Preface

This chapter covers Riley's trigger. I'm opting to skip my usual timestamps from her POV because the whole event is chronologically a mess and takes place over weeks of torture that a six year old has no frame of reference for.

Intermission 7.10

Riley Grace Davis

I cried.

Daddy said good girls don't cry, but daddy wasn't here. Chuckles was here.

Chuckles was a bad man, a bad clown. He didn't talk, he never said anything, but he was bad. Mean. I didn't know what word was worse than mean, but he was that.

He was big and fat, with thick arms like Uncle Jimmy. He wore a red jacket with puffy white ruffles around his neck that had splotches of brown like he spilled ketchup. He smiled, big and wide with teeth like yellow stashi-shells. His white face turned so quickly that his red nose looked like a blur. A scary laugh came out and the sound made me feel cold.

In his hands was Milo. Dad got Ollie and me a puppy last month. Daddy called him a poodle. He said I was a big girl now and I could help Ollie care for Milo but I knew Milo liked me best, even if we were too nice to tell Ollie. Chuckles the Bad Clown held Milo in his hands and Milo shook because he was scared.

I looked at them with dry eyes. I cried. I called him names. I said please. I hit him. I tried to bite the bad clown. But he didn't stop. He never stopped because he was bad. I couldn't cry anymore. I had to play the game Mr. Jack showed me. I reached into the first-aid box mommy kept in case I tripped and scraped my knees. I pulled out a roll of white so I could play doctor with the bad clown.

But Chuckles shook his head. He instead pulled out daddy's fishing rod. Daddy said he'd show Ollie how to catch big fishies so mommy could make tasty fish fingers for us.

Chuckles didn't use it right.

He wrapped the string around Milo's neck and threw Milo into the pool.

"No!" I cried. I jumped in after him. Milo was a good boy. He didn't deserve to hurt.

I grabbed the string and pulled, yanking him out. He was small; his fluffy fur stuck to him and made him look smaller.

He shivered and so did I. There were bandages I'd wrapped around him before but they were turning brown now.

"No," I whispered. I cried again. I put him on the ground and tried to kiss him. I loved Milo and it worked for Snow White. Daddy said it worked when people drank too much water if I pressed their tummy at the same time. "Nonononono, Milo…"

I pressed and kissed and blew into his mouth. Behind me was the laughter. The clown laughed and giggled and I hated him so much. He hurt Milo. His friends hurt Ollie and daddy and mommy.

I tried to help Milo. I kissed him and he stopped shaking. I thought that was good. He wasn't cold anymore.

I kissed him and pressed and felt something pop and I cried because I knew I did something bad.

Milo cried and growled quietly and I knew it was because he was hurt and he was a good boy.

I tried. I tried so hard. I tried and tried but I couldn't help Milo. I didn't know why it wasn't working. I loved Milo. I kissed him. He needed to get better or the bad man would win.

I pressed and kissed and blew and listened to the bad man laughing as he watched.

And Milo became cold.

X

I kept playing doctor with the bad people. Doctors helped people and I was a good girl so I had to help daddy and mommy and Ollie. They put daddy and mommy and Ollie in different rooms of the house and hurt them. I had to see what was wrong and make them better. Mr. Jack showed me how to use al-kol to clean cuts before wrapping them in bandages. He then cut mommy.

"For practice," he said. He smiled and he had a silly beard like a goat. I called him a bad man but he smiled wider and cut mommy more so I didn't tell him that anymore.

Two people watched Ollie. One was a woman like mommy but with no hair on half her head. She said she was Screamer. Everything got loud when she was around. She made Ollie yell so loud. It hurt my ears but she laughed and said it made her feel alive. The other was a man who had brown hair and brown eyes and was shorter than daddy. He was gross. He made nasty bugs come out of his mouth.

The bugs were bad. They hurt Ollie. The bad man let his bugs eat Ollie and I had to play doctor to make him all better. But I was running out of things from the first-aid box.

At first, Ollie moved too much. He screamed and it hurt my ears and made me cry and I couldn't pour the clear stuff to clean him. He made me splash so much. Ollie was dumb but he hurt and he was my big brother so I had to make him feel better because I was a good girl and I was playing doctor.

But now he didn't do anything. He didn't say anything when the gross man's gross bugs ate him little by little. I could clean him and wrap him easier now.

That just made me more afraid. It hurt. I knew. He was going away too. I was running out of bandages. I was so happy I could spell bandages for mommy. Mommy was a nurse and helped people with bandages. I had to be good like mommy and help Ollie but I was running out.

If he didn't make me spill and waste them then maybe he'd be here longer.

But I was also running out of Ollie. No more fingers and toes. No more arms or legs. Knees or elbows. Little by little, the gross man's gross bugs nibbled at Ollie. They were like hamsters with almonds. Mommy said making bad things seem not so bad was called op-timey-sim. She said it could help me feel better.

I didn't feel better.

I was running out of Ollie to wrap up. He cried and moaned and the bad lady made it sound so loud. I wanted to make him feel better because he was stupid but he was still Ollie.

And then he was gone too.

Just like Milo.

"Stupid Ollie," I whispered as I wrapped him over and over again.

X

It was cold in daddy's room. There was a tall lady with white hair and a big, muscly man with red skin. They didn't tie daddy down like the gross man did with Ollie.

A knife fell to the floor with a loud clang. Daddy looked down at his feet. He didn't have a shirt anymore and there were lots of bandages wrapped around him. Spots of brown covered the white but I didn't have any more to fix him with. A striped lady got me more yesterday but I was out already. I didn't want to play doctor anymore.

He lost his glasses too, and there were lots of purple spots I couldn't cover. His eyebrows were big and puffy and I couldn't see one of daddy's eyes anymore. He looked scary and sad and I didn't know how to make him better.

"Pick it up," the red man said. He was smiling but it was too big. He had so many teeth. It felt wrong because he was hurting daddy. "Pick up the knife. If you kill me, you can go save your wife, you know? Hahaha!"

Next to him, the white-haired woman rolled her eyes. The air felt colder in the room. It was hard to move my fingers when she was next to me. She held me by the shoulder and kept me from going to daddy. I didn't cry though. That just made the tears freeze and my cheeks hurt. She would let me go to daddy when the red man was done being mean. She always did, because that was what Mr. Jack said doctors did and we were playing doctor.

"Don't you want to save your daughter?" she said. Her voice was soft. It didn't belong on the mean lady. "You kill Crimson and you can be the big damn hero."

Daddy looked down at the knife between his feet. He looked back up at the mean people and then at me. The room became colder and daddy's body shook as he knelt. His hands shook as his fingers closed over the handle.

The red man spread his arms a big, scary smile. "Come on, stab me! You might actually kill me this time."

I didn't want to watch. The big man did this every time it was his turn to play with me. He made daddy fight and daddy always lost. And then he cut daddy and drank his blood and all of his cuts would be better while daddy's got worse.

But this time it was different. This time, daddy's eye was the same as Ollie's. I saw and knew daddy would be leaving too.

He looked at me and his face was empty. He didn't smile anymore. He saw me and I saw daddy cry again.

Daddy remembered me; maybe he wouldn't leave.

And then he turned the knife and pressed it into his neck. There was so much red. The blood pooled, flowing too fast for even the white-haired lady's cold to slow down.

Daddy looked at me and mouthed, "I'm sorry."

"No, I…" Daddy… He left too… I couldn't… I didn't understand.

Why? Why was everyone leaving me? Why were the bad men in our house? Why couldn't I save people? If I had more bandages, if I had more al-kol, could I have fixed them? There were other things in the first-aid box. Mr. Jack didn't teach me how. If I knew more, maybe I would be better at playing doctor. Maybe I could save people like mommy.

Maybe they wouldn't have to go away…

I didn't understand…

I didn't want to be alone…

"Please, come back…"

[Destination]

[Trajectory]

[Agreement]

X

Fortuna

2005, January 16: Boise, ID, USA

I took a sip of Yusung's aptly named Elixir of Sorcery. I'd developed a mild fondness for this stuff, and not strictly for the power it granted me. It tasted like blueberries going down, albeit with a mysterious aftertaste that was simultaneously familiar yet foreign.

The Slaughterhouse had always been troublesome to predict, even for me, and it wasn't until Yusung explained the mechanisms behind Jack's Broadcast that I understood why. Broadcast, the Shard that acted as Scion's primary communication hub, did its best to keep Jack alive by informing him of incoming danger orchestrated by parahumans. It was a strictly defensive ability, but one that made him a wildcard to go up against.

Jack could not speak to Broadcast of course, but his Shard's influence manifested as "good instincts" on Jack's part or "poor luck" on the part of his attackers. Yusung said that in extreme cases, parahuman powers would subtly malfunction in order to keep Jack alive. It allowed him to win against most parahumans and instinctively avoid battles with those he couldn't triumph over.

That explained why attempts by thinkers to act against him failed, and how he could keep his band of murderous fools in line. I had yet to act directly against him, but all evidence suggested even the Path to Victory was not exempt from this.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

If Broadcast was hellbent on ensuring Jack's survival by effectively acting as the world's most inconvenient tattletale, it stood to reason that the best way to kill him was to enact an alpha strike that he could not avoid nor defend against without relying on my own Shard.

Tricky, but doable.

The Path had cleared in Boise as Riley's connection to her Shard established itself. Jack had outlived his usefulness; he would die tonight.

I spun the Dream Blossom Censer in hand; the staff was a familiar weight by now. Its royal-blue petals spun through the air as a haunting mist began to fill the Idaho morning. The fragrance of flowers that did not exist on this earth filled my nostrils as the magic took hold, fruity yet potent, enticing yet inscrutable.

I'd chosen the hour specifically to coincide with the rising sun. Fog wasn't too common in the Boise Valley area, but there were an estimated twenty such days per year, particularly during the winter months. It wasn't unusual for moisture to rise from the river and blanket the city before the noon sun cleared the skies.

I smiled faintly as the magical mist traversed through all obstacles. Even if he started running now, it was too late. I knew from experience in Ellisburg and Shanghai that so long as you were in the area, there was no escaping it, even the slightest trail of vapor would be enough to lull you into a magically enforced sleep. The only way to avoid the enchantment was to either be the one wielding the censer, or avoid the mist altogether.

I stepped into the Davis family home. It was a quaint if well-furnished affair, Isaac "Call me Ike" Davis inherited the house from his grandfather, and though there were several touch-ups throughout the decades, the house looked more or less as it did when it was first built. There were two stories, a single-car garage, and a small pool in the backyard.

Out on the lawn, as big as a truck, was Crawler, napping like the world's most hideous guard dog. Yusung said he'd get much bigger as he adapted and grew, but he'd die like the rest if his corona was destroyed. I did not know where it was, only that it wasn't in the brain as was typical of most capes. No matter, I'd come back for him; I just needed him out of the way for the moment.

Next to him was Hatchet Face, a hulking brute of a man with a power nullification aura. He was otherwise a fairly standard strongman type, easy to deal with so long as I was prepared.

Either cape would have been formidable under normal circumstances, but Yusung and I were involved; "normal" never quite applied where we were concerned. I gave them only a second's glance and strolled past into the house proper.

It was amazing how welcoming it all looked. There was a large, hickory coffee table that Ike's father built for his final year of high school woodshop. A family picture hung on the mantle, taken just days after Riley's birth. The infant's blonde locks had been darker then. Jack had left the majority of the house untouched and I wondered if this was Broadcast's doing or his own, twisted understanding of psychology.

It had been clear from Jack's previous actions as well as Yusung's records that he was no fool. He meticulously studied parahuman science and trigger theory, at least as best as he could while living a nomadic lifestyle. He conducted inhumane experiments, repeatedly bringing people to their breaking points to see if he could manually induce a trigger event. I didn't know if his curiosity was triggered by Manton's own studies or if they simply enabled the other, but the two made for a frustrating pair.

It was all hilariously, unsustainably dangerous of course, not even I would willingly put myself in the line of fire of a fresh trigger, but Broadcast made it all possible. I thought about what would be waiting for me as I walked through the house.

The family had built up a fair amount of miscellaneous surplus over the generations. Though I couldn't call the place messy, there was a feeling of crowdedness that made the place feel more lived in somehow.

I peeked into the backyard briefly. There, slumped over a pool chair, was Chuckles the clown. The brute-mover was sawing logs and wore a contented smile on his face. At his feet was the broken body of Milo, the family poodle. I saw the dented torso, imprints made by tiny hands into ruffled fur as Riley desperately tried to perform a procedure she couldn't possibly know, and felt an oppressive urge to wake the clown so I could have the pleasure of making him scream.

My mana, a tiny drop compared to my young friend, flared and the scent of flowers brought me back. Three years ago, the sight would not have phased me in the slightest. But without the Path active, I found myself wrestling with my wrath. It was times like these I remembered, for all his influence on Cauldron, I felt his hand more than any of my colleagues.

He'd… He'd humanized me, reminded me to be Fortuna on occasion, for better and for worse. On occasion, he taught me that Fortuna had a strength Contessa lacked.

I swallowed thickly and shot Chuckles a final glare before continuing my search for Jack. I skipped over the rooms with Ollie and Ike in it, I'd be back later, and beelined for the master bedroom.

Jack and Riley were alone, the Siberian nowhere to be found. Yusung mentioned once that in the alternate future, when Skitter stung Manton's eyes, the projection of his daughter flickered. For all its power, the projection required a significant amount of focus on the part of its creator. He was almost certainly nearby; it was time I tied up that particular loose end. But first, extraction.

I gave Riley a quick once-over.

The young girl looked peaceful lying there. She was slumped over on her side, her hands clasped in a literal death grip over her mother's.

Bianca Davis was dead, and only recently by the look of things. Her stomach was torn open in a perfectly clean cut, her blood replaced by some sort of green fluid that had been hooked up to a jury-rigged pump made from a hand vacuum. Countless lacerations littered her body, some crude, others clean. I could easily tell the difference between Jack and Riley's workmanship.

I gazed into the mother's eyes. They were beginning to glaze over but I thought I could spy a hint of warmth there, frozen in one final smile to encourage her daughter.

"Be a good girl."

Emotions rose up unbidden and I felt my chest tighten. Was I a good girl? Did Cauldron's ultimate ambition absolve me of my sins? Was there a time when my own mother told me these words? I didn't know; I didn't remember. That ship sailed the moment I met Eva.

I shook my head and looked once more into the dead woman's eyes. I'd allowed this. All of this. Across not just Boise but every city in the United States that the Slaughterhouse deigned to visit. I could have stopped them at any time, could have given Hero the greenlight, especially after Yusung joined us. After we knew about Broadcast, arranging for Jack's death was as simple as what I was doing now.

I looked at Riley one more time. She was adorable, and the contrast made bile rise into my throat. Had I not known better, I would never have named her as the most gifted biotinker in the world.

Gently, I gathered her into my arms. She instinctively sought out my body heat and leaned into my breast. I felt cold, knowing how little I deserved her affections.

She was it. She was the reason I'd allowed Jack to live this long. She was the reason I'd allowed her family to undergo unspeakable torture. I'd overruled Andy and Eugene. I'd weighed the power of Bonesaw against thousands of lives, and decided her inclusion mattered more.

"I hope you're worth it, Riley," I whispered into her ear. "Door, Riley's room."

I stepped inside the room prepared for her in advance. It was a child's playroom in full, rubber floors and all. I tucked her into the plush bed and walked back out.

I reached for the holster on my hip. My fingers closed around a walnut handle, finely crafted to fit the swell of my palms comfortably. I drew the seven inch blade and watched it gleam as it caught the morning light. Its pearlescent-white sheen was a hue only seen on one alloy in the world: petricite.

The blade whirled as I spun it in my fingers. Yusung had named it Sobriety, in direct opposition to Tequila, the first person he ever killed, the first he ever loved. It was a blade proven to disrupt master powers, in case he woke up, and, if I allowed myself to be honest, there was a certain poetry in ending Jack with this blade in particular.

I thrust from below the neck, plunging my blade upwards through his chin and into his brainstem. His eyes fluttered open from the sudden shock, but he could only manage a few strangled gurgles as his lifeblood pooled onto the carpet of the master bedroom.

His death was anticlimactic for someone who could have kickstarted the apocalypse. It was far too painless and I found myself wishing I had the opportunity to express my displeasure more plainly. And yet, I promised: No chances. No gaps for Broadcast to pull its strings. He was too dangerous to keep alive, no matter how satisfying that would have been.

Maybe, if this were a novel, he would have made a break for it, perhaps set up some grand battle, but I refused to let that happen. I refused to allow him a single moment of grandstanding more than I needed to. The Path must be followed, but this, in this singular day when I'd paused the Path, this was one kill I could be proud of.

With Jack dead and Broadcast offline, I allowed the Path to reinstate itself.

I walked from room to room, quietly murdering every one of the Slaughterhouse. Crimson had long since reverted back to his base form and though he was a minor brute even now, that didn't stop me from jamming Sobriety up through his mouth and stirring it like a straw.. Breed's larvae gave me some trouble, but the insectoid creatures were organic and fell asleep all the same.

Winter and Screamer died without a sound, lacking brute packages to inconvenience me. Chuckles was only a brute in his torso, his head and legs having mover powers, as if Shards couldn't get bizarre enough. Manton, I found passed out in Ike's home office, an empty whiskey bottle lying on the ground.

I killed and killed until only Crawler and Hatchet Face were left. I then called on a set of Wrenchbots, robots made by Yusung to run his lab in his absence, and had them ferry the nullifier into an isolated holding chamber. Whatever name Riley chose in this timeline, I had no doubt she'd delight in the chance to study his particular shaker effect. A single fascinating research specimen couldn't make up for what I owed her, but perhaps it'd start as a "sorry."

Then, when I had nothing left to do, I returned to Riley's room and gave my colleagues the greenlight to clean up Crawler. He wasn't valuable enough to keep around, even if his adaptive regeneration was interesting.

By noon, Legend and Eidolon had leveled the area within eight city blocks, giving false indication of some grand battle that had not taken place.

The Slaughterhouse was no more.

X

2005, April 9: Phoenix, AZ, USA

It took a little less than three months before I felt comfortable bringing Riley to Sujeong. The Slug had gone over young Riley's memories with a fine-toothed comb, adjusting them to mute her trauma as best he could. She remembered the events following Jack's arrival, albeit as if in a thick, hazy dream.

It was about the least objectionable thing I'd done this year. A six year old shouldn't have to remember her entire family being tortured and murdered, even I could agree with that. Ameliorating the effects of her trigger was as best as I could do without changing her fundamentally, something I knew Yusung and his mother would have problems with.

I led Riley by the hand, through a Door and into Phoenix proper. The world's littlest tinker was now dressed in different shades of pastel blues, with a soft, green ribbon that framed and accented her doll-like face.

"Woah, it's hot, Miss Fortuna," she gasped as she walked out into the Phoenix sun. April was the middle of spring, but Phoenix didn't know anything about that. It was a toasty eighty-six degrees out, with not a cloud in sight.

"It is. Come along, Riley. Let's go meet your new mommy."

"Will… Will she like me?" she asked, a bundle of nerves now that she was outside the Kim family house.

That, was honestly a fair question.

Getting the adoption papers ready was a simple affair. It didn't even require anything illegal on my end. Behind the scenes, everyone could agree that a six year old girl who triggered from the Slaughterhouse deserved the best possible care. She deserved a guardian who would love her, cherish her, and nurture her abilities.

Lo and behold, there weren't many empty-nesters with experience raising a tinker, especially not a young, precocious tinker with an extremely versatile specialization that could put most heroes to shame. Funny, but the mother of the tinker who'd upended the medical industry when he was eight just so happened to have room in her house; what a coincidence.

With Sujeong, she would be loved, protected, and when Yusung came back, mentored. And, with Yusung's old team visiting on the regular, Riley wouldn't lack for strong and morally upright female role models. There really was no one better to care for Riley.

Getting Sujeong to accept Riley into her care however, that was a challenge. She didn't not want Riley per se. Rather, she clung to the foolish notion that she was somehow guilty for Yusung's state, that her actions or inactions had somehow led to him playing the world's most outrageous game of chicken against a fresh endbringer.

She didn't feel worthy of caring for anyone else.

I suppressed a sigh; RIley would interpret it as me being upset with her. It took a while but I finally coached Sujeong into accepting that things weren't her fault. Slowly, first with the music lessons, then by allowing myself to be talked into arranging get-togethers for the former Phoenix Wards. Healing the mind was the work of years, and in some ways the most challenging thing I'd done.

"She'll love you," I promised Riley with an earnest smile. I'd make sure of it.

'They'll be good for each other,' I thought as I led Riley up the steps. A girl who desperately needed love, needed to be told she didn't always need to be a "good girl." A mother who longed to care but found herself trapped in the memories of the past. They'd require work, constant oversight and nudging, both overt and subtle, but they could be good for each other.

Maybe they weren't the perfect puzzle pieces to slot together, but as always, Cauldron would have to work with what we had.

"Ready?" I asked Riley.

"Uh-huh. Ready."

Author's Note

This closes out Intermission. I suppose I could have glossed over Riley's trigger, but I wanted to challenge myself, both because it's so much darker than what I normally write and because Riley offers a unique perspective.

Writing from a six year old's perspective is hard. Children obviously don't have a big vocabulary. They also typically notice details but ascribe different meanings, get distracted, or hyper-fixate on things and seem repetitive. I hope I managed to convey that well enough.

I don't know where the Davis family is originally from, dunno if that was ever clarified by Wildbow. Doesn't actually matter so I picked a friend's hometown (Sorry, Kat).

I also took a guess at the list of S9 members. Shatterbird and Mannequin don't exist so I filled in the blanks with old members whose times of death are unclear in canon.

Riley actually triggered before her mom died. She used her power to keep her mom alive until her mom eventually gave up on life and told her, "Be a good girl." I forget if this caused her second trigger in canon, but it'd explain how overpowered she is.

Fortuna's comment about the Siberian is referring to 14.7, when Skitter, Legend, and others found Manton. Lisa posits in another scene that Manton's range is miles, but remains close by, possibly for better control and responsiveness from the projection. So no, despite a lot of fanon, the Siberian shouldn't exist without conscious input from Manton.

On another note, did Fortuna social-fu Sujeong into building a healthy home that is tangentially connected to Cauldron for the purpose of raising Riley in a child-friendly environment?

You can't prove anything.

The initial plan was to have Andy wake up and then immediately kill off the S9, but the more I thought about it, the less it appealed to me. Thoughts about that are complicated, but the gist is that I think either the S9 deserve a full villain arc, or they shouldn't even be in the story. Having them Contessa'd is my compromise in that sense.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.