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Chapter 15: Keep the home fyres burning...
Chapter Text
"Anything?"
Danny Hebert looked at the blonde girl standing on his front porch, a large black young man wearing a leather jacket standing behind her. He sagged a tiny amount as she wordlessly shook her head.
Standing aside he waved them both inside, peered out both ways, his gaze sharp, then closed the door. Following them into the living room he indicated the sofa, then slumped into his battered but much beloved old chair and regarded his younger visitors as they also sat.
"Sorry, Danny. I've tried everything I can think of. No one's seen or heard from Taylor for days. No witnesses aside from that one homeless guy who swore blind a blue hole in space ate her."
Danny snorted. "That doesn't sound likely."
"On the other hand nothing in this city sounds likely if you tell someone from somewhere else," the younger man next to the girl pointed out, getting a reluctant nod after a moment.
"Yeah, that's true enough. Always been a weird place, Brockton Bay, and it's a damn sight weirder now that it used to be." Danny took his glasses off and rubbed his eyelids, feeling the strain and tiredness catching up to him. He heard Lisa, the blonde girl, get up and leave the room. By the time he opened his eyes after having rested while thinking hard, he found her holding a mug in front of him. Taking it he grunted thanks. She sat down again, having given her companion one as well, and sipped from the third. Danny took a swig of the stupidly strong black coffee he'd grown accustomed to over the years, finding it helped slightly with the exhaustion.
"Brian and I went back and checked every inch of that whole street twice," Lisa said after a while. "Absolutely no trace I could find, powers or not. We found her footprints in a couple of places, I'm certain of that, and ours too, but hers just… stopped."
"You didn't hear anything?" he asked.
Brian shook his head. "No. She was behind us, we'd been discussing what happened with Bakuda and how to go about collecting the bounty on her without getting the PRT on our asses, we went around a corner… By the time we realized she wasn't there any more, we were probably fifty or sixty yards away. We went back but there was no trace of Taylor anywhere. No cars went past, we didn't hear anything unusual, didn't even smell anything strange." He shrugged in bemused annoyance. "She was just… gone."
He'd heard it before, the night Lisa came to tell him that his daughter had vanished, but he still listened to the boy. "I called in every favor I could think of and got people all over the city looking for anything, any leads at all," he said after the boy fell silent. "Some people you wouldn't believe are out there trying to figure it out. But they're coming up blank too."
"I think we need to assume that single witness might actually be telling the truth," Lisa finally commented, sighing a little. "My power is convinced he is, but then it might just be that he is convinced he is. He swears he didn't take anything that causes hallucinations but considering all the shit he definitely does use, I wouldn't want to swear he actually saw anything real. But we don't have anything else to go on."
"Fine. So a blue hole ate her. What the hell does that actually mean and more to the point how do we get her back?" Danny growled. She shook her head helplessly as Brian stared at his clasped hands on his knee.
"I… don't know."
"Well… fuck."
"Yeah."
Brian, after a moment, said thoughtfully, "It sounds like some sort of portal, or teleportation of some sort." Both the others looked at him, then each other. Lisa slowly nodded.
"I thought that too, but it doesn't match anything I've ever heard of." She glanced at Danny who shook his head. "I wonder if it was something left over from Bakuda?"
Both the men winced. The clean up squads were still finding untriggered exotic bombs here and there courtesy of the insane Tinker, sometimes the hard way. A lot of people had suffered as a result. And that fucking huge hole in the middle of downtown was still glowing a little, although the PRT had said it wasn't giving off any dangerous radiation. No one believed them so the entire area was being very widely bypassed by anyone with a brain.
"I sure hope not," Brian said.
"If it was I think my power would have found something, so it probably wasn't, but the thought did strike me." Lisa sighed again. "What else could do it? Some new Trigger… Maybe, but unlikely. And why Taylor? Why then? None of us were doing anything threatening at all, we were just walking down the street. And we're not well enough known for the most part for anyone to have a grudge against the Undersiders."
"Except Glory Girl. She's got kind of a mad on about you. Although it's mostly you, Lisa." Danny momentarily grinned, making the blonde glare at him. "You really did push her buttons."
"Of course I did, that crazy bitch nearly killed all of us including her own fucking sister. If Taylor hadn't dived in front of her and deflected that chunk of masonry it would have taken Panacea's head off. If it wasn't for her costume she'd have had a lot more than bruising and a cracked rib, believe me."
"That girl is grumpy, but she at least gave credit where it was due and healed Taylor," Brian added, looking somewhat amused. "Then ripped into her sister worse than Lisa did."
"Nearly as badly," Lisa corrected with a look of annoyance at him.
"Worse. Trust me, it was worse. You're good, but she was really mad," Brian chuckled. "I hear she still hasn't forgiven Glory Girl for that. And was complaining that the villain was the one who was saving people while the hero was the one putting everyone in danger, which is kind of hilarious as well as being true."
"I heard her mom wasn't happy about that," Danny put in.
Lisa shook her head, smirking a bit. "Brandish is never happy about anything. It's her defining feature."
"Yeah, I've met her. She's so tightly wound I'm surprised her mainspring hasn't snapped by now," Danny replied. Lisa looked amused and Brian chuckled.
"She's going to push Panacea away sooner or later, if she doesn't make the kid just break and kill her," Brian commented with a sigh. "Which is yet another thing to worry about."
"Not our problem though." Lisa finished her coffee and put the mug on the floor. "We need to figure out how to get Taylor back." Looking at Danny, she went on, with some intensity, "We will get her back, Danny. I'm not going to let this drop. She's my friend."
"She's my daughter, and I'm scared," he said in a low voice, staring at the floor. With a glance at Brian she got up and went over, squatting down and taking his hands in hers.
"We'll find her," she said in a low voice. "One way or the other, we'll find her. None of us will stop looking." He shook his head, but seemed slightly cheered up.
"And look on the bright side," Brian added. "It's Taylor. If something or someone did take her, odds are it's going to really fucking regret it sooner or later. Probably throw her back assuming it survives."
All three of them grinned, somewhat tiredly, but with genuine humor.
"She does have an effect on people," Danny responded with wry amusement.
"Jesus, does she," Brian muttered. "Half the Wards are absolutely terrified of meeting her again, and the other half only aren't because they're slow on the uptake. About the only hero who doesn't seem to think she's the second coming of most of the plagues of Egypt is Armsmaster. Who for some reason seems to actually like her. Which is… weird."
"In some ways they're much too similar," Lisa said, looking baffled. "You'd never think that was even possible but he respects her and she respects him. And both of them think Dauntless is a dick."
"Because Dauntless is a dick," Danny snarled. "She did all the work, and damn near got killed in the process, and he just happily stood there and let the fucking PRT give him the credit without even mentioning her."
"Taylor wasn't too pleased about that, true enough," Brian noted. "And she said even Armsmaster thought it was an asshole move. Which, considering the source, is…" He waved a hand in a sort of baffled way. Both the others nodded agreement.
After a period of reflective and somewhat depressed silence, Lisa looked at Danny, meeting his eyes. "Maybe…" she started, then paused. He looked back with a quizzical expression.
"Maybe?"
Swallowing, she continued, "Maybe we need to ask someone with more resources to help."
He examined her, then realized what she meant. His eyes hardened. "I am not asking the goddamn PRT to help find my super-villain daughter," he snapped. "You know what they did."
"I do, yeah. And I'd love to see them pay for it. And I'll also point out that while we're supervillains, it's only slightly." Her attempt at a grin faltered in the face of his glare. Sighing, she ignored that and pressed on. "But I'm not saying we talk to the PRT. I'm suggesting we talk to someone PRT-adjacent who might possibly agree to help."
Danny stared at her for quite a long time. "Armsmaster?" he finally said, sounding somewhat dubious. She nodded.
"You think Armsmaster would help the Undersiders find Skitter, the girl who made three Wards and two PRT heroes literally shit themselves the last time they met?" he went on, his face showing a strange mix of emotions. Brian was also staring at his teammate and friend with a confused expression.
"I think it's more likely than it should be, yeah," she replied. "He'll at least hear us out, and probably won't try to arrest us. I'm pretty sure."
Brian and Danny exchanged dubious looks, then fixed her with hard ones.
"Pretty sure," she added somewhat nervously, but rallied well a moment later, projecting confidence, her green eyes sparkling with humor. "And we're the Undersiders, anyway. Getting away is kind of our thing."
"Oh, Christ," Brian moaned, putting his head in his hands. "I can feel the incoming trouble. You're worse than Aisha is sometimes."
Lisa patted his back comfortingly. "Don't worry, I have a plan."
He peered sideways at her with a somewhat horrified expression. "Please don't say that. Weird shit happens when you say that."
"And there's this kid I know who owes me a favor," Lisa remarked mysteriously, making both of them stare again. "I'll set it up."
Putting his head back in his hands Brian made a sound of anguish, while Danny watched them and thought. Eventually he said, "I'm coming."
Both the younger people stared at him, Brian raising his head sharply. "You… want to meet Armsmaster?" he said, sounding extremely dubious and quite confused. "Why?"
"Because my daughter is missing for reasons he might be able to help with, and with all due respect to you kids, I'm damned if I'm going to stand idly by and let things happen. I've been there, done that, and I don't like to think about it," Danny snapped, his voice venomous. Mostly at himself. "It wasn't entirely my fault, I know that and Taylor knows that, most of it was the fucking bastard PRT and that shit Velocity, who one day will pay for it, but enough was on me that I owe it to her to do everything I can to help. And I may not have super powers, but I'm not helpless. Believe me." He grinned viciously, making Lisa stare at him as if she'd never seen him before and Brian look worried. "You kids weren't around in the bad old days. I was, and we had to do things sometimes that… well… let's say I'd prefer not to have to do it again, but I remember how."
"...I see now where she gets it from," Lisa said faintly.
He laughed bitterly. "Only part of it. A lot was Annette. And as much is her." Standing up, he retrieved the three empty mugs, then looked at Lisa. "Set it up. Let me know when and where."
With a tiny sigh, but a small smile, she nodded. Both the younger people got up to leave. A moment passed, then Lisa stepped forward and hugged him, causing him to look momentarily surprised then return it with the arm not occupied with crockery. "We'll get her back, Danny," she said very quietly, before releasing him and stepping back. The older man nodded to her, before turning to Brian and holding out his hand. Brian shook it.
"Thanks for stopping by and telling me," he said.
"No problem," Brian replied. Danny accompanied the pair to the door and opened it, watching as they stepped outside. With a last smile from Lisa and nod from Brian, the two teenagers headed towards an old car at the curb, got in, and drove away. He watched until they were out of sight, looked around again, then went back inside.
Going into his study, he pulled open a drawer in the desk and pulled out a dogeared day planner, then sat down. Leafing through the pages, he found what he was after, thought for a few seconds, then reached for the phone.
"It's me," he said when it was answered. "Need a favor."
"Yeah."
"I know. But it's her. I've got no choice."
"Thanks. I'll see you in an hour."
Putting the phone down, he shoved the book back into the drawer, closed it, and stood up. Going down into the basement, Danny moved boxes around looking for one specific thing he hadn't touched in seventeen years, eventually finding what he was after under a whole pile of old magazines he made a mental note that he needed to throw out. Pulling the battered ex-military footlocker out into the clear area of floor and kneeling next to it, he turned the combination lock to a set of numbers he still recalled perfectly after all this time. When it clicked open, he removed the thing and opened the lid of the locker, staring down at the contents.
"Wish you were here, Annette," he muttered as he reached in and retrieved the metal baseball bat that was lying on top of everything else. Running one hand down it, feeling the dents in the heavy aluminum, he remembered where each of them had come from. Spinning it in his hand, he smiled darkly. "Still got it," he added softly, before putting it down next to him on the concrete with a clink, then going back to looking for everything else he needed.
When he left the house twenty minutes later he was carrying a gym bag which rattled ominously. And his mood was best described as grim, but that wasn't particularly unusual in recent times.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reading the private message he'd received on an email account only one other person should have known, Colin Wallis thought hard. He checked a few things on a different computer. Then he brought up another document, using two separate passwords to gain access. Scanning it carefully, he finally nodded to himself.
Quickly typing a reply, he sent it, then went back to finishing off the work he was engaged in, while part of his mind was considering the information he'd been sent and wondering.