Grue nodded, “So?”

“So he agreed to reveal his real face to the other cape, so that any abuse of the knowledge on his part could or would be just as damaging to him.”

On one hand… that’s pretty reasonable.

On the other hand… shit.

Shiiit.

There’s no way Taylor’s going to be pleased with this, but it’s either jail time, working with Shadow Stalker and revealing her identity anyway (clearly the worst option), or this.

Reveal myself to Sophia?  No.  On so many levels, no.

Yeeah.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “That doesn’t work either.”

Armsmaster tightened his grip on the armor of my shoulder until I could feel the pinch.

Armmaster, internally: “for fuck’s sake girl we’re trying to help you here take the goddamn offer”

Miss Militia leveled a very cold look at me.  I saw Tattletale staring at me.  I met her eyes.  She was easiest to look at.

I think Tattle knows what’s up, starting now.

Unwilling to reveal identity to the other cape: The other cape is one of the bullies.

“You’re making a difficult situation even more difficult for you, by being stubborn,” Legend spoke.

“Knowing Skitter, I’m sure she has her reasons,” Grue replied.

Oh, she does.

“Skitter escaped her restraints and uncovered another cape’s secret identity, and we can’t say for sure whether it was intentional or not,” Miss Militia explained to the rest of the group.  “In the interest of protecting that cape, who I assume isn’t well enough to join the discussion…?”

Certainly didn’t look like it. Jeez, that would be really uncomfortable for Taylor.

She looked at Armsmaster, who shook his head.

“…We’re left with three options,” she finished her thought.  “Jail time, especially if it’s discovered that this was intentional.  Joining the Wards under a probationary program-”

Regent snorted.

Heh. He doesn’t even know about the main reason Taylor said no to that, and he still finds it silly to even consider.

Granted, he also doesn’t know that she wanted to be a hero to begin with.

“Or, as a final option, some sort of collateral.”

“That option is generally reserved for capes we can trust,” Armsmaster spoke, his voice low.

What do you mean by collateral, though?

My pulse picked up as I heard Armsmaster’s words.  This was a dangerous situation, all of a sudden.

“Collateral?  Explain?” Grue asked Miss Militia, apparently not gathering the deeper meaning of Armsmaster’s statement.

Yes, please.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve run into a situation like this, though this is a first for an Endbringer event that wasn’t a blatantly intentional attempt to gather information on a rival.  In the previous case, the villain couldn’t be detained conventionally, and the Birdcage wasn’t yet running.

Sounds like a difficult situation.

To top it off, he… wasn’t Protectorate material.  For reasons I won’t explain.

I wonder if this is someone we’ve heard of.

My first thought was Lung, but I’m fairly sure he could be detained conventionally as long as they kept him out of fights. Unless he can start the transformation without being in a fight, but it doesn’t seem like it.

Or, could, I suppose might be the right tense there.

Yet every individual involved was concerned that if we didn’t resolve the case, it would be a costly loss of resources on both sides with an ongoing pursuit by the heroes, and there would be potential escalation leading to serious harm or death on one side or the other.”

Yikes.

Mentally?  Emotionally?  Her dogs were the closest thing she had to family, and she had watched seven or eight of them die.  She was rigid with tension and repressed anger, but she didn’t have anyone to direct it at, so it broiled inside her, just waiting for the slightest of excuses to be released and vented.

Yikes. Yeah, be careful with this pressure cooker right now.

That said, maybe you’ll be able to help her release some steam in a more healthy manner.

I wondered if Grue had told her to keep her hands in her pockets to keep her from lashing out and hitting someone.

Possibly.

Tattletale was on crutches with one leg bent to keep it away from the ground, had a bad bruise on her face, but was otherwise in one piece.  Her eyes darted to watch the three heroes and myself.

Relatively good shape, considering the kind of drop we last saw her in.

Did Panacea help her out a bit? Man, if healing Taylor made her grumpy…

Bitch, by contrast, looked to be in better shape than anyone present, physically.

Oh, physically, sure.

Gonna take her some time to get over the deaths of her doggos, though.

She stared at the ground, hands jammed in the pockets of mud-caked, soaking wet jeans.  Her hair was wet, pulled straight back and away from her face.  A hard plastic dog mask was raised so it sat on top of her head, cord dangling.  She was intact.  Physically.

Yeah. Physically.

Grue looked much as he ever did, a human shape wreathed in smoky darkness.

He looked much as he ever did, which is to say not much at all.

His skull mask showed through, when he was still like this, but his face was impossible to make out, let alone his facial expressions.

Unfortunate when trying to figure out where you stand with someone.

Even his body language was masked beneath the layer of darkness, when it was billowing around him like it was, making him seem larger.  I thought maybe he had his arms folded, but I couldn’t be sure, and he had his feet planted shoulder width apart.

And his voice has the distortion going for it.

Basically he’s pretty inscrutable at the moment.

Regent looked a little worse for wear.  He was wet, dirty, spattered in blood, and he had a long cut running from the side of his neck to his shoulder, down to his elbow, all neatly stitched up.

I remember the wave in Interlude 8 / 8.3 was mentioned to have incapacitated Regent a bit, though not enough for the armband to go “Regent down, CD-5″.

I hadn’t heard any alerts about him being taken out of action, so I assumed it wasn’t that serious.  That, or it was serious, and my broken armband hadn’t caught the message.

I mean, who knows what happened to him after that wave.

“Skitter,” she went on, “Just to be clear, you would be well advised to keep your mouth shut, until we’ve come to a consensus here.  Or you could get your team in trouble.”

…you mean in general, not just about Sophia Stalker?

“Noted,” I replied.Armsmaster let me stand, but he settled his one hand on my shoulder, held on with an steel grip that left me no illusions about my ability to walk over and join my friends.

I would not want to go up against Armmaster in an arm wrestling contest.

Ex-friends?  I wasn’t sure where we stood.  I hadn’t expected them to come to my defense.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Sounds like their reaction to “Skitter deceased” might’ve got them thinking.

“I’m at about ninety percent,” Tattletale’s voice informed me.  “You’re the one that gave us a scare.”

Oh phew.

Okay so I know, I know, I said it’d feel a little bit like a cop-out if it turned out “losses” did include those who were “down”, but honestly I’m just really relieved to have her back. Favorite character all the way. 🙂

I sagged in relief.

Same.

“I would ask you to step back and let us handle this,” Miss Militia told him.  “If any of you do decide to stay, and Skitter divulges the confidential information she’s happened upon, you could be just as culpable, face the same restrictions and penalties.”

That seems fair, at least as long as she’s giving them advance warning like this.

Grue replied, “So you want us to leave a teammate in your custody, here?  No.  That’s ridiculous.  I can’t speak for the others, but I’m staying.”

Eyyy, he called her his teammate! 😀

Teammate.  He’d said I was his teammate.

There was a pause.

He did! 😀

“All four of you, then,” Miss Militia replied, sighing, “I expected as much.  I simply thought you should be informed.”

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Also, “four” – sounds like we’ve got the whole gang present, including Rachel, who seemed to be left behind when Taylor was brought in.

“I don’t think you understand what you’re saying,” Legend spoke as if choosing his words carefully.

Is there a third option?

I took a deep breath.  “Is there a third option?” 

Ahahahaha!

There have been cases of “I just said that” but I don’t think it’s ever been this accurate before!

“You do not get to negotiate!” Armsmaster roared.  Heads turned.

Calm down, man.

Feeling a flare of anger, I retorted, “So he gets to yell, but I don’t?”

“We have the authority here!” Armsmaster shouted.

I… don’t actually think he does get to yell. Right, Legend? I feel like this is the kind of thing Armmaster is getting demoted for.

“The only authority you have is the authority people give you.”  It wasn’t me who responded.  The voice was male, familiar.

“Grue!” I called out.

!!

Hi there! Are you supposed to be here?

I… would not be too surprised to see Grue accepting an offer to join the Wards. The Undersiders’ trust in Coil is at a low right now, and becoming a Ward would provide Grue with a more legal, and more stable, way to earn a good salary to use in order to care for Aisha.

“You’re alive,” Grue responded.  “We thought-”

“Is she okay?  Tattletale!?”

Aw, they heard the “Skitter deceased” too. Somehow that ended up slipping my mind.

And when I did think about it?  No.  Not with Sophia there.  No way, no how.  If I stepped on her turf, I suspected one of us would kill the other.  Besides, there wasn’t one thing about joining the Wards that was even remotely redeeming.

How so? Becoming officially a hero isn’t redeeming?

“No?” he sounded surprised.

“Just… no.  I’d sooner go to the Birdcage.”  I was surprised that I actually meant it.

Yeeah. Taylor might’ve had a different tune if she hadn’t just found out who she’d end up working with. Honestly, it’s probably better this way – if she hadn’t, and then went to meet the Wards, she’d get the nasty surprise a bit too late, and possibly have it be mutual.

My contempt for the heroes was growing.  Armsmaster had refused to cooperate with me on any level.  Glory Girl and Panacea hadn’t done anything to earn my respect when I ran into them.  Topping it off, they had a personality like Sophia’s on their team?  I couldn’t even imagine joining them, now.

…fair.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to keep that in mind.”  When Legend returned his attention to me, his lips were creased in a frown.

‘course, this isn’t exactly helpful for Taylor.

What could I say to defend myself now?  Anything I said would be colored by Armsmaster’s undeserved comment on my personality.

It’s deserved, but only from Armmaster’s perspective.

“Another option would be for you to join the Wards.  We were willing to offer you this when we got around to talking to you, before seeing you on your way.

Called it!

You would be placed under varying degrees of probation based on your past crimes, but you would earn a paycheck, you’d have a career-”

Much like Sophia.

…who is now another reason for Taylor to not take this deal. Based on what we saw in Interlude 3, the Wards are open about their identities. Joining the Wards would not only mean working with Sophia, but also Sophia finding out Taylor’s identity in turn.

With Sophia as a Ward, cape life might be pretty terrible. Taylor’s doing this to escape from the Harpies, after all.

“No.” The word left my mouth before I even thought about it.

Yeah, figured as much.

How honest do you feel like being about your reasons why, Taylor?