Summus Proelium

Peyton’s mom was okay. That was the first thing we checked on after getting out of the Conservators building now that things had actually calmed down a bit. Apparently she had been teleported right to the edge of town along with one of their neighbors, and a couple cops had eventually picked them up. After being given a thorough examination to make sure they were who they claimed to be and that there were no lingering effects from the teleportation, they were taken to a hotel. It turned out that the entire apartment building was going to be locked down for quite awhile yet, while the authorities examined every inch of it for evidence about what the Scions had been doing (not to mention checking for any traps they had probably left behind).

Needless to say, Peyton was ready to go stay with her the second she got the call about where her mother was. On the other hand, she, like the rest of us, was also incredibly exhausted. Flying all the way there with her marbles just wasn’t going to happen any more than I was going to be able to paint-run myself home. So, with a little help from Fred and his van, we drove instead. Soon, Peyton was saying her goodbyes and promising to talk to us sometime in the afternoon or evening, before dashing inside the hotel where we could see her mother anxiously pacing around the lobby. As Fred pulled the van away, I caught a glimpse of Peyton embracing the woman, both of them clinging tightly to one another. Which, of course, sent mixed feelings through me. Relief for Peyton and her mother after everything they had been through, as well as relief for the fact that my parents were still alive. And yet, I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t even hug them. The Scions might’ve been stopped for good (basically), but my mom and dad were still sick, still affected by the Sleeptalk. After everything that had happened, what I really wanted, even more than rest, was to sit with my parents. We didn’t even have to do anything important, I just… I just wanted to be with them.

That would come, I knew. We were still working on that. It just felt so far away, especially right then. I was tired, sore, and just plain done with everything. Even thinking about the fact that we still had to finish that teleportation machine so we could grab Pittman and get the cure out of him made me want to scream until I passed out.

But I didn’t. I pushed it down, telling myself to take it one step at a time. And to be happy that Pencil wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again. Yes, that was because his own sister had killed him as part of her ‘escape all consequences’ plan. But I couldn’t do anything about that right now anyway. And it still meant he was gone. He was done. No one else would ever be hurt or killed by that psychopath ever again. We had to focus on the good parts, not just dwell on everything that still needed to be done.

“We’ll help your parents too.” That was Paige. “They’re safe… enough for now.” Apparently she’d been watching me as we all slumped in our seats in the back of the van. Well, most of us anyway. Sierra was up front next to Fred, animatedly telling him everything about what happened as she finished off the bag of chips he had apparently been stress-eating while waiting to find out what was going on.

Wren, laying across one of the seats with Qwerty slumbering on top of her, spoke up a bit tiredly. “Uh huh. Soon as we get back to the shop, I’ll get my tools and… and… umm…” It seemed she was so exhausted by that point she’d actually forgotten what she was saying in mid-sentence and just sort of trailed off like that.

“When we get back to the shop,” Fred put in pointedly, “you’re going to sleep. That goes for everyone else too. No work, superhero or otherwise, until you rest. That means no building magic instantaneous transportation doohickeys either.”

“He’s right,” I made myself agree, shifting a bit in my seat. “None of us are in any shape to work right now.” Even as the words left me, I had to flinch a little at a sharp ache that went through my shoulder. I was still on painkillers delivered by the special bandage meant to deal with the wound Pencil had left me with, but it still hurt. And I definitely couldn’t let Simon figure out I was hurt there. If people really had seen that stream, my brother might just be able to put two and two together if he noticed an injury in the same place. Maybe I would go see if Patchwork had a free minute sometime tomorrow. Or rather, later today considering it was already early morning by that point.

In any case, I didn’t want to push her right now. I could deal with the injury this way for the time being while she helped others who had been hurt worse than me. Between the Star-Touched she could fully heal, and the Prev emergency personnel she could at least temporarily stabilize until they made it to the hospital, I was pretty sure Patchwork had a full dance card already.

“I think we can deal with taking a break,” Murphy put in. She and Roald were the front-most of the rear seats, with Qwerty and Wren behind them and Paige and I in the very back. “I mean come on, we’ve earned it.” Her hand waved my way. “She fought Pencil all by herself and totally kicked his ass.”

“They,” I corrected absently, looking out the window at the passing streets for a moment before realizing the others were looking at me. Even Qwerty had woken up and hopped onto the back of the other seat. Sierra had turned in the front to look back.

Their attention made me blush, shifting a little. “Oh, uh, right. I forgot, with everything that happened, I never really… umm, huh. This seems stupidly unimportant now.” Still, after taking a breath, I explained about how I didn’t really feel like I fit the mold for either a straight up boy or a straight up girl, and didn’t really want to be beholden to either concept. I was me, I was Cassidy. Sometimes I did more masculine things, sometimes I did more feminine things. I liked dresses and pants and skating and pretty dolls and running and all sorts of things. But most importantly, I felt like I drifted somewhere in between those boxes. I didn’t want to change myself to fit either of them anymore. I refused to fit into the boxes. Instead, I would break down the sides of the boxes and fit myself into either or both of them as I liked. It had taken months of pretending to be a boy in costume, as well as the return of my lost memories for me to fully understand and accept that. Even now, it would still take me time to really understand what it meant. But I was ready for this step. I needed to see how it felt to just be me.

Murphy, for her part, took that in stride. “Okay, they fought Pencil all by themself and totally kicked his ass. The point is, everyone’s earned a nap and a sandwich.” After a brief pause, she turned in the seat to look my way once more with a visible wince. “I mean, sorry, I know what you really want is to fix your parents. Like Paige said, we’re gonna do that too. We will, they just… they’ll be okay for now, right?”

“Right,” I agreed, trying to sound as positive as possible. “Don’t worry, guys, I’m not about to run off and try to slingshot myself to Breakwater all by myself just to punch that bastard. At least, not tonight.” I meant it as a joke, though it came off a bit weakly. “I know I need to sleep. We all do. My parents--everyone affected by the Sleeptalk will be okay for now. We just have to take it one step at a time. Today’s step was stopping the Scions. We deserve a pat on the back for that. Maybe even two pats.”

“But I still don’t understand,” Qwerty managed, hopping down to perch on my leg. “I know you disguise yourself like a boy to hide when you’re Paintball, but I thought Cassidy-you was a girl. Did your sex change?”

Oh boy. This was going to take a bit. Or so I thought. But before I could even push aside my own inner amusement at the thought ‘oh boy’ coming up given the subject, Roald was already talking. “Oh, uhh no, sex and gender are two different things, Qwerty. Sex is like, the pieces of the body you’re born with, and gender is how you express yourself, how you act. It’s sort of like… uhh… oh I know, it’s like this van.” He fumbled a bit with his words toward the middle, but by the end had picked up confidence.

Qwerty sounded uncertain. “Like the van? Cassidy doesn’t even have wheels! I mean, when she’s not wearing her skates. Wait, no, when they’re not wearing their skates.”

That made Wren audibly giggle from her spot, and I was pretty sure the others were snickering as well. Roald, meanwhile, shook his head. “Nah, not like that. I mean it’s like a van because… um, okay so this thing we’re riding in is an automobile. That’s like its species, okay? Cassidy is human, and this is an automobile. This automobile is a van. It is structurally a van cuz of the parts it’s made out of. That’s like its sex.

“Cassidy the human is structurally a female. Human and automobile for species, female and van for sex. But there’s different types of vans, right? There’s delivery vans and work vans and utility vans and passenger vans, and lots of others. This is a passenger van, cuz it’s carrying all these passengers. You know, us. Passenger van is what it does, what it acts like, how it behaves, see? Passenger van is its gender. Sex female and gender female aren’t the same. They’re like homonyms. That’s words that seem the same but mean different things. Cassidy the species human and sex female doesn’t always feel or act like gender female. Sorta like--well sometimes Fred over there uses this van to carry tools and stuff instead of passengers, see? So then it’d be more like a work van. For a lot of people, their cars are always used for the same thing, so the automobile gender stays the same. And for a lot of people, their gender stays the same or fits in that average box. I have all the boy parts and I feel like a boy too. I’m a species human, sex male, gender male. Cassidy is species human, sex female, gender both! Or maybe all. Or none. Or undetermined. There’s lots of different options, but it’s hard to remember lots of different pronouns, so they use ‘they.’ Some people use special pronouns instead, so they can feel like they’re actually being called by something that applies to them, that fits them. All anyone like that wants is to feel like they’re expressing and being seen for who they are.”

“Fluid,” I put in. “I’m genderfluid. It changes, shifts back and forth. Sometimes it’s more of one, other times it’s more of the other. And sometimes it’s pretty even.”

Once that was all out and Murphy was giving Roald a quick hug, Wren turned in the seat and put her chin on the seat to stare at Qwerty with a hopeful smile. “Does that help at all?”

Over in the driver’s seat, I heard Fred murmur something about how it helped him at least. Meanwhile, Qwerty seemed to be considering that for a few long seconds. He looked back and forth between Wren and me, before hopping over to my shoulder. “Species automobile, sex van, gender passenger van. Species human, sex female, gender fluid. It’s still kinda confusing, but…” His head tilted one way, then the other before he made his colorful wings flare with a decisive nod. “I think I understand enough. And mostly I’m just glad you’re happy anyway.”

“I’ll tell you what would make me even more happy,” I announced while slipping out of my seat to climb around to the one Roald and Murphy were in. Without another word, I pulled the boy into a tight embrace. “You’re pretty smart, you know that? It’s pretty nice having you guys around. Actually, I have no idea where I’d be without you.”

Murphy, straightening in her seat, proudly put in, “There now, see?

“I told you breaking into that gas station would totally work out for us.”

*******

Eventually, we dropped off everyone else and I took a rideshare back to my own house from the shop. I was basically dead on my feet by that point, almost falling asleep in the back of the sedan before even getting home. When I did manage to stagger my way through the forest near the house and sneak back over the wall, it was all I could do to make it up to my bedroom balcony without being seen.

It turned out, however, that I needed one thing more than sleep. Namely, food. Even as I looked at my bed longingly, my stomach made its disagreement on my priorities evident. Besides, I couldn't go to bed until I knew Izzy was home. She had been getting debriefed for awhile now, and I hoped that meant she would be done soon. The last update I had from her was that they were finishing up, and that was about fifteen minutes earlier. With any luck, she would be here before long.

So, I trudged my way down to the kitchen and took a minute to heat up some food in the microwave. I didn't dare use anything more than that because I was so tired it would probably go wrong. Sitting at the table with my reheated food, I dug in. It actually woke me up a little more, though not much. But at least my stomach wasn't groaning at me constantly. That whole thing had taken a lot out of me, to say the least. The last thing I had eaten were those cheese fries and sandwiches with Izzy and Amber at the diner before we got the call to help with the Scions. Which felt like days ago instead of hours.

I wasn't surprised that Simon wasn't in the house. Honestly, considering everything that happened, I doubted I would see him at all for awhile. He and the rest of the Ministry were probably going to be pretty busy dealing with the aftermath of that whole situation. Which suited me just fine, considering I had my own stuff to do. Though I did hope he was getting some sleep, considering how much he’d probably been running around recently trying to keep up with everything. If I was tired, he had to be in even worse shape given he had a much bigger organization to deal with and pretty big shoes to fill. Hopefully the other leaders in the Ministry, whoever they were, would make sure he didn't pass out from exhaustion. Maybe the bear and raccoon could tell him to take a nap?

Was it weird that I was worrying about Simon being tired from helping run a massive criminal cartel or whatever? Yeah, that was probably weird. But what was I supposed to do? He was still my brother. And with both of our parents out of commission, it made me feel that worry even more. It wasn’t something I could easily just dismiss.

Fortunately, I didn't have to dwell on that too much. Before I was halfway done with my food, Izzy arrived. She was dropped off and walked right up to the front door by an unfamiliar figure in a suit and tie who screamed Federal Agent type to me. It felt like he was doing his best to seem casual, but… yeah, it didn’t work. Either way, I thanked the man for bringing her home, and he somewhat awkwardly made me promise to get her to bed. It felt like he was accustomed to talking to parents and didn’t know how to adjust to this situation.

Soon enough, he left, and I went back to the kitchen with Izzy. I made her some food as well, and we wolfed it all down. She was even more tired than I was, and I had to poke her a couple times so she wouldn’t end up falling face-first into the plate. Afterward, we cleaned up quickly and then trudged upstairs. There was no question about sleeping separately, not this time. The two of us went straight to my room, got ready for bed, and crawled in. We couldn't even take the time to talk about everything that happened, not yet. We both started to drift off very quickly. Everything faded and I just let myself gradually fall into blissful unconsciousness while snuggled up against my sister.

We had managed to get a lot done today, a lot of very important things. Peyton’s mom and those other people were safe. And we had an in with Ten Towers since Rubi knew everything and could be trusted. That was… yeah, that was going to be a whole thing.

Meanwhile, the Scions were essentially done as an organization, which did feel pretty good, to be honest. Even if I did have some complicated emotions about that whole Pencil being killed by his own sister thing. Even with that included, it was nice to realize that he wouldn’t ever hurt anyone else. But there was still plenty to do. We weren’t done, not by a long shot. And yet, for that moment, I could feel some measure of satisfaction, even if it wasn’t perfect.

We would deal with Pittman and that whole situation. We had a plan for it, which was more than we’d had for the Scions. Even better, we had Qwerty now. He could help Wren perfect the modifications to the machine. Yeah, it wouldn’t be easy, but we could do it.

But that would all come later. For now, what I really needed was sleep. So, laying there with Izzy, feeling her steady, reassuring breathing while her hand lightly clutched mine, I let go of all those worries and uncertainties for the time being and I allowed myself to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I had a feeling I was going to need it.