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Chapter 38
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Her eyes opened. The walls were different than anything she could remember seeing before. The bed was not her own, and beeping sounds reached her ears. In a moment as cold as it was slow, the recognition finally came as the inside of a hospital.

Denise winced in pain with a sudden reminder that something had hit her.

There was a light moan to her side. Denise looked over and saw Judy resting her head on the side of the bed. She poked her friend awake. Judy had looked so cute resting there, but she had to do it.

“Hi,” Denise said in a weak voice.

Such a sad smile on Judy’s face. “You’re awake. I must have dozed off waiting since they let me come and see you. You have no idea how hard it was for me. Or maybe you do. I’ve been having trouble sleeping for the last few days.”

“Days? How long was I out for?”

“Since Wednesday.” There was a pause from her. Denise looked at her quizzically. “Oh. It’s Saturday. They tried to keep you stable, but they had to replace two of your organs last night, including one of your kidneys. It was a relief when I heard you were finally able to recover, and you were expected to wake any time now. I’m so glad we had someone who was able to get you hear quickly.”

“What about Harvey Stone? What happened to him?”

The sad smile of Judy’s turned into a solemn frown. Her eye contact dipped.

She said, “I thought I lost you for good. I saw you fall. I’d never been so angry at myself for letting anything happen, or anyone else for making it happen. I . . . I understand how she might have felt when she realized what she had done.”

Denise pulled a hand up to her mouth, realizing whom her friend meant, and resisted a cry. “Judy, oh no.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No. Oh, Judy, this just isn’t fair for either of us. I never want to leave your side again, but I must unless we run away together. Only, I can’t. Not just because of this thing on my back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember when I told you that I needed to tell you something, before I was taken by those Arachne thugs? That thing I was trying to find out?”

“Yes.”

“My mother and father both got a job offer in California from a friend of theirs. They were trying to decide on it back then. Now that everything has happened, I’m sure they want me to be as far away from Paragon City as they can get me. The move’s supposed to be after the end of the school year. I don’t want to go, but I don’t want to leave them.”

Judy squeezed her eyes for a moment, even shaking her head. Then she grabbed Denise’s right hand gently.

“That’s not for another two months. I can come visit when you want me to, if you move,” said Judy.

“Maybe,” Denise responded. “I don’t know. It seems so difficult. I think I’m just tired.”

“OK.”

After Judy hugged her and left, Denise faced the window to her right. Her bandaged wound made it difficult to turn on her side so she could hide the fluid flowing from her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could bear to see her best friend again, knowing what was about to happen.

“I’ll miss you,” she whispered.

It was night time, and War Lagoon was on patrol on the east side of Shiva Bay. While at work on Striga Isle, he’d overheard a tip about some shipment here.

Others in the League checked in or out as they often did at this hour. There were a few of them he hadn’t expected to hear tonight until he heard one of them. At the moment, he was the sole individual on the radio channel until the young lady joined him.

“Good evening, Judy,” War Lagoon said over the earpiece when she checked in for a patrol.

“Hey, Jeffers,” she replied.

“It’s good to have you back.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Was she tired? Bored? War couldn’t tell.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just . . . things. My friend hasn’t had many visiting hours over the last few days, and most of the ones she had were with her folks.”

“That’s understandable,” said War Lagoon.

“I know. But, time is just short, you know? It looks like they’re really getting ready to leave Paragon in the end of May, or maybe the start of June. I guess I just wanted to spend more time with her before the move happens.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s easy to wish for more time, but almost never possible to get it. Then you have moments when you wish time would hurry up or go elsewhere.”

“I hear that,” said Judy, “That just makes it even more annoying when you have a long time to wait with nothing to do. Kinda like Math class.”

War Lagoon chuckled.

“Oh my god,” Judy said. “I think that’s the first time I ever heard you laugh.”

He said, “Truth be told, I never did like that class when I was in school.”

“Did anyone?”

“A few. I think they became supervillains.”

Seconds later, it was Judy’s turn to laugh. War thought that it was good to hear her laughing again. The poor girl had been through enough already.

“It’s a good thing Warren upgraded the earpieces to reach more than halfway across the city,” Judy noted.

“Yeah,” War agreed.

“I have a question, though.”

“What’s that?”

“About Stone. About what happened. I mean . . .”

“Judy, try not to worry about it.”

“But, I did the unthinkable.”

“It’s on your conscience, which proves you have one, and you know not to go crazy with the power of taking a life. How many did we kill during the mass invasion? Few people thought of those aliens as living beings. As I understand it, new villains were made that day from the resulting bloodlust. You are better than any villain or criminal we’ve met. We all have to be. I know the feeling, too.”

“Do you think Swan Diva is still better than all of them?”

“I wish I could tell you. The only person with the right to tell you that is yourself.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. It was during this time that War Lagoon found some shady looking individuals at the docks in Shiva Bay. He kept an ear open for their conversation.

Pixeletta said, “I was there when it happened. Denise and I both. We had always thought of Swan Diva as our idol before then, and we pretended to have missed her when people showed up after she’d left the scene. I saw the blood on her hands, but I still saw the hero. Then I had to go and tell Denise what I did to Stone.”

“Can you give me a minute?” War Lagoon asked.

“Hmm? Oh, sure.”

He ran in and took down the weapons deal that was going on. While Pixeletta was spilling her heart out, War Lagoon had managed to pick out a few keywords used by dealers of the black market that meant stolen weaponry. It was something he and Walter had learned while in the military when no one else with authority had asked them to do so.

War Lagoon used his shadow powers to sift through the closed crates and feel for the guns and other armaments. Out of twenty crates, five of them had what he knew to look for.

“Sorry about that,” he said over the earpiece. “I had come here looking for drug suppliers, and ended up finding guns and explosives.”

“Slightly harder to inject,” Pixeletta said.

“Yeah, slightly.”

“So, where is everybody?”

Psi Wizard and Princess Undercut took Blaze with them to an abandoned farm in Idaho where traces of Lady Dectra’s memories had led them.

It was there that they found the second girl who’d been kidnapped by the Arachne Regime. She had fought the good fight, but her mind and heart had given out after Dectra left the farm to pick up Denise from the factory. The kidnap victim had sworn herself to a life of villainy, but had barely anyone of authority to swear it to within the ranks of the Arachne Regime.

Helping her was going to take time and effort. Undoing the effects of brainwashing often did, unfortunately.

The first girl, once a hero, was nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, in his favorite diner, Walter was talking to a woman from another country, who had managed to give her guards the slip—she literally had a superpower to squeeze through wider cracks including one under a closed door—just to try the local eateries.
Walter explained to her that he’d been given an opportunity to help not only represent his own country, but try to keep order when the nations’ leaders gathered.

It was, however, his fantastic tales that won his guest over. She told him that, if he ever accepted the job, the world could use someone who took his role seriously while providing such great words or stories. He of course asked her why she chose this diner and not one of the several UHOW locations around the city. She curiously asked what a UHOW was.

Apparently her country didn’t have one of those.

Over the span of weeks, Patrick caught the news as it came on the television at work.

The Dallevan League had been involved in a major raid that dealt a heavy blow to the Arachne Regime hundreds of miles away from the city. The renowned villainess known as Lady Dectra had gone from dangerous psychic to a powerless woman who would spend the rest of her days in hospice care.

A man named Harvey Stone, who had escaped an asylum in Paragon, was found a mile away from the place where the Arachne Regime had been, about a week later. The police on the scene said that the body had been burned almost beyond recognition from an apparent accident-suicide involving a bomb in the middle of the forest. Something about the report seemed off to Patrick.

He also saw the news praise the young woman that was Pixeletta.

But he knew better.

Patrick sipped on a beer, not caring that the restaurant was in business hours. He knew better about a lot of things.

Posters appeared around the city again.

This time, it was recruiting for a once-heroic militia that had hidden itself away from the spotlight a number of years ago when its leaders were found to be more corrupt than anyone thought humanly possible. In fact, it had involved demons.

Those leaders were gone now, and a few new ones had stepped in with the challenge of reforming the militia to stand for the law and doing the right thing, including one recently promoted captain from the US Military.

Rampart announced to the League that he was thinking of helping them out, but that he wasn’t sure if he’d bring much to the table.

Psi Wizard said, “You have it in you to lead teams if you had to. You just don’t know it yet. If anyone is looking to put on a good face for the world to see, you’d be just the man to make that face worth something.”

“Thanks, man,” Rampart said.

“Try not to mention it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m trouble, remember?”

“Haha. That you are. I’d love to bring some of this trouble with me.”

Shortly after that came the day Rampart left the League to join the newly reformed militia. The League members present refused to take back his armband, because he was technically still one of them if he ever needed to come visit, or if he had a mission for the others to help out with.

He told Blaze that he was always welcome to seek him out sometime, and they could hang if they weren’t too busy. They fist-bumped, and then Rampart exited the supergroup base.

Doctor Terrell was examining Judy for the first time in several months when the usual medical questions drifted toward the personal.

“Have you been behaving yourself out there?” the doctor asked.

Judy said, “I’ve been trying.”

“Trying? Any cute boys? Or girls?”

The lights flickered.

“Only kidding,” Trish went on. “Seriously though, you’re a semi-responsible teenager now, and I don’t know what schools or parents teach these days. Would you like me to discuss birth control or protection with you?”

This time the lights went out.

“I’m going to take that as a ‘maybe next time.’”

Mai walked to her daughter’s door. Through it, she could hear Judy putting her laundry away like a good girl. Though, honestly, if Judy was the sort of young woman who just threw her clean clothes into a pile, Mai would have understood it perfectly.

How many people could say they were a superhero and a well-performing junior high school student at the same time, and still manage to find the time to do their chores? Mai wished she could say the same thing about her own youth.

And, on top of that, Judy had had a rough couple of months between being kidnapped, learning that her best friend was leaving, a series of bad dreams, and a heavy conscience about something she wasn’t sharing with most people. Mai heard about it after the second nightmare, but the fact that her daughter killed a man—even one as Harvey Stone—was something that shook Mai to the core.

The last thing Mai wanted to do to Judy was share more news that might impact her. No matter how big or small it was. However, this was something she needed to say for some time now.

She knocked on the door, and opened it further after the response she got.

Mai said, “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you.”