“Nervous?”

  “Of course I’m nervous,” I snapped, shooting a look at Camilla. “Public court appearance of the hero that nailed the big baddie in the city. Undersiders are probably looking to crash it.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Miss Milita said from across the table. “Every hero in the city, and several from outside, is on standby for this. Two PRT containment squads and a full tactical squad are here, and America is watching. If they attack, it’s only going to be a blaze of glory.”

  “If you’re worried about retaliation there’s always the option of transferring departments,” Camilla offered. “We’d rather you were safe.”

  “No it’s fine I…” I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t think they’re that stupid. I’m just worried about nothing probably.”

  “Want to go over what we coached you on again? Camilla asked. “Might help, reminding yourself what you need to say.”

  “Tell the truth in a way that makes it sound palatable, try not to give the defense much on cross, and don’t say anything on the stand I wouldn’t to gramma. I think I can do it. Just don’t yell on the stand like Jack Nicholson right?” Camilla blinked at my easy answer and I shrugged.

  “I didn’t think someone your age would know A Few Good Men,” she said lightly.

  “Me and my friend, we watched it last night,” I replied. “And a few others. Apparently she knows like, half the good legal dramas ever made.”

  “You understand those are just films?” she asked.

  “Duh.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s going to be way more boring, I know. No drama, no funny business, just my statement and cross.”

  “Alright,” Camilla nodded. “Shouldn’t be long.”

  To my surprise, she was right. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and a bailiff poked his head in and called for me. I rose and, with well wishes from Camilla and Miss Militia, followed him out. Four PRT officers, two with confoam guns two with rifles, flanked us. They were definitely ready, though like the armoured ride here it did nothing to settle my nerves.

  It wasn’t the threat of the Undersiders, not really. Even without Taylor they were tough customers, but I was pretty sure it was a hard loss if they tried to attack. Even if they pulled together the Ambassadors and all of Coil’s mercs, they’d lose badly. No, the problem was now I had to go up in front of cameras and a bunch of people and do some low-stakes, no-pressure witnessing against a warlord who was popular until a few days ago.

  I hated public speaking and this was even worse on that front. It was public knowledge I’d taken down Skitter, the PRT had been tooting that horn for a while. I’d been lucky enough to avoid attention just because of the constant insane shit happening in this city, but I knew it wouldn’t last. I’d just have to grin and bear it...and then probably have to go through a bunch of PR coaching.

  It was fine. Wards got a portion of their merch sales right? I vaguely recalled something like that in the contract, money hadn’t exactly been my main concern back then though. Maybe with all the publicity I’d get something out of this massive shitshow. Was that shitty of me, wishing I could profit off Skitter’s arrest? Maybe. She brought it on herself though.

  I flinched at the machine-gun flashing of cameras as we entered the court room. The bailiff directed me to the stand and I did my best to ignore the quiet murmurs around me. Taylor sat at one of the tables in the actual court part of the...court, whatever it was called.

  She was sitting beside a well-dressed man with slick, blonde hair and a pinstripe suit; her lawyer, presumably. A heavy collar was locked around her neck, preventing her from turning her head to see me until I was already on the stand. That was Chris’ countermeasure: a collar that some magic, Tinker how blocked her from controlling her bugs. It was the only thing that let Taylor appear in court at all. I did my best to ignore the death-glare I was getting from her and took a seat at the pulpit.

  “Good afternoon,” Frakes, the lawyer handling prosecution, greeted me as he rose. “Could I ask you to please state your code name for the court?”

  “Of course,” I replied with a nod. “I’m Amaranth.”

  “And you’re a parahuman, correct?” I nodded. “Sorry, could you please answer the question out loud?”

  “Sorry.” I winced. “I’m a parahuman, yes.”

  “And what do you do with your powers?”

  “I’m a Ward,” I replied simply. “So...hero work.”

  “Could you explain in more detail what you mean, ‘hero work’?”

  “Objection your honour, relevance,” Taylor’s lawyer piped up.

  “Your honour, what a parahuman chooses to do with their power is a central part of this case,” Frakes countered.

  “Overruled Mr. Christopoulos,” the judge said, gesturing to Frakes. “Please continue Mr. Frakes.”

  “Amaranth, can you explain what you mean by ‘hero work’?” he asked, turning back to me.

  “Yeah of course,” I said. “We patrol to keep gangs and villains from hurting people, we keep supplies safe from attacks as they enter the city, and we try to arrest villains when they wander into our base.” A small grin touched Frakes’ lips.

  “Well that sounds quite heroic to me,” he said, his grin widening as he addressed the jury. “And how long have you been doing that, a while?” I shrugged.

  “I’ve only been a Ward for two months.” I was deviating from the script but...I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea.

  “Would you mind if I read some of your accomplishments in that time?” I shrugged and nodded. “During her short time as a hero Amaranth fought Leviathan and the Slaughterhouse Nine, rescued a healer from the latter’s clutches, and was responsible for taking out Shatterbird—”

  “Could Mr. Frakes clarify what he means by ‘taking out’?” Christopoulos interjected. The judge frowned at him, but gestured to Frakes.

  “I can answer that,” I spoke before he could, swallowing my rising bile. “I killed Shatterbird. She was under Regent’s control at the time and being used in an assault on the PRT headquarters. Mind control plus a kill order, I didn’t do anything wrong.” But I could still feel the crunch of cartilage under my fingers.

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  “Please do not speak out of turn, Amaranth,” the judge warned me.

  “She’s correct though,” Frakes said, shooting me a mildly irritated look. “Thank you for that, Amaranth. You’ve encountered the Undersiders before, haven’t you?”

  “A few times,” I said with a nod.

  “And how have those encounters typically played out?”

  “The first time I fought them in costume, they had kidnapped a Ward and attacked the PRT,” I said. “Then they attacked us again and lost Shatterbird. I guess third time was the charm.” I shot Taylor a grin she couldn’t see. “Sorry, I guess I just mean the Undersiders haven’t exactly been on the winning side.”

  “Certainly a frustrating thing,” Frakes commented. “Now regarding your encounter on the ninth of July, two-thousand-eleven, can you walk us through that?”

  “Sure,” I said, taking a deep breath and thinking back to the hours of coaching Camilla had run me through. “I’ve been staying at the Ward quarters, and I woke up at approximately two in the morning, covered in bugs. I knew there was only one cape in the city able to do that, so I got dressed and ready for a fight. When I got upstairs, the Undersiders had already moved further into the building so I waited in the lobby and tried to help the wounded.”

  “When Skitter came back down, she was accompanied by Tattletale,” I continued. “She wasn’t able to stop me with her bugs and I was able to restrain her. Skitter surrendered while Tattletale and the others managed to escape. That’s about it, really.”

  “Thank you, Amaranth,” Frakes said. “Can you describe the lobby as you saw it, when you got upstairs?”

  “Bad,” I said. “Like really bad. Something like ten or fifteen officers were down, covered in bugs, and bugs were everywhere. They were hurt pretty bad, from what I heard.”

  “Objection, hearsay.” Both me and Frakes shot Christopoulos a glare.

  “Sustained, please refrain from introducing outside evidence, Amaranth.”

  “Sorry your honour.” I sighed. “It was hard to see the bug bites since it was two A.M., but I could hear the officers groaning in pain. Not exactly hearsay beyond I heard it and I’m saying it.”

  “Amaranth.” Frakes gave me a warning look.

  “Sorry.”

  “So you encountered a number of injured officers who, despite being incapacitated, were still being attacked?” he asked.

  “Objection, leading question.” Wow Skitter had just picked the most irritating lawyer she could, huh?

  “I’m summarizing, your honour,” Frakes countered.

  “Overruled, please continue.”

  “Basically yeah,” I agreed after the judge gestured to me, trying to keep the annoyance from my voice. “They were trying to attack me too, but my power basically beats Skitter’s so I only had a couple bites.”

  “Thank you Amaranth,” he replied with a polite smile. “No further questions, your honour.”

  “Mr Christopoulos, your witness,” the judge said, nodding to him.

  “Thank you, your honour,” he replied, rising from his seat with a smile and stepping out from behind the table. Taylor was giving me a death glare that I pointedly ignored. “Amaranth, it’s good to meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you. Daughter’s a fan.” Yeah right.

  “Nice you meet you,” I said instead. Wouldn’t do to look like an asshole up here.

  “I just want to touch on a few points you brought up,” he said, leafing through a small notebook. “And some that you didn’t. First, your history with the Undersiders. You mentioned a few hostile encounters, but you’ve cooperated with them in the past, haven’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said with a shrug. It was public record. “We cooperated against the Slaughterhouse Nine, I met them and helped fighting the Siberian.”

  “And later you vouched for Skitter after her alleged murder of Thomas Calvert, right?” he added, drawing a few mutters from the peanut gallery. A bead of sweat stung my eye.

  “Objection, this incident was deemed inadmissible during discovery your honour,” Frakes snapped. “I’d request you to instruct the jury to disregard the question.”

  “I’ll withdraw the question, your honour,” Chistopoulos said swiftly. “My apologies. Amaranth, you repeatedly argued for and took part in truces with the Undersiders, that’s all I wanted to lay out as a fact. Would you agree with that statement?”

  “With the context of ‘under duress’, sure,” I retorted, swallowing dust.

  “Alright, under duress.” His grin could best be described as ‘shit-eating’. “Now Amaranth you were the arresting officer on July tenth, excuse me the ninth. I have to ask then, why didn’t you arrest Taylor the day before, when the PRT attempted to raid Arcadia Secondary School?” There was a loud murmur through the court that made my heart leap into my throat, silenced by two swift strokes of the judge’s gavel.

  “Objection your honour, this is irrelevant and outside the scope,” Frakes growled, glaring at the defense attorney.

  “Sustained, I can’t see how that’s remotely relevant Mr. Christopoulos.”

  “Your honour the actions of the PRT directly led to the incident in which Taylor was assaulted by a peace officer,” he countered.

  “Assaulted?” I couldn’t help but snort and roll my eyes.

  “You may address the arrest, Mr. Christopoulos,” the judge said in a warning tone. “Be careful not to move beyond the scope of examination.”

  “Of course, your honour.” His smile looked a little strained. “Now Amaranth, when you came upstairs, I imagine seeing all those injured officers made you a little angry?”

  “Yes,” I said simply. It wouldn’t do to say how angry. “Seeing good people being tortured usually does.”

  “And during your arrest did Taylor sustain any injuries?”

  “A broken wrist,” I answered. “An accident, I should be clear. My power is sort of reactive on an unconscious level. My hand literally twitched and broke it, though I moved after so that didn’t happen again.” I’d been coached on this already, Camilla was a damned good lawyer.

  “Pretty dangerous power,” he commented.

  “Don’t be stupid, all powers are dangerous,” I snapped. “We all got reminded of that last week, didn’t we?”

  “With such a dangerous power, why did you feel it necessary to steal an officer’s firearm and threaten Taylor with it?” Christopoulos asked sharply. “As you yourself stated, you restrained her and broke her wrist.”

  “Both villains were armed,” I countered. “I leveled the playing field, and only discharged a warning shot.”

  “You felt it necessary to fire your weapon after restraining Taylor, correct?”

  “I fired a warning shot after she threatened to murder those PRT officers we were talking about,” I growled. “And yes that was after she was restrained. I can’t restrain ten million insects though, so she was still armed and very dangerous.”

  “The PRT determined there was no wrongdoing in Amaranth’s use of a firearm,” Frakes added from his seat.

  “Objection your honour, Mr. Frakes is arguing the law; Amaranth is a minor and legally prevented from using firearms unsupervised, that is a fact of the case.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “However I don’t see the point in arguing that, we’re not litigating Amaranth.” Christopoulos raised his hands in surrender.

  “So despite the excessive use of force, you admit that Skitter’s power isn’t able to affect you that much?”

  “Just because she can’t affect me doesn’t mean others are safe,” I spat.

  “Please answer the question,” he said flatly.

  “No Skitter’s power can’t affect me much,” I growled. “But as I said, I wasn’t the only person being attacked. Unless you’re suggesting I should have just let her go.”

  “I’m just trying to determine the facts of the case,” he explained. “No further questions, your honour.”

  “Mr. Frakes, would you like to reexamine your witness?” the judge asked.

  “No, your honour.”

  “Thank you for your time, Amaranth,” he said, turning to me as the bailiff gestured.

  “You’re welcome, your honour.”

  I rose and followed the bailiff out, licking my chapped lips with a dry tongue. I fucking hated public speaking...but at least it was over for now. Things hadn’t gone perfectly, but Camilla had made sure to warn me about cross. I didn’t think Taylor’s lawyer would have gone in that hard, but why wouldn’t have she hired an attack dog?

  Still, that had gone...well, relatively smoothly. I returned to the room with Camilla and Miss Militia, greeting them quietly. Camilla offered me a smile as Miss Militia left to take the stand next. I crossed my arms on the table, then laid my head on top of them, shutting my eyes. My part in this act was done, now to await the eventual results.

  I only cared that Skitter was probably going to the Birdcage.