Scene 27 - October 22nd

Exterior City, Continuous

Abraham Armstrong

The aftermath of the battle, of course, took a lot longer.

First there were statements to give to the police officers who arrived a few minutes later - the response time in this Buff Boy-controlled part of town was horrendous. Then we had to wait even longer for a group of MLED agents to arrive with a containment truck to transport Legion back to the Compound. Then it turned out that the truck wasn’t quite large enough to fit all of her, so Vulcan had to use himself as a plasma torch to cut some of her frozen branches and tendrils off until she fit. Then I had to give an official statement to a journalist from the NVT[1] who had showed up. Then it was slowly making our own way back, Vulcan holding in his arms as Emilia fretted. Somewhere in there an EMT had given me a brace to help me manage until I could get back to the more advanced facilities at the Compound.

The work didn’t end there, of course. There was a more extensive debrief with Director Shepard - or actually, at this time of night, Deputy Director Blackmire. There was my personal policy of holding a debrief with the other combatants to determine what we did well and what we could have done better. There was Dr. Rogers fussing over my knee when I got back. There was Miriam fussing over my knee when he was done, and then magically donating some of her life force to heal me, even though she wasn’t supposed to have been in tonight. There was Rogers fussing over my knee again because he had never trusted magic. There was the paperwork to fill out with the PR department because I had talked to the press. There was double-checking all the paperwork that Zookeeper and Vulcan had filled out, and the one-on-one debrief with Blackmire about how the team had handled itself during the combat...

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I liked being a hero. It was what I had always dreamed of being, and I liked almost everything about it. I liked being a role model, I liked making people feel safe, I liked helping people. I liked fighting bad guys, and I liked bantering with the ones who engaged in banter. But I had never planned to become a team leader, and the vastly increased responsibilities I had as the leader weren’t something I liked. They were important, yes, so I did them, but I wasn’t happy about it.

Eventually, however, all the paperwork was finished, and I could finally rest. I woke up Emilia, who had been dozing in the common room while she waited for me, and we went home.

[1] The New Venice Times.