Chapter Text
Franky had given up on complaining about babysitting a long time ago. Besides, Twilight’s bribery pay was more than sufficient to keep tempting Franky into coming back.
Plus, it wasn’t like Bond needed much looking after. The military-trained dog had enough tricks up his sleeve to indicate to Franky when he needed to be walked, when he was hungry, and when he needed to be taken outside. In the meantime, Franky had the Forger residence all to himself, and he could do whatever he wanted…
Read: watching dating shows, and yelling at the television.
“You don’t deserve her!” he yelled through a mouthful of breakfast popcorn. “Miserable bastard.”
Onscreen, a woman with dewy skin and hair extensions fluttered her spider-like lashes at a man in an ill-fitting suit and a flashy watch.
“I just prefer women who look more natural,” he said in barely-disguised disgust.
“Man doesn’t know a quality woman if she hit him in the face,” Franky muttered just as the woman hit the man across the face, her mascara slightly smudged through tears.
Franky reached for another handful of popcorn, and in the corner of his eye, Bond raised his head from his place on the carpet.
“Borf!”
“Right? That’s what I was thinking,” Franky said.
Bond stood abruptly, his eyes on the door, and Franky reached for the remote.
“Wassamatter, boy? You just went outside.”
But it didn’t sound as though Bond was listening, because he barked and ran to the door, clawing at the wood with a whine.
“Is someone at the door?” Franky wondered aloud, and he quickly lowered the volume of the TV, and pushed himself up from the sofa with a groan, cursing his creaky knees.
Franky ushered Bond out of his way to look through the door’s peephole, and huffed when he didn’t see anyone there. Was the dog just hearing things?
“Borf!” Bond barked again, and clawed insistently at the door, looking at Franky every second whine with a question in his eyes.
He was clearly impatient, because after only a few seconds of whining, Bond started to jump up, knocking his head against Franky and pushing him towards the door.
“Hey! Easy!”
And then he started barking, too loud and too insistent.
“Alright, I hear ya. You want out. Jeez. I'll get your lead – ”
Bond slammed his body against the door, shocking Franky completely.
It was only then that Franky realised something was wildly, terribly wrong.
Didn't Twilight – sorry, Loid – tell him that if Bond started acting strange, that was a sign of something…? Franky was too busy mooning at the girl on the street to hear him properly but he had never seen Bond act like this before.
Not questioning it too much, Franky grabbed his keys and his coat, and opened the door, running after Bond into the street.
A storm raged in Damian’s mind.
At first, it was a blizzard. Ice and snow had frozen his thoughts, because Damian could not afford to break just yet. Eden College had been taken over by terrorists, hired by Damian’s own mother – and still, there was no time to rest because Anya was in danger, and he had to protect her. He had to do everything he could to get her to a safe place.
But when Damian watched Anya walk towards the wall of articles and string, something monumental cracked and shifted below the surface. As though the ice storm was only a surface-level threat, and what lay beneath was a monster of volcanic proportions.
“You’ve been watching me?” Anya said in a small voice, and it snapped whatever restraint he had left.
Everything inside him shut down. The snow disappeared, melting in the face of an anger that swirled like magma below the surface. Anger that was never meant to be shown.
“You’ve been stalking my girlfriend?” He barely recognised his own voice, spitting with embers.
Rage ignited his blood, spreading like wildfire, and Damian gritted his teeth at the sudden heat of it.
“Actually, I consider myself a collector of truths –”
“You’ve. Been. Stalking her.”
Damian hadn’t even noticed when he had stepped closer to George, backing him against the stone wall, and his vision narrowed, blurring his periphery while he viewed everything through a red film. He clenched his fists at his sides in an attempt to restrain himself.
But the match had already been lit, and it burned its way through him.
“You bastard!” Damian screamed, and he couldn’t stop himself anymore. It no longer mattered what Damian did, because Anya was in danger, Anya’s secret had been found out, because he had failed to keep her safe, and it was all George’s fault.
His hand shot out, and he grabbed George by the throat, and shoved him against the wall.
“What the hell were you thinking? Who gave you the right?”
Damian had never felt anger like it before in his life. Explosions boomed in his ears, screamed into his blood. A fire that roared like the sun, devouring anything and everything in its path.
“Bossman, stop!”
Arms looped under his, grabbing him from behind, and Damian writhed in their grip.
Emile yelled in his ear. “It’s not like that, it’s –”
“Let go of me!” Damian roared, and reared his head back, smacking Emile in the nose, before he twisted in Emile’s hold, and whirled on him.
“You’re in on this too? You fucking traitor!” he snarled, raising his fist to strike, channeling the energy of a meteor screaming to Earth.
Emile closed his eyes and turned his face away, preparing for Damian’s hit, but he didn’t need to, because a hand caught Damian’s strike instead.
Fist collided with palm, creating a shock of air that burst like a thunderclap, and wind swirled in the small space around them.
“Whoa.” Alice’s eyes widened.
“Holy shit,” said Ewen.
“I knew it,” George whispered.
And when he saw who had stopped him, all the blood drained from Damian’s face, sobering him immediately. Emerald eyes ensnared him where he stood, her expression drawn tight and solemn.
“Are you okay, Emile?” said Anya, though her eyes didn’t leave Damian’s. Behind her, Emile hurriedly nodded, sweat emerging on his forehead and blood dripping from his nose, and then when he realised that Anya couldn’t see him, he cleared his throat.
“Uh, yeah,” he croaked. “I’m fine.”
At the sight of the blood on Emile’s face, and the flash of fear in his eyes, cold shame flooded Damian’s entire body.
“I – I’m sorry…” Bile rose in his throat, and Damian shook from the realisation of what he had just done. What he was about to do. To his own best friend.
All around him, on all sides, the faces of his friends stared back at him, all in various shades of shock, surprise and fear. Even George had broken his measured facade, regarding Damian with more apprehension than curiosity.
Once again, Damian had allowed his emotions to take over him, and he had ended up hurting his friends. First from Anya’s betrayal, and now from George’s, because he had exposed Anya’s secret, and to Damian that felt no different than if he had pointed a knife at her throat.
Useless. He was so useless, because what good was he, if he couldn’t keep his promise to her?
“I was supposed to protect you,” Damian choked. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
Anya stood closer to him, moving her hand from around his fist, and nudged his fingers to interlock with hers.
“Fighting won’t change it,” Anya said quietly, and Damian’s heart broke to see her gaze to the floor. And then her shoulders hitched, and her voice cracked: “It’s too late. They already know what I am.”
“Yeah,” said George, rubbing his throat, working out the impact of Damian’s assault. He coughed briefly before straightening up. “And if it weren’t for me, everyone would know.”
Damian watched Anya’s brow furrow, and she turned to George. “What do you mean?”
George stood slowly, unsmiling as he stared between Damian and Anya. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you haven’t already been caught?”
“What?” Damian breathed, at the same time that Anya paled.
George gestured at the wall, indicating the results of his investigation. “All these articles and records are publicly available. Anyone could have put it together, but they didn’t because I’ve been covering your tracks. How do you think the school administration hasn’t found out about you already? Did you think all the evidence just vanished by accident? The school is crawling with cameras, for crying out loud!”
Anya gasped.
“The door. At the Imperial Ball. I destroyed it, and…” she gulped, staring at George with barely-disguised horror. “You saw that?”
“I deleted it!” George exclaimed, sweeping his arms out into an exaggerated gesture. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Wait,” said Alice, and her eyes widened in dawning recognition. “I was investigating the wreckage with Bill. We wrote up the report together, but then when I went to check the CCTV, it was gone! That was you, George?”
“Yes, that’s what I just said,” George replied, deadpan. “But then it got so bad that even Emile noticed something was up –”
“Hey! What do you mean ‘even Emile’?”
“– so I recruited him, and then he recruited Ewen, and, well, now we’re here. It’s a three-person club. Honestly, I should have recruited someone else a long time ago, since it’s a lot of hard work.”
“What is, exactly?” Damian couldn’t help but ask, though part of him was afraid to know the answer.
This time, it was Emile that spoke up, and he pushed himself off from the wall that Damian had him backed up against, dusting off his palms. “Keeping Anya’s secret identity, well, a secret. I’m sorry we kept it from you.”
“If it helps,” said Ewen, raising his hands. “I told them it was a bad idea.”
“My… secret identity?” Anya said breathlessly. “But, why?”
“Because,” said George, exasperated, and he pointed at Anya. “You’re a superhero.”
“You’re a superhero,” said George, deadpan.
“What?” said Alice, now completely confused.
“What!” said Damian.
“What?!” exclaimed Anya.
Eyes stared back at her expectantly, waiting for some kind of answer, or acknowledgement, but Anya had to concentrate to scoop her jaw back up from the floor.
A superhero? Was George being serious?
The voices from her past rang out in her head: You’re a freak. A witch. A mistake.
All of the voices faded, replaced by something she never imagined she would hear:
You’re a superhero.
Only one other person had ever used that word to describe her, what now felt like a lifetime ago, and he had protected her secret, and stayed on her side through everything.
It was as though a seed of light had taken root in her heart, warming her chest and spearing its rays through her skin.
“You think I’m a superhero?”
“It’s the most sensible explanation,” George said as he crossed his arms, once again looking at her like it was obvious. “The experiments are part of your origin story, but they gave you superhuman abilities, and you’ve been using them in secret to protect people. It’s just like Captain Erica, or the Bionic Woman, but now the people who made you are back, and they want to control you.”
“Er…” said Anya.
More than feeling like she was under a microscope, Anya was beginning to feel as though she was being dissected straight to the core of her.
Anya gulped. Maybe this was it. What all of her life was telling her to avoid.
“Stop right there,” Damian growled, his ire directed straight at George like a laser. “Don’t you say another fucking thing. You don’t have any right to reveal Anya’s secrets for her.”
Silence followed Damian’s short outburst, and Anya’s heart felt like it was going to burst from her chest. Even when Damian was shaken to his core, he still thought of her. Even though he’d just found out the worst secret that had been kept from him, he was still able to hold just enough pieces of himself together to keep protecting her.
Anya scanned the sheepish faces of everyone there. If it was any other day, she would be able to instantly know what they were thinking. Despite George’s ability to decode her in the form of an academic presentation, he could have been feeling guilty beneath the detached exterior. Emile and Ewen could have been feeling humbled, or scared, or in awe, or anywhere in between.
Most of all, she wanted to know how Damian felt. They hadn’t been able to finish their conversation about the Director. What to do with her. Anya had no doubt that it was eating away at Damian, but that he had buried it somewhere while they dealt with what was in front of them.
Alice raised her hand. “I have a question.”
George nodded his assent, and that was all Alice needed to rise from her seat, and stand before them, frowning.
“Is this a fucking joke?”
Alice stood with her arms folded together, facing George head-on. “Emile dragged me away because he said you were ‘pretty sure’ something was going to happen. I left my mum and dad in a room with actual terrorists, and now instead of talking about what we’re going to do about it, I get to listen to you prattling about superheroes and experiments, and I’m sick of it! What use is all this when our parents and our families and our friends are scared and being held hostage, and I’m stuck in here listening to you wasting my time with things that don’t make any sense at all!”
George reeled back, the most flabbergasted that Anya had ever seen him.
“What use is it? It’s everything!” he spluttered. “We need someone with real fighting experience, who’s actually dealt with bad guys before, and won. Anya’s been – well, she’s –”
Anya stepped forward, using her Imperial Scholar’s Cloak to shield George from Alice’s fiery scowl.
“No,” said Anya, regarding Alice with the same amount of respect that she had always shown her. “No, it’s not a joke.”
A strange calm had washed over her. Fear and anxiety melted away, and in its place, cool surety took root in her heart, at once composing and strengthening her.
Perhaps, for once, she was tired of fighting it. Or perhaps, it finally felt like the right time.
Anya blinked, and it was like her vision had settled, and the fog of secrets that had obscured her all her life finally lifted, allowing her to see clearly.
Looking at each of her friends in turn, Anya realised that she didn’t have to read their minds to understand them. All of her friends were sincere enough that they couldn’t hide their feelings, and Anya took it all in, as if she was trying to preserve this one moment, before she changed everything forever.
If she closed her eyes, she could imagine standing on a cliff’s edge, where below her, uncharted waters crashed into the edge, the foam reaching ever higher to try to claim her. Only, the waters weren’t quite so uncharted anymore, were they? She’d told Becky her ultimate secret. Damian, her parents, her uncles, even Sylvia. They all knew everything, and not one of them ever held it against her, or made her feel like she was anyone other than Anya Forger – the girl they had always known, and loved.
This time, when Anya stepped from the edge, it was less like diving into the unknown, and more like returning to the familiar embrace of an old friend. In her mind, the sea rose to meet her, and Anya waded into the water, accepting her fate.
“George is right. I was made in a lab, experimented on to develop psychic powers.”
At the word ‘psychic’, there was a collective gasp in the room, but Anya didn’t stop to pay attention to everyone’s reactions. She had to keep going, before her supply of courage dwindled.
Anya turned, once again taking in the impressive spread of newspapers and notes. Gently, she swept her hand across it, feeling the landscape of paper, pins, and string beneath her hands. String tickled Anya’s fingertips, and her gaze fell on the nearest article: a speculative piece into the motivations behind Project Apple, and the human experiments carried out within.
Anya took a steadying breath. No more secrets.
She continued: “I escaped. I found myself in an orphanage. I was adopted four times before the Forgers took me in, and claimed me as their daughter. They enrolled me in Eden, but that didn’t stop the lab from trying to find me again. I’ve been kidnapped more times than I can count, both by the scientists at the lab, and by people who had no idea what I was, because I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve fought. I don’t know how many times. I’ve been hospitalised. I also don’t know how many times.”
Each secret’s chain fragmented as she unearthed it. One by one, the chains melted from her, dissolving like paper in water, releasing her from their hold.
“I never imagined that the people at the lab would come back for me like this,” Anya admitted, and turned her back on the wall of articles that reflected her entire life. She met the eyes of her friends, seeing their range of awestruck, confused, and withdrawn. Finally, Anya turned to the person who carried her through all of it, who fought beside her, and fought for her at every turn.
Damian stared back with barely-disguised despair, partially left over from earlier, but there was something else there, too. Something warmer, seeing her take up the mantle of her own identity on her terms.
As Anya finished speaking, her friends straightened up, their eyes wide, like they were collectively seeing Anya in a new light. Like a new person.
Emile bravely broke the silence first. “So, what happens now? Can you fight them off?”
Anya shook her head. “Not like I normally can. My powers don’t work during the new moon.”
“Interesting,” said George, and he retrieved his fallen notebook from the floor, clicking his pen with unguarded interest. “And I take it the enemy is aware of this?”
“What do we do, then?” said Emile, looking between her and the others.
“Can’t we just wait here?” said Alice. “We can just wait for this to blow over.”
“No, we can’t,” said Damian through gritted teeth. “Because they won’t let us. There’s no way to escape this one. If we take our time, then we won’t get out of here alive. No-one will let us leave, not until they have what they want. Not until they have Anya.”
“Which is crazy, because Anya is here,” Emile looked worriedly at Anya. “We have to do something. My sister is still in the Great Hall, with my parents. They’ll be scared, or worse, hurt.”
“My parents are in the Great Hall with Emile’s,” Ewen admitted.
“Same here,” said George quietly, and if Anya wasn’t imagining it, his voice had become small and unsure.
They fell silent, worry taking over them.
“Anya is not giving herself up,” Damian reiterated, and for once, George looked remorseful.
“No-one is suggesting that,” said George, perhaps the most gentle he had been all day. “But we have to do something.”
Something resurfaced in Anya’s mind.
“What were you going to suggest?” said Anya, directing her question to George. “Earlier, in the tunnel. You said you had an idea.”
“Well…”
And when he explained it, he was met with mouths gaping wide.
“No,” Damian prickled immediately. “No way. Absolutely not. No way in hell.”
“She’s the perfect distraction,” George explained. “If you all co-ordinate to evacuate the Halls, Anya can be the bait.”
“It could work…” Anya said thoughtfully, and Damian jolted like he had received an electric shock.
“No. No. I won’t hear of it. It’s too dangerous.”
But Anya could see what the others could not, which was Damian's hands curled into fists at his sides, violently shaking, hissing air through his clenched teeth like it was the only way he could breathe.
She hadn’t forgotten that mere moments ago, he was a volcano ready to erupt. Damian had somehow managed to hit ‘pause’ on his anger, layered with so much despair and betrayal, but Anya knew that it was only a matter of time before Damian would let out his emotions in a destructive force.
George tried again. “You and Alice both know the Halls, because you’re Imperial Scholars. You could lead the other students to safety while Anya fights the –”
“I’ll do it,” Damian interrupted, his shoulders shaking. “I’ll be the distraction.”
Loid saw General Watkins hovering in midair, and every cell in his body blared with alarm.
Screams erupted in the hall as everyone witnessed it, unable to believe their eyes, and in that split second, Loid moved on instinct.
He would never know what exactly possessed him, but all he knew was that as soon as he made that leap, he left Loid Forger behind.
And he became Twilight again.
Twilight jumped from the ceiling beams, landing his foot squarely in the Protector’s face.
All of his weight focused on that one single spot. The Protector’s visor cracked and shattered beneath his sole, and in a split moment, Twilight was up again, having knocked the Protector to the ground. He rebounded in the air, using the Protector’s face as a surface to launch himself at the next group of terrorists, who had recoiled as one, unable to react to Twilight in the speed it took for him to reach them.
Crash! Wham! Twilight barrelled his way through the group, knocking a pistol out of one’s hand and cocking it mid-leap, taking aim at the same time.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three terrorists fell, one after the other, with gunshot wounds to the head, and several others behind them stepped back in unison.
“What the hell!”
“Are you seeing this?”
“What even is this guy –”
The speaker fell, blood spurting through the bullet hole in his neck, and already Twilight was moving on to his next target before the body had even hit the floor. The pistol clicked empty, and Twilight threw it at the next man’s temple, knocking him unconscious in one clean shot.
Adrenaline coursed through Twilight’s entire body as his feet flew over the fallen bodies of each terrorist. His speed and precision practically made him a human bullet, and Twilight couldn’t help but feel as though he was back on a mission, thrown in the middle of a fight with no weapons and no plan, apart from the fifty-seven escape routes he’d identified from his own intelligence: nothing could compare to the feeling, and euphoria fizzed in Twilight’s veins as he fought tooth and nail, like he was always meant to.
It was only when he had managed to knock out the last terrorist that Twilight registered the chilling silence around him, and he realised the true extent of his actions – what he had revealed about himself.
Twilight turned back, focused on finding the one person who could plausibly support him.
“General Watkins,” Twilight addressed him, and saluted, as he was taught in the army. “Sergeant Forger, at your service.”
It was purposeful, to only offer an explanation of who he was, and not what he had just done. Twilight knew just as well as the General that no ordinary Sergeant would be able to do what he just did – he only hoped that the General had the good enough sense not to follow up in front of a crowd of dozens of people.
General Watkins blinked slowly, as if he was still trying to consolidate his image of Dr Loid Forger with the undeniable monster that had suddenly emerged before him. At the same time, Twilight kept his expression carefully schooled, hoping that the General would pick up the many hints that he was trying to give him, and see the larger picture beyond it: two men, who had acted when no-one else could, who had done the unthinkable in the face of threat and blackmail.
A bead of sweat trickled from Twilight’s forehead as he considered the possibilities. What would the General do? Would he expose Twilight straight away? Or would he save it for later?
“General!” shouted Barnabus, standing from the middle of the crowd, flashy purple in a sea of cream tones and beige. “We needn’t wait for the army. I can mobilise an armed squad to be here before the hour is up.”
To Twilight’s relief, General Watkins nodded to them both, still holding his injured shoulder.
“We will evacuate the civilians,” he intoned, gesturing to the awestruck crowd before them, then turned to Barnabus. “Keep your squads on standby.”
“Yes, sir,” both Twilight and Barnabus replied.
“What do you suggest –” he turned to Twilight, “Sergeant?”
Twilight straightened, understanding the message beneath: this isn’t over. But that was fine. He’d buy himself time to create a plausible story that would explain everything – after they had got everyone to safety.
“The rear exit is the best option,” Twilight announced, indicating the far end of the room, the several sets of stairs leading to the stretch of campus outside. “With the terrorists unconscious, we should use that to evacuate. If they follow through on the bomb threat, or if other groups decide to check in here, all the civilians should be gone.”
The General nodded his agreement. Then, he turned to face their crowd of gaping onlookers.
“Attention!” he bellowed, his voice clear across the Imperial Hall. “The forces of Blackbell Heavy Industries are on their way. I want everyone here evacuated within the next twenty minutes. To reduce the risk of injury or death, no-one may panic, or run. We will walk calmly in groups of eight, led by myself. I will transfer you into the care of the forces outside, before I return for the next group. Sergeant Forger will remain on guard here.”
Remain on guard. In other words: if he left, he would only raise more suspicion.
Twilight did his best to steady himself as he watched the General divide the civilians into groups, and begin leading them through the exits. In the meantime, Twilight went to every unconscious body that he had knocked out, and tied their wrists behind their backs, before dragging them to the far wall of the room. He did the same to the dead bodies, covering the blood enough to hopefully fool anyone who didn’t look too close.
He tried to ignore the stares on his back, the quiet wonderings of dozens of people who knew him as Dr Loid Forger. What must he look like to them, now?
Twilight stood up, moving to the last few terrorists on the ground, but when he reached down to the next man there was a sudden lurch, as an invisible hand gripped Twilight by the torso, and he lifted into the air.
“You’ve always been a thorn in my side,” a voice growled.
Twilight gasped, feeling as though his lungs were being crushed under a massive weight.
“You think you can do anything. You think you’re invincible. That you just need to strut into a room and the world will bow to you.”
With his arms pinned to his sides by an unseen force, Twilight couldn’t reach for the pistol that he’d kept on him, stolen from one of the assailants. Worse, it had become too difficult to breathe, and black spots danced behind his eyes. If he was held for much longer, Twilight didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold out.
“You’re finished, Twilight .”
Then, the grip released, and Twilight fell to the ground.
Something screamed inside Damian’s mind, but he had forcefully locked it away, shoving it into a corner of his mind. He couldn’t deal with it right now. He had to focus. He had to…
He swallowed. For everyone’s sake. For Anya.
When the boys followed Damian out of the Batcave (and he still couldn’t believe that they called it that), he’d made a brief diversion to his locker. Thankfully, the corridors were sparse with guards – had most of them been posted in the Halls? – and Damian had managed to sneak his way over.
It all made sense now, why Loid had discovered assailants on the roof storing weapons inside the school buildings: clearly, they knew that bringing weapons on the day of this attack would alert the stringent Eden security hired for the conference, but they didn't have to bring weapons onto the school if they were already there.
And once he realised that, Damian remembered: he had a weapon too. He’d been storing it in his own locker for nearly the entire school year.
When Emile and Ewen saw it, they were aghast:
“Have you been keeping that in your locker this whole time?” Emile choked out.
“Where else was I going to keep it?” Damian had replied sarcastically. “In my bag?”
But he could feel their eyes burning into him as he removed it from his locker, tucking into his belt, before hiding the handle with a flourish of his Imperial Scholar’s Cloak.
“What are you planning to do with that?” Ewen had asked him, but Damian pretended that he didn’t hear him, and he kept moving.
It’s just a precaution, Damian told himself. Just in case he needed it. He really hoped he wouldn’t need it. The pistol burned at his side, and Damian was all-too-conscious of the weight of it. He’d already sent them both away, and he waited for the signal.
The Great Hall was much larger than the Imperial Hall, with a balcony that overlooked the entire space, accessible by several sets of staircases at the back.
Damian watched as the rear door cracked ajar, not opening any more than that tiny amount, and Damian took that as cue to move. He approached the balcony, seeing the crowd of people below. Emile’s younger sister Emily was there, along with Emile and Ewen’s parents…
Well, it was now or never. All he had to do was to get the terrorist’s attention, and keep it, while the others did what they could to evacuate the rest of the conference’s attendees. Sure. Piece of cake.
Damian leaned his foot against the railing, his hands in both pockets. He hoped the pistol was still kept hidden behind his elbow, in his Cloak.
“I see you guys are threatening my school,” he said calmly, projecting his voice to be heard across the Hall.
At once, all heads turned to him, and whispers flitted across the room: ‘That’s Damian Desmond’. It was strange to hear his name echoing across the Great Hall, but it was no stranger than when people whispered his name after his father’s arrest. In fact, this time, he felt as though he could take some pride in it – because no-one was talking about his father, now. It was all him.
The circle of masked men turned their faces towards him, and recoiled as one.
“That’s the Desmond kid,” one of them stated, and Damian bristled, but he didn’t let himself show the annoyance on his face.
Obviously, they recognised him, just like the scientists at the lab did – and now, Damian knew exactly why.
How much did they know about him? If his mother was the one who had planned and orchestrated this, what would they do to him if he tried to cause a scene? What would she have ordered them to do?
The men’s grips on their guns faltered, but Damian had already seen it before they could pretend it didn’t happen, and a smirk pulled on his lips.
“You’re not allowed to hurt me, are you?” he said. Seeing how uneasy they looked, Damian wondered how he could have missed something so obvious. “And you’re certainly not allowed to kill me.”
“There are still more of us,” sneered a masked man with his fists raised.
“Well,” Damian cracked his knuckles. “That works for me.”
The crowd gasped when Damian leapt from the balcony, almost sailing through the air, and when he landed with a strong thud, the floorboards cracked beneath him.
He charged at the first man he could see, swinging his fist into the man’s face, who promptly went flying into the man behind him.
And then the others pounced on him.
Only…
It was as though Damian could see them moving in slow motion, and it wasn’t until he had landed a blow on the third terrorist that he realised why.
They were slower than Yor, their tells far more obvious; the way their feet shuffled, betraying the direction of their attacks; the drop of a shoulder when they prepared to pull back a punch; the sloppy footwork, letting Damian know exactly how much time he had between attacks. In many ways, it was too easy to jab the ribs, the throat, any part that Yor had taught him would leave a man winded and gasping for breath. He attacked one terrorist after another, resorting to every type of strike, jab, kick or punch that he could think of. At some point, the pain in his knuckles stopped mattering, he could barely feel it.
Hate for the Director burned through him, as did the anguish of finding out her true identity. Damian channeled everything in his heart that he’d been holding back; every cursed piece of anger and rage and despair, all churned together in magma boiling towards the surface.
And, gratitude that Anya had stopped him from taking it out on Emile – because it meant that he could save it for this.
Wham! That was the piece of his heart bruised by betrayal. Crash! The despair of his father's arrest. Bam! The torturous grief of Anya’s past, and the harrowing fact that his mother was the cruel perpetrator.
Adrenaline poured through him, driving him to create as much wreckage as possible, sending the terrorists spinning in every direction – away from him. His shoulder throbbed and his muscles ached all over him, but he also felt alive in a way that he’d never felt before. He felt strong, like he could do anything.
Electricity pulsed through him, energy that he directed with his mind, just like Yor had taught him. She had subjected him to long, gruelling sparring sessions, and now, Damian could reap their rewards.
He didn’t know he was smiling until he caught his own reflection in the window. Or rather, ‘smiling’ was too nice a word for it: his teeth were bared in a euphoric snarl, grinning like he was on the edge of madness.
It startled him for a moment, seeing his own face radiate monstrous pleasure.
Then: pain lanced his face as a fist drove into it, and Damian staggered back, feeling the blood drip from his nose.
“Fuck,” he hissed. He had become distracted, stopping the flow of fighting because he had been taken aback by his own savage appearance.
Damian took that moment to tune back into the world around him, and in the back of his awareness, he noticed the crowd of people being slowly corralled through the hidden passageway on the other side of the room.
Good. If Damian could continue to keep the terrorists busy then the others could get out –
But Damian shouldn’t have glanced their way, because at that moment, one of the terrorists raised the alarm.
“You little shit!” he spat and punched Damian in the jaw, and Damian was too distracted to stop it.
Their aim wasn’t perfect, but their strength was enough for Damian to feel the blood welling up in his mouth, and he spat it onto the floor.
By then, the rest of the group had caught on, and gunfire spattered into the air.
“We told you to get down!”
Damian sucked a gulp of air into his lungs and bellowed: “Emile, now!”
From the rear of the room, a canister emerged, spitting smoke into the air, before it exploded with a resounding boom.
Anya paced the Batcave, her hands clasped behind her back under her Scholar’s Cloak. Meanwhile, George sprawled over the large leather armchair, his eyes peering at her over the edge of his moleskin notebook, pen in hand.
It hadn’t been long since Damian, Ewen, Emile and Alice had all left, navigating the hidden passageways on their own while Damian made Anya stay behind with George.
“I need to know you’ll be safe,” he’d said, before disappearing and leaving with the others.
Anya chewed her lip, muttering to herself. None of this felt right. Even if Damian was mollified by the idea that she agreed to stay behind, it did nothing to reassure Anya’s own nerves, because her friends and her family were out there, fighting without her.
Her friends were all so worried about their own families, as they should be, but it made Anya wonder: where were her parents? What happened to Becky? How could she make sure everyone was okay and that they’d come out of this alive?
“So,” said George, clicking his pen. “Tell me. What exactly are your powers?”
Anya groaned. “This isn’t the time, George! Our friends are out there. Probably getting hurt.”
“Hmm, yes, probably,” George replied, scribbling in his notebook. “And you’re here. Hmm. Interesting. A real conundrum.”
“Don’t rub it in,” she scoffed. “As if you’re doing anything to help by sitting here.”
“I am helping,” he said dryly. “I’m documenting.”
“And how is that useful?”
At that, George glanced at her again, one eyebrow raised. “Do you want the truth of today to fade into obscurity?”
Anya stopped pacing. “What?”
“After today, there’ll be inquiries. An investigation. Someone should be around to present the facts, don’t you think?”
He raised a good point. She didn’t like that.
Anya decided to redirect the conversation, and sighed emphatically. “I still haven’t decided to forgive you yet, you know. You’re lucky that Emile stopped Damian from hitting you – I was still deciding.”
George nodded sagely. “It’s all right if you’re angry. I’d be angry too, if my friends left me behind.”
“They didn’t – !” Anya was about to say something worse, but she stopped in her tracks, gritting her teeth at George. “Have you always been this annoying?”
“Yes. I just avoided talking to you for a while in case you figured out I was on your case, but it appears that you could only detect me if I was a threat, so, lucky me.”
Anya didn’t know how to respond to that. You could only detect me if I was a threat. Was that really true? If it was, it would explain a lot…
At that moment, a prickling tension spread across the back of Anya’s neck, signalling a strange sense of unease, and not one second later an enormous sound trembled through the stone walls of the Batcave:
Boom!
The sound of it shot electricity down Anya’s spine, and she jumped. George straightened in his armchair, head turned towards the source of the noise.
“That sounded like –”
“The Great Hall,” said Anya, finishing George’s thought. “But I thought Emile said it was a smoke bomb?”
“It was,” said George. “He took one of the canisters from the press conference attack –”
“He did what?” Panic flooded through her, and at George’s confused expression, Anya explained: “The ingredients ferment! That was never supposed to be stored!”
“Oh,” George’s face dropped as understanding flooded through him.
“We have to go,” Anya decided, and hauled George upwards from the comfortable chair. “Come on! It was your idea to lead the evacuation – it’s your turn now!”
“What – but – my notes!” George flailed for his notebook that had tumbled to the floor, but Anya ignored him, pulling George through the hidden passageway.
“Forget your notes! You’ve got what you wanted haven’t you? I’m leaving your stupid cave. We’re going to find our friends, and we’re going to save them, and you’re going to help me! Got that?”
She tried to fire him a look, forgetting that he couldn’t see her in the dark passageway, but her tone must have communicated what her expression could not.
“Alright,” he said, begrudgingly. “So, what do we do?”
“You’re going to back up Alice in evacuating the Hall,” said Anya decisively, and as the light from the other side of the hidden passageway got closer, illuminating the path before them, an idea lit up in her own mind. The truth of what she needed to do.
If the stage was going to be public, then so be it.
“You’re finished, Twilight .”
Twilight hit the ground, and rolled on instinct to evade the inevitable incoming attack. Strangely, it worked – the second that Twilight vacated the space, he felt a static energy rush through it, prickling the hairs on his arms.
What was that?
Twilight prepared to leap away, but an invisible force yanked him forward, holding him flat against the wall once again.
How was he doing that, when it was the new moon? Twilight couldn’t think of an explanation, but there must be so much more to understand about psychic powers than what he’d first thought.
The Protector stood with his arm raised, knees wobbling, his balaclava torn, and blood dripping from beneath his cracked visor.
“You really want to do this? Here?” the Protector sneered. “It won’t end well for you. I’ll end you right here, in front of everyone.”
Twilight gritted his teeth against the Protector’s power, but a part of him knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold him up forever. … Four. Five. And, just as he predicted, the Protector’s hold loosened, and Twilight pushed through the wall, bursting through slivers of static, breaking from the invisible hold.
Hold, release, hold, release – the Protector’s telekinesis was not absolute. If Twilight’s calculations were correct, he had a five-second time limit. And a two-second refractory period.
He landed with a thud, and pushed himself off the ground, launching himself towards the Protector.
As he predicted, the static sensation built up pressure around his torso once again, but the telekinesis couldn’t form properly in so little time, and in less than a second, Twilight held out his pistol and fired between the Protector’s eyes.
The bullet ricocheted off the side of the Protector’s already-cracked visor, and shards of the visor fragmented and fell, revealing a portion of his face. Glaring at Twilight with such ferocity, that recognition sparked in his eyes.
The Protector. Dusk. They were one and the same.
How many people had slipped under his watchful radar?
The Protector – Dusk – reached up and removed his visor, smashing it to the ground, before pulling the shredded balaclava from his bloody skin. From there, Twilight could see Dusk’s hair on one side had matted with blood. Was that injury from Twilight, or from an earlier fight?
He took a wobbly step forward – a limp. A weakness that Twilight would make sure he exploited.
Twilight pulled himself into position, holding his pistol in a battle-ready stance.
Coming out of the hidden passageways of the Imperial Scholar’s corridor, Anya finally stepped out of the darkness, and into the light. The Great Hall was just ahead of her. And beyond it, her friends, her school. Everyone in her life who she had lied to for so many years.
Anya had always been bound by secrets. All her life, they had controlled her, restrained her, chained her, restricted her every movement and muffled every emotion and every decision.
The truth is…
At the same time, embracing the truth was terrifying. It was against everything she had ever been taught. It went against all of her instincts: of self-preservation, of self-protection, of hiding who she truly was.
I haven’t always been Anya Forger.
But she had revealed the truth several times already. Every time, it terrified her, but the chains became looser and looser. Until today, when she released herself from the heaviest of them, and revealed herself to the rest of her friends.
Before I was Anya Forger, I was Anya Roche.
Anya took one step, then another, moving forward in the only way that felt right to her.
Before that I was Anya Levski.
She broke into a run, escaping the constraints of the Imperial Scholar’s corridor, and heading straight for the Great Hall.
I was Anya Williams.
She kept running, faster and faster while her heartbeat thundered through her body, drumming a beat that signalled something irreversible and inevitable. As if it was only a matter of time that all the stars would align for her, lighting up the path ahead.
I was Anya Klein.
She hauled open the door to the balcony, seeing the chaos of the Great Hall unfolding before her.
Before that I didn’t even have a surname…
It looked as though it had mostly emptied from the evacuation, but they must have been caught, because Emile and Ewen sat with their arms held behind their backs, while four of the terrorists were trying to wrestle a bellowing Damian into submission.
One foot on the balcony edge, then the other, and she stood, balanced, in full view of everyone who remained in the Great Hall. Shocked faces looked up at her; the faces of the terrorists, of the remaining students, of her friends…
And Damian. His fear was the most potent of all of them.
And before that, I was…
Her Imperial Scholar’s Cloak billowed around her, and Anya steeled herself, ready to meet her fate head-on.
“I am Test Subject 007!”
And Anya did not give them any time to think, no time to reply in the short silence that followed, because then she made her next announcement:
“And if you want me, you’ll have to fight me!”
And
then
she
jumped.