Greg Vs Raid 9-27

The popcorn ceiling of his bedroom might as well have been a map of the world.

Just ridges and bumps staring back at him as the late July sun started bleeding out to the night sky through the horizontal slats of his window blinds, tinting out from orange to purple.

Map or not, Greg Veder was perfectly fine laying flat on his back, hands stacked behind his head resting on a pillow as he stared up and did absolutely nothing at all. Peace at last…

More than just nothing, it was a magnificently earned nothing; the kind of nothing you only got after spending the afternoon dealing with a Brady Bunch of psychos and managing not to murder any of them. 

At the very least, that giant mess was officially wrapped up and filed away under ‘Things Greg Veder Is Not Dealing With Anymore.’ His mouth turned down for a second, before his eyes rolled in his skull. Well, except for Alec, I guess…

A long slow sigh rattled its way out, brain still humming just a bit with that weird leftover adrenaline he always got after a staredown or a throwdown. He could still see it when he blinked — Blackglass, Harrow, Hookneedle, and the rest of the Heartbroken scattering their way out of that alleyway. All of them hadn’t even looked back, each one running like he was the actual devil pitchforking their collective asses back to whatever circle of Canadian hell they crawled out of. 

It was a good feeling, to strike fear into the hearts of evil everywhere; even if that evil couldn’t legally drink yet. But honestly, neither could he, so he could slap that on the scoreboard either way.

Yeah, it’s over. A solid, clean end to a questline that had absolutely zero upside past a few experience points that didn’t even top him off properly.

Sparky, of course, hadn’t seen it that way. Never sees things my way. Not without a little peer pressure, anyway. 

Granted, Sparky was almost always pissed recently so… eh.

The memory bled back, almost projected past his eyes and onto the growing shadows on the ceiling. Sparky had been pacing back and forth on the roof just seconds later, sneakers scuffing the tar paper. “Bro, you’re just gonna let them walk? That’s insane.” The hiss had slipped right through the yellow honeycomb grill of his Apex mask, Sparky’s hands twitching like he was desperate to hit something. “They did all that… that psycho Silent Hill cannibal shit to the city, man. We should have fuckin’ bagged ‘em. Bagged ‘em, tagged ‘em, and dropped ‘em at the PRT with a bow on top, brah.”

The springs groaned faintly as Greg shifted on his mattress, his bed adjusting to a body that was a lot denser than it used to be. I mean, I get it. He wasn’t gonna lie and pretend Sparky was spitting bullshit. ‘Catch the villains and take them to the super-cops’ was a perfectly normal, heroic response.

There was no way he could lie and say Sparky’s logic didn’t track. It was just incredibly and mathematically stupid.

Life in Brockton Bay wasn’t a linear campaign, and Greg had been forced to learn the macro-game ever since he started running the Ronin.

New England wind bit through the open top of his helmet as Greg stood there as Sparky went on and on, Theo silent and Cherie pretending like she wasn’t still crying atop the rooftop. Alec hadn’t bothered chiming in, patting his sister on the back like she was a five year old who just skinned her knee or something. It took almost five minutes of patience as Sparky got his whole rant out but Greg took it all in as he tried to think best how to explain the cape scene to a guy who still thought punching things solved long-term nightmares. 

All he had to do was one simple thing to stop Sparky’s argument dead.

Greg had just looked his friend up and down, one eyebrow arched high behind his mask, silence hanging for a second before he let the hammer drop. “You know who their dad is, right?”

Sparky blinked. “I… I mean, yeah?”

A red-gloved hand on Sparky’s shoulder, Greg leaned in and followed his first question up with another simple sentence. “You don’t arrest the children of a mind-controlling warlord.” 

You just don’t. 

Bagging a bunch of wannabe Slaughterhouse Minors just to bring Heartbreaker’s undivided S-Class-adjacent attention crashing down onto a city that was currently held together by duct tape and good intentions was pretty much the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.

And no matter how much it stung, Greg had to bite the bullet and make up for it by putting the fear of him into each one of them.

Sparky had stared back, the golden eyes behind his goggles narrowing as the half-complaint died in his throat. “Yeah, but they… they did all that…”

Greg got it. He honestly did. 

The urge to crater Blackglass’s smug Canadian face into the pavement had been an urge almost as strong as breathing, but it was a bad idea.

Absolutely terrible.

“We lock them up, their dad comes looking for them.” Greg said, voice dropping into that sfaster raspier register that came when he put on the red leather, scarf and helmet. It wasn’t a conscious choice, it just came naturally with being Hardkour. “Heartbreaker. Potentially an S-Class Disaster collecting free will like Chinpokomon cards. You really want to have him swing his Simurgh-lite dick into our city right now, man?”

Theo had backed him up, of course. “We can do the math if you’d like.”

Standing there in his oversized gray hoodie, the LED smiley face on his silver mask completely static, Theo had explained it all with that flat voice of his. “We are not in a position of power here. Force only does so much. We turn in those capes, we get their father’s attention aimed squarely on us. We eliminate their father, after the arduous and lengthy effort of finding him of course, and his contingencies wreak havoc across continental North America. We kill everyone of his contingencies and both our souls and reputations are stained with the blood of countless innocents. How do you assume we proceed, Axel?”

That had shut Sparky up.

Hell, it had shut Greg up too, given that he’d only thought about half that far. Damn…

Either way, the world kept spinning, Greg didn’t have to deal with a sociopathic harem-master, and the city lived to get weirder day by day.

More than that, he got to lay around in his bed and listen to his ceiling fan as it went wobble-wobble-wobb-Dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding-dong.

Greg didn’t jump, but he did sit up out of his bed fast enough to pull a Dracula, something slamming into his eardrums that wasn’t his ceiling fan. The doorbell?

The doorbell was ringing. Not a polite, single chime. A frantic, vibrating, continuous assault on the plastic button outside his front door.

“What now?” He rolled off the mattress, his socked-up feet  hitting the carpet. Mom’s out at book club, so… Whether it was a book club or whatever suburban wine-drinking circle she was using to ignore the fact that the city was half-ruined, Greg knew Mom had her key anyway so it couldn’t be her. 

Theo would literally rather calculate pi to the thousandth decimal than ring his doorbell like a goddamn maniac. If anything, he’d send a grammatically perfect and incredibly short text message announcing his arrival two minutes to the second he showed up. 

And Sparky… 

Well, Sparky didn’t even use his door anymore. Now, he just scaled up the side of the house and climbed through the second-story window like a feral cat in streetwear.

Which meant nobody he knew. Hmmmm…

So who was actively trying to murder his doorbell?

Padding out of his room, Greg took the stairs three at a time, hardwood cool against his socks as he finally hit the landing. By the time he reached for the door, the ringing had already stopped, replaced instantly by the heavy, frantic thud of a fist hammering against the wood.

“I’m coming, Jesus!”

He went for the deadbolt, unlocking it as he pulled the door open, a sarcastic ‘Hello’ already chambered behind bright white teeth.

Those same teeth clicked shut, trapping the word as Emma Barnes stood on his porch. Wha-?

Thick red hair, bright green eyes, and perfectly proportioned face stared back at him, looking almost exactly like a magazine cover that had been left out in the rain. Bent halfway over, chest heaving, and with her eyes blown out wide, she looked like she had run all the way here.

More than that, she wasn’t alone, a second person slouching heavily against her shoulder, their body swallowed up entirely by a baggy bright yellow rain slicker.

“Emma?” The name slipped out right as the smell hit him, New England evening breeze pushing past them and directly into Greg’s face before she could even open her mouth.

He knew it like he knew the taste of his own tongue; that sharp metal tang of old pennies baking all-day in a hot car. Blood. 

A lot of it, too.

Way too much for a scratch.

“Greg, it’s jus- you have t—” Emma’s voice pitched high and only got higher as every other syllable kept stuttering over each other in a frantic breathless babble. 

A finger pointed straight at the yellow plastic lump leaning against the doorframe, Greg with only one question. “Who is that and why are they bleeding?”

The person under the raincoat shifted, muddy boots dragging their way slowly against the porch boards. Without warning, they slipped off Emma’s shoulder and stumbled forward, Greg stepping back — a shout cresting his teeth — as they collided hard with the interior wall of the foyer. The oversized yellow hood jerked back, plastic peeling away from her face.

Dark skin stood out, immediately familiar long braids plastered to a face caked with sweat and grime. Eyes rolled halfway back into her skull, mouth open in a limp grimace as a rattle of a groan vibrated out of her throat.

“The fuck?!?” Sophia Hess?  

“What the…” His blue eyes snapped back to the panicked-looking redhead, her hands out and eyes aimed down. “Emma, why is Sophia here? Whis is she bleeding? Why is she bleeding here?”

Emma’s hands shook, pink-painted nails stained with a dark reddish-brown smear. “She got shot?”

“You don’t know?” Greg’s hands went high above his head before gesturing down at the floor, literal blood dripping off the yellow rubber and pooling onto his mom’s Brazilian cherrywood floors. “Cause she’s bleeding in my mom’s foyer right now. I think it’s pretty obvious she got shot, Emma!””

“Y-yeah,” Emma swallowed hard, manicured fingers digging into the slick yellow rubber of Sophia’s coat so hard her knuckles were bone-white. Her chest heaved, a grunt spilling out of her as she tried to pull Sophia back up. “She got shot. Obviously she got shot.”

“Who shot her?”

“I d-don’t know.” 

“Why’d they shoot her?”

“I. DON’T. KNOW!” Emma shrieked back, volume spiking as she stared back at him with wild green eyes.

“What do you know, Emma?” Greg threw his hands up, taking a step back as Sophia let out another gurgling moan and slid an inch further down the wallpaper. This was… He shook his head, head still spinning as he tried to deal with the fact that his maybe-kinda-sorta ex girlfriend was in his house and she’d brought a shot Sophia Hess of all people with her. This is fucking insane. 

Insane was too nice a word, honestly. “You can’t just come to my house like this! How d— Wait, how the hell’d you even get her here?”

Emma blinked, green eyes wide again. “A taxi?”

Greg’s eye twitched as the words hung in the air; incredibly stupid but entirely real. “What kind of taxi lets you bring a person that just got shot?”

“That’s what the raincoat was f-f-fooooorrrrr,” Emma practically sobbed the last word, tears welling up in her eyes.

She… Greg looked down at the yellow coat. He looked at the mud and the dark, spreading stain soaking through the bottom of Sophia’s shirt. She put a dying girl in a yellow raincoat and shoved her in a yellow cab. Like a bad disguise in a cartoon, but it still managed to work somehow. Somehow.

“I… I… Emma, just…” Fingers pinched the bridge of his nose tight, eyes shut as he felt a headache building up when he didn’t even know he could still fucking get those anymore. “Just take her to a hospital, Jesus.”

Sophia groaned again, louder this time, even as Emma tried to get her to sit up.

“I…” The raincoat opened up, the wound showing as Emma choked, hands hovering uselessly over Sophia’s open stomach. “I can’t take her to a hospital.”

“Why the hell not, Emma?!” Greg’s voice echoed off the high ceiling, his own volume surprising him. “Give me one good reason!”

The dam broke as Emma collapsed to her knees next to Sophia onto the bloody hardwood floor, words spilling out of her in an overlapping rush of hyperventilating hysteria. “Because she’s Shadow Stalker, okay! 

“Wha-!”

“Obviously she’s Shadow Stalker, Greg! She just showed up in my backyard falling apart and bleeding everywhere and a hole in her stomach! I literally couldn’t call an ambulance because they’d ask questions and the PRT would get involved and she’d go to jail or they’d find out and I didn’t know what to do! And I remembered! I remembered the hospital, when I was in the coma and you came into the room and your hands were glowing and you fixed me! You healed me, I know you did, I felt it, and I couldn’t just let her die in the dirt.”

She grabbed the right leg of Greg’s jeans, stained fingers gripping the denim tight. “I knew you could do it. I knew it! Please, Greg. She’s my best friend. Please don’t let her die.”

Greg stood perfectly still, the silence absolut  apart from Emma’s quiet sobs and the wet rattling of Sophia trying to breathe through a gut wound.

Because she’s Shadow Stalker.

The puzzle piece clicked into place, sharp and incredibly annoying in his brain. The anger issues. The track star physique. The general, overwhelming bitchiness as she moved in the hallways at Winslow, acting like she was an apex predator surrounded by sheep. Of course she was the psycho vigilante who shot people and acted like a rabid wolverine. It was the most obvious, glaringly stupid piece of trivia in the world and he had completely missed it.

“Sophia’s Shadow Stalker?” Once again, Greg stared down at the groaning, muddy girl on the floor. “Damn, how did I not put that t-“

Sophia let out another ragged, rattling groan, her head lolling to the side.

Right. Dying girl.

Greg snapped his attention back to Emma as she looked up at him, her green eyes wide and desperate as she knelt on the ground splattered in blood.

“Wait…whoa whoa whoa whoa,” Greg held up a hand, the other half of her frantic confession finally catching up to his processing speed. “Whoa, you know I have powers?”

Emma nodded, breath catching. “Y-yeah. I’ve known for… for a while now.”

“What do you know?” The words came out slow, each one spoken carefully. “Like, for real.”

“Well,” Emma sniffed, trying to pull herself up. “You’re a healer, right? You healed me?”

Greg’s gaze slid from Emma over to Sophia bleeding on the floor as he took in the absolute mess his Friday evening had just become.

“…kinda.”

Emma’s face twisted in pure uncut confusion. “Kinda?”

Yeah, why not? He really didn’t have the time to explain the intricacies of it, considering the situation was pretty much beyond words at the best of times. It was beyond lying and beyond hiding and, more than anything, Sophia was actively dying on his mother’s floor.

Let’s just do it. Blood still pooling, Greg just nodded. 

Equip: White Knight.

The air in the foyer displaced with a sudden drop of pressure, a flash of brilliant blue undulating in every direction across his body as it strobed out throught he cramped space. Polished hardwood and the framed family photos on the wall reflected cerulean for all of a second as Greg’s clothes warped.

The soft white cotton of his t-shirt and the loose denim of his jeans vanished almost immediately, going to where everything else went when he dismissed it off his person. In their place, a heavy white hood settled itself over bright blond hair, edged in crisp blue trim, blue undershirt pulled tight across his chest. Heavy, segmented armor plates materialized over his thighs and shins, pristine white pants layered beneath plating. 

Thick, white armored gauntlets with gold and blue accents locked firmly around his forearms with a soft, metallic click as the long white cape dropped over his shoulders, fabric rustling slightly against his back. Across his chest, surrounded by bold bright gold, was the simple white fleur-de-lis.

Greg stared back at Emma through the blue domino mask over his face, gold accents flaring around his eyes, as he stood there in his newest rendition on his costume.

Emma staggered back, back hitting the wall next to the door. She was staring at him, her jaw actually hanging open as tears stopped tracking down her cheeks. She took in the armored gauntlets, the blue domino mask, and the short blue cape over the shoulders as she finally begant to form a proper sentence.

“Oh my God…” Emma breathed out, words almost a whisper as her green eyes looked his way like she’d never seen him before. “You’re… You’re…”

“Yeah, Emma.” His voice lowered as Greg looked down at her through the eyeholes in his mask, passive aerokinesis giving it depth and volume that defined this identity. “I’m Batman.”

Sophia groaned.