Tone: Anacrusis 1.1

Got a little burnt out on With Great Power so I'm pausing production of that fic for a little while and replacing it with this one. Those of you who have been here for a while might remember this one as the runner up to the story poll from a while back! Well here it is!

[TONE]

Mike stared at the street with a bored expression. The smell of garbage and salt filled the night air, but it was a huge improvement over what was waiting for him back through that door. He leaned up against the yellow plastic siding of the old house, puffing idly on a cigarette and watching as the smoke curled toward the streetlight above him.

“Three fuckin’ years,” he muttered sourly. Three years since he graduated with a bachelor's in business administration, expecting something to change. He remembered his ma cried and his dad had actually smiled for once, clapping him on the shoulder like he'd done something worth being proud of. And yet here he was, right back in the same shithole he'd grown up in, watching over a bunch of junkies who couldn't keep their shit together long enough to not set the kitchen on fire.

He took a long drag, relishing the nicotine in his lungs. His brother had been smarter–got out the second he could and moved to San Diego without telling anyone until he was good and gone. He still called sometimes, sent money occasionally. Good kid. Better than Mike, anyway.

Should've left with him, Mike thought bitterly. The same thought had crossed his mind more times than he could count, to the point that he barely even registered the regret that accompanied it. He wondered if his old man felt like this too, back before the heart attack took him. He was the one who got Mike into the family business, after all.

A crash from inside made him curse, the sound of splintering wood and shouting voices cutting through his reverie.

"God fucking–" He snubbed the cigarette out against the side of the house, grinding it into nothing before shoving the butt into his jacket pocket. The door was already swinging open as he pushed through it, the familiar wave of stale piss and sweat hitting him.

“I told you idiots not to sample the product! If you broke something, I'm gonna break your goddamn legs!” he shouted into the gloom of the front hall, but the words died in his throat as he took in what lay beyond.

The sitting room looked like a bomb had gone off in it. The ratty couch was overturned and the coffee table with the wobbly leg had been smashed into kindling. One of the junkies, Terry or Jerry or something, was pressed flat against the wall, mouth working soundlessly as he stared at nothing. Another guy was sprawled on the floor, clutching his stomach and wheezing.

Mike's hand went to the pistol tucked into his waistband as a sound came from his left, but he barely managed to get his fingers around the handle before he stopped.

“Drop it.”

He froze. The voice came from right beside him, tinny and strange as if it was being fed through one of those old radios. Mike’s head slowly turned to a nearby doorway and swallowed as he found the source standing in the doorway.

They were short, maybe a little over five-five and dressed like they slept in a place just like this. A dark hoodie hung loose over their lean frame they had a single hand outstretched in his direction, pointing one of a pair of bulky gauntlets in his direction. A motorcycle helmet was shoved onto their head, the black face backlit by neon lights coming from inside.

Shit! A Cape! Mike thought, swallowing roughly.

The helmet tilted toward him, and Mike could feel their eyes settle on his waist right where his hand still hovered near his gun.

“I said drop it,” they repeated, and this time the voice was edged. The gauntlet whined, easily heard above the man groaning on the floor. Mike didn't need to be told a third time. He let the pistol fall from his waistband, the weapon clattering against the floorboards.

“Good.” The cape turned away from him, apparently satisfied, and refocused on the other two men in the room. Terry had started shaking, his hands pressed flat against the peeling wallpaper. The one on the floor wasn't moving much at all anymore.

“Wh-what do you want?” Terry managed to stammer out. “We don't have much money here, man, I swear–”

“Don't care. Where's it at?” The cape asked. Terry's eyes darted toward the hallway leading to the back of the house. The movement was small, barely a flicker, but it was enough. The cape's helmet followed the motion, held there for a second, and Mike made his move.

He lunged, startling everyone, including the cape. His shoulder caught them in the midsection and he felt something hard beneath the hoodie absorb most of the impact. His lung sent them hurtling off of their feet to crash to the ground beside the broken coffee table. They were light.

Mike didn’t waste the opportunity to get the upper hand and reached down, grabbing the most intact piece of the table and lifting it up. The cape turned and he saw them tense as he brought it down onto their chest as hard as he could.

A loud crack resounded through the room as the splintered piece of wood snapped in half. The cape hissed in pain but the move didn’t stun them for long. They turned, lifting one gauntlet toward him, fingers splayed.

The harsh whine from before came back, only this time amplified by a million. The sound tore through the room and then through Mike. His gasp was drowned out by the noise which quickly deepened. Mike’s teeth vibrated in his  skull and he was pretty sure he blacked out for a single moment, before he was sent flying off of his feet by an invisible force.

He slammed into the wall, slumping down to the ground, seeing stars. He looked up blearily, watching as the cape climbed to their feet, one hand held to their chest as they stared at him, then his eyes rolled back and he passed out.

When Mike came to, the room was quiet.

He didn't know how long he'd been out. A few minutes, maybe. His head throbbed like someone had taken a hammer to it and his ears were ringing something fierce, a high-pitched whine that drowned out almost everything else. He blinked, trying to get his bearings, and found himself still slumped against the wall where he'd landed.

The cape was gone.

So was Terry.

Mike's first thought was that the bastard had killed him, taken him somewhere. But that didn't make sense and he knew Terry had just run. The man was a coward and a junkie and when things went south he ran. It was just how he was.

Pussy, Mike thought, though he had to admit, he would have done the same this time.

He looked over at the other guy, still curled up on the floor. He wasn't moving much. Mike didn't bother checking on him.

His hand found the wall and he pushed himself up, legs shaky. His vision swam for a moment and he had to pause, waiting for the dizziness to pass. The room was trashed. Completely and utterly fucked. 

Mike stumbled toward the front door, tripped over the threshold, and caught himself on the railing of the porch steps. The night air hit his face and he sucked in greedy lungfuls of it.

He glanced up and down the street once, checking, before hurrying down the steps and cutting across the overgrown lawn toward the alley. His legs were still unsteady but fear was a hell of a motivator. By the time he reached the main road a few blocks over, he'd slowed to a brisk walk, pulling his jacket tighter around himself like that would somehow make him invisible.

He wasn't coming back here. Fuck that, and fuck whoever decided to set up shop in his family's old house. His brother had the right idea. Mike had been stupid to think he could make something work here. Only idiots thought they could make a decent life in Brockton Bay.

Wonder if Henry would mind me slumming it on his couch for a while.

He probably wouldn’t. Even if he did, living on the street in Cali sure beat being homeless in the Bay.

[TONE]

Missy Biron fought to keep her eyes open in the middle of class. Around her, the rough cacophony of pencils scratching on paper was like sandpaper on her brain, made only even more grating by the ticking clock that just barely peeked through the wall of noise. She glanced at the wall, only to grimace as she saw she had nearly an hour left before class ended.

I told them that I had a test today. Couldn’t they wait at least a day? She yawned quietly as she bubbled in an answer on the sheet in front of her. Console duty was mind-numbingly simple at the best of times, but that just meant that it took more out of her. She tried to focus on the test in front of her instead of her fatigue, a task made marginally easier by the stern face of her teacher making his rounds in the class.

She straightened as he approached her desk, making it look like she was simply thinking instead of dozing. As he passed her by, she slumped slightly. Suppressing another yawn, she bubbled in another answer, slowly progressing through her test as her mind wandered elsewhere. 

She only had a few more days of console duty after sneaking out on that solo patrol last week, but she had a feeling that she’d be put on a team with Carlos once it was all said and done which was arguably worse. Missy really didn’t want to have to listen to him chew her ear off about responsibility or whatever. It always felt like he was talking down to her, even if she knew he didn’t really mean it.

As Missy tried to think of a way to get out of her inevitable talking to or at least delay it, she jumped as a loud bang rang throughout the classroom, bringing an abrupt and violent end to the silence. She and everyone else looked behind them to find their teacher looming over a student sitting in the back of the class, one hand on the desk that he had clearly just slammed down. The student who had caught his ire jumped, wide-eyed and confused as they looked around for the source of the disruption.

“Sleeping in class again?” Mr. Wenton’s voice was sharp and disapproving. “You need to do better than this, young lady. At this rate, you’re going to fail this class and the entire semester.”

Missy leaned to look around the man’s broad frame and frowned as she recognized the student he was talking to, Roxanne Schaffer.

Suddenly, things started to make a lot more sense. Many of her fellow students turned away as they realized what was going on, but she kept her eyes on the spectacle, watching as her teacher began to lay into the other girl.

MIssy wouldn’t call Roxanne a bad person, but she was definitely a troublemaker in that she was always getting in trouble for one reason or another, and it seemed like today’s pick was, once again, sleeping.

Though, Missy wouldn’t say she didn’t understand. Roxanne looked terrible. She was always sleep-deprived in one form or another, but it was clearly worse today. Her red hair was especially frizzy and her eyes held the lifeless gaze of someone who hadn’t quite realized that they were even alive. She looked around, blinking blearily, before her eyes caught on the face of Mr. Wenton and she snapped to attention. She reached up to her ears, and Missy’s frown deepened as she saw that the girl was once again wearing headphones. 

During a test.

Missy wondered how she had gotten ahold of that pair. It had to be the twelfth pair she’d gotten confiscated in the last three months. Maybe she was stealing them back from the teacher’s desk after school.

Missy winced in sympathy as the teacher's severe glare drilled into the side of Roxanne's head. The man held his hand out, palm up, and waited.Roxanne stared at it for a long moment, her jaw working, before she let out a heavy sigh. Her hand came up and she dropped the two small earbuds into her teacher's palm.

“Detention after school,” Mr. Wenton said flatly.

Roxanne groaned, but seemed too tired to fight it. She slumped back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest. Missy watched the exchange, feeling a bit bad for the girl.

The teacher glanced down at the desk, and Missy saw his lips thin into a tight line. He reached down and slid the test out from underneath Roxanne's arm, holding it up for view. It was completely filled in, every bubble marked. 

“If you put as much effort into your actual classwork as you do into getting into trouble, you might actually pass this class,” he sighed. “Unfortunately for you, tests are only worth twenty percent of your grade, even if you ace this one. At the rate you're going, you're not liable to pass.”

Roxanne grumbled something underneath her breath that nobody could hear. Missy had a feeling it wasn't anything good.

The teacher collected Roxanne's test and sidled back to the front of the room, settling into his chair as he turned his attention to grading it. Missy expected the score would be good. Roxanne didn't put any effort into class, but she was actually pretty smart. She just seemed to hate actually applying herself.

Missy watched as Roxanne slumped down in her chair, eyes already closing as she went back to sleep, and frowned.

[TONE]

After class let out, Missy found the girl in the hall.

“Hey, Roxanne, can I talk to you?”

The other girl stopped, turning slowly. Her face soured the moment she saw who had called her name, her freckled features twisting into something between annoyance and disgust.

Missy ignored it, plastering a concerned smile on her face. “Hey. Are you doing okay?”

“I'm fine,” Roxanne said curtly. She clearly didn’t want anything to do with Missy. For some reason, she never seemed to be able to stand her, though the heroine wasn’t sure exactly why. They barely talked to each other.

Missy felt a tinge of discomfort, but pushed through it. “Listen, I know things have been rough in class lately, and I was wondering if you maybe wanted some help studying? I could–”

“You think I need your help?” Roxanne cut in sharply, green eyes narrowing into slits.

The reaction was sudden and Missy was left on the back foot, unable to properly react to the girl’s sudden anger.

The students around them went a bit hushed, sensing the hostility brewing between the two of them. Roxanne stepped a foot closer,  and Missy was suddenly reminded of the height difference between the two of them. 

Roxanne was tall, probably the tallest girl in their class if not the entire grade. She was slightly lanky, but most of them were thanks to puberty, so Missy didn't really hold an advantage in that regard. If it wasn't for her Wards training, she definitely would have been intimidated.

“What, you think because you're miss perfect you gotta take pity on the bad kid?” Roxanne sneered. “Gotta get in good with the teachers by helping the class delinquent?”

“What? No, I wasn't–” Missy tried to keep her voice even but she could already feel her own temper flaring. What was this girl’s problem? “I was just trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well, I don't need your charity,” Roxanne said, stepping back. She winced suddenly, as if the movement bothered her, before the pain was once again replaced with anger. “Why don't you just piss off?”

Missy's expression cracked into a frown, her patience finally worn thin.

“Fine,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “Sorry for trying to help.”

She watched Roxanne storm down the hallway, shoulders tight and fists clenched at her sides. A few other students stepped out of her way, giving her a wide berth as she shoved past them without a second glance.

Missy let out a breath as she watched the other girl go, while the students around her resumed what they were doing as they realized there wasn’t going to be a fight. Missy stayed there a moment longer before turning and walking away, a ball of anger sitting hot in her chest from the encounter.

No use helping people who don’t want it, she thought, stopping by her locker to grab her science textbook. She’d been as polite as possible and Roxanne slapped away her offered hand. She didn’t understand what the girl had against her, but she definitely wasn’t gonna try to help her again any time soon.

She stalked to her next class, in a much fouler mood than before, and tried to keep her mind off of the dark circles etched under Roxanne’s eyes and the pain hidden underneath all that anger.

[TONE]

The North End Orphanage was like pretty much every other of its time. Too many kids packed into one place, harried caretakers who simply couldn’t manage all of them, and too few prospective parents to bother showing off any but the youngest kids sheltered there.

It was also loud in a way that most people wouldn't understand.

It wasn't just the kids screaming or the staff yelling or the television blaring from the common room. It was everything, the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen downstairs and the creak of the pipes in the walls. It was the rattle of the window frames as cars passed by outside, and the drip of the faucet in the bathroom across the hall. All these things were miniscule, sounds so quiet that they were unnoticeable to most. But not to one.

Roxy lay in her bed, one arm thrown over her face as she feigned sleep. Her headphones were wrapped snugly over her head, tangled in red hair and blasting white noise in her hypersensitive ears. She focused on her breathing, counting the seconds as they passed her by.

Each breath caused her ribs to ache. The ugly bruise spread across her chest, just barely hidden by the neck of her shirt, was hard to ignore.

After  what felt like an eternity, the movement in the room around her settled, and she slowly moved her arm away from her face.

It was dark in the room she shared with at least five other girls. Roxy looked around at the masses sleeping in the bunk beds around her, then toward the nearby clock glowing through the gloom.

2:44. The number flashed on and off, and Roxy smiled. It was late enough.

She sat up in bed. The movement made the rusty springs of the mattress squeak, a sharp sound that made her flinch and then freeze as Sarah shifted in the top bunk, muttering something incoherent in her sleep.

Roxy waited, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs and her blood rushing through her ears as the girl settled, thankfully staying asleep.

She checked the room, waiting to see any eyes peeking back at her through the dark. Luckily there were none. It was all just shadows and shapes and the breathing of five other unwanted children. She was good to go.

Roxy slowly slid her legs out from under the blanket. Her bare feet touched the cold linoleum with a soft pat but compared to the noise, it was silent.

She moved with the care of someone who had done this a hundred times, rolling her weight from the heel to the outside of the foot to minimizing the vibration transfer to the floorboards and thus, the sounds they would make when she stepped on them. She felt like a ghost, or a ninja, creeping through the night to avoid being seen.

She had to be careful. If the night staff caught her out of bed, it was a write-up. Three write-ups meant trouble, more eyes on her and less time to slip away. She couldn't afford that right now. 

She slipped out of her room and shut the door silently. The hallway was dimly lit by the streetlights flickering in through the grime-streaked windows. The floor was a minefield of creaky boards, but Roxy had memorized it by now and knew where not to step and continued in silence, creeping her way up to the second floor where she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

It wasn’t much, just a simple push lock that could be opened with a paper clip, but it was enough to keep people out. At least at this time of night.

It was dark inside, even as she flipped the light switch and turned on the single, flickering bulb. Pale skin and red hair stared back at her as she glanced across the dirty mirror and turned her attention to the nearby toilet.

“Okay,” she whispered in a voice edged with quiet enthusiasm. “Let's do this.”

She climbed onto the edge of the toilet, then stepped carefully onto the rim of the sink. She was underweight for her age, thanks to her height and borderline malnutrition, but that worked to her advantage by making her light enough to not have to worry about the wobbling porcelain below her as she stood and reached up to the drop ceiling.

The old tiles were water-stained and yellowed with age. One of them, directly above the sink, had a distinct water stain shaped like a frowning clown that Roxy often found herself staring at on the odd occasion she actually used this bathroom. She placed her palms flat against it and pushed. It lifted silently and she slid it aside, revealing the dark cavity between the floors.

Roxy reached into the crawlspace, her fingers finding the familiar shapes by touch alone. First came the helmet, bulky but light, then her gauntlets which was much heavier. Finally, she pulled down a bundle wrapped in an old T-shirt, listening to the pieces clatter against each other inside.

She hopped down from the sink and unfolded the t-shirt on the closed toilet lid. Several rough pieces of armor sat pressed against each other, the largest of them sporting a large dent. Among them sat a stack of bills, neatly bound with a rubber band she'd swiped from the office downstairs.

Roxy's fingers slid across the stack and she barely withheld a smile. Nine hundred and forty-seven dollars. Combined with what she already had hidden in her mattress back in the room, she was sitting on just under three grand. That was a lot. But…

Her smile faded a little bit. “Still not enough,” she muttered.

She needed at least five thousand to get out of the orphanage and live comfortably. Two grand was a good start, but it wouldn't cover rent on even a shithole apartment, which was the only type she could even get at her age. 

And that wasn't even considering food and the tools she'd need to maintain her gear and all other crap that came with living on your own. 

She damaged the speaker on one of her Thumpers taking out that crackhead last night and needed to buy a new one. Those weren't cheap, and if she didn't fix it, she'd have even more issues later. Expensive ones.

“I need more money,” she muttered, thumbing over the bills one more time. “Just a few more hits, then I can find a place of my own.”

There was a place a few blocks over, a den run by some ABB gangbangers who thought they were tough shit. She'd cased it twice already, and while it wasn't as big as the crackhouse she'd hit last night, it probably had an actual stash. Cash, product, maybe even some guns she could fence. More than nine hundred dollars worth of stuff, at least.

Roxy slipped the helmet over her head, pushing her hair out of the way. Once it was on, she grabbed the chord of her headphones and plugged it into the small port on the neck. She then reached up underneath the chin and thumbed a small switch, clicking it on.

Instantly, the deafening noise that she constantly had to deal with since she Triggered disappeared, replaced by the steady rhythm of music surging through her earbuds. Roxy sighed, breathing a sigh of relief as her tech did its work.

Really, this helmet was probably her best work. Counter-frequency noise cancellation so precise she could drown out a stadium and still hear a fly buzzing a room away if she wanted to. Her own personal bubble of quiet, in a place where anything personal was a rarity.

Roxy took a moment to enjoy the smooth base working in her ears before quickly working on the rest of her gear. Her chest-plate took a hit last night, but it would protect her about as well as before, even if it say a little uncomfortably against her now. Her blown out Thumper buzzed against her hand until she turned it down, and she made a mental reminder to only use the left one for now. She didn't like the sound it was making.

Roxy strapped on her last piece of gear, a pair of small cylinders with pointed ends. Her Shatter-picks had seen their first test run last night, vibrating the locks of the crackhouse until the tumblers came loose, but she was eager to rest then on something a little more challenging.

She examined herself in the mirror and took a breath. The opaque visor stared back, reflecting the grimy bathroom in a distorted curve, and though she couldn't see it, she smiled ear to ear.

“Time to go to work.”

Roxy killed the lights and unlocked the door, slipping back out into the hallway. She didn't go back the way she came, instead taking a left toward the stairwell at the end of the hall up to the rood.

The door to the roof was locked, once upon a time. Now it was as simple as lifting the frame and turning the handle so he deadbolt slipped through the crack in the frame 

The night air hit her, cold and sharp, carrying the smell of the bay and the distant hum of the city. The wind tugged at her hoodie and she lifted her head, letting it wash over her.

Brockton Bay stretched out before her, a sprawl of lights and shadows. To her left, the downtown skyline rose up in a cluster of bright glass buildings shining against the dark. To her right, the Docks looked, all but forgotten. Further out, she could just barely make out the cranes along the waterfront and the distant bulk of PHQ, the forcefield glowing through the ocean fog.

The teen took a step forward and stood at the edge of the roof, one foot on the lip as she took a moment to just stare out at it all. Her city.

Right now, Roxanne Schaffer was a nobody, another face in a sea of unwanted children. Even the orphanage staff forgot her name half the time and the other half they just wanted her to stop causing trouble.

A smirk curled her lip. “Like I'd ever do that.”