, reminding herself what was up, what was down, and where she wanted to be.

Up.  She blasted, both hands, and her knee almost struck her chest as she rushed to get her footing in advance of her body getting that high.

Up, another burst, another noise, another shudder through her arms and shoulders to her chest, the feeling around her heart and chest reminding her that she hadn’t breathed in twenty or thirty seconds.

Then- no footing.  She was moving upward, her shoulders tense, her chest locked with no breath passing through her throat or mouth, dress and hair moving with the air, and her arms out and behind her.  The building was below her.

A short blast moved her horizontally.  She landed on a broad tarred shingle that wasn’t fully attached to the roof.  The shingle moved under her as she came to a stop.

She stepped up to and then stood on the corner of the rooftop.  Her group was in the lot below her, with twenty-five of her people rushing to fill up the trucks they’d haphazardly parked around the building.  People were shouting orders, trying to harangue a disorganized mob of teenagers and twenty-somethings into order.

The building below her was a warehouse.  Televisions, computers, laptops and printers.  She had been informed that most were the kind that flooded stores before all the students arrived for university, cheaper, with brand names nobody had heard of.

The teenagers were nervous, and a heavy rumble had almost made them shit themselves.  It had been followed by another, and then another.  She had had J call the mercenaries she had stationed at either end of the warehouse lot to see if they’d seen the cause.  They hadn’t.

Now she had her vantage point, and her eyes scanned the area.

A helicopter made its way through the night sky above them.  She could see her people stop in their tracks at the noise, heads turning to see the helicopter-mounted spotlight roving over buildings a block away.

Not for them.

The spotlight of the helicopter illuminated the source of the rumbling, a ways off to the north, past the water.

It was taller than some four-story buildings, hunchbacked, without much of a head.  It walked on two legs, using one of its arms when its balance failed it and it tipped too far forward.  Its other arm wasn’t the kind that supported weight, consisting of a morass of tentacles.

As the helicopter drew nearer, the tentacles began to unfurl, expanding out to fill the area around the giant.  It turned, standing straighter, clearly hostile.

The helicopter pulled back, the spotlight covering more of the giant with a lower intensity.

It made its way out into the water, and the tentacles from its arm spread out, plunging into the water around it.  It stood with its back to the area.

Damsel crossed the roof, found the ladder for the fire escape, and slid down, one hand on the side, another ready to grab the rungs if something went wrong, her feet stopping her periodically.

She hopped down the last five feet, and dusted off her hands.  Grime, paint chips and rust, with some abrasions.  A use of her power cleared away the rust.

“Did you see what it was?” J asked her.

“Giant monster,” she said.  “How are we doing?”

“Giant monster?” J asked.  People nearby looked curious too.

“I asked you a question,” she said, her voice sharp.

“Uh, we’re fine.  We should plan more before we do this again, teach our people to load things efficiently.  Giant monster?  How giant?”

“Seventy-five feet?  I don’t know.  Big doesn’t matter.”

“We’re not concerned?”

“I am concerned that we have a convenient distraction and we might waste it.  Will we be done in five minutes?”

“Last load, people!” J shouted.  “We’re out in four!”

“Alright,” Damsel said.

People who’d been inside made their way out, carrying large boxes.  A few had flat boxes stacked three or four high, each stack carried by two people.

“Careful about tipping them over!” a man called out.  It was Marrow, at one of the trucks.  “You can mess with the internal hardware or some shit like that.”

Damsel walked over to him.  “Any complaints?”

“Nah, this is good,” Marrow said.  “What was the rumble?”

“Giant monster.  But it’s not here and it’s not threatening the city.  We can ignore it.”

“You’re sure?”  he asked.  At her nod, he asked, “We part ways after this, then?  Your convoy goes one way, me and my brothers go another?”

“We’ll touch base soon.  If you can’t offload your take, we might have an offer,” Damsel said.

“You’re pretty confident you’ll be able to sell all this,” he observed.

It was four trucks that were partially filled- three smaller moving vans and one eighteen wheeler.  Marrow’s ex-cons had one large moving van.

“We’ll see,” she said.

“Get in and buckle up!” Bar called out.  “Don’t let any of those boxes fall on you!”

People filed into the eighteen wheeler.  The shutter at the back was closed.

The other trucks were loaded up, her people inside, and the doors shut.

“Bring my trucks back whenever,” Marrow said.

“Yeah,” she said.  She walked away.

It was one of her underling’s cousin’s tips that had given them the location of the stocked warehouse.  That cousin was in their security uniform, at the far end of the lot with a broken leg, a shiner, and two of the four mercenaries she’d hired standing guard over them.

By choice, as strange as it seemed.  Cape insurance was paying out the nose while Boston was being turned upside-down, and they weren’t vetting a lot of the reports, or so this cousin thought.  For enduring a broken leg and a bruise, they had a disability payout, an excuse to claim mental distress, and the ability to coast for six months to a year before they had to go back to work.  That was their estimation, reportedly.  She didn’t really care if it worked out or not.

She got what she’d wanted.  Trucks loaded with stolen goods.  J’s suggestion had been to basically sell some of the computers and TVs to her people for ten percent of their label prices.  From the buzz she’d heard, some seemed excited about the idea.  Less profit, but it made for happier underlings and less stock to offload.

Some of her people were prepared to drive to major cities and towns nearby to offload to groups and connections there.  Bar had family who wanted to buy some of the stock to sell on the down-low.

J and Bar seemed pretty confident that they’d already made arrangements to get rid of two truckloads.  Part of one truck would go to her people -that was fine- and the rest?  It couldn’t be too difficult.  The trick was that her people would be selling it themselves, rather than distributing to people who would sell it.  That involved risks.

“Ready to go?” J asked.

She nodded.

J signaled with a wave of his hand.

His car was parked between two buildings.  Damsel took the passenger seat, and J shut the door for her.

“Want me to drive ahead or behind?” J asked.

“Behind.”

J leaned out of the window and waved his arm in a forward motion.

The trucks rolled out.

They pulled out of the broad concrete lot that bounded the warehouse and other buildings in the same broader complex, and Damsel raised a hand to signal the mercenaries.

“Is Marrow happy?” J asked.

“Happy enough,” she responded.  They’d allowed Marrow to bring a single truck in exchange for loaning them the vehicles to move the stock.  It built relations, which was handy.  Marrow had ignored her or claimed to be unavailable the last four times she had reached out.  She’d stung his pride.

Forming working relationships would be good.

“My heart is pounding like crazy,” J said.  “It has been since we first got into the trucks to drive here.”

“Wuss,” she said.

“Isn’t yours?” he asked.  “How are you calm at a time like this?”

“I’m not, I suppose,” she said.  She wasn’t calm, but it made her uncomfortable to try to explore that simple question of how she felt or where her ‘normal’ was.  There were times her heart raced, and her heart was racing now, but that wasn’t unusual.  It was almost normal.  Whenever it wasn’t like this… she couldn’t say she was calm.  If she wasn’t actively doing something then she generally had other concerns.

It was a rare, rare time that she was still, things were mundane, and she found a moment to consider to how she felt or how her body was doing.

She moved her hand with care, because an incautious movement could destroy the car door, wheel, or engine.  She didn’t recognize her own hand.

For the last little while, she had been eating more.  Thanks to J.  Her fingers were still thin, but the bones and the tendons at the back weren’t quite as defined as they had been.

The window was open, and she put her hand outside.  Dangerous, to let the wind push and pull at her hand, but she was careful to keep it rigid.

She felt good and she didn’t trust the feeling.  She’d felt good when she’d robbed the bank with Kidney Stan’s group.  She’d felt good when she’d looted the clothing store in Stafford at four in the morning and made off with bags of clothes.  The bank robbery had gone wrong and the ‘good’ had become something else, and the good feeling from the looting of the clothing store had soured with a quickness that suggested the feeling hadn’t been real.

No good days.  There were the bad days and there were the days she dreaded the bad days.  Right now, she was caught between a low-key excitement that wouldn’t quit and the dread.

Almost, almost, she was tempted to do something stupid just to get it out of the way and alleviate that dread.

Hm.  Maybe not so almost.  She couldn’t quite recall the train of thought that had led to her scaling the side of the building with her power.  There hadn’t even been thought, when she tried to remember the sequence of events.  The noise had demanded her attention, and somewhere between the point where she had rationalized that she needed to get up higher to see what was going on, needed to do it fast, and couldn’t climb up the ladder without her power getting in the way… had she felt a kernel of that desire to alleviate the dread?  Had she pushed it out of mind and acted on it, in her hurry?

That spooked her more than the electronics robbery or the rumble had.

“Holy shit, there it is,” J said.

Damsel tilted her head to see through the side window, and she saw the giant.  It hadn’t moved.  More helicopters with lights were circling it.  Nobody was fighting the thing, and the thing wasn’t fighting anyone.

“Blasto’s, probably,” she said.  “He was making something big.”

“You’re not bothered?”

“Not as long as he keeps it out of Deathchester.”

“Half the city must be shitting itself right now,” J said.

“Because they’re weak,” she said.

She’d wanted to say something clever, to elaborate on the thought, but she heard the way she said ‘weak’, the harshness of it, and it surprised her enough that the rest of the statement caught her off guard.

I would fight past ten of Soldat’s soldiers, a hundred of Blasto’s plant heroes, or disobey a thousand of Edict’s orders, if it meant not feeling like this.

A collision ahead of them snapped her to reality.  Tires squealed as J hit the brakes, then steered to avoid the trucks that were simultaneously braking and swerving to avoid what was ahead of them.

Her power destroyed the door handle as she opened the car door.  The eighteen-wheeler’s long body provided some cover as she jogged ahead, trying to get to a point where she could see what was going on.

Latent emotion boiled up.  The dread became something manifest and tangible that ran in her veins.  There was a desperate edge to her feelings

She saw a ghostly prism floating in the air, rotating slowly.

“Licit!” she screamed the word.

Her people were climbing out of the back of a truck.

“Boss,” one said.

“Licit!” she screamed, again.  Her power flared.

She saw the heroes further down the street.  Licit wasn’t alone.  He walked toward her, filling the air around him with more ghostly shapes, ranging from a few feet across to the size of a car.  Spheres, cubes, diamond prisms, cones.  His backup didn’t advance with him.

“What do we do?” someone asked.

She stared at Licit, breathing hard.

“We need two trucks, minimum,” she said.  She had to catch a breath to get the final two words out.  “Get out.”

“Bar!” the person shouted.  “We gotta leave with two trucks!”

Other names were called.  O’Neil- he’d been driving one truck.  She glanced back and saw him being extricated from the cab of a truck.  The airbag had trapped him and someone was now hacking at it with a knife to try to get the air out sooner.

Licit raised a hand, extending it their way.  She saw more shapes appear in the air.  Between her and Licit, behind her, and-

One truck reversed.  It ran into the sphere that had been created behind it.

She reversed direction, walking away from Licit.  A wall appeared in front of her- the face of a cube- she destroyed it with her power.

More.  One after another, obstacle, frustration, stalling.

She snarled.

He created them almost as fast as she destroyed them.  Her progress was measured in single paces.

She reached the back of the truck and destroyed the cube there.

“Back!” she called out, hopping up and grabbing a dent for a handhold.  Her power crackled, tearing a hole in sheet metal, and her fingers caught on the sheet metal, gripping the edge.

She expected the shape to appear, and she blasted it before it could have an effect.

The truck got turned around, and she hopped off as it sped off.

Another shape -a tall spike- appeared in the truck’s way.  The driver avoided it, but it hit the side view mirror and cracked the passenger side window.

The other truck hung back.  J was hanging onto the driver’s side door, watching things while communicating with the driver.  The people from the other truck were hurrying to get inside so they could get a ride away from the scene.

Rather than go to the truck, she went after Licit.  She knew how he operated.  He had a hard-on for her, like Edict did.  He’d been a big city cape once, and he’d transferred to her town because he got his jollies making her miserable.

He rode around with police and did talks at schools, according to the stoners she talked to.

Oh, and he got in her fucking way.

“Licit!” she screamed.

“I don’t want to fight, Ashley!”

“Have the decency to call me Damsel of Distress, you genital wart!”

“Damsel of Distress,” he said.  He was shaking his head.

A cone appeared at knee height, point touching the ground.  She almost walked into it, avoided it only because she’d had this encounter far too many times already.

“Digging your grave every time you try that, petty man,” she said.

“Why don’t you stop right where you are, and we talk.  I’m not looking to arrest you.”

He indicated the giant in the background, his head turning.

She used the opportunity to run toward him.

He created a barrier.  She blasted it, stumbling off to the left, then resumed running.  He created another barrier.

“Just stop, let’s chat.  We have bigger concerns tonight, believe it or not.”

“No you don’t,” she said, her eyes going wide.  “You got in my way, so you’d better believe I’m your biggest concern.”

“We’ll let you go with the trucks that can still move,” he said.  “If you’re willing to talk.”

“Do you like having legs, Licit?  I’ll let you keep them if you start begging for mercy now.”

“You’ve never hurt anyone that badly, Damsel.  You’re not about to start now.  Stop.”

More barriers.  She blasted through each, changed the direction she moved as she tried to guess where each would appear and evade pre-emptively, and she drew nearer to him.

He began walking backward, keeping the same general distance from her.

As her second truck pulled away, he raised an arm for his buddies.  Two took flight, flying toward the truck, leaving only two on the ground.

“Less witnesses?” she asked.  She shook her head.  “Your bosses are going-”

She blasted at another barrier.

“-To need at least three if they’re going to make sense of exactly what it is I did to you and your remains.”

“Did you or do you know about that giant?” he asked.

She blasted another cube to pieces, stalking toward him.  He was walking through his shapes while they were solid for her.  He was relying on the shapes he’d made in advance to help keep the distance.

“…Your robbery was suspiciously timed,” he said.

“I have some idea.  How about I whisper it in your ear?”

“We flew over, our thinker gave us the take on you being in the car, stolen goods being in the truck.  We- if you stop and talk to me, I’ll call back the Boston fliers that just left.  You can walk away.”

She glared, blasting again.  Then, to break up the rhythm, she shot with the hand that hung limp at her side, her arm going rigid to provide some strength for the blast.  She sent herself upward, over the field, and then blasted again to rocket toward him.

Shapes went up.  He leaped to one side and skidded on one hip and leg, moving along a smooth, shallow slope he’d made with his power.  She gave chase, rocketing toward him with her power, and more shapes went up between them.

This time- cones and diamond-shaped spires that might as well have been spears.  Points aimed her way.

She stopped.

She reached out, touching one of the points.  She smiled.  “Got scared?”

“Director of the Boston PRT wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Again.”

“We bring you in or have you make a phone call.  We’re supposed to take the stolen goods back, according to the police, but we’re getting conflicting orders, because we’re supposed to be ready in case that giant ends up being a threat.  Given our past relationship-”

Damsel snorted.  “You stalk me and get in my way.”

“-I’ll let the stolen goods slide.  We won’t arrest your guys.  If you talk.”

“Does describing your unfortunate and imminent demise count?  Fuck you, Licit.  You’ll promise that and betray me the moment you have what you want.”

“I’ve never once done anything like that.”

Everyone does things like that.  You’re not special.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said.  “I’m going to reach slowly for my belt.  I’m going to pull my phone out, and I’m going to call my guys off.  Just… stay where you are.”

She stared at him.

His hand moved.  She watched as he reached down, drawing the phone out.  There was a pause as he typed, his eyes moving back and forth between the phone and her.

Furtive.  Cowardly.

“Dovetail, Aerobat.  Can you let the trucks go?”

There was a pause.

“Please,” he said.  Pause.  “Yeah.  Thanks.”

“You’re lying.  Secret code.  Cops and capes can lie, and I’m not going to be fooled.”

“Just… wait?” he asked.

“If you are lying, how about I put you down?  I might not have maimed anyone, you’re right about that, but I’ve killed people, you know.”

“I know, Ashley,” he said.  “I’m sorry that happened.”

Her expression twitched.  Irritation, anger.  Her voice was hard.  “What did I say about my name?”

“I wasn’t saying it to you,” he said it in a quiet voice.  “I was saying it to her.  Is that okay?”

“No,” she said.  “That’s the kind of thing that makes me throw myself past these spikes of yours and take your head from your shoulders.”

“Then I won’t do it again, Damsel of Distress,” he said.  “Sorry.”

A moment passed.  She wanted to pace, but she worried that would be the trap, a bit of forcefield created at a level to trip her up, create a weakness that he could use.

The idea nettled her.  She remained where she was, imagining what she might do if an opportunity came up.

“You’ve never beat me,” she said.  “You never found me.  And I’m your full-time job?”

“Well, I help the police and things.  Ah, there they are.  See?”

Dovetail and Aerobat.  The pair dropped down from the sky, rejoining the two in the background.  They were looking more at the giant in the water than at Damsel.

“They could have already caught my friends.  Doesn’t Dovetail make forcefields?  This is clearly a trap.  You wouldn’t call them back for nothing.”

“I called them back because I promised that I would if you stopped and talked.  Which you effectively did.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“How about this?  You can use my phone or you can take a burner phone.  Call your group, confirm they’re fine.  But also call Director Armstrong.  If you take the burner phone, you call him at your leisure,” he said, tapping his belt.  “I brought it for that express purpose.”

“With a tracer in it?  No.  Stop acting like I’m stupid, Licit.”

“We don’t think you’re stupid, Damsel of Distress.  We do worry about you.”

“As you should.  I’m dangerous.”

He sighed.

His phone illuminated, buzzing silently in his hand.

She stared him down.

“Can I answer, Damsel?  It’s… the team back there.”

She didn’t answer.  She would give her team a bit longer to get away, then she would act.  She would have to deal with two fliers.  That would be a pain.

There was a building nearby.  She could blast a hole in the wall and force them to maneuver in an area they couldn’t fly up.

If need be, she would bring parts of the building down behind her.

He pressed the button on his phone without raising it from where he held it to his side.  He glanced down and hit another button.

“Licit,” a female voice came over the phone’s speaker.

“Dovetail,” Licit said, looking at Damsel.  “That’s Dovetail.  What do you need?”

“Do you need us to stick around?  We’re wondering if we should go after the giant.  Just in case.”

“Go,” he said.  “I think I’m fine.  De-escalating might be good.”

In the background, the two fliers took off.  The other one ran toward the water, in the general direction of the giant.  It had to be a mile and a half away.

“No witnesses,” Damsel said.

Licit hung up the phone.

“Your raid happened when the giant appeared.  Did you know it would appear?”

She remained silent.

He looked over his shoulder at the giant, and then without looking back to her, he said, “Director Armstrong has information about the Clockwork Dogs.  It’s why he wanted to talk to you.  Give us any info you have, agree to play reasonably nice, and…”

He drew in a breath and sighed.

“…We’re not especially invested in stopping you.  This situation in Boston is going to wind down in the next month, we’re hoping, as the major players lock down their territories or get their business underway.  If you’re one of them, then it’s not our first choice for outcomes, but at least you seem reasonably healthy and you’re not as bad as some.”

“I’m pretty darn bad, Licit.  You got scared enough to put spikes in my way.”

She touched a spike.  It fizzled out of existence- because of him, not her.

“You’re not shipping in prisoners from overseas and turning them into half-cow people to sell to fans of some asinine children’s show.  You cause property damage and you legitimately scare me because I can’t ever know for sure how far you’re willing to go, but I’ve been keeping an eye on your activities in Stafford-”

“Stalking me.”

“Keeping an eye on you, Damsel of Distress,” he said.  “I’ve been doing it long enough to get some sense of who you could be.  I’d rather have you around than nine out of ten of these assholes.  Edict would too, for the record.  Given a chance she’d cook you a warm meal, probably.  At least once a week, every week for the two years we’ve been keeping an eye on you, she’s said she would drop a box of eclairs off on your doorstep if she- if she knew where you were.  Or things like that.”

Damsel didn’t respond.

“I’ve joked it’s a Stockholm syndrome thing,” he said.  “We’d take you in and have you be a hero.  We’d pay you well, give you clothes, see what we could do to get your power under control, give you foster guardians…”

“You’ve told me this before.  Deceptions.  You’ll get me into custody and then drag me off to jail.”

“I don’t think we could keep you in jail,” he said.  “We do this song and dance instead.  I’m glad I got to spell it all out like this, instead of frantically shouting bits and pieces of it while you’re up to something.  I’ll rest easier knowing I got to make the full pitch once.”

“This shark isn’t going to bite that baited hook,” she said.  “It’s still not ruling out taking your head off.”

“Yeah,” Licit said.  “You’re doing this instead.  I really hope it works out, weird as it sounds.”

“It’s going to work out,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.  “Okay.  If that’s the case, then we’re going to be around another month or so.  That’s when we’re expecting it to come to a close.  Obviously, if you’re robbing a bank and we’re patrolling, we’ll be on the scene, but that’s it, we won’t come after you in any dedicated way.  After that, we’ll be gone, assigned to another small town somewhere.  You’ll be rid of us.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“We’ll be gone sooner if you tell us anything you know about the giant.”

She considered.

“You could even tell me you don’t know anything.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Blasto’s,” she said.  “He was brewing something big.  There was talk he had a big weapon, like the death ray building scale of thing.  This fits for time, it fits for what people were saying and thinking.”

“Good to know,” he said.

“His team of capes isn’t real.  They’re vat grown.”

“Are they?” he asked.

She almost elaborated.  She didn’t.  “You should have heroes that know this.  Like the one who knew our trucks had stolen goods in them.”

Licit nodded, but he didn’t reply.

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid,” she said.  “I’m corroborating what you already knew.  Or you didn’t need corroboration, but me saying this lets you check off some box for some reason.”

“Something like that,” he said.  “Alright.  I’ve done my duty, I’m probably not going to get a wink of sleep tonight while we figure out what to do about the giant, so… I’ll leave you to it, like my name says.”

He smiled.

She stared him down, glaring.

“Call the Director.  If nothing else… you’ll have to negotiate with the good guys sometimes if you’re going to do business in Boston.  Open that line of communication.  You need to know what you’re up against.”

He reached into his belt, drew out the black flip-phone, and threw it her way.

She caught it.

After a moment’s consideration, she destroyed the phone with her power.

“Good luck, I guess,” he said.

“I had a question,” Ashley said.

“Sure,” Riley answered.  She held one of Ashley’s hands in her hands, and held it up, poking at the raw end to make the fingers move.  It was idle, and not for any particular purpose.

It annoyed Ashley enough that she almost lost her train of thought.

“Nail polish.  What would it take?”

“I’ve replaced your nails with different colored ones before,” Riley said.  “Well… ‘color’.”

“If I wanted to apply actual nail polish.”

“That wouldn’t be destroyed by your power?  That’s hard.  Is it important?”

“I was out, a few days ago.  New area.  There was a shop with a sign in the window.  Superhero styled nail polish.  A friend of mine thought she might be able to do it.”

“That’s neat,” Amy said.  She had one hand on one of Ashley’s other arms.  She looked back at Ashley.  “The idea of something fancy like that, and that you have a friend willing to do it.”

“I don’t know if she would be able to.  But… it might be nice to have that freedom.”

“Here,” Riley said, “Amy, give me the arm.  I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Ashley said.

“Have tea and cake with me again or something, in exchange for me going to the trouble,” Riley said.  “Sometimes I think I’m going to lose my mind again, cooped up in here like this.”

“We can’t have that,” Ashley said.

“I’m going to my room.  I have nail polish there I can use for tests,” Riley said.

Then she was gone.

Amy leaned against the counter by the sink.  She pursed her lips, her eyebrows going up momentarily.  Nothing to say.

Ashley looked down at the stumps.  The hollow metal rods had been replaced by ones with blunt ends, rather than the sharp ones of a year ago.

“I heard, um, you talked to my sister at one point?” Amy asked.

Ashley looked up, staring.

“I don’t want to pry or anything, but I worry about her.  I-”

“Then don’t pry,” Ashley said, her voice cold.

There was a pause.

“Okay.”

Ashley exhaled slowly, her eyes closed.

When her eyes opened, her head was still tilted back, staring up at the ceiling.

She was tired.  She would have to sleep, and she was worried about where that would take her.  Her nerves were frayed.

There were things to do.  She would need to make sure she looked her part.  She’d had more successes than failures overall, though the loss of the trucks would be something she would have to bring up with Marrow.

She walked on her knees to get to the point where she could climb off the bed, then fixed her dress.  She smoothed it down, because it was better to do that now when there was time to replace it.  The wrinkles in the dress persisted.  She frowned.

That could be fixed.  She tended to her hair, which was less of a risk than the dress.  It had been styled, and she hadn’t had cause to use her power on it.

She would have to soon, though.  She could see the start of the faint blonde roots.

“Get ready,” she said.

J sat up, rubbing his jaw.  “Any plans?”

“You’re my assistant.  You should know full well what we’re doing tonight.”

“Tonight’s moot.  I meant the specifics.”

“Get ready.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He went into the bathroom.

She elected to change clothes herself, because his way of doing it would take too long.  Her second nicest dress hung in the closet, and she was careful as she put it on.  She left the zipper alone.

He emerged from the bathroom, face freshly washed, hair fixed, and did the zipper up for her.

“I’m going to get the paperwork in case we end up doing any business.”

“Good.”

She was ready before he was.  When she stepped into the hallway of the hotel, the others were there.  Angel leaned against the wall, smiling.

“Stop being so happy,” Ashley told her.  “There’s only so much to go around.”

“There’s more going around than there was a week ago,” Angel said.  Bar elbowed her.

“Yeah.  Maybe there is,” Ashley said.

The door of the hotel room was open, and she could see J at the other end, gathering papers and putting them into a messenger bag.  He approached.

“Sorry for the wait.”

“Then be faster next time,” Ashley said.

J smiled.

They walked as a group to the parking lot, and loaded up into cars.  There was bickering about who sat where, but she ignored it.

“We should take another car,” J said.

The handle on the passenger side door was broken.  She stared at it for a moment, then nodded.

The drive was quiet, but quiet was good.

The giant was still in the water.  Over the day since its arrival, the giant had moved some, letting people know it was still a potential threat, but it hadn’t attacked anyone or done anything, and nobody had picked a fight with it.  She imagined it would be a topic tonight.

Numbers had swelled and changed over the past several moots.  As they reached the crest of the hill that looked over the beach, there were multiple fires visible.  The bonfire remained as its own construction, bigger than any of the others.

They stopped on the road overlooking the beach, and then they began their walk.

Ashley had been content to stick to the shadows over the past several moots, but the shadows had shrunk over the past few visits, with the individual fires.

Her heart raced, and she felt the kernel of- of a tentative feeling that she pushed out of mind before it could trip her up.  Composure mattered.  Image was everything, as she had her people behind her and her enemies in front of her.

There was no room for error.

She approached, and she took her spot at the inner ring by the fire for the first time.

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94 thoughts on “Eclipse – x.6”

  1. Let’s see how many super-amateur homonym mistakes creep in this time as I hit day 6 of this marathon.

    Sorry it’s later than what is my already super-late usual at this point. Had a technical issue. Am hopeful I can schedule correct (at least to some degree) as this ~has~ had the side benefit I was hoping for, I think, of forcing me to crack down on the writerly discipline.

    1. Beloved Bow… you worry about tripping and stumbling a small amount when the rest of us can barely even lag behind on your Marthon race.

      This is amazing work even with the stumbles. Thank you. And this arc has been amazing.

      Now I wanna see the Damsel of Distress bring the Giant down! ^_^

      1. Fully concur and agree, I love witnessing artists push themselves to new levels in their art. This whole arc is delightful.

        1. .. And frankly, to add, for this fan there is 100% forgiveness for any delays, minor issues, technical issues, or otherwise. I sit in awe and gratitude watching Ashley’s story unfold.

    2. Sir, you have managed consistent content delivery for material that had remained consistently entertaining for longer than some serially delivered novels that are accounted classical literature.

      https://booksonthewall.com/blog/serial-novel-a-brief-history/

      I promise you, oh bristly northern lacerater of heartstrings, oh hoggish harbinger of horrors, those of us who have stick around this long have no complaints on mere hours of delay. Not in the face of years of entertainment.

      On a less me-to-significantly-superior-scribe note: I continue to adore the characterization between Guts and Glory.

      Admittedly (and some of this may come from my degree of sympathy for Miss Lavere (aka the Bio-striker formerly known as Dallon), bit I continue to be surprised that the notion of Agents as a mitigating factor in Cape crimes had yet to come up as a legal defense.

      After all, most villainous cape personas are induced as part of an alien-indiced extended PTSD-adjacent psychotic break that starts at the point that they trigger.

      The American justice system can’t even handle the consequences 0f the Atlantic Slave Trade and systemic racism. Even without the Warrior’s c0nplete, worlds-ending shitfit, said system would’ve collapsed under the true nature of parahuman powers.

  2. No Worries. Glad to hear it’s working out for you as well as it has for us! Been enjoying it all immensely. Hopefully you’ll be adding a buncha other snippets or short tales some time. I like the idea of a bevy of cape stories to explore more characterization an world building, though I love the long involved stories following the main characters as well.

    Just so much to enjoy on both sides of the coin.

    ~Teian

  3. Another good update. I like her handling of Amy.

    If this is day 6, that means J dies tomorrow, right?

    1. Oi, you close that treacherous mouth of yours. J doesn’t die, he just goes back to his home planet of pure pureness and flawless henchpeople.

      Maaaaybe becomes Othello. One or the other.

      1. J and Moose are both alive in a pocket dimension, having a great time and waiting for Victoria and Ashley to get their shit sorted out, and nothing can convince me otherwise.

      2. Don’t worry. J is just retiring to a farm upstate, where he can relax and play with a bunch of other retired henchpeople.

  4. “You’re not shipping in prisoners from overseas and turning them into half-cow people to sell to fans of some asinine children’s show.”

    It has been noted by others but Orchard are THE WORST.

      1. …dammit. Why did you have to remind me of Biker Mice from Mars’ redneck cousin?

  5. Creating a giant monster and not even having it climb atop a skyscraper? Blasto you disappoint me.

    Anyways, anyone have a time-frame for how long Ashley has actually been in Boston?

  6. Man, poor Amy. Cornering Ashley at one of her appointments isn’t the right way to go about things, but it’s not like she has a wealth of options here. She can’t contact Victoria directly, can’t talk to family about it, can’t talk to most of Victoria’s friends… We need a reconciliation arc at some point here.

    Also, how are you keeping up with the schedule and making the chapters this awesome, Wildbow? It’s obvious that you’re some kind of writing deity, here to grace us with your stories.

      1. Well, she can, but Victoria isn’t talking to them either after the whole debacle with the family dinner, so they’re not really a source of information or a way to reach out.

        1. Carol has seen and heard about what Victoria has been doing a few times even after the fight.

          Amy should be able to content herself with sparse status updates for now.

    1. Don’t worry. I’m sure the two will reconcile under properly controlled conditions. And you know not everyone horribly mutilated while an S-Class threat is wrecking everything, and Vicky hasn’t slept for three days, and Amy is drunk or some shit.

      1. Yep, nothing brings people together like the Endbringers suddenly deciding that humanity should be exterminated.

    2. Reconciliation between the two would surprise me. I’m fully expecting Amy to be the central antagonist of Ward.

      1. Actually, I think she’ll just straight-up die.

        There will be no reconciliation or any antagonism between them.

        Because with the whole Dot thing, she’s set up too much to be a villain for her to be a villain. I think it’s just a red herring.

  7. Given the scale of this thing, it makes it seem like Blasto deciding to create new Endbringers made a lot more in-character sense…

  8. Really loving this week. It’s a welcome break to read in depth of another character in the universe.

    On another note, my guess with J is something will happen with the Nine.

  9. Wow, this whole Eclipse interlude/short story has been pretty good. I was a bit cautious at first since it just seemed like an extended flashback sequence deviating from the main plot, but the entire thing has kinda taken on the flavor of a really good tragedy (in the classical/Greek sense? protagonists struggling against the inevitable).

    I especially liked the Licit interaction. It was really sad to see DoD’s intelligent (but I guess largely baseless?) paranoia destroy any chance of a common understanding ever being reached.

    1. Yeah, well Ashley had an abusive father who drilled it into his daughter that the police are not to be trusted and always make things worse, probably since she could talk. Scummy, yet perfectly predictable abuser tactic. Of course Ashley doesn’t believe a word the heroes say.

  10. Thus far I’ve been disappointed by the Boston games arc(too much focus on worthless side characters like Damsel’s henchmen, not enough of the capes like Blasto and Accord apart from some brief combat scenes etc) but the parts taking place in the main story are quite good. Clone Ashley is far more interesting than original Ashley, and I hope this arc doesn’t preclude us from getting some interludes from her later on.

    1. While I don’t dislike the flashback arcs as much as you seem to, I do seem to be looking forward to the more recent events much more in these.

      Poor Riley. She really needs some friends. Who hopefully won’t be medically experimented on, or desire to have medically experiment on others.

      Funny/horrifying thought. Riley and Kenzie meet. Might actually be able to make that camera that can look inside you.

      1. Riley-Kenzie BFF-4ever! Now that’s a Tinker-marriage that’ll visit my nightmares next time I sleep.

        Sentient, weaponized, Powered… cameras? Suffering the torments of the damned! Cameras that were one your best friend!?!

        Eek.

        1. Sentient, weaponized, powered, *time-travelling* cameras. I’m pretty sure Kenzie and Riley meeting is what kicks off the Terminator series.

    2. Weird, I completely disagree with you. Seeing characters like Wag the Dog, and Angel are the sorts of characters that really bring the world to life for me. I care as much, if not more for them, then I do seeing accord’s antics in a flashback. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s a fun villain, but I already know where his story goes. I just can’t get as attached as I can to these new characters.

      And honestly, I find that knowing more about original Ashley helps me know more about clone Ashley.

      ~Teian.

      1. Henchman antics are an excellent reminder of how incredibly silly the setting is, under all the terror and desperation.

  11. I’m finally caught up with Worm/Ward! Heard about it from a random reddit comment and have been devouring it ever since. Haven’t commented until now, but I just want to say thank you Wildbow for creating such a rich world with such interesting characters. I eagerly await more Ward. Now, for my inaugural typo correction: “then steered to avoid the trucks that were simultaneously breaking and swerving” should be “braking and swerving”.

    1. Welcome to the typo thread party.

      “a desperate edge to her feelings”
      Punctuation.

      1. “She could see the fat, rust-stained concrete lip at the bottom of a window, and she stomped on it more than step on it,”

        Stepped.

  12. Thanks Wildbow for this arc. You deserve a long vacation. And I’m in awe of your work ethic and ability to craft a good story on a tight schedule.

  13. I like how Ashley times her “then don’t pry” comment. The usual retort is to do it immediately after someone says “I don’t want to pry, but” to shut them down, but Ashley saying it then really adds edge to her implying if she worries about her, stay out of her life, because that would be worse.

  14. Wow, I can’t believe how freaking much slack the PRT gave Ashley. I mean they were all “Okay well maybe if you kinda sorta consider talking to us we’ll totally let you get away with two truckloads of stolen goods. Honestly would have directed traffic out of your way if I’d known it was you. Here’s a phone talk to us any time!”
    Meanwhile if it’d been Taylor
    “She’s doing something! Take her down hard!”
    I’m exagerating, yeah but was this just Armstrong being much less of a hardliner than Piggy, and Boston preferring to try talking down young and possibly turnable capes or what?

      1. To me, this and empathy for her raw deal with her powers are exactly why some quite destructive people got a form of a ‘pass’ as long as they didn’t step too far out of a general line. But I think in the post Worm, Ward era we forget how omnipresent and horrifying the situation with the Endbringers really was.

      2. I don’t think Ashley could really hurt an Endbringer in a meaningful way. Her power sometimes leaves debris behind, when dense objects are condensed even denser before they’re obliterated, and Endbringer cores are dense indeed. It’d strip away the surface layers just great, I expect, but you need more than that to kill one of those guys.

        I can see why PRT might be willing to try, though.

        Besides all that, I think the main difference between Skitter and Damsel of Distress is that Skitter was winning. DoD robs places and dreams big, but her schemes all fail and she keeps a low profile between them. Her power’s scary in close range, but PRT as a whole has no reason to feel threatened by her. If she had actually succeeded in Boston, and taken over a city like Skitter did, there might have been consequences.

        1. I feel like after the first ten times you throw the Triumvarate at the Endbringers and they walk it off, the bottom of the barrel starts to look worth scraping.

        2. Keep in mind that this is before Armsmaster’s attempt to solo Leviathan – which did more damage than ever before and led to Tattletale discovering the layered structure and cores of the Endbringers. The PRT basically has no idea just how tough they really are, at this point; and they probably don’t undrrstand Ashley’s power all that well, either.

          And I’m not convinced she wouldn’t be able to hurt them, either; her power causes varied effects. The matter condensisng effect might not be effective against Endbringer cores, but other effects could be. Thid is a power that destroyes planets, after all.

    1. It’s a little strange when you consider that they don’t seem to giving this much favor to any of the other slaughterhouse nine clones, who are still mostly locked up. In a rewrite it would make more sense if Ashley is one of the only clones they have access to. That way she’d be more valuable.

      Or you could argue that since she’s reliant on Riley’s prosthetics, she won’t be able to escape and she can’t piss the Wardens off too badly, so they’re willing to cut her some slack.

      1. Also, she seems to be something of a personal project for Armstrong, like Weld. Remember how he showed up in person to drive her home? And he’s pretty much running the non-powered side of things these days.

    2. “Wow, I can’t believe how freaking much slack the PRT gave Ashley.”

      I think there a bunch of factors that move them in that direction. The biggest is that it looks like the original Ashley was going out of her way to not hurt people. I’m pretty sure that when the Boston Games started, Ashley had never killed anyone but her parents and the PRT figure that her power’s unpredictability was the cause. She seems to be very careful to not hurt people. Skitter, on the other hand, mauled people with insects all the time. She didn’t kill anyone before Coil, but she hospitalized several people. It’s so easy for Ashley to kill people and so hard for her not to. It says something that someone with her power problems doesn’t have a two+ figure body count. That didn’t happen by accident. Ashley’s clearly going out of her way to avoid murder.

      Also, Ashley was just committing a few thefts with some collateral property damage. The PRT weren’t treating Skitter or the Undersiders a priority after that bank job. The attack on the event at he art gallery where they publicly humiliated the Protectorate and Wards teams was likely what really started that ball rolling.

      Ashley might be useful in an Endbringer fight. She probably couldn’t get close to the Simurgh or Behemoth, but Leviathan might be someone she could really hurt.

      Trying to capture her could result in massive property damage and has the very real chance of casualties. It’s less expensive to monitor her and try to make life a little easier on her so she’s less aggressive. Plus, as Licit indicated, what are they going to do with her if they catch her. No normal prison in the world can hold her and she hasn’t done anything that merits sending her to the Birdcage. Plus, her inability to stop her power from going off means that putting her in the Birdcage might just cause her death and anyone near her if she breached the outer wall by mistake. In short, she can’t be contained, only killed.

      Finally, there’s simple empathy. Ashley’s story appears to be known to the PRT and it’s a sad one. I can see the people making the decision that it was worth some cost to try to make a recruitment pitch to Ashley. Contrast this to Skitter who was an enigmatic villain who usually had so many bugs crawling on her, it was uncomfortable to look at her. Also of the three PRT directors in Brockton Bay during Skitter’s time as villain (Piggot, Calvert, Tagg) none of them are people that seem to have much empathy for villains with a sad story.

      1. “The attack on the event at he art gallery where they publicly humiliated the Protectorate and Wards teams was likely what really started that ball rolling.”

        Nah, it wasn’t even that. Battery was watching Skitter when she claimed her territory—arguably seceding—and walked away once she was sure she wouldn’t stab a guy. Piggot told Weld the Undersiders were lower priority than the Merchants or the white supremacists.

        It’s not until they body-jacked a teenager and walked away from the truce against the Slaughterhouse Nine because they might lose hold of their territory that they became worth actively going after.

        1. well, the first time heroes went weirdly hard after the Undersiders was the bank job itself, when 1) the ENTIRE Wards team showed up, 2) Kid Win pulled out the Alternator Cannon that did more damage than the robbery itself, 3) Glory Girl with her prized interior demolishing skills joined in
          that’s what presents such a sharp contrast to Ashley here
          and yeah, I’m thinking it’s to a large degree the difference between the individuals: Piggot + Armsy + New Wave having a different attitude toward unlucky teenagers with powers than Armstrong + Edict&Licit do
          but also as for Taylor, she went hardball with a power that had settings all the way from ‘invisible surveillaince’ to ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘harmless obstacle’ to ‘painful’ to ‘murderous’, while Ashley used her “murder everything” power as a mover power first and foremost
          that’s a visible difference

      2. “she hasn’t done anything that merits sending her to the Birdcage”

        Canary got sent to the birdcage and her crime was objectively lesser than Ashley’s.

        1. Canary also didn’t do anything that merited getting sent to the Birdcage. Her case shows the heroes that they can’t fully trust the legal system

  15. “I wasn’t saying it to you,” he said it in a quiet voice. “I was saying it to her.”
    Spooky! Interesting to see the idea of capes and hosts as actually separate people has gained some traction at this stage. Or maybe it’s just specific to the way Licit sees Ashley/Damsel. Either way that can’t be easy for her to hear. Ashley has enough issues with her sense of self without other people throwing it in her face.

    1. Well, ‘at this stage’ is still in the past, long before Gold Morning. However we know several triggers actually got past Scion’s mind whammy, so Licit might also be aware of the influence shards have.

      In Ward proper, it’s only been a couple years so it might be too early for SCIENCE to demand further investigating their exact properties, but eventually some folks will get around to it. Humanity’s way too curious to let that kind of innovation gold mine alone for long.

      1. I had a similar read. To expand, I think he considers Damsel to be just a persona that Ashley wears as a coping mechanism, instead of processing the death of her parents healthily; thinking that if she’s killed, that makes her a killer (and Damsel BOASTS of having killed in this chapter, even though she actively tries to avoid killing; it also connects to themes Sveta explored in the aftermath of the Fallen raid). But she can reconcile being a killer if she’s a Big Bad Villain, which allows it to be a source of pride and reputation instead of shame and guilt.

        Even if true, Damsel would take offense to the idea of not being the ‘real’ Ashley. Maybe even especially if true – since acknowledging it would shake up her defense mechanisms.

  16. I am really loving the Boston Games arc so far and think I might see where it’s going. The best little catch I’ve seen so far is seeing the Original Ashley’s statement about bad days as an echo of Clone Ashley’s bad day before court. Or maybe Clone technically echoes Original. What’s sad is that I don’t think Ashley has much of a concept of what a good day is anymore, since she’s trapped between intense, constant cape violence and actually having to think about her life. Love it.

  17. Millions of starving refugees with cancer and the two best healers are busy figuring out Ashley’s nail polish.

    I mean, maybe this is the thing they do to unwind at the end of their break or something, but jeez. Between this and the two-story apartment my sympathy for Clone Ashley is fleeing fast.

    1. Well, one of the healers ows Ashley a whole bunch of favors from when she enslaved her, got her killed, produced several clones of her and got most of those killed too. And the other healer needs to watch because the first healer is a dangerous loon who will sharpen your bones to be more useful as melee weapons unless you remind her not to.

      And as for the apartment, she’s paying for it. There’s a bunch of scientists giving her money to take pills and write down her dreams, because she’s got other people’s memories bleeding over to her for some reason.

      1. Don’t forget that when Bonesaw made the Damsel clones, she gave them freaky huge spider-like hands to aid in using their power. So it’s kinda on her to give Ashley proper hands as part of her redemption.

      2. Well, exactly. Riley already maintains Ashley’s hands and clearly takes care of any other actual medical problem she has. How much time does this take, and how many people are left to suffer or die because of it? Amy has to check and re-check all of these little changes, costing both of them time when there must be swarms of people literally dying for help from either of them.

        And obviously Ashley pays for the apartment. That’s not the issue. The issue is single people parading around in huge spaces while millions are living in tents right next door, and the system that allows this to go on. The image of Ashley as someone who wastes the time of incredibly valuable healers and sits around in her separate dining room, utterly blind to the suffering all around her, is simply not one that engenders sympathy. That’s all.

        1. Do you remember how messed up Amy was getting due to expectations about her using her powers to help people nobody else could? I mean it was buried under all the other stuff, but still. It’s the old arguement of why is Superman dicking around being Clark Kent, since if he’s so noble and great shouldn’t he feel obligated to spend every waking moment saving people? The answer is because if he didn’t spend time as Clark he’d go nuts, and that’s much, much worse.

          They are never going to have enough time to help everyone that needs it. They can help some, they could tell Ashley too bad, so sad. But for Riley it’s a personal redemption issue.

          Besides they probably won’t let the two do any real wide scale projects like retroviruses that grant disease immunity and gills, or microorganisms that let you eat grass or anything like that.

          1. That’s all true, but…is the ability to paint her fingernails a personal redemption issue? Is there really nothing else they could be doing with this time, to the extent that just standing around is normal and accepted to all concerned? Aren’t they tired? Aren’t there a dozen other patients waiting in the wings?

            It’s like the apartment. I just don’t understand how anyone could live through Gold Morning and its aftermath and retain this kind of sensibility. It’s not the logistics of Amy and Riley’s work that are at stake, either way, it’s that Ashley is despicable.

            You mentioned Amy’s issues with her healing at the beginning of Worm. I was thinking about that, too: isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that would drive a healer round the bend? Not only do you have to run after a different crisis day in and day out, but your long-term patients drag out what remains of your precious time with their petty complaints and bullshit. Wouldn’t that be maddening? I thought the lesson we learned in Worm was that healers needed time-off, respect and gratitude. This is the opposite of all that.

            I miss the Amy who hit Taylor with a fire extinguisher. I bet she wouldn’t have stood for this crap.

          2. Is there really nothing else they could be doing with this time

            Maybe there really isn’t. Riley could cure cancer, sure, but she could also create a whole new type of cancer that’s virulent and contagious and causes excruciating pain as part of its design. In the past, she’s veered more towards the second type of project. It would be eminently sensible of the Wardens to refuse her to make anything for mass distribution.

            She might have other patients besides Ashley, but there probably aren’t too many people with medical problems interesting enough for her, who are willing to be treated by the legendary Bonesaw.

        2. So we all agree that Riley needs some time off to play and stay sane. But what is play for Riley? That’s the part you’re missing. Riley is a tinker. Helping normal people with their normal problems is boring. It’s work. Helping Ashley with weird powers issues? Fun. Even if it’s a hassle sometimes, it’s the good kind of hassle. It’s a chance to stretch her powers and challenge herself. So, if she’s spending some of her time to help Ashley have paintable nails, that is okay. It isn’t wasted time, because a sane Riley is a Riley who isn’t solving the housing issue by turning the excess people into smart homes.

          As for Ashley living comfortably while others are in tents, she also has requirements to maintain her sanity. It would cost more to repair all the damage she’d cause if she went off the rails and reverted to villainy than it would to just leave her alone in her narrow little one-bedroom apartment.

          1. ^^^this @Pizzagood

            also, I got the impression that Ashley’s two story apartment wasn’t large as much as weirdly shaped?
            and I’m guessing there isn’t a long line of mundane patients waiting outside, because people won’t be happy about being treated by an ex-Birdcage con and an ex-S9 member. Ashley is probably one of a very small handful of people that these two are doing their healing/experiments/under-oversight-redemption-work on.

            Ashley’s being an experiment here more so than a lavishly treated patient 😡 remember when she commented on Riley making the tubes inside her hands sharp?

        3. I mean, I can easily imagine people in-universe hating Ashley for this. Do you want people to live in that apartment with her? You know she could randomly blow them up, right?

  18. I’m sure this has been said before, but have you talked to Netflix? They are buying up sci-fi and fantasy works like crazy. I’d love to see a live action Work.

  19. I very much doubt that many desperate, dying people would refuse to be treated by anyone, if that person offered hope. Especially since Riley has been doing fine for two years and the Wardens have a reliable way to check her work. No. It’s frankly impossible that Riley has nothing better to do, and even if she doesn’t Amy does.

    Ashley’s apartment isn’t small. It has two stories and a separate dining room, kitchen and living room with all services. In a post-apocalyptic society, that’s utter luxury. Young, healthy, single people who are regularly treated by the best doctors in the multiverse should not have multiple excess rooms with plumbing and electricity. They should be counting themselves lucky to have one small room and a shared bathroom. Even that would be unreasonable, but excusable for an unstable cape.

    Regardless, though, that’s not the point. The point is simply my observation that Ashley’s vanity is robbing others of life-saving services and, during a period of huge privation, we have the world’s best healers working on nail polish.

    This is all especially funny coming from the person who started talking during the Fallen raid about how ‘the end of the world never stopped’. Then we find out she lives in a palace, is waited on hand and foot by some of the most powerful and sought-after people in existence, and shamelessly wastes their time into the bargain. Far from becoming a reluctant hero, I don’t think Ashley has ever ceased to be an effective villain.

    1. You are holding Ashley to an absurd standard that you probably aren’t holding everyone else to. You are also holding Amy and Riley to an impossible standard while denying them agency.

      1. How am I doing that? By saying that Ashley is selfish because she thinks nothing of taking up precious resources for no reason? By pointing out how ludicrous it is that supposedly there’s a gigantic healthcare crisis and the top healers are working on nail-polish?

        Is it really an absurd standard to expect that maybe, after an apocalypse and in the middle of a huge housing crisis, people might make do with a little bit less useless luxury? I don’t notice Crystal having a dining room or a second floor, and we know she has only one bed since Victoria sleeps on the couch. Mark was sharing his quarters with his daughter. Weld and Sveta live together in part of a shared building. Carol might be as bad as Ashley, if she lives alone in her house, but we don’t see enough to know. She seems to live in a suburban area far from her workplace, so she might be enduring long commutes into the city that would make her location less feasible for larger families or workers. She might also have built her house with help from family or friends, rather than hogging the mass-produced housing that’s needed for people who don’t have the time, money, or ability to construct their own.

        If Sveta had invited Victoria into her walk-in closet or Crystal was taking her baths in a private Jacuzzi, I think I would have remarked on that, too. Or if we had seen Victoria ending her surgery by saying, ‘wait, no, I’d also like a free nose job, because I’m sure you have nothing better to do with your time!’ So no, I’m not holding Ashley to any standard I wouldn’t raise for any other character. Prior to this, I quite liked Ashley and had nothing against her.

    2. I know this is another necro comment, but I want to point out that the Wardens have a 3+ storey tall knight statue in their huge headquarters which doesn’t even have offices on the first floor.

      Also the meetings with the Cheit people have been occurring in a ballroom that takes up whole floor of a building, despite being meetings for like 8 people.

      There’s definitely a bit of a theme that capes get treated differently from common folk going on. Leading to predictable resentment, strikes, and now maybe a war.
      The Wardens and other powers that be seem to be prioritizing stabilizing the cape scene above everything else. Which makes a certain kind of sense — the world probably would have ended due to inter-cape conflict without the action of either Scion or the Endbringers. They may also be too myopic to realize the really big problems this is going to cause with non-capes.

      Also I don’t know if Ashley understands that there is a housing crisis.

  20. Is it despicable for people with nonfunctional legs to get oversized and optimally placed parking spaces for their use only? People with special needs get special accommodation. Because of her severe psychological issues, Ashley has special needs. It is not unreasonable to let her take up a few times as much space as other people if that means it will be significantly easier for her to stay in control of her actions so that she doesn’t hurt anybody or level a building.

    1. There’s no indication that anyone is letting her do this, specifically. They just seem to pay her and let her out on her own recognizance to do what she likes. Ashley chose this; that’s what’s despicable.

      But say you’re right, then what, she’s going to go on a rampage if she doesn’t have her own dining room? I don’t see anything to indicate that, but if she was really that sensitive she should have been staying with the Wardens in a secure location instead of being allowed to live among the public in the first place.

      Which would make far more sense anyway, since she has to go to the Wardens regularly and they clearly have specialized accommodations. Could nobody have said, ‘jeez, Ashley, maybe you could keep it to just one floors-worth of rooms here where it’s convenient, just while we’re a couple million houses short?’ Would that have caused a rampage? I don’t believe it.

      1. Late to the party, but don’t know why you’re insisting the reason why she has a decent sized apartment is specifically so she doesn’t go on a rampage. If the apartment was provided for her, the extra space is likely due to the fact that even with her new hands, Ashley doesn’t have complete control over her power. If she was packed in like sardines with half a dozen or more people or was shacked up in some kind of dormitory, there’s a very real chance that a fritzed power could get someone maimed or even killed, so the powers that be would be willing to give her more breathing room than the average person. If she’s paying for the apartment with her own money, then she’s paying for the apartment with her own money. It can be as inefficient as she damn well pleases. On the plus side, depending on who owns the building, her likely insanely high rent could help pay for future housing developments.

  21. I’m looking forward to upcoming deep-dives on the other team members, to see what aspects of their situations lure other bozo commentators out of the woodwork to fixate on e.g. whether Sveta’s killer tentacles are unconsciously racist or what secret happenings really should be off-limits to Kenzie-Kam. WB must be doing something right, that he can write a story completely filled with such reprehensible characters, that somehow we can’t stop ourselves from reading.

  22. Ashley was probably not ‘issued’ an apartment, she rents it. Likely with a combination of earned income, and careful and frugal living, and possibly some light hole digging or debris clearing work on the side. Plus she likely made a priority of having a safe place/ retreat/ housing early on and her place isn’t that ridiculous – look at Victoria’s family and the neighbourhood they live in. Crystal probably views her appt as a place to sleep and keep stuff, so it’s small since her life is lived primarily outside her appt, while Ashley’s life seems much more circumscribed and likely limited to her space. So more and better space is where she pools resources.

    As to Riley and Amy.first question, is this ‘professional’ time she is with them or is this after work tinkering in their spare time. Riley likely views her as someone she owes for what she did to her, and if she visit them one evening every couple weeks, it may well be a casual friends hanging out, and Riley does this for fun and atonement. Is it fair that they give her this time? Probably not, but we all will give friends way more time, care, and attention than we would some random person on the street. My bet is that a few hours once or twice a month for ‘fun projects’s for Riley is budgeted in by the power’s that be as a happy sane Riley is less likely to flip out and do bad things.

    One other thing. If Ashley was a survivor on site from Gold Morning, that gets her cut tons of slack by everybody – the world feels it owes those who were there a huge debt, so that might also weigh in her favor in re housing.

  23. At many times, it feels like everything could go so much better for her, but also clearly, she is not in the headspace to accept that, at all.

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