Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 63
Ava Ladrón wasn't the type of person to admit she had done wrong, but as she sat in the house of one of the most powerful people in the country, armed guards at each of the doors and said person right in front of her, even she could admit she might have fucked up.
The room was cold, or at least it felt that way to her. The couch she was sitting on was soft, made of a plush, expensive leather that conformed to her body in a way that would have made her sleepy if not for the circumstances. And sitting right across from her, hands folded neatly in her pap like some sort of prissy princess, was the new queen bitch of Brockton Bay herself, Yosei.
She wasn't the only person in the room, and Ava unfortunately knew the other two. That blonde bitch who knocked her out in the warehouse was sitting beside Yosei, leaning into the woman with closed eyes as she napped, or at least pretended to.
The other one was a person Ava could have gone her whole life without seeing again, at least this far away from her brother: Tattletale. She was sitting on the far side of the couch, knees crossed in front of her as she stared at a laptop, ignoring Ava like they didn't even know each other.
But they did know each other. Ava remembered the look on her face as she blasted that fucking dog off of her brother when Bitch broke the truce. That was the first and last time the twins wanted anything to do with the Undersiders and their lying leader.
Seemingly sending eyes on her, Tattletale briefly looked away from whatever she was working on and Ava couldn't help the snarl that slipped across her lips as their eyes met. Tattletale blinked before smirking insufferably and returning back to whatever she was doing on her laptop, ignoring Ava completely.
Ava growled but her attention was taken away from the Thinker by a sudden shock of energy flitting through her body. Ava's eyes widened and an inaudible gasp burst from her lips as her head whipped towards the door.
Yosei tilted her head as she saw the girl's behavior switch on a dime, going from hostile to hopeful in an instant, “So you can sense each other. That explains quite a bit.”
Ava ignored the woman's words as the feeling grew stronger, building to that same, familiar frequency that she had been acquainted with for years. Alex.
Ava jumped off of the couch, causing the armed men in the corners of the rooms to reach for their weapons, before a simple wave of the hand from Yosei caused them to stand down. Ava didn't notice the interaction as she rushed towards the open door, leaping forward and throwing her arms around the neck of the tall figure who had just stepped inside.
Ava and Alex had shared a unique link between the two of them since they were children, a link that had grown even stronger when they triggered, so when that door opened and Ava threw herself at the teen on the other side, her brother was more than ready to catch her.
Slender arms wrapped around her back as she pressed her head against his chest, squeezing her tightly as she did the same to him. Her power sang inside of her as she was reunited with her other half, sparks of colorful entropy flashing through her veins as her only living family embraced her.
“I’m glad you’re safe.” She said into his shirt, leaning back to look him in the eyes. She smirked, a sly expression undercut by the worry she had been feeling just moments ago, “I’m gonna make fun of you forever for going down first, you know that right?”
Alex just rolled his eyes, more than used to his sister’s ribbing, “Yeah, I figured. I’m just happy you’re alright too. I didn't see what happened so I was worried that…” He trailed off, unable to finish the thought, and Ava’s smirk fell into oblivion. She knew what she was talking about. She had felt the same, after all. When she woke up in that tiny room and felt him so, so far away that it was like he wasn’t even there at all.
“Well I’m fine. And you are too.” She said stubbornly, driving the thoughts away, “And now that we’re together…”
Alex caught her meaning easily; she could see it in his eyes just like always. When they were this close, it was like they could read each others’ minds. And their power was never stronger.
Ava's power built inside of her and she knew from the way her brother's face shifted that her eyes were glowing, a side-effect of holding so much energy inside of her body at once. Before she could unleash that power and wreak havoc on the room and those within however, Alex surprised her by reaching down and grabbing her arm.
Ava almost flinched at the look on his face. His features were twisted into a grave expression. The lines on his face spoke of panic, and his brows were brushing together in worry as his brown eyes stared into her own. “Don't.” He urged. “There’s too many of them. They'll kill us.”
“We can take them now that we're together.” She tried to convince him, but he wasn't budging, his face a grim mask of seriousness that left her at a loss for words. Ava hadn't seen Alex like this, not in a long, long time.
“You should listen to your brother.” Yosei's voice was calm but held a tone of warning, “You are in the middle of my territory and more importantly, my home. Even if you somehow defeat me–”
“Which you won't.” The girl leaning against Yosei chimed in. Her eyes were still closed but her head was tilted in their direction. Listening. She was wide awake.
“–then you would still have my men to contend with.” Yosei continued, unperturbed by her subordinate’s interruption, “If you were smart, you'd calm down, realize the situation you have put yourself in, and take a seat so that we can talk this out like reasonable people.”
She tilted her head, staring at Alex specifically, “Or I could simply return you to your cells, though I'm unsure when or if you'd ever see one another again.”
Alex's firm hand was the only thing that kept Ava from losing it and throwing their freedom away. He stared at her and Ava stared back with burning fire in her eyes, before that fire slowly cooled, brought from a raging inferno to smoldering embers by her brother's influence. She closed her eyes, letting the power in her veins fade to a murmur and then altogether, and Alex held onto her for another moment before gently pulling her behind him as he stepped towards Yosei.
“We’ll talk.” He said quietly, and Yosei seemed pleased at their decision. She gave them a thin smile, gesturing at the couch that Ava had just been sitting on moments ago.
“Excellent.” She gave them a thin smile, gesturing towards the couch that Ava had just occupied moments ago, “Please, take a seat.”
The twins planted themselves on the couch, sitting side-by-side with barely an inch of space between the two of them despite the large amount of free space available on the couch. They had spent more time apart in the past day than they had in years and neither of them were keen to get another taste of that feeling of loss and powerlessness any time soon. Yosei noted their closeness with a raised eyebrow but didn’t comment, waiting patiently as the two of them got settled beside one another.
“So what do you want?” Ava got right to the point, “You’ve kept us here all day and haven’t done shit to us. I hope you don’t expect us to pay you back for the stuff we stole, because we gave it all away and we’re poor as shit.”
“You gave away the supplies they were giving out for free?” Tattletale chimed in from nearby. The Thinker had closed her laptop and settled into a more comfortable position to watch the proceedings. Ava glared at her, baring her teeth.
“For a Thinker, you aren’t that smart, are you? All of you were pretty stupid to think that everyone who goes home with rations actually gets back with them.”
Yosei frowned, “We have patrols all over the city to prevent precisely that. They should be keeping the peace and preventing anything like that from occurring."
“Well I guess it ain’t working.”
“We’ll have to rectify that. Increase the patrols and keep an eye out for this sort of thing in the future.” Yosei muttered, looking thoughtful. The woman then shook her head, “But that’s for later. For now, I suppose it’s time I tell you why I brought you here.”
“Finally.” Ava muttered, watching as Yosei drew herself up, squaring her shoulders as she shifted from that polite posture to something that Ava would have expected from someone like her. Her face became serious and when she spoke, the power and authority held within drew every eye in the room.
“I'm going to give it to you plainly,” She said, staring at Ava and Alex in turn, “I want the two of you to join the ABB.”
~~~
I watched as the two young capes digested what I had just said, seemingly struck stunned by my proposal. They hadn’t expected it, which I had expected given how they had been brought here in the first place. They probably imagined that I had something much more sinister in mind for this meeting.
As they absorbed my words, I took a moment to fully examine the two parahumans before me. Ava and Alex Ladrón, a pair of teenagers, children really, who had been reported missing a scant few months ago after a tragedy took place in their household. The reports that Tattletale had graciously managed to dig up indicated that the police believed that the pair had either been kidnapped or had simply left the city on the first bus they found, but it seemed they hadn’t quite hit the mark on that front.
The two of them were young, much younger than I had been when I actually took to the streets. Fifteen or sixteen at the oldest, perhaps a bit younger, with the weight of baby fat still present on their cheeks and the attitude of someone who didn’t quite know how the world works just yet obvious in every single word they spoke. They strayed close to one another, practically smushed together on the couch despite the ample space the piece of furniture provided to them, which, if Nana's theory proved correct, wasn’t entirely unexpected.
Ava was the first to get over her surprise. Her face flitted through several emotions before eventually settling on outrage. She leaned forward, glaring at me viciously, “Are you kidding me? You're trying to recruit us after all this? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the only person keeping this city afloat.” I stared into her eys, unphased by her anger. “The only reason this city hasn't been completely written off as a loss is because the ABB is doing all it can to keep things under control. If it weren't for us, then Brockton Bay would just be another Kyushu.”
“So you think you're some kind of savior?” It was Alex who spoke this time, his voice a whisper compared to his sister's.
“I'm the closest thing to one this city has.”
Leviathan's attack had put several things into stark perspective for me. My battle with that monster was hazy, a rolling film of blood and pain experienced through eyes that were barely even my own, but the time before was certainly not. I could still remember the indecision that had gripped me as I stood within my home, watching the curtains of rain fall upon my not-so fair city. Stay or go. Fight or flee. What was I to do?
In the end, it wasn't the fear of Leviathan, nor even my love for Tammi that spurred me forth onto that blood-soaked battlefield, no. Instead, as I stood in my office, the office that had once belonged to my father, a revelation struck me.
My father had been fearful of Leviathan, just as I had been, but he was willing to put that fear aside to protect us. He swallowed his instincts, everything that told him Leviathan was unbeatable, that this was a fight he couldn’t win. He put it all out of his mind and focused on his goal. Protecting what was dear to him. His family. His home. And while he had failed at saving the latter, his thrashing against the inevitable secured the prosperity of the former.
Brockton Bay was my home. Its people were my people, Asian or no, ABB or no. And I protect what is mine.
The Protectorate certainly weren’t up to the task, at least not anymore. The Rig had fallen to Leviathan, brought low for the gall of standing in the monster’s domain, and several heroes and even more soldiers had lost their lives against it. Shattered and demoralized, they were left floundering in the part of the city that was still truly theirs, centered around PRT headquarters which now acted as their base of operations.
No help had arrived for them from outside, at least not from the greater organization itself, and the lack of assistance was clearly having an effect on their efficiency, especially so considering the new forces seeking to make Brockton Bay their new home. More enemies were popping up seemingly every day, gangs from outside the dying city come to feast on its carcass. The Teeth, the Fallen, even those down on their luck who had decided to take up the fallen flag of the Merchants, all had some sort of presence and all were a problem. One that the heroes simply couldn’t contend with.
They made a valiant effort, of course. Dragon sent mechs and New Wave assisted where they could, what was left of them at least, but their army was simply too overwhelmed to effectively fight on all fronts. Riots, raids, general disturbances, and whatever the Fallen were getting up to was simply too much. They were doing well, all things considered, but they wouldn’t last much longer, and as usual, it would be up to me to pick up the pieces when they finally fell.
My territory wasn’t without its problems, but with my rising reputation and the ABB at full strength and growing every day, we were doing much better than they were. Still, I had a lot of work ahead of me before I could rest on my laurels. There was a snake in the garden that needed to be pulled from his burrow before the flowers could properly grow, and it would be foolish of me to pass up the opportunity to acquire an extra shovel or two.
“I want the two of you to help me make this city a place worthy of calling home again.” I said to the twins, “The ABB is the only hope Brockton Bay has of coming back from the devastation that Leviathan brought alongside it. The two of you could be a part of that.”
“You phrase it as a request, but you aren’t really asking, are you?” Ave asked, once again proving the two of them to be more shrewd than their appearances would suggest.
“She’s honestly being generous, considering what you guys have been doing around here.” Tattletale said, resting a cheek on her fist as she stared at the twins, “You really don’t want to know what the original plan was.”
Ava and Alex reacted in a very interesting manner to Tattletale’s words. Alex flinched as if struck, turning his eyes to the floor, and Ava’s face twisted into an expression of extreme anger the moment the first syllables left the Thinker’s lips. She put a comforting hand on her brother’s leg even as she turned that anger to the girl in question, regarding Tattletale with a frigid gaze.
“I wouldn’t call any of this generous, but even if it was, I don’t want anything to do with someone who works with the Undersiders.” She said coldly, making me tilt my head curiously.
“Do you have a history with them?”
Ava snorted. The sound was mean and borderline contemptuous, “Oh yeah we have a history. Little miss know-it-all tried to recruit us when we first started out. Didn’t seem to cross her mind that she should have told us about that fucking psycho on her team though. Alex nearly fucking lost his arm! I should have killed that dog and fed it to Bitch for what she did.”
As Ava huffed with anger, I turned to Tattletale, a silent question on my face. She winced, looking away, “Yeah… Bitch isn't really a people person and Sparkler's personality didn't really help.”
“Oh I'll show you some fucking sparklers.” Ava growled, reaching up with a hand as yellow streams of light burned a path from her shoulders to her fingertips.
The click of several safeties being disengaged made the girl freeze as my men responded to her hostile actions with some of their own. She kept her hand pointed at Tattletale even as dozens of guns were pointed at her. A vein pulsed in her head, from anger or the fact that her jaw was clenched so hard that it was shaking.
Tattletale seemed unconcerned by her imminent death, even going so far as to re-open her laptop and continue her work, “If it makes you feel any better, she's not allowed to come with us when we make our recruitment pitch and Judas doesn't really walk right anymore. You got him pretty good, even through the flesh suit.”
“Oh yeah, that makes me feel fan-fucking-tastic. Almost as much as making sure you'll never walk again.” Ava growled as arm grew brighter.
Deciding that this has gone far enough, I decided to intervene before someone actually died.
“That's enough. Don’t do something you will regret, Ava.” I raised a hand, letting a bit of an edge slip into my voice as I stared at Ava. The girl didn’t move, keeping her power trained on Tattletale until her brother reached up and gently grabbed her arm, lowering it gently onto her lap. He didn’t say anything but apparently his actions were more than enough to calm the volatile girl down as the light faded back into oblivion.
My men returned to their original positions and I waited for the tension to settle before leaning forward, staring at them seriously, “It’s time to make your choice. Will you join the ABB and help me make this city better than it used to be, or would you rather return to your cells until I can figure out what to do with you?”
Ava and Alex looked at one another, indecision and wariness present on their faces, but I knew what their answer would be even before they did. With powers like theirs, alongside the incredible level of codependency that I could see plainly on display before me, there was only really one choice.