Chapter 10: The Rare OP Supe

I needed a minute to process everything that was happening, from watching our comrades spill the blood of the innocent, to Pamela telling me that my Rachel was behind the massacre. I wanted to deny everything flat out, but I knew better. I had to face the facts, the image she was holding showing Rachel weaving her strange powers in secret.

She showed her puppets no mercy.

It was then I realized that the woman I had bumped into at the gala was in fact her. I’d been skeptical then, but these dots were connected now. The evidence lined up perfectly, so perfectly that it felt like I had knives running down my back from the sting of betrayal. Rachel… a fucking super villain? She was the one recruiting for the Syndicate of Sorrow. She was the reason some of our volunteer rookies went missing. And not to mention, she was the reason Boggs had turned that night into utter fucking chaos. My Rachel was working for the enemy, and manipulating people with her phantom super powers.

Pamela backed her evidence up with a recorded live footage from a few minutes ago when we all went into her office. On her laptop sitting on her desk, the street camera showed Rachel’s process, at least the parts outside of her phantom form. Pamela assumed that Rachel had jumped from body to body to first initialize the possession, turning her four victims into her puppets. Once they were tethered to her, she could control them at a distance.

I clenched my teeth into my jaw as I watched on, still trying to convince myself that she wouldn’t do such a thing. Words couldn’t express how terrible I felt, my mind trying to work out scenarios to defend her actions. I mean, there was a possibility that she was being controlled herself, right? That idea clearly wasn’t farfetched, especially seeing how four of our own went full murder mode in seconds.

Regardless of the true reason for her taking the capsule by using super heroes, the damage was already done. Now everyone saw what TBC was capable of. This began the era of a foreseeable supe hating organization, regardless of the affiliation. Both super heroes and super villains would be shamed and prosecuted. And we had to stomach the aftermath of this disaster alone.

Not to mention, I had to deal with this current disaster here, too.

Explaining Rachel to my girls was going to be tricky. I’d kept her a secret from even Dessi, the girl who knew the most about me from day one. I had my reasons not telling Rynn and Aster—if I opened up my past to them, there was a higher chance that I’d bring up Sigma-RE. After all, Rachel found me right after the blast, along those rusty train tracks off of Roe City. But my reasons for not telling Dessi was complicated.

That being said, the curtains were off now. It was time I spilled the truth, whether I liked to or not.

“We ID’d her quickly, courtesy of the department of transportation.” Pamela said from sitting behind her desk. “My connections there allowed me to make a very fair assumption as to who these wild card super villain mobs have been trying to capture, Rachel already associated with SOS.”

“Where’s the other half of her, her bottom half?” Rynn asked, who was standing to the right of me where we stood at the corner of Pamela’s desk.

“Currently in the spirit world. She has the ability to phase in and out.”

“But these are still assumptions? This entire process of how she is controlling these supes?” I readdressed.

“Supes and humans. And regardless if this is a theory or not, it is a very solid one.”

“Based off of what kind of intel?”

She flattened her eyes at me. “Liam, your team wasn’t the only one on the rare supe case.”

“But our team was the only one who got close to her.”

“Not close enough, apparently. Despite being in her presence at the gala, you still failed to make contact. It wasn’t your objective. But, throughout Delta’s trials and tribulations, other teams have gathered intel from those greedy supes looking for her, the same supes we had taken down. I compiled that data and came up with how she operated.”

“So this woman has the ability to not only jump in and out of ghost and solid phases, but once she wears you like a glove, it’s lights out?” Aster asked.

“Yes.”

“And how long does the effect last?”

“That part we are unsure of. We have yet to encounter her victims, of which, there are plenty.”

There was a moment of shared silence among us, until Pamela took in a light sigh, and drew her eyes to me. “Our mission moving forward is clear. I understand that she is part of your contract Liam, but as of now, she is considered a category A threat.”

“Wait, what?”

“Truthfully, it should be higher.”

Aster said and looked up to me, Dessi and Rynn doing the same. “So, I was right? You did have a girl under your conditions.”

“Liam, why didn’t you tell us about Rachel?” Dessi asked.

“Because… bringing her up wasn’t important.”

“Well now she is important, making headline news and all,” Rynn said.

Dessi looked up to me worried. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“N-no, I mean, yeah… sort of. We’ve been living together for a few years. It’s a bit complicated. When the nuke went off, I was with her at Watch Sqaure. I tried looking for her, but she was lost… And by the time I woke up from the fumes, I was here, at Serva.”

“You didn’t think bringing that up was important?” Aster asked.

Rynn scrunched her face at me. “Did you know that she was the rare supe?”

I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “What? No. Look, I just told you when I got up, she was gone. I had no idea what happened to her.”

“No. She was linked to my contract. There was nothing to do there. TBC said they’d help me find her, that’s it.”

“And we have. Now, we must deal with her accordingly,” Pamela retorted.

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I snapped my sharp eyes at her. “No, we are not terminating her! My contract says that you’ll help me get her back, safely!”

 “Liam, she took out four of my supes and used them as violent machines to capture that capsule.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“We both know that’s not an option we can afford. Even if we did know where she was, she’d take you under her control, too. Not to mention, she made them get rid of their SESB.”

“She’s being manipulated. I guarantee it! Rachel wouldn’t hurt a damn soul!”

“Whatever the case, she is a danger to everyone around her, including supes. And my prime concern now is stopping her and getting my super heroes back.”

++++

I didn’t know where to put myself right now. That news numbed me, and I felt useless in helping Rachel out. But Pamela was right, even if we could find her, we’d be handing ourselves over to SOS for free.

My team and I walked back to our apartment, where my girls could already tell I was distraught from everything. From witnessing how our reputation was crushed to dust in minutes, to how this was all connected to someone I deeply cared about. What’s worse, being on lock down, unable to do shit about it. And now that my father was out, there was no telling what was in store for us in the next couple of hours.

What would happen if they thaw him out?

What would Rachel do if she managed to get him under her spell?

The amount of ways this could go sour kept piling up in my head, and all of this sitting around and doing nothing was literally killing me.

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend, Liam,” Dessi said soft-spokenly. I had my elbows on the kitchen island, with my fingers raking through my hair in grief. I didn’t even notice she’d followed me down the apartment, my attention turning to her. I answered my pink-haired oracle with a faint smile, and her hand gently cupped my shoulder. “You should have told us about her. Maybe we could have helped TBC find her before she was taken by SOS. We could have made her a priority.”

“I didn’t want anyone worrying about it. It’s my problem.”

“Well, she’s everyone’s problem now,” Rynn said, walking past us and stopping on the other side of the island while Aster tended to the stove.

“I know. Besides, we had a lot of shit going on. Between honing our powers and fighting the wave of crime streaks. Even I started putting her second on my list. I fucked up.”

“Don’t feel bad. You didn’t forget about her. We were being swamped. Our only break was yesterday. And today, we got the horrible news.”

“And bright and early, too,” Aster chimed. “Don’t you just hate that?”

“I wonder how TBC is going to go about this…” Rynn said under her breath. “It seems like Pamela might be sitting on her hands here, but I doubt she could sit still while SOS snatches TBC supes. It was easier dealing with runaways and unassociated super humans. But now, this is personal.”

“More personal than you think…” I sighed.

“Well, they’ll figure something out. They always do,” Aster said, then turned to us with a tray of crispy flap jacks and a beaming smile. “Anyone in the mood for burnt pancakes?” Aster said, trying to lighten the mood. Pamela did scoop us up in a hot hurry. My spider queen must have forgotten to turn the stovetop heat off.

But then something suddenly washed over me, the space in the apartment feeling like a vacuum. All I did was blink, and I noticed Aster in front of the stove again, as if someone had tapped the rewind button on a remote control.

“Well, they’ll figure something out. They always do,” Aster said, again, with the same tone in her voice…

 She made the same heel turn, pivoting toward us with a tray of crispy flap jacks and that familiar beaming smile. “Anyone in the mood for burnt pancakes?”

I raised my eyebrow at her. “Aster, you just asked us that, didn’t you?”

She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Liam, what are you talking about?”

I jerked my head between Rynn and Dessi for a confirmation, but they gave me none. They acted like this had just happened, as if they weren’t reliving the same moment again like I was.

Why was I the only one experiencing deja vu?

Dessi looked at me concerned. “Is everything okay, Liam?”

I took a moment to snap myself out of it. Maybe I was just seeing things, and hearing things…

“N-no, I’m ugh, I’m fine. I’ll take two,” I answered Aster, who then dressed the counter with three plates, one for each of us.

“Cold eggs and burnt pancakes, what a rare treat,” Rynn sassed, Aster giving her a smart look.

“Wasting food is inconsiderate. You out of all people should know that, Rynn.”

“I wonder where she has The Tank and his team taking the capsule?” Dessi said, easily piggybacking off our discussion.

“They lost the trackers. So there’s no way of us finding out…” I answered her, still freaked out by what I’d just seen. It was hard brushing it off, but I had to. There was more pressing things to worry about, and I was hoping that TBC was working up a plan to find Rachel again.

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