Cassidy should have known something was wrong from the moment she left school and stepped into the backseat of the car her parents had sent. Not because the man behind the wheel wasn’t Jefferson, given she knew full well that he was going to be busy taking her father to meetings all day. No, her warning should have come when she noticed the driver chewing gum. Jefferson hated gum chewing inside any of the cars he was responsible for, and had made it clear to the other drivers that it wasn’t allowed. They could chew gum outside the car, but never inside. The moment she realized the man had a stick of Juicy Fruit in his mouth, she should have bailed out before the car could even pull away from the curb. But she was distracted.
That distraction would prove to be quite the mistake indeed. As she let the door close behind her and settled in for what should've been a simple drive home, the car pulled away smoothly. Unfortunately, the sound of the radio was swiftly overtaken by a rising hiss that made her first look to the window, expecting to see it slightly ajar, then toward the driver when that proved to be firmly shut. Only when faced with her own reflection in the closed dividing window did she finally notice the source of the loud hiss: a cloud of dark red smoke filling the passenger compartment.
Instantly, Cassidy raised a hand to paint the door so she could bail out. But then she hesitated. What was she doing? If she used paint now, whoever this person was, and whoever he was working with, would know she was Paintball. It would be the end of her secret identity, for good. She couldn’t expose herself that easily. There had to be another way to get out of this, another… another… her thoughts drifted, vision fading rapidly. The gas, the gas was… it was… oh no. She slumped to the side, making a soft noise of confusion as her consciousness was chased away.
By the time Cassidy woke up, she wasn’t in the car anymore. She had no idea how long she had been out, but the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was the moon through a distant window across what turned out to be a large warehouse, so it must have been hours, at least.
The second thing she saw after she opened her eyes was the reason she had woken up right then. Namely, the paw that had just poked her face. A paw that belonged to a scowling lynx perched very close to her. As soon as her gaze managed to focus on that enough to understand what she was actually looking at, the girl snapped awake with a gasp, jerking backward reflexively.
“Hey there, little princess,” the lynx spoke with clear amusement at her reaction. He bared his teeth in a way that made Cassidy want to lean as far away from him as possible. “Fancy meeting you here. What’s the matter, not the palace you’re accustomed to waking up in?”
No mask--no helmet--no, she wasn’t--this wasn’t a Paintball thing. Somehow, that threw Cassidy off so much more than simply waking up in front of this TONI lynx. Fogwalker. It had to be Fogwalker. She’d seen him once before, when the Trendscendants had attacked the park trying to get at Inessa. But this--this was different. She wasn’t in her costume, she wasn’t acting as Paintball. She was just Cassidy here. Sure, she had her powers, but if she used them, Fogwalker and the others--right, others. He wasn’t alone. She realized that belatedly, gaze shifting to take in her surroundings. The rest of the Trendies were scattered around her throughout the warehouse. Theory (he was the one who was out at the moment between himself and Praxis), Banneret, Juice, Devil's Due, and probably worst as far as she was concerned, Janus. The two-faced figure, who would have done their level best to break every bone in her body if they realized she was Paintball, were standing over near the same window she had seen the moon through.
Nor were only the Touched members of their gang here. This must have been one of their primary hideouts, because there were a dozen or so Prev troops scattered through the place as well. The whole warehouse was clearly locked down tight. Everywhere she looked, there was another Fell-Touched or several people with guns. And not a single one of them looked like they cared what happened to her. Actually, most of them weren’t really paying attention to her. They seemed to be very focused on their own things. Only Fogwalker, Banneret, and Theory were focused on their prisoner.
Okay, she could deal with this. She could get out of here. They kept her alive so far so they probably weren’t planning on killing her. There was no reason to wake her up if they just wanted her dead. And this wasn’t about her being Paintball. They didn’t know about that. No, they were obviously going to try to hold her hostage and get her family to pay some sort of ransom.
So, if they were keeping her alive for a ransom, she could get out of this. The second they left her in another room alone somewhere, or with just a single guard, she could deal with them and slip out without actually exposing her powers. She could make that work, right?
“You know who we are, kid?” That was Theory, the man stepping closer to crouch next to the lynx. When she gave a slow nod, he offered a smile. “Well, don’t worry, you’re gonna be fine. See, your parents are loaded. I’m sure you know that. Which means that they are going to pay an arm and a leg to get you back safe and sound.”
Banneret gave an easy nod, nudging Cassidy with a foot. “Yeah, we just have to motivate them to understand that we mean business. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Not a scratch on your pretty little head.”
Great, so far things were working out. Well, not really. She’d been kidnapped by a gang of Fell-Touched and now they wanted to threaten her to force her parents to pay up. But that was okay. They didn’t know what she was. They thought she was just some helpless little kid. All she had to do was keep playing along, wait for the right opening, and then slip out before--
“Yeah!” Both mouths of Janus blurted from their spot by the window. Uncle Friendly continued, his face turning to face her as they came closer. “Just one thing first. We’ll have to prove how serious we are.” One of their massive hands reached out toward her face, only to stop short as both of them laughed. The face on the other side of their head, Mister Harmful, snickered a bit more before snapping, “Did we scare ya, kid? Don’t worry, you’re not the one we’re making an example out of.”
With that, Uncle Friendly whistled. Before Cassidy could process what was happening, someone else was dragged over by a couple of the Prevs. A rather familiar someone.
“Cassidy!?” San Francisco blurted, head shaking. “What--what do these guys want? What do you people want!? I told you, my parents will pay whatever ransom--”
“Shhhh.” One of Janus’s big hands moved to silence the boy, touching his mouth. “Sorry, kid, you’re not here as the hostage. We have to make sure this one’s parents take us seriously. You’re nothing more than collateral damage. And when the kid tells her folks what happened, when she’s stammering and crying on the phone, we really need it to be realistic.”
They weren’t even looking at San’s reaction, weren’t taking in the fear there, the desperation, the panic. None of them were. They didn’t care about San at all. They were all looking at Cassidy. They wanted her to be afraid. They wanted her to be terrified. They were going to kill--kill San right in front of her, just to motivate her to beg her parents to get her out of there, to pay these people anything they wanted.
The boy was stammering, pleading, desperately begging them to let him go. But Janus moved one hand onto the boy’s head, squeezing while staring right at her. He was going to make her watch while he twisted San’s head and broke his neck right there. Not because they hated him, but because he was just… there. He was a tool for them to use.
San Francisco didn’t matter to them.
But he mattered to her.
Just as San screamed, just as that giant hand started to twist, Cassidy made the only choice she could. She did what she had to do.
Her arm rose. A shot of red paint shot from her palm, hitting that giant hand even as a quick adjustment sent another shot at the nearby floor. At the same time, green-blue paint appeared under her feet as she launched herself up and forward. Orange dots appeared on her shirt. Janus’s massive arm was yanked out of the way, leaving San’s head as both conjoined men gave twin yelps of surprise. As Cassidy was launched forward and up by the paint, she inverted, extending her leg while shooting two more bits of red past the men to hit the far wall. Activating the matching paint on her body, she felt herself be yanked that way even faster, the combined pull from the red paint and push from green-blue rocketing her that way. Her foot collided with Uncle Friendly’s face hard enough to knock them over. They hit the floor hard, with Cassidy landing on top of them.
Everything froze like that, going completely still and silent. The shock from everyone in the room was practically a tangible thing.
“Well,” Cassidy managed in a voice that cracked from nerves and emotions, “you gotta admit one thing.
“You guys just make the worst kidnapping choices.”
*******
These Trendscendants were going to die. Each and every one of them, new and old alike, were going to suffer in every conceivable way. None of them were leaving this warehouse. Sterling and Elena were going to make sure of that. The two of them, along with Minister Gray (Fisher was out), Simon (as Squire), Kent, his wife Mills, and Alcazar were together. Plan Z had already found the place, tracking the soon-to-be dead bastards down. She was in there now, ready to step in the second it looked these fucks might do something even more stupid than they already had. Sterling was suited up as Silversmith, his wife and the others all under various illusions to disguise their identities.
Not that it mattered. They took Cassidy. They abducted Sterling’s child. He didn’t care what else happened, what their excuses were. He didn’t care if they didn’t actually plan on hurting her at all. They were all going to die. A point had to be made, a line drawn.
They would make an example out of these people that wouldn’t be forgotten for decades.
A warning came from Z then. They needed to get in there right now. The stupid bastards were going to kill innocent child, one of Cassidy's classmates, just to prove a point. Or they were going to try to. They wouldn't let them get that far. She was warning Sterling and the others that she was about to make herself known. Which meant if they wanted to be involved in this, they needed to get in that building immediately.
She should have said something else. Sterling expected her to report that the first target was down, that the boy was safe. But there was nothing. Z had gone completely silent. And it wasn't because she didn't want to give herself away. She had an implanted bit of tech that allowed her to subvocalize, speaking without making any sound where she was, which would nonetheless translate into audible words for Sterling and the others. She could report without making any noise. But she wasn't saying anything. For some reason, a reason Sterling was pretty sure he wouldn't like, she had gone completely silent.
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Then they reached the open garage doors leading into the warehouse, and he saw why. They all saw why. At the same time, Sterling felt the familiar tickle of his wife’s illusion falling over him. She wasn’t changing his appearance. No, she was making him, all of them, invisible. All so they could stand there, right in that large doorway, staring at what was happening inside.
Janus was on their back--well they didn’t really have a back. They were lying down, with Cassidy… Cassidy was perched on top of them. She was just standing there, one foot planted on Uncle Friendly’s chest and the other on his face. Everyone in the room looked shocked for some… some reason. What was going on? Sterling had thought that seeing his daughter with these people would leave him blind with rage, but somehow all he could do right then was stand there, trying to process what he was seeing. How could Cassidy have knocked Janus down?
In a corner of the wide-open warehouse room, Devil’s Due opened his mouth. But before he could say anything, before he could put his persuasion power into play, Cassidy had already turned. Her hand went up. At first, Sterling thought she was about to throw something at him, or just point that way for some reason. But no. No, what she did was far more shocking than that. As she brought her hand up, a very familiar tiny blob-like ball of paint, black in this case, appeared hovering in her palm. Then a shot of that black paint flew across the warehouse and smacked into the man’s forehead. He reeled backward from the impact, while Sterling felt himself reel just as much.
Paint. Cassidy hit the man with a shot of black paint. They didn’t even have to look closer to see that Devil’s Due was trying to talk without any sound coming out. The paint had left him mute.
“Sorry,” Cassidy was saying, “but I really think we’re all dealing with a very emotional moment right now and don’t really need you throwing in your two cents. How about--” Janus had recovered enough to try to grab her then, but she was already using blue paint to bounce off their fallen, prone form. “--we just let you have some--” She flipped over in the air, his Cassidy just flipping upside down after launching herself fifteen feet up, and sent two quick shots of red paint flying. “-- quiet time!” The twin red blobs struck two of the armed troops who had been recovering enough to start grabbing for the weapons resting nearby. They were yanked toward one another and away from those weapons, colliding heavily before both fell to the floor together.
The kid, San Francisco, was there too. He was just standing there, open-mouthed while a sound of bewilderment escaped him. In that moment, Cassidy had landed on a nearby table, flipping over once more in the process to come down in a crouched position. As the boy gaped at her, she shot red paint into his chest, hitting the ceiling with another shot. Immediately, he was yanked upward and sent flying there, where he stayed out of the line of fire.
By that point, Fogwalker, the TONI lynx, had scrambled around and started to lunge up into the air while his thick, blinding fog began to spread from his form. It would fill the room up quickly, remaining transparent for his allies but turning dark and impossible to see through for Cassidy, as well as Sterling and the others. But before the fog could spread more than a couple feet out from the figure, he was caught in mid-leap by three shots of paint in rapid succession. The first two were a combination pink-blue, while the third was red.
Just before Fogwalker would have collided with her, she clearly activated that paint. The red yanked the TONI across the room to hit the far wall where a matching spot had been hit. The moment he collided with that, however, the pink-blue paint must have kicked in. Because he was instantly catapulted in the opposite direction. A strangled, startled cat-yowl filled the room as Fogwalker went careening across the room like he had been shot out of a cannon. With a loud crash of breaking glass, he flew through the window and out into the darkness. His dark cloud went with, clearing the room.
By that point, Banneret had recovered enough from her surprise to make what looked like half a dozen guns float into the air and spin around to point that way. Seeing all those weapons pointed at his daughter as she crouched on that table would absolutely have been enough to snap Sterling out of his own shock enough to intervene. But Cassidy was already ahead of him on that. She was ahead of all of them, largely thanks to how surprised they were. Ministry and Trendscendants alike were still too surprised to actually react properly. In a fight like this, being caught flat-footed for even a mere few seconds could decide the entire course of it. The Trends were trying to recover enough to fight back. And in a fair fight, they absolutely would have been far too much for Cassidy to handle, even if she was… even if she was… was… who she was. In a fair fight, she would have been overwhelmed quickly. But this wasn’t fair. The Trends had thought they were guarding a helpless little girl who couldn’t fight back at all, not… not… this.
Even as those guns hovered in the air and turned to face Sterling’s daughter, she was already acting by sending a wide spray of red paint from one hand and blue paint from the other. The colors mixed as they hit the assortment of hovering weapons and instantly yanked them all out of Banneret’s control and sent them slamming straight to the floor with a loud clattering sound.
By that point, Cassidy was flipping backward off the table she had landed on, even as Theory was hit by a shot of red paint. Which was apparently matched by one on the table itself, given the way it abruptly flew over there to slam right into the man. He was knocked backward with a cry, the impact distracting him enough that he couldn’t focus properly to give Praxis a new power and switch out. That distraction was added to a second later as Cassidy hit the bottom of the table with another shot of red and used that to yank herself that way, flipping over in the air so her feet collided with the table to knock the man all the way into the wall. He collided hard with it and slumped with a wheezing cry even as she rebounded backwards off the table she’d hit him with.
Banneret, by that point, had recovered from her controlled weapons being yanked to the floor, and instead focused on a collection of knives, making those hover up and take aim at Cassidy, at Sterling’s daughter. Just before she could send them flying that way, however, Sterling flicked a finger in her direction. A small silver ball appeared just long enough to collide with the woman’s head. She pitched over sideways and collapsed, the knives clattering to the floor around her. Cassidy never saw it happen, distracted as she was by other things in that particular moment.
Namely, Juice. The big man had been taking all that in over the past few seconds (had all of this really only taken a few seconds?) and finally acted, sending a blast of electricity ahead of Cassidy that clearly wasn’t meant to actually hit her. Instead, it was intended to make her recoil and dodge backward, right into the space Juice was lunging toward so he could grab hold of her.
Sterling would have intervened again, but Cassidy--his daughter, his little girl, was too smart for that trick. She did dodge backward away from the incoming electricity, but she flipped up and back, out of Juice’s reach (probably with help from blue paint to get higher) before coming down on his back. Wait, no, she didn’t simply land on his back. She actually used red-blue paint on her own body to yank herself straight down into him. Along with, Sterling was pretty sure, green for a speed boost so she landed on him with even more force. It was enough to make the man fall to one knee with a grunt. Which was made worse for him by the fact that just before he landed, Cassidy painted the floor right in front of him with a shot of black from one hand and pink from the other. The two mixed, turning that part of the floor liquid. Juice’s hands went through it when he tried to catch himself on them, then his arms followed. His face smacked into a part of the cement floor that was still solid, and before he could pick himself up, Cassidy obviously cancelled the paint effect. Suddenly, the man was lying on his stomach with his arms buried in solid concrete. He was strong enough to break free, eventually, but it would take a minute. A minute where he was out of action and unable to shoot electricity anywhere. And in a situation like this, the entire fight could be over by then.
It would’ve already been over if Sterling and the others stepped in, but they were still standing there, watching all this happen. Aside from that one bit of intervention to put Banneret down, Sterling just… stared. As did everyone else in their group.
Well, almost everyone. Several of the Trendies’ Prev members almost intervened now and then through all that, but every time one of them moved like they were going to jump in or try to attack Cassidy, they would collapse. Z’s work, obviously. She was very good at her job.
As was Cassidy herself. She remembered San Francisco, hitting the boy and the ceiling with another shot of red just before he would have started to fall. So instead of falling, he was simply yanked around and left staring downward rather than up. She did that. She shot that paint. She was the one jumping around like this, doing all this. Cassidy. Sterling’s daughter. His little girl. She was--this was… all of this, what she was doing, it was all… she was actually… the whole time, she had always been…Oh.
Devil’s Due recovered from the black paint at that moment. But just as he started to say something again, Cassidy hit him with another shot to silence the man once, much to his obvious frustration.
And speaking of frustration, both halves of Janus were bellowing with plenty of that as they heaved themself off the floor. Apparently their anger had finally overcome their surprise. One of their arms enlarged and extended out all the way across the room, the hand growing large enough to completely dwarf Cassidy so they could slam her into the wall like swatting a fly. Except right before the giant hand struck her, Cassidy’s entire body turned a mix of blue-orange. The hand struck her, knocking the girl into the wall. But she wasn’t that hurt by it. Oh she did yelp, and that in and of itself made Sterling want to turn Janus inside out. But the men themselves were the one who took the brunt of what they had tried to dish out. Apparently that combination of paint reflected damage, because they reacted as though they had been struck by their own blow, staggering backward and stumbling.
That stumbling would prove their undoing, because Cassidy had already dropped to the ground, sending a wide spray of blue paint from one hand and red paint from the other. Those two mixed together as they hit the floor around not just Janus, but an assortment of their Prev troops as well. The Prevs were trying to rush toward Cassidy, even as Janus stumbled backward away from her. Regardless of which way they were moving, the blue-red paint mix made the floor slippery enough that all of them went down, careening across the warehouse in every direction.
Unfortunately for Cassidy herself, that was apparently the end of her paint reserves. Even as she landed, the girl started to point her hand toward the next threat, only to freeze as nothing came out. Sterling could see the sudden uncertainty and fear cross his daughter’s face as she reevaluated, briefly looking for a place to dive for cover.
That was enough. Shocked as he was by all this, Sterling wasn’t going to just stand there anymore. And neither were his wife or any of the others. Elena released the invisibility (it wasn’t something she could hold for long when people were moving), and suddenly what little was left of the Trendscendants’ forces weren’t just facing one little girl with paint powers anymore. They were facing the Ministry, and they didn’t last long against that. Even San was rescued, as Sterling sent a silver disc up to catch the boy when the paint wore off and brought him back
Soon, they were all disarmed, contained, and secured properly. The only reason they weren’t executed on the spot was because Sterling wasn’t going to do that right in front of his daughter and boy.
Of course, that made it Cassidy’s turn to stand there, frozen in place as she gaped at them dealing with all that. Most of them were dealing with it, anyway. Elena ignored everything and everyone else, going straight to their daughter to pull her into an embrace.
Sterling was there too. Leaving the others to handle things, he knelt in front of Cassidy, hugging her right alongside his wife. All three of them were there, joined shortly by Simon as well. Cassidy seemed fearful at first, but couldn’t help herself. When she was embraced by her parents, she leaned into it with a quiet, but audible, “Mom, Dad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mom. I--Dad, please…”
Then the embrace ended, leaving Cassidy… Paintball, she was Paintball. She had always been Paintball. She stood there, panting, trembling, staring at Sterling, Elena, and Simon. Others carried on in the background. They were there. They had all seen Cassidy use her powers. They all knew who she was. Because she was… she was Paintball. Oh God, she was really Paintball. He was her. She was him. She was… she was…
“Holy shit.” It was San Francisco, his voice cutting through the confused, shocked silence that had settled in the air between all of them. His head snapped back and forth, staring at Cassidy, then Sterling in his Silversmith armor as though registering that she had called him ‘Dad’, then back again before repeating, “Holy shit. I… umm… oh.
“You guys are totally about to Men In Black memory flasher thingie me aren’t you?”