Four Different Crayons (fic)
Title: Four Different Crayons
Summary: In 2023, the four toughest “Millennials” team up to kick some ass.
Pairings: Molly/Micah, and the M3 family is taken for granted as still existing.
Notes: Sooo…this was not a fic I had in progress AT ALL. But then two days ago my laptop’s battery completely broke and I can’t turn the damn thing on, so I’ve basically lost all of my WIPs (with the exception of a couple of externally-stored fragments) until I can get it fixed, which, for various reasons involving my current life situation, probably won’t be until May at the earliest. So in a moment of frustration, I decided to write something completely new. This is set in the same continuity as And Happiness is Coming Home Again, only about three years earlier.
And thanks to koala_motchi for support and a beta read. And for convincing me that “AC/DC” is a better codename for Elle than “Short Circuit”
x-posted to mytwoheroes, heroes_molly, heroes_heroines, heroes_fic, and my personal writing journal word_play_sam
To: pinpoint@millennials.org, ac.dc@millennials.org, stjoan@millennials.org
From: bennet@millennials.org
Subject: All in?
Suspected evolved human activity in Boston. Not the good kind. We’re meeting at South Station at noon. Come battle ready.
Molly groaned at she rubbed her eyes. Would it kill Bennet to remember that not all of them lived on the East Coast? She looked down at the clock on the computer. Half-past eight. Fuck. She’d just barely make it, if she hurried.
She showered went back into the bedroom, changed into reasonable clothes, went up into her closet to open the gun safe.
“Molls?” Micah asked sleepily from the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Got an e-mail from Bennet,” she said as she finished with the combination and opened the lid. “She wants me in Boston.”
“Do you know what for?” Micah asked.
“She was cryptic as always. You encoded that e-mail server, like, fifty different ways, so I don’t know why she never actually gives us any information.”
“Are you kidding?” Micah asked. “Being a big jerk about never sharing information is part of the evolved human DNA.”
She closed the lid and backed out of her closet with her guns in hand. “God, you’re right,” she replied. “Ordinary people, extraordinary communication problems.”
Micah laughed as Molly pulled another box out from under her bed, the one with her holsters and ammunition. She pulled on her shoulder holster and slid her Glock in place. The Chief’s Special went into her waistband. She pulled long coat over herself and stuck her ammunition in the pockets. No need to load up yet. Wouldn’t want to accidentally shoot anyone before it was actually necessary.
Such precautions were good gun safety in general. But especially when she was meeting with Bennet. Molly liked to make it difficult for herself to succumb to temptation.
“Can I take some of your comm. units?” she asked.
“Three isn’t talking to the others right now,” Micah said. “But you can take any of the rest.”
She leaned down and kissed him. He put a hand on her waist. “Are you sure you don’t have time for-” he started to ask.
“Nope,” she replied. “I’m running late as it is.” He looked slightly dissatisfied at the thought of no morning quickie. “Hey, this whole superhero thing was your idea in the first place,” she said.
He sighed. “Point. Don’t get yourself killed, okay?”
“Of course not. If at any point I’m in danger, I’ll just use Bennet as a meat shield.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Molly grabbed the headsets and then pulled out her cell phone and dialled a relatively familiar number.
“You’ve reached Forde, Petrelli, and Reid,” a woman’s voice said. “How may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Petrelli, please,” Molly said.
There was a click, a pause, and then a new voice on the line. “Petrelli.”
“Hey Si,” she said. “It’s Molly. I need a ‘port. Can you help me out?”
“Right now?” he asked.
She looked at her watch. “Yeah. It’s kind of urgent.”
“Okay, brace yourself,” he said, and Molly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was in the middle of Simon’s office. Wow, that was a lot easier than taking a plane. Why did she only ask Simon for a lift in emergencies? She hung up her phone.
“Hey, Molly,” he said. “Where do you need me to send you?”
“Boston,” she said. “South Station.”
“Monica asked me for the same thing about twenty minutes ago. You girls aren’t getting into any messes, are you? Need me to come along?” Oh, right. She didn’t call Simon more than she had to because while Monty was a sweetheart, Simon had a tendency to be a pretentious, semi-sexist asshole.
“Nope,” Molly replied, opening her coat and flashing her guns. “We’ve got it all under control.”
“All right, then,” he said with a slight frown. “Get ready.” Molly buttoned her coat back up while Simon closed his eyes and lifted his hand. And then
Molly was in a bathroom stall. She took a second to adjust before she opened the door. When she walked out of the restroom, she saw three women sitting around a table outside of one of the stands. Molly slid into place in the fourth chair. “Morning, ladies,” she said.
“Way to cut it close, Pinpoint,” Elle teased. She was, like Micah, seriously and unfortunately in the code-names camp. Molly was not so convinced that they should be tolerated, preferring last names, although she had to cede that “Walkmanesh” could be a little difficult to throw out in battle. “We were starting to think you wouldn’t show.”
“Cut me some slack. I just woke up, like, ten minutes ago,” Molly said.
“I told you she probably just got the e-mail,” Monica said. She turned to Molly. “Hi, darlin’. How’ve you been?”
“Just fine,” Molly replied. “Micah sends his love.”
“He’s not givin’ you any trouble, is he?”
“Of course not,” Molly replied. “He and I are doing great. Better than great, actually.”
Monica opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off. “This chit chat is really precious,” Bennet said, speaking up for the first time. “But we really should get down to business.”
Molly appraised Bennet with as neutral an expression as she could manage. She reflected-not for the first time-that she had never really minded being the youngest of the Millennial women, until she had realized that she wasn’t the youngest looking of the Millennial women anymore. It probably would have been a little easier to take if Bennet weren’t such a bitch. Fucking immortals and their fucking god complexes. “All right,” Molly said. “Maybe you’ve filled the others in already, so I’ll ask. What’s this about evolved human activity?”
“Two days ago,” Bennet said, pulling a file out of her bag, “there was a raid on an army facility just north of the city. An area where they stored some serious firepower. Enough to take out a major city, maybe, if it were in the wrong hands. At the very least, enough to kill a lot of people.”
“That’s not really enough for evolved human suspicions, is it?”
Bennet shook her head. “Here’s the thing: the cameras show just one unknown guy going in. But the whole facility was cleared out in under half an hour, when it should have taken one person weeks to be able to move all of the material.”
“So, timestoppin’?” Monica asked. “Or maybe superspeed?”
“Maybe,” Bennet said. “Except that some of the stolen goods were too heavy to be lifted by one person.”
“Illusions, then?” Elle asked. “Maybe it was a whole group, with a caster covering for them. Or a technopath, talking to the surveillance camera.”
“Maybe,” Bennet replied.
“But why even show one guy going in at all?” Molly asked, chewing on the inside of her lip. “It doesn’t make sense. Do you have any of the footage, Bennet?” she asked.
“I’ve got one frame from the camera,” Bennet said, handing Molly a picture. It was grainy, black and white. But the shot of the face was clear. Molly closed her eyes and concentrated. Her power took her mind out of the T-station, across the city, outside of it. As she got closer, she felt a weird sensation in her mind. It wasn’t like when she tried to find the Nightmare Man, or anything like that. Just…overwhelming. The closer she got, the more her head swam. And then she could see the man, inside a warehouse. No, make that…several men. All the same. All targets of her power.
Holding so many faces in her mind was hard, but she got a lock. She let go and opened her eyes, her head pounding. “Are you all right?” Monica asked. Molly realized that she had leaned forward so much that her face was pressed flat against the table.
“I’m fine,” Molly said through gritted teeth. She sat up, and wobbled, instantly dizzy. “It just felt really, really weird. There were…a lot of him. Like, a twenty or so.”
“Self-replication?” Elle asked. “Cool, target practice”
“Can you lead us to him?” Bennet asked. Molly nodded.
An long van ride (any ride with Bennet and Elle being a long one) later, they found themselves parked outside of a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Bennet put the car into park and turned off the ignition. “This is it?” she asked Molly.
Molly made a quick check. Yep, dizzying. “This is it,” she confirmed.
“If you keep an eye on St. Joan,” Elle said to Molly as they got out of the van, “I’ll cover Bennet.” They were used to this setup, Molly and Elle being better at the ranged attack, Bennet and Monica better up close, which generally left the latter more exposed.
“Got it,” Molly replied. She passed out Micah’s comm. units and they each put them on. Molly loaded her guns.
“Are we ready?” Bennet asked.
“Go big or go home,” Elle replied as she held her hands together, a ball of electricity crackling between them.
Bennet pulled open the doors to the warehouse. And all of the sudden, twenty identical men in various stages of unpacking looked up at them. All of the boxes had U.S. Army markings on them. “FREEZE!” Bennet said. “CIA!” Okay, well, that was a lie, but close enough. They certainly belonged to a shadowy organization.
The men put down what they were doing and turned. The way they walked was a little jerky, disconnected. Their faces were completely blank.
“Geez,” Elle said. “They’re like zombie clones.”
“We’re aiming to capture,” Bennet said. “But with this many, it might be hard. So do your best. We probably only need the original. If he’s even here.”
The clones advanced, and so did the four women, Monica and Bennet taking the lead, Elle and Molly sweeping behind. They fought, hand-to-hand, with shots of lightening, with guns. Twenty zonked-out guys should have been easy for them, but Molly noticed that the crowd wasn’t thinning.
“What the fuck?” Elle asked. “I swear to god there were only twenty of them a moment ago, and I’ve already killed, like, ten.”
“Must be spawnin’,” Monica said. “I think the original’s here.”
“Finding him is objective number one,” Bennet said. “After living, of course.”
Monica and Bennet always spoke in short, tense sentences when they fought. But being slightly removed from the action always gave Elle and Molly a little banter time.
“Hey, Pinpoint?” Elle asked over the headset as she sent out a bolt of electricity. “I just want you to know that I saw your dad, a couple of weeks ago. And if he’s ever feeling a little down about giving up on the losing-his-hair battle, could you do me a favor and pass along the message that he’s still totally hot?”
“Oh, yeah?” Molly asked. “That message come from you or your dad, Bishop?”
Monica stifled a laugh as Elle made gagging noises. “If I die right now because you made me lose my concentration,” Elle said, “I just want you to know that it’s on your head.”
“That’s what you get for trying to use me to flirt with Mohinder,” Molly replied as she watched one of the clones approach Monica from behind. She braced herself and aimed.
Molly was naturally an excellent shot, thanks to Matt’s decision to thoroughly educate her on personal protection starting from around her tenth birthday, but her power made her even better. She opened herself up to her ability and let it guide her hands even more accurately into position: just the tiniest hair to the left of where she had been aiming. She fired. She hit a clone in the arm, right where she had targeted, and he fell back.
“Thanks,” Monica said. The now-wounded clone advanced again, but Monica was able to take advantage of his distraction to spin and knock him out. As he fell backwards, his body shimmered and disappeared. Monica turned and resumed fighting the four she had been preoccupied with. Molly picked a couple more off for her, and each time she made a shot in a vital place, instead of dead bodies there was just empty space.
Giving Monica come breathing room accomplished, she settled back from her more distanced position and watched the fight unfold. Bennet and Monica were in the thick of things. Elle was acting like her power was running down, letting the clones get a little closer by the minute. A whole herd of them was advancing on her. Molly would be concerned, but she had seen this tactic before. It would be just a few more minutes before--
ZZZZZ-ZZZZTTTTT!
Well, before she overloaded herself and took out all of the ones who had been advancing on her. The bright light overwhelmed Molly’s eyes. When the spots cleared out, she could see Elle standing in a midst of charred bodies who were slowly disappearing into nothingness. Her hair was standing all on end, but she was otherwise unharmed.
It was a good victory, but now they knew not to get too close to Elle. And the clones just kept coming. Molly could see Elle’s mouth moving, but there was no sound.
“I think that Bishop’s transmitter is shorted out,” she told the other two. Monica kicked one of the clones in the chest, and he crumpled inwards. But while Molly had been watching Elle, a whole new crowd had developed around Monica. And Bennet had her own group, too.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” Bennet said, and Molly could hear the clench of her jaw. “Spawning faster than we can kill them.”
“Need-need to get the original,” Monica said, and Molly realized how tired Monica was sounding. Yeah, they needed to wrap this up, and soon.
“Can you find him, Walkmanesh?” Bennet asked.
Molly closed her eyes and concentrated on the man's face. The face she was seeing a lot of right now. “My power keeps showing me all of them,” she said after several moments. “It’s not helping.” And then she realized that the clones had used her distraction to advance on her position. One of them was just a foot away. She raised the Glock and fired. Nothing. No bullets.
Fuck
She tried to throw a punch, but she was no Monica or Bennet. She was more a long-range girl. She connected, but he grabbed her upper arm and slammed her up against the wall. And there were two more right behind that one. Double fuck. Triple fuck, even.
“Pinpoint!” she heard a voice yell, distant, not over the comm. device. Elle. “Get him to let go of you!”
She kicked him in the groin, and he dropped his grip. Elle took the opportunity to electrocute all three of them. Molly slid the Glock back under her coat and pulled the Chief’s Special out of her waistband.
She crossed half the distance between herself and Elle, motioned for Elle to do the same. Elle stood at her back, blue sparks arcing off of her fingertips. “Thanks for that back there,” Molly said. “And right now I need cover so that I can concentrate. Can you protect me?”
“You’ll save some bullets for me next time I need a bail?” Elle asked.
“Of course.”
“And you won’t shoot me a look the next time I try to feel up Mohinder?”
“Don’t push it,” Molly replied.
“Yeah, I got your back.”
Time for a new tactic, then. Instead of thinking of the man in general, Molly closed her eyes and used her ability to get a close up on the specific clone nearest to her. She could hear the crackle of Elle’s electricity all around her, but that was of little importance. The clone’s face she saw was dull, the eyes empty of much intellect. She jumped from him on to the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that, zooming in on their blank expressions and then moving on.
Until she found the one that wasn’t blank. He was trying to blend in, but his eyes moved too quickly, his face wasn’t holding the empty stare quite right. He was staying aloof from the group surrounding Monica, the group around Bennet, or the group advancing on Elle and Molly. But the new ones were coming from close to him.
Molly opened her eyes, used her power to swing his hands into position, and fired. She hit him square in the kneecap, and he crumpled. “It’s that one!” she shouted over the comm. “The one I just hit!” Then, to Elle, “Can you get him?”
Elle shot out sparks, but they didn’t reach. “He’s too far for Bishop,” Molly said.
“I’ll do it,” Bennet said. “Clear me a hole.”
Molly fired a couple more times, hitting ones close to Bennet. Elle followed suit. Bennet broke through, her right shoulder obviously out of socket. She twisted it back in as she crossed the warehouse to the man lying on the ground bleeding out of the knee. She reached back with a bloodied fist and punched him in the face, repeatedly, until, using her powers to watch up close, Molly could see him pass out.
Even without their master, the clones kept fighting. But at least they stopped spawning. Even still, by the time they finished eradicating the lot, Molly was out of bullets, Monica was panting so hard that she had to lean up against the wall for balance, and Elle’s skin was crackling with so much static that no one wanted to come near her. Bennet, of course, looked perfect after she cleared away the blood.
“When you get home, can you get your fiancé to make an untraceable tip to the government?” Bennet asked.
“Sure thing,” Molly replied and helped Bennet carry the man into the van outside.
“Company research,” Bennet explained.
“That’s what I call a bag-and-tag,” Elle said.
***
The next morning, Molly’s cell phone rang. She looked down at the display. Mohinder. “So this morning, one of my colleagues sent me a police report,” he said as soon as she accepted the call, not even waiting for her hello. “Quite interesting, actually.”
“Oh, yeah, Dad?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
“Possible proof of the existence of superhuman abilities. A homeless man outside a warehouse in Boston claims to have seen four women fighting a bunch of identical-looking men.”
“Really?” Molly asked. “Police sure he wasn’t drunk or high or something?” Micah rolled over and shot a concerned look at her. She made an it’s nothing gesture with her hand, but settled back down against his chest.
“That’s exactly what they think. But I’m not so sure. I mean, the description of the fight sounds like maybe some people I know. The man said one of the women could shoot electricity out of her hands, another was some sort of kung-fu master, and one kept fighting after breaking her leg like it was nothing.”
“Not really ringing any bells,” Molly replied. “Maybe if you told me about the fourth?”
“She didn’t really display any power, but she was apparently an okay shot with a handgun.”
“Okay?” Molly repeated. “Are you sure the report didn’t say ‘pretty dam-’” she coughed, “-darn good’?”
“Molly,” Mohinder said, exasperated. He sounded a little disappointed, a little reminiscent of that one time when she was seventeen and one of Matt’s deputies had caught her getting to third base in Central Park.
“Excuse me?” she asked, suddenly on the defensive. “I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. I told you that I was doing the superhero thing. Besides, you can’t exactly lecture me on vigilante justice, Dad.”
“What?” he asked. “No, it’s not that. But you were in Boston yesterday, on the East Coast, and you didn’t come visit? Honey, we would have sent you the money for a train or something if you had just given us a call.”
Okay, maybe she was being lectured, but at realizing why, she had to stifle a grin. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“We miss you terribly, you know,” he said. “It’s nearly more than this old man can take, almost a year without seeing you.”
“Oh?” she asked. “Then it’s a good thing that Micah and I have plane tickets to New York to come visit over Diwali.”
“You do?” Mohinder asked.
We do? Micah mouthed.
“I was going to call Matt about it today,” she said smoothly. “Make it a surprise for you and all. But you sounded so sad, so I thought maybe I shouldn’t hold back.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mohinder replied.
“I’m really excited about coming,” she said, “but I’ve got to get ready for work. I promise I’ll call this evening to get everything planned, okay?”
“Absolutely. I love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too,” Molly said, and hung up.
“So Diwali, huh?” Micah asked.
Molly sighed. “Batman? Didn’t have to mollify his parents with a visit every time he ended up in a police report. Spiderman? Nope. Wolverine? Definitely not.”
“You have a hard life,” Micah said solemnly. She grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
Hard life or not, someone had to live it.
Summary: In 2023, the four toughest “Millennials” team up to kick some ass.
Pairings: Molly/Micah, and the M3 family is taken for granted as still existing.
Notes: Sooo…this was not a fic I had in progress AT ALL. But then two days ago my laptop’s battery completely broke and I can’t turn the damn thing on, so I’ve basically lost all of my WIPs (with the exception of a couple of externally-stored fragments) until I can get it fixed, which, for various reasons involving my current life situation, probably won’t be until May at the earliest. So in a moment of frustration, I decided to write something completely new. This is set in the same continuity as And Happiness is Coming Home Again, only about three years earlier.
And thanks to koala_motchi for support and a beta read. And for convincing me that “AC/DC” is a better codename for Elle than “Short Circuit”
x-posted to mytwoheroes, heroes_molly, heroes_heroines, heroes_fic, and my personal writing journal word_play_sam
To: pinpoint@millennials.org, ac.dc@millennials.org, stjoan@millennials.org
From: bennet@millennials.org
Subject: All in?
Suspected evolved human activity in Boston. Not the good kind. We’re meeting at South Station at noon. Come battle ready.
Molly groaned at she rubbed her eyes. Would it kill Bennet to remember that not all of them lived on the East Coast? She looked down at the clock on the computer. Half-past eight. Fuck. She’d just barely make it, if she hurried.
She showered went back into the bedroom, changed into reasonable clothes, went up into her closet to open the gun safe.
“Molls?” Micah asked sleepily from the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Got an e-mail from Bennet,” she said as she finished with the combination and opened the lid. “She wants me in Boston.”
“Do you know what for?” Micah asked.
“She was cryptic as always. You encoded that e-mail server, like, fifty different ways, so I don’t know why she never actually gives us any information.”
“Are you kidding?” Micah asked. “Being a big jerk about never sharing information is part of the evolved human DNA.”
She closed the lid and backed out of her closet with her guns in hand. “God, you’re right,” she replied. “Ordinary people, extraordinary communication problems.”
Micah laughed as Molly pulled another box out from under her bed, the one with her holsters and ammunition. She pulled on her shoulder holster and slid her Glock in place. The Chief’s Special went into her waistband. She pulled long coat over herself and stuck her ammunition in the pockets. No need to load up yet. Wouldn’t want to accidentally shoot anyone before it was actually necessary.
Such precautions were good gun safety in general. But especially when she was meeting with Bennet. Molly liked to make it difficult for herself to succumb to temptation.
“Can I take some of your comm. units?” she asked.
“Three isn’t talking to the others right now,” Micah said. “But you can take any of the rest.”
She leaned down and kissed him. He put a hand on her waist. “Are you sure you don’t have time for-” he started to ask.
“Nope,” she replied. “I’m running late as it is.” He looked slightly dissatisfied at the thought of no morning quickie. “Hey, this whole superhero thing was your idea in the first place,” she said.
He sighed. “Point. Don’t get yourself killed, okay?”
“Of course not. If at any point I’m in danger, I’ll just use Bennet as a meat shield.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Molly grabbed the headsets and then pulled out her cell phone and dialled a relatively familiar number.
“You’ve reached Forde, Petrelli, and Reid,” a woman’s voice said. “How may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Petrelli, please,” Molly said.
There was a click, a pause, and then a new voice on the line. “Petrelli.”
“Hey Si,” she said. “It’s Molly. I need a ‘port. Can you help me out?”
“Right now?” he asked.
She looked at her watch. “Yeah. It’s kind of urgent.”
“Okay, brace yourself,” he said, and Molly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was in the middle of Simon’s office. Wow, that was a lot easier than taking a plane. Why did she only ask Simon for a lift in emergencies? She hung up her phone.
“Hey, Molly,” he said. “Where do you need me to send you?”
“Boston,” she said. “South Station.”
“Monica asked me for the same thing about twenty minutes ago. You girls aren’t getting into any messes, are you? Need me to come along?” Oh, right. She didn’t call Simon more than she had to because while Monty was a sweetheart, Simon had a tendency to be a pretentious, semi-sexist asshole.
“Nope,” Molly replied, opening her coat and flashing her guns. “We’ve got it all under control.”
“All right, then,” he said with a slight frown. “Get ready.” Molly buttoned her coat back up while Simon closed his eyes and lifted his hand. And then
Molly was in a bathroom stall. She took a second to adjust before she opened the door. When she walked out of the restroom, she saw three women sitting around a table outside of one of the stands. Molly slid into place in the fourth chair. “Morning, ladies,” she said.
“Way to cut it close, Pinpoint,” Elle teased. She was, like Micah, seriously and unfortunately in the code-names camp. Molly was not so convinced that they should be tolerated, preferring last names, although she had to cede that “Walkmanesh” could be a little difficult to throw out in battle. “We were starting to think you wouldn’t show.”
“Cut me some slack. I just woke up, like, ten minutes ago,” Molly said.
“I told you she probably just got the e-mail,” Monica said. She turned to Molly. “Hi, darlin’. How’ve you been?”
“Just fine,” Molly replied. “Micah sends his love.”
“He’s not givin’ you any trouble, is he?”
“Of course not,” Molly replied. “He and I are doing great. Better than great, actually.”
Monica opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off. “This chit chat is really precious,” Bennet said, speaking up for the first time. “But we really should get down to business.”
Molly appraised Bennet with as neutral an expression as she could manage. She reflected-not for the first time-that she had never really minded being the youngest of the Millennial women, until she had realized that she wasn’t the youngest looking of the Millennial women anymore. It probably would have been a little easier to take if Bennet weren’t such a bitch. Fucking immortals and their fucking god complexes. “All right,” Molly said. “Maybe you’ve filled the others in already, so I’ll ask. What’s this about evolved human activity?”
“Two days ago,” Bennet said, pulling a file out of her bag, “there was a raid on an army facility just north of the city. An area where they stored some serious firepower. Enough to take out a major city, maybe, if it were in the wrong hands. At the very least, enough to kill a lot of people.”
“That’s not really enough for evolved human suspicions, is it?”
Bennet shook her head. “Here’s the thing: the cameras show just one unknown guy going in. But the whole facility was cleared out in under half an hour, when it should have taken one person weeks to be able to move all of the material.”
“So, timestoppin’?” Monica asked. “Or maybe superspeed?”
“Maybe,” Bennet said. “Except that some of the stolen goods were too heavy to be lifted by one person.”
“Illusions, then?” Elle asked. “Maybe it was a whole group, with a caster covering for them. Or a technopath, talking to the surveillance camera.”
“Maybe,” Bennet replied.
“But why even show one guy going in at all?” Molly asked, chewing on the inside of her lip. “It doesn’t make sense. Do you have any of the footage, Bennet?” she asked.
“I’ve got one frame from the camera,” Bennet said, handing Molly a picture. It was grainy, black and white. But the shot of the face was clear. Molly closed her eyes and concentrated. Her power took her mind out of the T-station, across the city, outside of it. As she got closer, she felt a weird sensation in her mind. It wasn’t like when she tried to find the Nightmare Man, or anything like that. Just…overwhelming. The closer she got, the more her head swam. And then she could see the man, inside a warehouse. No, make that…several men. All the same. All targets of her power.
Holding so many faces in her mind was hard, but she got a lock. She let go and opened her eyes, her head pounding. “Are you all right?” Monica asked. Molly realized that she had leaned forward so much that her face was pressed flat against the table.
“I’m fine,” Molly said through gritted teeth. She sat up, and wobbled, instantly dizzy. “It just felt really, really weird. There were…a lot of him. Like, a twenty or so.”
“Self-replication?” Elle asked. “Cool, target practice”
“Can you lead us to him?” Bennet asked. Molly nodded.
An long van ride (any ride with Bennet and Elle being a long one) later, they found themselves parked outside of a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Bennet put the car into park and turned off the ignition. “This is it?” she asked Molly.
Molly made a quick check. Yep, dizzying. “This is it,” she confirmed.
“If you keep an eye on St. Joan,” Elle said to Molly as they got out of the van, “I’ll cover Bennet.” They were used to this setup, Molly and Elle being better at the ranged attack, Bennet and Monica better up close, which generally left the latter more exposed.
“Got it,” Molly replied. She passed out Micah’s comm. units and they each put them on. Molly loaded her guns.
“Are we ready?” Bennet asked.
“Go big or go home,” Elle replied as she held her hands together, a ball of electricity crackling between them.
Bennet pulled open the doors to the warehouse. And all of the sudden, twenty identical men in various stages of unpacking looked up at them. All of the boxes had U.S. Army markings on them. “FREEZE!” Bennet said. “CIA!” Okay, well, that was a lie, but close enough. They certainly belonged to a shadowy organization.
The men put down what they were doing and turned. The way they walked was a little jerky, disconnected. Their faces were completely blank.
“Geez,” Elle said. “They’re like zombie clones.”
“We’re aiming to capture,” Bennet said. “But with this many, it might be hard. So do your best. We probably only need the original. If he’s even here.”
The clones advanced, and so did the four women, Monica and Bennet taking the lead, Elle and Molly sweeping behind. They fought, hand-to-hand, with shots of lightening, with guns. Twenty zonked-out guys should have been easy for them, but Molly noticed that the crowd wasn’t thinning.
“What the fuck?” Elle asked. “I swear to god there were only twenty of them a moment ago, and I’ve already killed, like, ten.”
“Must be spawnin’,” Monica said. “I think the original’s here.”
“Finding him is objective number one,” Bennet said. “After living, of course.”
Monica and Bennet always spoke in short, tense sentences when they fought. But being slightly removed from the action always gave Elle and Molly a little banter time.
“Hey, Pinpoint?” Elle asked over the headset as she sent out a bolt of electricity. “I just want you to know that I saw your dad, a couple of weeks ago. And if he’s ever feeling a little down about giving up on the losing-his-hair battle, could you do me a favor and pass along the message that he’s still totally hot?”
“Oh, yeah?” Molly asked. “That message come from you or your dad, Bishop?”
Monica stifled a laugh as Elle made gagging noises. “If I die right now because you made me lose my concentration,” Elle said, “I just want you to know that it’s on your head.”
“That’s what you get for trying to use me to flirt with Mohinder,” Molly replied as she watched one of the clones approach Monica from behind. She braced herself and aimed.
Molly was naturally an excellent shot, thanks to Matt’s decision to thoroughly educate her on personal protection starting from around her tenth birthday, but her power made her even better. She opened herself up to her ability and let it guide her hands even more accurately into position: just the tiniest hair to the left of where she had been aiming. She fired. She hit a clone in the arm, right where she had targeted, and he fell back.
“Thanks,” Monica said. The now-wounded clone advanced again, but Monica was able to take advantage of his distraction to spin and knock him out. As he fell backwards, his body shimmered and disappeared. Monica turned and resumed fighting the four she had been preoccupied with. Molly picked a couple more off for her, and each time she made a shot in a vital place, instead of dead bodies there was just empty space.
Giving Monica come breathing room accomplished, she settled back from her more distanced position and watched the fight unfold. Bennet and Monica were in the thick of things. Elle was acting like her power was running down, letting the clones get a little closer by the minute. A whole herd of them was advancing on her. Molly would be concerned, but she had seen this tactic before. It would be just a few more minutes before--
ZZZZZ-ZZZZTTTTT!
Well, before she overloaded herself and took out all of the ones who had been advancing on her. The bright light overwhelmed Molly’s eyes. When the spots cleared out, she could see Elle standing in a midst of charred bodies who were slowly disappearing into nothingness. Her hair was standing all on end, but she was otherwise unharmed.
It was a good victory, but now they knew not to get too close to Elle. And the clones just kept coming. Molly could see Elle’s mouth moving, but there was no sound.
“I think that Bishop’s transmitter is shorted out,” she told the other two. Monica kicked one of the clones in the chest, and he crumpled inwards. But while Molly had been watching Elle, a whole new crowd had developed around Monica. And Bennet had her own group, too.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” Bennet said, and Molly could hear the clench of her jaw. “Spawning faster than we can kill them.”
“Need-need to get the original,” Monica said, and Molly realized how tired Monica was sounding. Yeah, they needed to wrap this up, and soon.
“Can you find him, Walkmanesh?” Bennet asked.
Molly closed her eyes and concentrated on the man's face. The face she was seeing a lot of right now. “My power keeps showing me all of them,” she said after several moments. “It’s not helping.” And then she realized that the clones had used her distraction to advance on her position. One of them was just a foot away. She raised the Glock and fired. Nothing. No bullets.
Fuck
She tried to throw a punch, but she was no Monica or Bennet. She was more a long-range girl. She connected, but he grabbed her upper arm and slammed her up against the wall. And there were two more right behind that one. Double fuck. Triple fuck, even.
“Pinpoint!” she heard a voice yell, distant, not over the comm. device. Elle. “Get him to let go of you!”
She kicked him in the groin, and he dropped his grip. Elle took the opportunity to electrocute all three of them. Molly slid the Glock back under her coat and pulled the Chief’s Special out of her waistband.
She crossed half the distance between herself and Elle, motioned for Elle to do the same. Elle stood at her back, blue sparks arcing off of her fingertips. “Thanks for that back there,” Molly said. “And right now I need cover so that I can concentrate. Can you protect me?”
“You’ll save some bullets for me next time I need a bail?” Elle asked.
“Of course.”
“And you won’t shoot me a look the next time I try to feel up Mohinder?”
“Don’t push it,” Molly replied.
“Yeah, I got your back.”
Time for a new tactic, then. Instead of thinking of the man in general, Molly closed her eyes and used her ability to get a close up on the specific clone nearest to her. She could hear the crackle of Elle’s electricity all around her, but that was of little importance. The clone’s face she saw was dull, the eyes empty of much intellect. She jumped from him on to the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that, zooming in on their blank expressions and then moving on.
Until she found the one that wasn’t blank. He was trying to blend in, but his eyes moved too quickly, his face wasn’t holding the empty stare quite right. He was staying aloof from the group surrounding Monica, the group around Bennet, or the group advancing on Elle and Molly. But the new ones were coming from close to him.
Molly opened her eyes, used her power to swing his hands into position, and fired. She hit him square in the kneecap, and he crumpled. “It’s that one!” she shouted over the comm. “The one I just hit!” Then, to Elle, “Can you get him?”
Elle shot out sparks, but they didn’t reach. “He’s too far for Bishop,” Molly said.
“I’ll do it,” Bennet said. “Clear me a hole.”
Molly fired a couple more times, hitting ones close to Bennet. Elle followed suit. Bennet broke through, her right shoulder obviously out of socket. She twisted it back in as she crossed the warehouse to the man lying on the ground bleeding out of the knee. She reached back with a bloodied fist and punched him in the face, repeatedly, until, using her powers to watch up close, Molly could see him pass out.
Even without their master, the clones kept fighting. But at least they stopped spawning. Even still, by the time they finished eradicating the lot, Molly was out of bullets, Monica was panting so hard that she had to lean up against the wall for balance, and Elle’s skin was crackling with so much static that no one wanted to come near her. Bennet, of course, looked perfect after she cleared away the blood.
“When you get home, can you get your fiancé to make an untraceable tip to the government?” Bennet asked.
“Sure thing,” Molly replied and helped Bennet carry the man into the van outside.
“Company research,” Bennet explained.
“That’s what I call a bag-and-tag,” Elle said.
***
The next morning, Molly’s cell phone rang. She looked down at the display. Mohinder. “So this morning, one of my colleagues sent me a police report,” he said as soon as she accepted the call, not even waiting for her hello. “Quite interesting, actually.”
“Oh, yeah, Dad?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
“Possible proof of the existence of superhuman abilities. A homeless man outside a warehouse in Boston claims to have seen four women fighting a bunch of identical-looking men.”
“Really?” Molly asked. “Police sure he wasn’t drunk or high or something?” Micah rolled over and shot a concerned look at her. She made an it’s nothing gesture with her hand, but settled back down against his chest.
“That’s exactly what they think. But I’m not so sure. I mean, the description of the fight sounds like maybe some people I know. The man said one of the women could shoot electricity out of her hands, another was some sort of kung-fu master, and one kept fighting after breaking her leg like it was nothing.”
“Not really ringing any bells,” Molly replied. “Maybe if you told me about the fourth?”
“She didn’t really display any power, but she was apparently an okay shot with a handgun.”
“Okay?” Molly repeated. “Are you sure the report didn’t say ‘pretty dam-’” she coughed, “-darn good’?”
“Molly,” Mohinder said, exasperated. He sounded a little disappointed, a little reminiscent of that one time when she was seventeen and one of Matt’s deputies had caught her getting to third base in Central Park.
“Excuse me?” she asked, suddenly on the defensive. “I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. I told you that I was doing the superhero thing. Besides, you can’t exactly lecture me on vigilante justice, Dad.”
“What?” he asked. “No, it’s not that. But you were in Boston yesterday, on the East Coast, and you didn’t come visit? Honey, we would have sent you the money for a train or something if you had just given us a call.”
Okay, maybe she was being lectured, but at realizing why, she had to stifle a grin. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“We miss you terribly, you know,” he said. “It’s nearly more than this old man can take, almost a year without seeing you.”
“Oh?” she asked. “Then it’s a good thing that Micah and I have plane tickets to New York to come visit over Diwali.”
“You do?” Mohinder asked.
We do? Micah mouthed.
“I was going to call Matt about it today,” she said smoothly. “Make it a surprise for you and all. But you sounded so sad, so I thought maybe I shouldn’t hold back.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mohinder replied.
“I’m really excited about coming,” she said, “but I’ve got to get ready for work. I promise I’ll call this evening to get everything planned, okay?”
“Absolutely. I love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too,” Molly said, and hung up.
“So Diwali, huh?” Micah asked.
Molly sighed. “Batman? Didn’t have to mollify his parents with a visit every time he ended up in a police report. Spiderman? Nope. Wolverine? Definitely not.”
“You have a hard life,” Micah said solemnly. She grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
Hard life or not, someone had to live it.