2019.

Betsy stood some fifty feet away from him, and just as Danny had said, she had stripped down to her underwear and covered herself in blue paint. Beside her stood a large plastic bucket that must have held the paint from the dark streaks dripping down its side. 

Patches of pale skin still showed here and there — along the side of her belly, under her right shin, across her left shoulder. The uneven splotches of light among the dark worked like a kind of camouflage, breaking up her image in the shadows of the SnyTech factory rooftop. Her eyes shone stark against her blue face, and her hair clung to the sides of her neck.

In her right hand, she held a pistol. In her left, in the plastic fingers of her prosthetic arm, she held a small electronic device. 

She was clearly cold, naked and wet as she was, and shivering. How much of that was from the cold and how much was from being face-to-mask with the Crimson Wraith?

“It’s you,” she said softly, without threat, without rage, without even a drop of venom for Titan City’s Scarlet Stranger.

“It’s me,” said Kevin. “You know why I’m here.” 

Her voice came out in a dreamy monotone. “I do. It’s because of Mr. Finn. I killed him. I knew you’d find me. I wanted you to find me.” 

“Why, Betsy?” Slowly, Kevin began to draw closer to her, slipping a half step forward here and there between his words. “Why did you murder Edward? Why did you want me to find you?”

“You know why. It’s because he’s you. He was you. He was the Crimson Wraith. Just like Hank was when that thing happened. He’s the reason it happened.”

“What happened to your family was terrible, Betsy. Something like that shouldn’t happen to anyone, not ever.”

“It’s not fair, you know,” said Betsy. “Not fair for you to dress up and make people think you can protect them. Because you can’t protect them. People get hurt. They get hurt all the time. You can’t stop that. You can’t stop bad things from happening.”

“No, Betsy, I can’t.”

“You like to make people think you can, though. You like to make them believe in you. We believe in you, and we get hurt. And we die. But you just keep going, year after year, one decade after another. Titan City always has to have the Crimson Wraith. We’re stuck with you. We didn’t ever ask for you, did we? But we’re stuck with you.”

Watching them on the screen in front of her, Gracie’s head was full of alarm bells screaming. This was wrong. This was very wrong. Betsy hadn’t even raised her gun. What was she waiting for? Clearly, she was off, broken inside. It showed in the ramble of her words, the nakedness and paint, the whole set-up. 

Crazy people don’t react the way anyone would expect them too. That’s the whole point of crazy. But Betsy had shown the kind of crazy that could plan things, and clearly she had planned this rooftop meeting. It had to be some kind of trap. So, why wasn’t it springing?

Using Kevin’s codename, Gracie said out loud, “Specter Prime, you need to end this. Something is really not right here.”

Danny said, “Agreed Specter Second. He’s still not close enough for an effective takedown though. Just a few more feet, SP. Then toss a flash pellet and end this.”

Betsy continued. “It’s not enough that good people believe in you though. Good people get fooled all the time. That’s the problem with good people. They don’t know any better. 

“Bad people, though, they believe in you too. They think you are something big and strong for them to fight, something to prove themselves against. So, they do things to get your attention. They do worse things than if you were never around. 

“It’s your fault, the things they do. When you put on that mask, you give bad people a reason to hurt good people, and we never asked you to. We never asked you.”

“You’re right,” said Kevin.

No, she fucking is not! But Gracie kept those words inside. She understood that Kevin was trying to placate Betsy. He had to agree with her as much as possible, trying to keep her calm as he closed the distance.

He said, “Maybe I should take off this mask. Would that be better, Betsy? Should I take off my mask?”

Her head twitched slightly. “Don’t… Don’t do that…”

“Don’t do what?”

She swallowed hard. “You say my name like you know me. You don’t know me. He knew me, Hank did. But Mr. Finn didn’t know me, even though he was the Crimson Wraith, even though he was the reason all the bad things happened. He didn’t know what I’ve been through. He didn’t know how he hurt me, how the Crimson Wraith hurt me. Do you know how fucked up that is? To have someone destroy your whole life and never know you?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Of course you can’t. You’re not the one whose life gets destroyed. What is your life anyway? Your real life? You’re standing before me as the Crimson Wraith. That’s not your name.”

Danny said, “Almost there, SP. Just another step.”

Still, Betsy made no sign of movement. “Crimson Wraith is just what you want me to call you. And that’s fine; I’ll call you Crimson Wraith. But there’s something I want you to call me, though.”

“What’s that?” said Kevin.

Gracie saw Kevin shift his weight and adjust his shoulders, readying to pull a flash pellet and throw it from his hip.

“The Blue Banshee,” said Betsy

They both moved at once, like duelling gunslingers in the Old West. But as fast as Kevin was, Betsy had her finger right on the button. That was where the danger was — not the pistol in her right hand but the device in her left. 

On the screen in front of Gracie, in the nightvision lenses of Kevin’s mask, and the images Danny must have been receiving as well, the blue paint on Betsy’s body suddenly blazed with blinding intensity. It was like staring directly into the sun with irises wide after stepping out of the dark. 

The flash pellet Kevin threw from his belt flew wide, missing her entirely. 

And through the speakers of his mask, affecting everyone listening to the Crimson Wraith’s frequency, blared an undulating sonic blast that made Gracie scream and throw her earwig to the floor of the car. 

She could still hear it scream like an angry insect as it rolled under her seat, too small and far away to affect her. 

When she looked back to the screen, she saw him on his knees wrestling with what looked like a being of pure light. He was not succeeding.  

As the shock of light and sound drove Kevin to his knees, Betsy ran forward and encased his head in the bucket that had been carrying her paint, keeping him from reaching his mask. 

Even if he had Betsy outmatched in size and strength, with her body wrapped around his head, he had a hard time finding leverage, and she didn’t have the sound of a million sirens crashing through her brain.

How much damage would that sound do if he was unable to remove his mask? Gracie wasn’t going to take time to imagine that. She had to get up there.

Her feet seemed to fly on their own, as she crossed the broken asphalt of the SnyTech parking lot. It was like her body knew every action to take before she had to think about it. Door handles seemed to leap open at her touch. Metal stairs rang under her boots. 

And as Gracie ran, weirdly, the words, “That’s how a hero dies, I guess…” circled around her mind. Where had she heard that? Was it a movie? 

It was Howard. He was reading Beowulf. Again. He bought and sold back the same copy over and over. And he was telling Gracie about its ending, about the death of Beowulf. 

“As an old man, you see, he has become king. And when the dragon attacks them, well, it is still his job to protect his people, isn’t it? Even when all of his other knights flee — And why wouldn’t they? It is a dragon, after all — Beowulf has to stand strong. 

“The only one who stays with him is his youngest knight. When the dragon mortally wounds Beowulf, he’s the one who finishes the fight. With his dying breath, Beowulf hands over his crown, and the youngest warrior who becomes the next king. But, protecting his people, fighting a dragon, that’s how a hero dies, I guess.”

Gracie’s breath burned in her lungs. You are not dying on me tonight, Kevin! I am not letting you make me the next Crimson Wraith when I only just met you! That is not my origin story! 

The rooftop access door crashed open, and Betsy’s eyes shot up at the sound.