I woke with a violent start, a spike of pain radiating from my neck. Arms encircling my waist tightened their grip, and I fought against then until they loosened enough for me to escape. I tumbled to the concrete floor and scrambled to my feet, breathing hard as I took in the dimly lit scene before me.

  “Lia?” Paroxysm muttered sleepily. “C’est quoi, chérie?”

  I was back in my cell. Paroxysm was laying on my bed, sitting up now and rubbing her eyes. The lights were still dim, so it was probably the early morning of...whatever day it was. Time was difficult to tell down here at the best of times, so there was no telling how much time I’d lost...or really, how much time I had left. I took a deep breath and forced a small smile onto my face.

  “Sorry, bad dream,” I said, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead. “I’m going to take a walk okay? You go back to sleep.”

  “Mmm, sure I can’t do anything for you?” Paroxysm asked with a smile so sweet I almost accepted the offer.

  “Just don’t worry about me,” I replied, planting another kiss on her lips. She frowned and studied me for a moment.

  “You’re not just going for a walk,” she said quietly. “Is it...it’s what you told me about months ago, isn’t it? The end of the world?” I grimaced, then nodded slowly. “Merde.”

  “I’m going to stop it,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel. “But I have to go. Thanks for...for everything Paroxysm.”

  “Will I see you again?” she asked.

  “Probably,” I said with a smirk. “After all, I’m still a dastardly villain.” She smiled back and kissed me one more time, then I left and headed out of the cell block.

  I didn’t have a plan, at least not one that was guaranteed to work. I figured Dragon would be willing to respond to a warning about the end of the world, but I wasn’t sure she would let me out, or was even capable of doing so. If not her, then I had to alert Cauldron. How? A question I had no good answer to. I just had to hope they had their listening ears on…

  My destination was the elevator room I’d come down in initially. If nothing else, it was probably where Dragon would get me out, if she could at all. Plus, it would be deserted right now, so no chance of being caught and having to deal with that sort of complication. The lights were still in night-mode when I arrived, and I paced the room as I considered what to say.

  “Dragon,” I began after a moment, staring up at the ceiling. “We have a problem. Jack Slash is early. I don’t know when exactly, but he’s going to show up soon and get things started before we’re ready. I don’t know where he’ll be either, but I think New York might be important.” I paused, wracking my mind for anything else that might help. Unfortunately, even if I remembered anything, it wouldn’t help when everything had changed. “You need to get me out of here so I can figure out what’s going on.”

  Nothing. The room was silent as a tomb. I knew she could hear me, after that incident with the book. Surely she could tap into the speakers here and reply to me too. It wasn’t likely she had restrictions on speaking to inmates, she may have to warn them about behaviour that would get them killed or something.

  Maybe Dragon didn’t believe me. That would be just my luck, being treated like the boy who cried wolf; never mind that my warnings were right, at least most of the time. Maybe she was just consulting with the Protectorate, seeing if there was any evidence. Whatever the case was, Dragon wasn’t talking to me.

  Plan B.

  “Cauldron,” I spoke aloud to the empty room. I had no idea how to get their attention, but I had an inkling they might have tapped into the PRT’s systems. If that was the case, they might have flags set up for certain words. So all I had to do was trip them… “Contessa, Doctor Mother, Number Man, uhhh… Case 53’s, the Triumvirate, power vials, E—” A light came on behind me and before I could say another word hands clamped around my mouth and dragged me backwards. My stomach flipped and my ears popped, and I blinked in the bright fluorescent light of Cauldron’s base.

  “Ten seconds to explain why I shouldn’t kill you.” I turned and found Contessa looming over me, a dark expression on her face.

  “Because Jack Slash is out early and you need me to help stop him from kickstarting Armageddon.” She stared down at me, her eyes widening ever so slightly.

  “Good enough,” she said with a sharp nod. “Come. We’ll need you to brief us on everything you know.”

  “It’s not a lot,” I said, falling in behind her as she started walking up the hallway. “On TV, I saw New York City being attacked by...by Scion.” She stiffened.

  “When was this?”

  “An unknown amount of time from now,” I offered unhelpfully. “At least one day, maybe two.” I’d awoken earlier than I had the day of, the lights had already been on that morning. “I told Dragon first, so the Protectorate should know, but she didn’t respond; hence the emergency call.”

  “In the future, do not be so loose with things relating to us,” Contessa said coldly. “Especially in a place under such surveillance as that.”

  “Noted,” I said with a shiver. “What’s the date, by the way?”

  “In Brockton Bay, it’s December twenty-fourth.”

  “Christmas eve,” I muttered. “I assume we’re a timezone ahead or behind, since you specified. Okay, fine, good point of reference. Hey, where are we going?”

  “I’ve called the others to meet,” Contessa replied. “We need to coordinate our next move.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I fell silent, frowning. Well that was fine, frankly I needed to know what the plan was anyway. I was sure Jack had cloned at least some of his previous teammates, so we’d be going up against real monsters. It would be hell to go in without a lot of friendly forces, forces I doubted Cauldron had on hand.

  So what then? The Protectorate would be onboard, but they might move too slow to be decisive. Taylor had teamed up with Dragon and Defiant, flying around on their ship, but they probably wouldn’t be so keen to work with me. I needed a team who I could trust, who had experience dealing with parahumans, and who wouldn’t be afraid of long odds and ugly fighting.

  And I had just the guys in mind.

  “In here,” Contessa said, turning to a door and opening it. She stepped inside and I followed, scanning the room as we entered.

  Three people, besides us. Doctor Mother sat at a fine, wooden desk, and Number Man stood to her right with a clipboard in hand. To her left was an unknown cape. They were tall, lanky, with layered armour coloured black and grey. The armour extended down to their hands, becoming vicious talons at their fingertips. A pair of dull, amber lenses studied me like a bug.

  Like a bug…

  “No fucking way,” I breathed, staring at the cape. A spider crawled onto their, onto her shoulder, and my chest tightened. “No fucking way.”

  “Is there a problem, Amaranth?” Doctor Mother asked.

  “Skitter,” I managed. “You’re dead.”

  “Skitter is dead,” Skitter agreed. “My name is Weaver, and you’d be smart to keep that in mind since we’ll be working together.”

  “I’m not sure why you’re reacting this way,” Doctor Mother said, her brow furrowing. “Weaver informed us you were aware of her presence, noticing some of the bugs eavesdropping on you during your visits.”

  “Thought I was going crazy.” I shot a glare at Sk— at Weaver; odd that she’d picked the same name...but maybe not that odd. “How long have you been fucking with me?”

  “What?” Weaver cocked her head. “I’d been trying to keep you from finding me out—”

  “Weaver,” Number Man said flatly. “During one of the intel meetings.”

  “Ah.” She stiffened. “That was...I was just trying to prompt you so the door wouldn’t be exposed. But that was the only time I interacted with you since joining Cauldron.” I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I could barely believe any of this. But there were bigger issues at hand.

  “Fine, say I believe you,” I spat. “How did you survive the bombing? They found your DNA.”

  “Faked,” Weaver said with a shrug. “Cauldron opened a door for me and destroyed the vehicle almost at the same time. If you want specifics, I’m sure Doctor Mother isn’t interested in explaining.”

  “Enough,” Doctor Mother said sharply. “Amaranth, we extracted you because we need to form a plan of attack. Do you know where Jack Slash will emerge from hiding, or potentially already has?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, believe me, but this stuff doesn’t come easily. It’s some small town, but that’s not exactly helpful.”

  “More helpful than you may think,” Number Man said. “Do you recall details of the town? Was it near a city, or more rural?”

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly.

  “Well figure it out,” Weaver said sharply. “If you don’t Jack Slash is going to kill a ton of people, and then Scion—”

  “Hold on.” I chewed my lip as some tiny, idiotic detail floated to the surface. “Killington. God, how did I forget that?” Doctor Mother typed something on the keyboard in front of her, and a map appeared on the wall where a scenic view had been.

  “A small resort town,” Number Man said. “The village has just a few hundred residents, it would be a good place for them to hide.”

  “We need to move fast,” I said. “No telling where he’s headed after that.”

  “Contessa?” Doctor Mother asked.

  “We have time to gather forces,” Contessa said. “But not much.”

  “My old team, the Terriers,” I said. “Specialists in killing parahumans.”

  “A good place to start,” Doctor Mother said.

  “I’ll get in contact with the Protectorate as planned,” Weaver said, shooting me a look. “And try to smooth your escape over.”

  “Where do you need to go?” Contessa asked.

  “To Brockton Bay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Take me to Papa’s house.” She nodded.

  “Door, Amaranth’s second hideout,” she said flatly. A portal opened in front of us and she gestured for me to go through.

  “See you on the other side,” I said dryly to Weaver, getting what was probably a sullen glower in return. I stepped through and into the living room, pausing to take in the festive scene. Most of my friends were there, including Joy to my eager surprise. I smiled as she aimed her pistol at me, a look of utter disbelief on her face. “Hey Joy, it’s been a while.”

  “Lia,” Joy choked, then fell to her knees and burst into tears.

  With a smile on my face, I wrapped my arms around her, happy to be home.

  “So it’s the end of the world as we know it,” J-Dog said flatly, staring into his mug of brandy and coffee. “God damn.”

  “Not if we stop it,” I replied. I’d spent a few minutes consoling Joy, then briefed the rest of my team. Papa and Zeke’s girlfriend had left, but Zeke had stayed behind. “But to do that, I need the best people watching my back. So how about it guys, want to save the world?”

  They were quiet, looking uneasy. That was fair enough. Their old boss had appeared out of thin air, sprung from the inescapable prison, and asked them to join her on a suicide mission to maybe stop Jack Slash from making Scion go crazy. Right now, Weaver was probably dealing with the same thing at the PRT headquarters, trying to convince the heroes to follow an ex-warlord back from the grave.

  It was a mess, and one both of us could only blame ourselves for. Sure circumstances may have pushed us one way or another, her towards taking territory and me towards taking lives, but it was all our own choice. If it meant I had to go in alone, I’d do it. But god...I needed these guys more than I ever realized before.

  “Shit, I’m in,” Zeke said, breaking the tense silence. My eyes widened.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, you have a girlfriend now, and I can’t pay you for this; good chance you’re going to die and get nothing for it.”

  “Man, but the apocalypse?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Ain’t nothing for it. Rather die out there trying to stop it than huddled here when it hits, y’know?” I nodded.

  “I’ll try and bring you back safe,” I said.

  “You know I’m with you,” Joy said, her gaze fixed on the table. “This is crazy but...we have to do this.”

  “Sorry, not me,” Jeep said, shaking his head. “Shit I only ever wanted to be a driver. This is all way too much for me.”

  “Not me,” J-Dog said, smacking Jeep on the back. “So we’re getting back at the fuckers that fucked us up last year? Sounds good.”

  “There’s going to be more than there were back then,” I warned, taking Jeep’s rejection in stride. I was surprised so many of them agreed to this at all. “Potentially up to nine-thousand.” Zeke let out a low whistle. “Good news is we’ll be working with the heroes, at least hopefully. Someone else is getting in contact with them.

  “What we’re going to do,” I continued, looking around the table. “Is load up as heavy as we can. I want us to empty the stocks, because what we’ll be facing is a million times worse than Werwolf ever was. I’ve fought the Nine before, I know just how much of a nightmare this is going to be, so we’re taking the gloves off from the start. Joy, what’s the status of the arsenal? Don’t tell me you used everything up.”

  “We still have a lot of weapons,” Joy replied, finally looking up at me. She looked scared, but her face was set in a determined scowl. “Not much in the way of explosives, but since we stopped using lethal options we haven’t diminished the stockpile.” I opened my mouth to demand an explanation about what she meant, then shut it; not important right now.

  “Then let’s move out,” I said, rising from my seat. “Hell won’t wait for us.”