**Emily Piggot**
I sighed as I stepped out of the stairwell and onto the Wards level of the headquarters. I could already hear music playing, which meant that the girls had apparently turned the sound up on the stereo system in the lounge to near deafening levels. This caused me to shake my head in exasperation as it was something that I would have to nip in the bud immediately if for no other reason than to keep them from destroying their hearing. One song ended and another started as I got closer to the door, and because of that, the music, and in particular the singer could be heard more clearly. Honestly, it shouldn’t have surprised that it was Akane singing. When the bureaucrat from the Japanese consulate had contacted me and informed me of Hitomi’s death and that they were questioning whether to leave her with a local family to finish her schooling in Japan, or send her to me, I had jumped on the chance to get to know her better. We were as close as we could be living on opposite sides of the planet and in completely different cultures, but we were family, and we did have a connection of sorts thanks to my brothers old six-string guitar. When she had been in middle-school she had joined the light music club there because she wanted to learn an instrument. It was during a phone call, as she had told me about it, that I had suggested sending her father’s guitar to her for her to learn on she had jumped on the opportunity. Sending it was easy, my parents had long since died, and James and their things were simply gathering dust in storage, so a quick trip to the storage facility and then to the post office and an old six-string was winging its way across the Pacific to a little girl who was happy to have another piece of the father that she had never known to hold. The problem was that the government official handling the case on this end though was worried about my health.
**2-weeks prior**
“Madam,” the consulate official said from across the table as she flipped through what appeared to be my PRT Personnel file. “I frankly don’t know how you do what you are doing. You’re on near nightly dialysis, severely overweight and would qualify for an eighty percent disability if you would be willing to take it.” I lifted an eyebrow at her as she looked up at me from the file. “You refuse both Parahuman healing, or tinker-tech replacements for your damaged body parts and yet you continue to operate in a high stress job where you are forced to be both desk bound and unable to eat any more healthily than your average desk jockey. Quite frankly madam I am surprised you haven’t keeled over from the stress and hyperglycemia.” I smirked a bit at that, at least until the next words left her mouth. “That said, I have to lay down an ultimatum. Either you get healed, either through Panacea’s ability or tinker-tech, or you take the disability. Refusal to do either will mean that I will have to tell the Public safety office that you are unfit to take Akane in as your health is likely to fail within the next few years, once again leaving her an orphan before her majority.”
It honestly surprised me that my heart didn’t stop right then. The life insurance payment, if husbanded properly, would allow Akane to either go to a decent university for the full four years while living on campus, or else survive for the next few years until she could get out of high-school and find a job to work her way through college. “So you’re saying that for Akane to be able to come to the US and live with me, I have to either quit my job, something that while I know there are other people who could do it, I feel they are likely to make a mess out of before they got a handle on it, or trust the kind of people who left me high and dry in a combat situation and caused me to have these injuries in the first place.”
To give the woman credit she blinked when I said that, though that may have been because of my tone of voice, then she blinked again and asked, “Director Piggot, has no one told you?”
“Told me what?” I asked coldly, I wasn’t going to like what was about to be said, I could tell just by the way the woman’s face became sympathetic.
“Akane triggered as a parahuman about a week before her mother’s death as near as we can figure.” She answered. “We, that is the Japanese government, don’t really have a junior version of the Sentai. The underage members usually join in full and work in a sort of apprentice position with other members. We unfortunately do lose a lot of potential members to the Triads and the Yakuza, however I highly doubt that Akane would be one of those. The families that we expect to be willing to take her in are in their own ways very law abiding, though sometimes the damage to the scenery can get a little out of hand.”
“How?” I asked white faced, “How did she trigger and with what kind of powers?” I wasn’t scared of my own niece, not so long as she hadn’t ended up with a power that changed her, and frankly I didn’t think that even triggering could change the upbeat future troubleshooter that much.
“Did you hear about the Japanese Airlines flight that was hijacked two weeks ago,” I nodded, and then if possible, went even more white faced causing the other woman to nod. “Akane’s class was taking a trip and was on that flight when it was taken. We don’t know the particulars, but whatever happened between the time they landed and the time they left caused her to trigger. When the class landed back at Narita her clothes were covered in blood, but she was unharmed.”
“And her powers?” I asked and the woman simply shrugged.
“We don’t have the ability to test parahumans, at least not minor parahumans. From interviews with her classmates we believe she became some sort of low-level combat thinker, but that could simply have been her previous martial arts experience. The upside is that once she was back home, she seemed to revert to normal, but…” the woman trailed off and I nodded.
“But then a week later, her mother died, and she has had to deal with that by herself ever since.” I finished for her and then sighed. “I’ll contact people and see what it will take to get myself healed, I’m not leaving Akane as a Ward of the state, nor am I going to see her end up apprenticed to someone who will take her into danger with little to no care for her well-being.”
“Thank you, director,” the official said simply. “Let us know when you have made your decision and effected either the healing or your discharge.” I nodded to the woman before levering myself out of the chair and leaving.
A quick phone call to both Armsmaster and then to Brandish and it was arranged. Armsmaster didn’t have the ability himself to make anything to replace my kidneys or right hip joint, but Panacea was scheduled to be at Brockton Bay General Hospital that night and Brandish told me that she would make sure that Panacea knew to expect me at some point that evening. I wasn’t going to leave my niece to the system, pride and insecurities be damned.
**now**
Bypassing the alarm and delay on the door with my ID pass I opened the door to see Akane, Taylor and Katie sitting off to one side of the lounge, Akane’s laptop sitting out on the coffee table open and facing them, but hooked up to the big screen and showing the faces of several young women and one guy. Each of the people on the TV screen had an instrument and were playing readily as was Akane while Taylor and Katie joined in on the singing. Checking the time, I nodded to myself and called out as the music ended. “Alright girls, I think its time to call it a night, noise ordinances and all that you know.”
“Can we do one more song Aunt Em,” Akane called over which was followed by a bevy of pleading from the television.
“Alright then,” I said smiling, “One more, but keep it softer than that last one, we don’t want the neighbors complaining.”
Akane, Taylor and Katie all smirked at that but nodded. The dark-haired keyboardist nodded, “I know just the song, and so do you, so lead us off Akane.” Then to the others around the TV she called out, “Last song,” and Akane started to play.
**Saotome Mayumi**
I sighed as I approached the study shed in the back corner of the Kuno family property. I hadn’t been sleeping properly since the class trip and with school having been back in session for a week, I had the feeling I was starting to fall behind. It was because of these things that I had tried to beg off going to my aunt’s home for the weekly family dinner. My mother had insisted though, so I gathered my study materials and brought them with me in the hopes that I could either get some studying done, or maybe even a nap in the shed. Band practice would keep me from taking a nap prior to dinner, but maybe I would be able to concentrate on studying instead by letting the music keep me awake. Stepping up to the door, I could already hear the sound of Nirvana’s ”Smells like Teen Spirit” being played, I couldn’t hear who they had singing though. Akane always loved to take Cobain’s role in that song, my brain commented flashing an image of Akane working her way through the song’s opening. She also loved how that song then turned on its head and dove into the grunge. I smirked at the thought as I shifted from my winter shoes to a pair of house slippers and pulled the inner door of the space open after putting the shoes in a cubby. “Last song,” I heard Kagome say and frowned a bit. If they were stopping now then either whoever they had on acoustic wasn’t making the cut, or else they had been going at it for hours already. Been at it for hours, my mind provided when I spied the dirty breakfast dishes sitting on the kotatsu. Well at least I might manage… It was then that my mind froze as the opening acoustic guitar riff started playing from the sound system.
Here she comes, mm, just like an angel.
Seems like forever that she's been on my mind.
Nothing has changed, she thinks I'm a waste of her time.
There she goes.
No, she don't know what she's missing.
Can't she see I'll never give up the fight.
I'll do all I can.
She understands my desire.
My heart clenched afresh as her voice filled the room. This had been the song she had gotten the music club to practice with her so she could ask me out that first time. It hurt hearing her sing it now, the memories it brought to the front of my mind, just as I was sure it did the same for her. Looking around, I spotted Kagome’s laptop sitting on the sound board and plugged in, so I walked over and opened it. Seeing Akane sitting there playing her father’s old acoustic guitar also hurt as I remembered the hours that she and I had spent, me watching and listening to her learning the chords and frets and how each one sounded when “picked” or “strummed.” Hours spent in each other’s company just talking, listening, solving each other’s problems, secrets shared between us, and then sharing ourselves. Hugging myself I realized, I missed her, and I regretted asking her to stay away.
Everything hurt, including seeing that gaijin girl that looked eerily similar to me sitting next to Akane, but what made this so painful was that I couldn’t blame her, not for anything. Even as my mind played back what happened on the plane as a part of the memory montage of our lives together, I couldn’t find it in me to blame Akane. She had been protecting me, just like she always had, ever since the first day we met, and I had always let her. I had always known, deep down, that there was a ruthlessness in Akane, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep me safe from anything and everything, including herself if I thought that was what was needed, and apparently, maybe even from myself. No, I thought, I ended our relationship, I was the one that told her to never contact me again. Spirits, three weeks, almost a month, and just hearing her voice and seeing her face made me want to hold her again. I couldn’t do that right now as she had moved to where her aunt lived. What I could do, was possibly get a message out, maybe get through to her, and maybe, just maybe, she would forgive me enough to at least talk to me.
**Akane**
I wiped my face, clearing the small bit of tears from my face as the last notes died out. Looking up at my screen as I was about to tell the others good night, I froze at who was in the new window. It was then that she started to sing.
[i] Looking back over the years
Of All the things I've always meant to say
But words didn't come easily
So many times through empty fears
Of all of the nights I tried to pick up the phone
So scared of who might be answering.
By the third line the rest of the group had picked up the song while I simply stared dumbfounded at the screen of my laptop. This was the song that she and I had learned to sing together, that we had done acapella for our mothers before explaining how we felt about each other. To me this and the song I had just done…THAT’S IT! the light came on in my mind and just in time for me to pick up the second verse.
**Taylor**
I smiled as I could hear both the love, and the heartbreak in their singing of the song. Glancing over at Katie I could see the wonder in her eyes as well. She senses it as well, I thought and then used a fly to catch her attention before pointing over to the Director. She nodded slightly and slipped off out of camera view and over to her, leaving me to do the same. Go get her Akane, I thought with a smile.
**
[/i]
I sighed as I stepped out of the stairwell and onto the Wards level of the headquarters. I could already hear music playing, which meant that the girls had apparently turned the sound up on the stereo system in the lounge to near deafening levels. This caused me to shake my head in exasperation as it was something that I would have to nip in the bud immediately if for no other reason than to keep them from destroying their hearing. One song ended and another started as I got closer to the door, and because of that, the music, and in particular the singer could be heard more clearly. Honestly, it shouldn’t have surprised that it was Akane singing. When the bureaucrat from the Japanese consulate had contacted me and informed me of Hitomi’s death and that they were questioning whether to leave her with a local family to finish her schooling in Japan, or send her to me, I had jumped on the chance to get to know her better. We were as close as we could be living on opposite sides of the planet and in completely different cultures, but we were family, and we did have a connection of sorts thanks to my brothers old six-string guitar. When she had been in middle-school she had joined the light music club there because she wanted to learn an instrument. It was during a phone call, as she had told me about it, that I had suggested sending her father’s guitar to her for her to learn on she had jumped on the opportunity. Sending it was easy, my parents had long since died, and James and their things were simply gathering dust in storage, so a quick trip to the storage facility and then to the post office and an old six-string was winging its way across the Pacific to a little girl who was happy to have another piece of the father that she had never known to hold. The problem was that the government official handling the case on this end though was worried about my health.
**2-weeks prior**
“Madam,” the consulate official said from across the table as she flipped through what appeared to be my PRT Personnel file. “I frankly don’t know how you do what you are doing. You’re on near nightly dialysis, severely overweight and would qualify for an eighty percent disability if you would be willing to take it.” I lifted an eyebrow at her as she looked up at me from the file. “You refuse both Parahuman healing, or tinker-tech replacements for your damaged body parts and yet you continue to operate in a high stress job where you are forced to be both desk bound and unable to eat any more healthily than your average desk jockey. Quite frankly madam I am surprised you haven’t keeled over from the stress and hyperglycemia.” I smirked a bit at that, at least until the next words left her mouth. “That said, I have to lay down an ultimatum. Either you get healed, either through Panacea’s ability or tinker-tech, or you take the disability. Refusal to do either will mean that I will have to tell the Public safety office that you are unfit to take Akane in as your health is likely to fail within the next few years, once again leaving her an orphan before her majority.”
It honestly surprised me that my heart didn’t stop right then. The life insurance payment, if husbanded properly, would allow Akane to either go to a decent university for the full four years while living on campus, or else survive for the next few years until she could get out of high-school and find a job to work her way through college. “So you’re saying that for Akane to be able to come to the US and live with me, I have to either quit my job, something that while I know there are other people who could do it, I feel they are likely to make a mess out of before they got a handle on it, or trust the kind of people who left me high and dry in a combat situation and caused me to have these injuries in the first place.”
To give the woman credit she blinked when I said that, though that may have been because of my tone of voice, then she blinked again and asked, “Director Piggot, has no one told you?”
“Told me what?” I asked coldly, I wasn’t going to like what was about to be said, I could tell just by the way the woman’s face became sympathetic.
“Akane triggered as a parahuman about a week before her mother’s death as near as we can figure.” She answered. “We, that is the Japanese government, don’t really have a junior version of the Sentai. The underage members usually join in full and work in a sort of apprentice position with other members. We unfortunately do lose a lot of potential members to the Triads and the Yakuza, however I highly doubt that Akane would be one of those. The families that we expect to be willing to take her in are in their own ways very law abiding, though sometimes the damage to the scenery can get a little out of hand.”
“How?” I asked white faced, “How did she trigger and with what kind of powers?” I wasn’t scared of my own niece, not so long as she hadn’t ended up with a power that changed her, and frankly I didn’t think that even triggering could change the upbeat future troubleshooter that much.
“Did you hear about the Japanese Airlines flight that was hijacked two weeks ago,” I nodded, and then if possible, went even more white faced causing the other woman to nod. “Akane’s class was taking a trip and was on that flight when it was taken. We don’t know the particulars, but whatever happened between the time they landed and the time they left caused her to trigger. When the class landed back at Narita her clothes were covered in blood, but she was unharmed.”
“And her powers?” I asked and the woman simply shrugged.
“We don’t have the ability to test parahumans, at least not minor parahumans. From interviews with her classmates we believe she became some sort of low-level combat thinker, but that could simply have been her previous martial arts experience. The upside is that once she was back home, she seemed to revert to normal, but…” the woman trailed off and I nodded.
“But then a week later, her mother died, and she has had to deal with that by herself ever since.” I finished for her and then sighed. “I’ll contact people and see what it will take to get myself healed, I’m not leaving Akane as a Ward of the state, nor am I going to see her end up apprenticed to someone who will take her into danger with little to no care for her well-being.”
“Thank you, director,” the official said simply. “Let us know when you have made your decision and effected either the healing or your discharge.” I nodded to the woman before levering myself out of the chair and leaving.
A quick phone call to both Armsmaster and then to Brandish and it was arranged. Armsmaster didn’t have the ability himself to make anything to replace my kidneys or right hip joint, but Panacea was scheduled to be at Brockton Bay General Hospital that night and Brandish told me that she would make sure that Panacea knew to expect me at some point that evening. I wasn’t going to leave my niece to the system, pride and insecurities be damned.
**now**
Bypassing the alarm and delay on the door with my ID pass I opened the door to see Akane, Taylor and Katie sitting off to one side of the lounge, Akane’s laptop sitting out on the coffee table open and facing them, but hooked up to the big screen and showing the faces of several young women and one guy. Each of the people on the TV screen had an instrument and were playing readily as was Akane while Taylor and Katie joined in on the singing. Checking the time, I nodded to myself and called out as the music ended. “Alright girls, I think its time to call it a night, noise ordinances and all that you know.”
“Can we do one more song Aunt Em,” Akane called over which was followed by a bevy of pleading from the television.
“Alright then,” I said smiling, “One more, but keep it softer than that last one, we don’t want the neighbors complaining.”
Akane, Taylor and Katie all smirked at that but nodded. The dark-haired keyboardist nodded, “I know just the song, and so do you, so lead us off Akane.” Then to the others around the TV she called out, “Last song,” and Akane started to play.
**Saotome Mayumi**
I sighed as I approached the study shed in the back corner of the Kuno family property. I hadn’t been sleeping properly since the class trip and with school having been back in session for a week, I had the feeling I was starting to fall behind. It was because of these things that I had tried to beg off going to my aunt’s home for the weekly family dinner. My mother had insisted though, so I gathered my study materials and brought them with me in the hopes that I could either get some studying done, or maybe even a nap in the shed. Band practice would keep me from taking a nap prior to dinner, but maybe I would be able to concentrate on studying instead by letting the music keep me awake. Stepping up to the door, I could already hear the sound of Nirvana’s ”Smells like Teen Spirit” being played, I couldn’t hear who they had singing though. Akane always loved to take Cobain’s role in that song, my brain commented flashing an image of Akane working her way through the song’s opening. She also loved how that song then turned on its head and dove into the grunge. I smirked at the thought as I shifted from my winter shoes to a pair of house slippers and pulled the inner door of the space open after putting the shoes in a cubby. “Last song,” I heard Kagome say and frowned a bit. If they were stopping now then either whoever they had on acoustic wasn’t making the cut, or else they had been going at it for hours already. Been at it for hours, my mind provided when I spied the dirty breakfast dishes sitting on the kotatsu. Well at least I might manage… It was then that my mind froze as the opening acoustic guitar riff started playing from the sound system.
Here she comes, mm, just like an angel.
Seems like forever that she's been on my mind.
Nothing has changed, she thinks I'm a waste of her time.
There she goes.
No, she don't know what she's missing.
Can't she see I'll never give up the fight.
I'll do all I can.
She understands my desire.
My heart clenched afresh as her voice filled the room. This had been the song she had gotten the music club to practice with her so she could ask me out that first time. It hurt hearing her sing it now, the memories it brought to the front of my mind, just as I was sure it did the same for her. Looking around, I spotted Kagome’s laptop sitting on the sound board and plugged in, so I walked over and opened it. Seeing Akane sitting there playing her father’s old acoustic guitar also hurt as I remembered the hours that she and I had spent, me watching and listening to her learning the chords and frets and how each one sounded when “picked” or “strummed.” Hours spent in each other’s company just talking, listening, solving each other’s problems, secrets shared between us, and then sharing ourselves. Hugging myself I realized, I missed her, and I regretted asking her to stay away.
Everything hurt, including seeing that gaijin girl that looked eerily similar to me sitting next to Akane, but what made this so painful was that I couldn’t blame her, not for anything. Even as my mind played back what happened on the plane as a part of the memory montage of our lives together, I couldn’t find it in me to blame Akane. She had been protecting me, just like she always had, ever since the first day we met, and I had always let her. I had always known, deep down, that there was a ruthlessness in Akane, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep me safe from anything and everything, including herself if I thought that was what was needed, and apparently, maybe even from myself. No, I thought, I ended our relationship, I was the one that told her to never contact me again. Spirits, three weeks, almost a month, and just hearing her voice and seeing her face made me want to hold her again. I couldn’t do that right now as she had moved to where her aunt lived. What I could do, was possibly get a message out, maybe get through to her, and maybe, just maybe, she would forgive me enough to at least talk to me.
**Akane**
I wiped my face, clearing the small bit of tears from my face as the last notes died out. Looking up at my screen as I was about to tell the others good night, I froze at who was in the new window. It was then that she started to sing.
[i] Looking back over the years
Of All the things I've always meant to say
But words didn't come easily
So many times through empty fears
Of all of the nights I tried to pick up the phone
So scared of who might be answering.
By the third line the rest of the group had picked up the song while I simply stared dumbfounded at the screen of my laptop. This was the song that she and I had learned to sing together, that we had done acapella for our mothers before explaining how we felt about each other. To me this and the song I had just done…THAT’S IT! the light came on in my mind and just in time for me to pick up the second verse.
**Taylor**
I smiled as I could hear both the love, and the heartbreak in their singing of the song. Glancing over at Katie I could see the wonder in her eyes as well. She senses it as well, I thought and then used a fly to catch her attention before pointing over to the Director. She nodded slightly and slipped off out of camera view and over to her, leaving me to do the same. Go get her Akane, I thought with a smile.
**
[/i]
Wolf wins every fight but the one where he dies, fangs locked around the throat of his opponent.
Currently writing BROBd
Currently writing BROBd