Chapter Text
Adrian would never admit it, but it took awhile to actually find the right tunnels. The subway was massive and sprawling, and though some tunnels were collapsed, there were many more that were completely clear.
In the end, what led him in the right direction was the shaking that he could easily pin as Aftershock’s earthquakes. Then, as he got closer, the cracks in the ground showed him the way. This seemed - unnecessary, to destroy these people’s homes. They were awful people, but the Renegades were no better if they ruined without reason.
Finally, he was close enough to hear voices - sounded like Frostbite. God, she was annoying - oops, what was she saying? He shook his head and concentrated. “At the parade today, and… -rest you, but we’ll be a bit… it. Or do nothing. What do… kill you first? The… or the suffocation? I’d… the latter, myself.” Her voice was too warped and quiet to make out sometimes, but what he’d heard… was she threatening to kill one of the Anarchists? By… suffocation?
He felt sick.
This couldn’t go on - he had to make his entrance.
Adrian clenched his hands into fists and gritted his teeth, letting the flames loose into reality. They felt wild and hot, but nothing could burn him through this armor. He let the fire dissolve the ice stretching between Frostbite and who he could now see was the Detonator. Holy shit, she was actually going to kill her.
The other Anarchists lay on the ground uncomfortably, no doubt from Stingray’s venom. Aftershock stood to the side, and Gargoyle was -
Gargoyle was standing over a pile of what looked like crushed beehives, maybe. Adrian had only seen pictures of beehives, but it made sense; there was that one Anarchist that could mind control bees (and maybe wasps too?). Queen Bee.
But that wasn’t - that wasn’t the worst of it. Gargoyle was holding what looked like a kid, upside down and swinging slightly side to side. The kid’s face was red and they were trying to free their feet from the stony grasp, but their hands scrabbled uselessly on unforgiving rock.
The Detonator was staring at him, and after a second, so was the kid. “Oh my god, please make him fucking put me down , I’m not an Anarchist! I - I just come here for food every once in a while, sometimes Honey lets me borrow a dress!”
Before Adrian could say anything, Gargoyle gave them another shake. Even from here, Adrian could hear the whimper they let out. “You attacked Ray. I can’t just let you walk out of here, can I?” He smiled nastily.
“It was self defense! A - a reflex! I didn’t mean to! Jesus, let go, you’re going to rip my fucking pants!” They sounded both desperate and irritated as they leaned up again to pull uselessly at Gargoyle’s fingers.
“He’s telling the truth, you know.” Adrian startled slightly and turned to the Detonator, who despite her predicament seemed calm. “He’s not an Anarchist, and he doesn’t have great control over his powers.”
Adrian wouldn’t have needed convincing but… they had attacked a Renegade, and Frostbite’s team was vicious. They wouldn’t let the kid say it was self defense. “If he attacked a Renegade...”
Detonator gave him a sharp smile. “Saving the day, huh? The world will be so much safer with Four out of the way. A real threat, that one.” Four of who? What?
“These people might be criminals, but I don’t think the council would approve of this… treatment, do you?”
At this, unease flickered across Frostbite’s face. “You’re not a Renegade, no matter what your little outfit says. You can’t say anything to the Council.”
Adrian smiled sharply, even if they couldn’t see it. “Can’t I?”
Her face smoothed back into cruel confidence. “No, you can’t. I saw what they said on the news, the Sentinel isn’t one of us.”
Damn, that was fast. One day and I’m already an enemy. “Or maybe you’re just too low on the pay grade to know everything the Council is working on.”
This time, the nervousness stayed on her face. “They’d say - something.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow, then realized they couldn’t actually see that. “Do you know them just so well, Frostbite? You know nothing about my orders, but I know yours: find out whether any other Anarchists were involved in the Puppeteer’s attack, and to find out if they’re connected to Nightmare. Doesn’t seem like you’ve learned much at all.”
He leaped up onto the platform that held Frostbite and the Detonator. The feeling of soaring through the air thanks to the springs on his feet was still exhilarating - and a little scary. The rest of Frostbite’s team stepped into defensive positions, which both hurt and exhilarated him.
“Release the Detonator, and you’re free to go.” He glanced at Gargoyle, still holding the panicked kid upside down - his face was getting red, that couldn’t be good. “You can take your little prisoner, but try not to kill him by holding him like that too long. I’m taking over this investigation.”
Frostbite bared her teeth and shoved an icy dagger into the ground. “If the Council really wanted to have you take over, I think they’d tell us.”
Oh, shit, uh… “They did. Didn’t you get the message? Or is the reception that bad? Too bad, you could’ve saved yourself this… embarrassment. If you go now, and leave me alone, I won’t tell your superiors about this breach of code.”
Frostbite glanced at him with venom in her eyes, before turning to go and gesturing to the rest of her team to go. “Whatever. Not like you’ll learn anything more than us.”
“Release the Detonator.” God, the nerve of some people…
“Release her yourself,” Frostbite said snarkily. Adrian kind of wanted to shove her, she was so goddamn annoying.
“Hey, don’t, just leave me here - ow, fuck, I’m fragile, be careful - or drop me off anywhere! I’m not an Anarchist - I read fortunes in the alley by the lightbulb place, ask anyone! ” Adrian felt a pang of guilt leaving the kid in their hands, but there wasn’t really anything he could do - and they had attacked a Renegade.
It was more important that he get information about Nightmare. She’d - she’d tried to kill his dad, and maybe knew something about his mom’s death. He had to find her.
Eventually, the sounds of Frostbite’s team, mostly Aftershock’s loud steps and the kid’s complaints that they were precious cargo, be careful, dumbass, faded out and he freed the Detonator and began to question the Anarchists.
He’d check on the kid when he got back to HQ. It’d be fine.
***
He hadn’t learned anything. The damn Anarchists hadn’t said anything helpful at all. He was sure, totally sure, that Nightmare was one of them, but they pretended she wasn’t.
He headed to the infirmary, wanting to visit Danna again. Adrian felt horribly guilty over what had happened to her, and after the trainwreck of an interrogation it would be nice to see his friends.
As he expected, Ruby and Oscar were already there, but it was unexpected how they both scrambled to meet him.
“Aw, missed me, didn’t you?” Adrian said teasingly.
“Oh, did I ever,” Oscar said, wiggling his eyebrows. Ruby hit his arm playfully, and he stuck out his tongue at her.
“Actually, we wanted to ask if you could, uh, ask your dads if it’s okay if we talk to one of the prisoners,” Ruby said a little nervously.
“What? Why?” This was not - something he’d expected at all, why did they want to see prisoners?
“Uh, so, okay, do you remember when we told you about the time we fought Nightmare and she grabbed that kid? And then we couldn’t find them, and we thought they were probably dead?”
“Yeah, uh, but what does that have to do with anything? Wasn’t that, like, 6 or 7 months ago?” That had been a real sore spot for them, and usually they wouldn’t bring it up.
“Yeah, but today, after the raid on the Anarchist’s hideout - which, apparently, the Sentinel ruined, Frostbite was furious - Gargoyle brought in this kid, and it was the kid!” Ruby said, wildly gesturing with her hands.
Oh, shit. “A kid? How dangerous could they be?” Also, shit, have I been using the wrong pronouns this whole time? I need to be more careful, goddamn. Poor kid. Well, but the Detonator called the kid he. And she probably knows better. I’ll just - check when we talk to them.
“I don’t think they are, I think that Frostbite’s team are just bullies.”
Fair enough. “Yeah, let’s go talk to my dads. If we explain, they’ll totally let us talk to them.” He sent a quick message to them, asking to meet in the lounge. “We can go wait in the lounge, play some games until they get there.”
Ruby and Oscar agreed and followed him up to the lounge, immediately going off to play their favourite game. Some things never change, apparently. It was strangely comforting to Adrian. He sketched them while they all waited, trying to capture their movement and laughter in a still image.
Eventually, though he wasn’t sure quite how long it had been, he got a message from Simon.
on our way xoxo
“Hey! Ruby, Oscar, they’re gonna be here in a minute, finish up your game and come over here.” Oscar threw up a hand in acknowledgement before going back to the game. After a couple minutes, Adrian could hear his loud yelp of victory. He grabbed his cane and walked smugly back to the couch, Ruby trailing behind slightly.
“D’you really think they’re gonna let us talk to the kid?” Ruby asked, twisting some of her black-and-white hair nervously.
Adrian swallowed. He kept feeling guilty for letting the kid get caught, but it wasn’t really his fault, right? If he hadn’t come, it would’ve been worse. So really, he’d helped. It didn’t make him feel any better thinking that. “Yeah, probably. I mean, we can explain why and stuff, plus they’re pretty young right? So they probably aren’t going to be staying in the… uh, jail thing.” He never was sure what to refer to the cells as; people called them a lot of different things.
“Fair enough,” she replied, sounding a bit more sure now.
“Uh, we might have to wait til tomorrow, though? It’s the middle of the night, guys,” Oscar said, pointing out the massive wall-to-wall windows where all that was visible was a black void.
“Ah,” Adrian said, eloquently.
Oscar snorted a little laugh, and Ruby did the same a couple seconds later. “Yeah. Did you forget that?”
Adrian didn’t say anything, but he could feel his face heating up. Luckily, it was at that moment that his dads came in - the room got instantly quiet before going back to the low buzz it was before.
“Adrian! Hey! What’d you want to talk about?” Simon said when he reached them, bouncing on his heels energetically. Hugh watched with a soft smile on his face.
They aren’t gonna like this.
“Uh, I’ll let Ruby explain.”
And so he heard the whole disastrous tale from the beginning. How they’d almost caught Nightmare, how a portal had opened above them and a child had tumbled out and Nightmare had grabbed them.
How she hadn’t let them go, stumbling off with the child held tight to her chest, and a knife to their throat.
How they hadn’t seen the kid again, and thought they were dead - until tonight, when they were brought in from a raid on the Anarchist base.
“What did the kid look like?” Simon said. His normally open face was blank, which made Adrian more nervous than he would feel if Simon looked angry, or sad, or disappointed or anything else.
“Um, they were kind of tall, pretty skinny, I think, brown, curly hair? Wearing some weird clothes, too, they looked way too big. Kind of, I don’t know, sassy?” Ruby said nervously.
“Fuck. Fuck! Hugh, that’s - I think that’s the fortune reader kid!” Simon said, horror dawning on his face. He was flickering in and out of visibility, which Adrian had only seen happen a couple times - usually when someone died, or something else really horrible happened.
“I’m not an Anarchist - I read fortunes in the alley by the lightbulb place, ask anyone!”
Adrian felt sick (apparently, that was a theme for tonight; if only he hadn’t made so many mistakes...). He’d heard of the kid - the kid who’d saved lives, relationships, and found a thousand lost things. They were whispered about among the Renegades, the few who’d seen them, at least.
Always told as having messy, curly brown hair - colorful, bizarre clothes - talking to thin air (or maybe, someone the rest of them just couldn’t see) - haunted, shadowed eyes with dark circles underneath - saying something too knowing to be coincidence, and something that would come true. Cards resting on the top of his box, strange illustrations and words that twisted in a language no one knew, and comparing notes some had discovered that the people on the cards were the same from person to person (Adrian didn’t know of any except for a light- and curly-haired man, who most often was shown with someone else and with a terrible wound, but apparently there were 10 or more repeating, mysterious figures). A number for a name. Four.
“The world will be so much safer with Four out of the way.”
He’d let the fortune-teller kid be captured by the worst, the cruelest of the Renegade teams. He had stood there as a child fought to escape, as Gargoyle shook them and laughed at their fear. Even - even if it weren’t someone he knew of, he’d let that happen. What kind of Renegade was he?
Simon whirled around and sprinted out, Hugh saying a rushed, “Come on, follow us!” before following him. Adrian glanced at Oscar and Ruby, the first looking bewildered and the second determined, and ran after his dads. He could hear his teammates following behind.
They skipped the elevator and instead ran down the stairs, taking them 3 at a time - except Oscar, whose bones wouldn’t be able to handle that, and he instead found an empty elevator to head down on.
When they’d gone down a few floors, Adrian and Ruby reached the door to the cells area. In the past he’d never seen the door open, but it was open now, wide and dark and ominous. Two Renegades stood outside, keeping watch. Hugh and Simon must already be inside.
The cells were on three middle floors, and the massive windows and old walls had all been replaced with thick concrete and which created a smaller floor than the others, but it was basically impenetrable.
Adrian had never seen this area before, so he took a moment to look at the cells at the front that were empty, light flowing into them from the open door.
Each individual cell was pretty decently sized, somewhere around 15 by 40 feet if Adrian was guessing right, each one with a bolted-down bed, a chair, a small and also bolted-down table, and a small rug. The doors were thick metal with a grate that was big enough to see through, but not big enough to fit anything larger than a finger through each hole.
It was night, so the only light was from dim red bulbs set every 50ish feet which created pockets of darkness in between.
At first, it was easy to follow his dads - he could hear their footsteps ahead. Once they’d gone a level down, though, that became impossible.
As Adrian jogged through the halls, Ruby a few steps behind, the prisoners yelled at them - some asking to be freed, some threatening, and some asking for a book or another item. The noise was deafening and they were now going essentially blindly into the darkness - no footsteps to follow and barely any light.
After a while Adrian stopped and turned to Ruby - this wasn’t going to work.
“We should wait here and Hugh will come get us when they find him.”
Ruby bent over, hands on her knees, panting, but nodded agreement. Adrian slid down against the wall and sat down, resting his head on the cool concrete. It’d been awhile since either of them had run like this, and Adrian could feel the consequences of not keeping up with running training after he passed the yearly health exam.
After the stone had leached away his extra heat, he found that it was very cold - especially when his skin was still slightly damp with sweat. Ruby was shivering too, and he looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes and sat down next to him, close enough that their shoulders were touching, the two of them sharing the barest bit of warmth in the cold red light as voices screamed all around them.
***
Oscar came at some point, silently sitting next to Ruby and putting an arm around her shoulder with a little eyebrow wiggle. Adrian wasn’t sure how long they sat there. It was hard to judge time here; he couldn’t imagine having to spend a life sentence but at least the prisoners had clocks. Hopefully, they were allowed outside sometimes. He’d never thought about the people here before, and how their lives must be. He’d ask if they could give some books to the better-behaved prisoners after this was over.
Hugh came, gesturing for them to follow him - if he’d tried to talk, they wouldn’t have heard him. He looked more serious than Adrian usually saw him anywhere but on TV.
The halls seemed endless and the light made him dizzy, the unknown voices around him setting him off-balance too. Finally, they made it to a quieter hall, the only sound being the echoes of the distant yelling and their own footsteps. Simon was pacing agitatedly outside of a door, but he had at least waited for them.
“He’s in here, I think. That’s what the card says, anyways. I can’t see him in there. We need to open the door,” Simon said, his voice anxious.
“Ok, but we need to be careful, alright? I’ll go in first, just in case,” Hugh said gently. He pressed a hand to some sort of sensor on the side of the door before unlocking three locks on the door with actual keys. The door swung inwards. Hugh stepped in.
“He’s in here, alright.” His voice sounded - strange.
Adrian followed him into the room, the rest following close behind.
There, in the corner, under the rug. It didn’t cover them fully, but from what he could see of their head it was definitely the same kid. They were curled tightly, on their side, hands over their ears and pulling at their dirty, curly brown hair. Simon crouched down next to them.
“Hey, kiddo.” His voice was soft as he spoke to them. “It’s okay. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
They didn’t so much as twitch. Simon gently reached down to lift up the rug a little, maybe they were sleeping?
That proved to be a mistake.
Four let out a panicked whine and scrambled out from under the rug and away from Simon’s hands. They seemed to spot the open door in the same moment that Adrian realized that no one was blocking it and they bolted out faster than anyone could stop them.
The rest of them rushed out of the room, skidding on the slippery-smooth concrete.
“Hey! HEY! Four! Come back!” Simon yelped desperately, already setting off after them.
There was the sound of shattering glass, and the hallway went dark, every dull red light bulb broken in an instant.
Suddenly, Adrian understood why Four was a threat.
Emergency lights flicked on just a moment afterward, bright white light that had Adrian blind for a good couple seconds. When he blinked the spots out of his vision, it seemed that the same had happened to the rest of the group - each standing where they had been except Simon, who must have still been running and slipped on the broken glass.
He sat up with a hiss, Hugh immediately crouching next to him. “Oh, Simon, your hands are all cut up.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s alright. We need to find Four before he does any more damage,” Simon said with a wince, looking mournfully at his slightly-bleeding palms.
Hugh seemed to consider something for a moment before turning to Adrian, Ruby and Oscar. “You guys go find him. I’ll help Simon. He’ll probably be less scared if it’s you guys since you’re still kids.”
Adrian wanted to say that he wasn’t a kid anymore, but now really wasn’t the time. He just nodded and set off down the long corridor, going slowly over the patches of glass so that he didn’t slip. Oscar and Ruby followed behind, walking instead of jogging.
At the end of the hall Adrian saw the first footprint.
Still-wet blood showed the vague shape of a small, bare foot. They must’ve run through the glass.
It was awful to imagine, so Adrian tried not to think about it and instead focused on following the patchy trail until he could find Four and help fix their cuts.
There weren’t many places to hide here, unless you had some really powerful telekinesis. Unless you could pull the doors from their hinges easily.
Before now, the only prodigy powerful enough to do such a thing had been Ace Anarchy himself, but if the screeching of metal up ahead was anything to go by that wasn’t true anymore. This floor was empty, at least, the only full level being the middle for some reason.
As he rounded a corner, he found that the whole hallway had been decimated - rock from the walls littered the ground in chunks that came up past Adrian’s knees and doors thrown aside and bent as if a bomb had gone off behind them.
Four was nowhere in sight and the emergency lightbulbs here were shattered, leaving the end of the hall in deep darkness.
Adrian had just begun to climb carefully over the rocks and towards the back of the corridor when a strange, blue light washed over the ground around him. Turning around, he saw a boy waving his hands to get Adrian’s attention. He was definitely the source of the light as his whole body glowed blue.
He was wearing some kind of jacket and looked pretty young. “Hey! Hey! My sibling’s down there and they’re going to kill him if you can’t help him!” Panic lit up his eyes and his features as he talked.
“Is your sibling Four? Who’s going to kill them? Where are they? I can’t see with no light and all the rooms are dark.”
The boy grumbled something under his breath and started off over the rocks with surprising ease. Who was this guy?
Adrian followed him. What other choice did he have?
The only light as they got farther back was the boy’s faint glow, barely reaching Adrian a few feet behind.
Finally, finally, the boy stopped and pointed into a room that, now that Adrian looked, was giving off a similar light. He stepped inside.
At first Adrian couldn’t even see Four. Figures packed tightly together around - something, each one talking or crying or screaming. The noise was awful and for some reason couldn’t be heard outside the room.
“Four! Four! Where are you?!” Adrian yelled, trying to be heard over the clamor. When he stopped, he realized that many of the strange people were also saying Four’s name.
They must be in the middle of the crowd.
These were the ones that would kill Four if he couldn’t save them.
Adrian quickly pulled up his sleeves and let out a burst of fire, which when it touched one of the monsters seemed to make it dissolve into blue dust for a moment.
With a path cleared, he could see Four.
The kid was curled up, arms covering their face, looking impossibly small for someone so tall. Scratches littered their pale skin, apparently from the vicious spectres standing around them. On the other side where Adrian hadn’t dissolved them, more continued to attack.
It was - it was awful.
This is your fault. You could’ve saved them.
No. It was Frostbite’s team’s fault, and he would save them now.
Adrian stood over the still child and let his flames loose all around. When all the monsters were gone, he dropped down and carefully tried to drape his own jacket over them - their clothes were shredded, barely holding together and stained with blood.
When the cloth hit them, they whimpered. “Please… please stop…” they said quietly, but their voice sounded hopeless and their voice broke.
Adrian felt like he was going to pass out. This was worse than he could’ve imagined, bringing back images of Danna yesterday, burnt and screaming and it was his fault.
He could help Four.
“It’s okay. They’re gone, you’re okay.” They weren’t okay, but they were alive, at least. The boy from earlier flickered back into view on the other side of Four, their brother, apparently? He wasn’t hurting them so maybe not all the glowing people were bad.
Who were they?
“Hey, hey, you need to calm down. Now. Kl- Four, you need to calm the fuck down and get control over the ghosts again. They aren’t going to leave until you do,” the boy said, his eyes burning with intensity.
Ghosts.
Was his mom here?
Adrian decided not to think about it.
Four uncurled. They sat up, facing away from Adrian, and formed bleeding hands into fists that glowed blue for a moment.
They sighed in relief.
“Thanks, Ben. That could’ve gotten nasty.”
The boy - Ben - replied with a far-too-casual snort. “It did get nasty, dipshit. Plus, it wasn’t the Horror that got rid of them. It was the random kid I found.”
A little weird that the younger boy was calling him a kid, but okay. Oh, wait, Ben was a ghost. Maybe he was older than he looked.
His thoughts were cut short when Four turned to him with wide eyes and blood dripping down their face, their chest, their legs. “Well, thanks, dude,” they said with a little breath, smiling at Adrian.
“Uh - anytime. What the hell was that?”
Four waved their hands at the area around them, HELLO GOOD BYE in dark ink on their palms. “Ghosts. They’re everywhere but only I can see ‘em. Persistent little fuckers.”
Just then, he heard Ruby and Oscar nearby, shouting for him. “In here!” Adrian yelled back.
He was going to have to explain - this. Oh shit, and to his dads as well.
This was going to be a long night.