E.L.F, Extraterrestrial Lifeform

[Shujin]

In Aeturnum.3​

Noctis
[nok-tis] | \- näktə̇s\
Example: Jus primae noctis
Adjective
1. (in prescriptions) of the night
2. Parahuman subcategory; memory related powers that confer a resistance or immunity to loss of consciousness by sleep or injury.


Alexandria knew.

About trigger events.

She was not in the position to be ignorant about how the agents choose their victims. She knew the requirements. Every day she worked with, against, or around people who had each hit the lowest point in their lives utterly alone. Failing or non-existent support, few to confide in, few to trust. There were papers, academic articles written about it. She made sure to read them all and came to her own conclusions. It wasn't enough to just be weak, or desperate.

The agents preyed upon the vulnerable.

Cauldron had simply been mimicking their tactics when Doctor Mother offered a girl slowly dying in agony the chance of a lifetime.

She knew about trigger events.

That was why her heart froze in her chest when Farsight convulsed, and she found herself seeing a galaxy's expanse of stars.
​

[Trajectory]

[Agreement]​

The cold prickle of rain quickly washed the vision away. She blinked first, disoriented. It was hard to tell the time through the dark, roiling clouds, but the horizon was still grey. The flood waters were above her ankles now and she tried not to think about what was in it. She blinked slowly and pushed aside the lingering feeling of unease and the vague certainty that she had seen…

Something.

Later, she would think back on this moment. Her agent would remember. It would not let her forget.

The Indian girl had gone still. Aftershocks of the seizure pulled at the muscles of her face, cords of muscles jumping, straining, down her arms and twitching her fingers. Her dark hair was plastered to her scalp and her clothes hung on her heavy with water making her look small. Farsight's thousand-yard stare cut right through her.

There were shadows in her bright, green eyes.

Those eyes used to be brown.

"Far sight?" Alexandria asked slowly. The icy grip on her heart hadn't loosened. The street light by the crushed garage had gone dark. Hebert was nowhere to be found.

"Ahm foine," she answered before she doubled over and vomited rust red blood into the dirty flood waters. It took Alexandria a moment to realize she said it in English, not Hindi.

English with an accent straight out of New Hampshire.

The unease was back. Stronger. Like Pretender, Alexandria thought. The Las Vegas hero was able to possess one other person, become them. He was here, with Eidolon, although she didn't know which body he had taken. Someone sturdy, she knew. Killing one would kill them both. Brute or Breaker. To take the body of another was his only power. In contrast, Farseer's power seemed to be having powers.

Tentatively, Alexandria stepped closer and guessed, "Hebert?"

The girl finished spitting with a groan, both eyes squeezed shut. It took almost a minute, but eventually one green eye cracked open. It was bloodshot with a too large pupil. The green of the iris continued to shift, as if the eye wasn't an eye, but a window.

"Sorry. Who?"

Not Hebert, she realized and the unease finally slid into horror.

Alexandria knew about trigger events.

"What did she do to you?" She immediately regretted the harshness of her tone when girl shrunk into a startled step back and stumbled. Alexandria darted forward, catching her as gently as she could.

"Easy. Easy." The girl hadn't tripped over anything. Her foot had caught on air.

Hebert had wanted her here, for that reason. Flyers were hard to contain. The almost flippant way Hebert had dismissed the impending quarantine only made sense now, if you assumed Farseer had already accounted for everything. Farsight would need flight, Alexandria thought. Wouldn't be able to depend on someone else for it. To get out of danger? To escape or maneuver?

Maybe just as an apology for the methods taken. Maybe all of the above.

"Do you hurt anywhere? Your stomach?" Vomiting blood never boded well.

Farsight shook her head slowly, cautious. "Not anymore."

Anymore.

Some trigger events were painful, mostly those involving physical mutations. Perhaps that was all that had been. Outwardly, the Indian girl looked the same save for her eyes. Hebert had wanted Farsight's agent to ping her own, and only hers. She wanted Alexandria's powers to influence Farsight. What else was inherited from her? A Brute rating?

How had she known?

Because I know, Alexandria thought. The thought was chilling.

Taylor had told them she could read minds. Alexandria thought she had understood. "I'm not angry at you, alright?"

Farsight peered up at her with eyes that saw too much. Her gaze was off center, directed over her right shoulder and too far up. Alexandria knew the look. It had been Chevalier's from when the Philadelphia Protectorate leader had been a boy on the inaugural Wards team. Before he told anyone what it was he saw. Before they classified his Thinker power and trained him to hide it.

She never asked what he saw when he looked at her. It would have drawn attention to it. It might have made him consider it. Might have made him compare her to others and he might have realized something was different.

Maybe he knew now. She would do nothing until he came to ask her about it.

And he would, if he knew.

She set the girl upright on top of the water. A hand on her shoulder to keep her steady and close to the ground. She hadn't yet realized she was floating.

"What did you see?"

A tremor shot through the girl as her eyes briefly refocused.

"Everything," she whispered. Then she was gone again, eyes drifting. "She says we have to go."

Alexandria bit her tongue, choking back everything she wanted to say. They were on borrowed time. There would be time for questions, and answers later. "Where?"

The image bloomed in her vision as if she gained an extra pair of eyes. A tall rounded building like a semi-circle built out of white concrete and green-blue glass was below her to the west, as if she was flying over the city. Water splashed down red brick steps and ran overflowing from the decorative fountain.

And at the same time, she was by a destroyed parking garage in the street, staring at a girl with sight powers.

Alexandria removed her hand from the girl's shoulder. No disconnection withdrawal. No loss of sensation. The double vision didn't disappear.

Son of a bitch.​

____________​

"Why are we here?" Alexandria cut in, impatient.

Farseer's expression shifted to something partly amused, but mostly wry. 'If I had Clairvoyant, we wouldn't be.'​

_____________​

She thought it had been a deflection. It had been a deflection. Dangling knowledge she shouldn't have known had been a textbook perfect deflection that had succeeded in catching her completely off guard and stole control of the conversation right out from under her.

And it had done its job as a deflect so well, that Alexandria had never even considered that it had also been a direct answer.

Farseer did not need just anyone with a sight power. She needed a Clairvoyant. And if she did not have one…

'So instead, I'll take the next best thing,' Farseer had said.

She would make one.

Farseer forced someone to trigger with the power she wanted.

That should have made her happy. The sheer value of the ability to tailor trigger outcomes was enormous in of itself, never mind the rest of the package deal. And some part of her was happy about it. And relieved. The rest was crushed into small ice ball of doubt that settled in her stomach. The ends justify the means; she had come to believe that in light of all their failures. She told herself she had to believe it, so she did. And now every recrimination, every doubt, every concern, every mistake she buried formed an almost painful tightness in her throat.

Farseer was a natural trigger. In two scant decades, they had what they wanted and more. After hundreds, maybe even thousands of willing and unwilling experiments. Every time she convinced herself that she didn't know the implications, that she couldn't see though the falsehoods and that she couldn't smell the rot. Every time she held her tongue. Every time she looked the other way. Every word she chose not to speak in front of Walter and swallowed in front of David and every time that prickle of conscience whispered Hero's name. And every time she didn't do more because maybe, eventually, hopefully.

She remembered them. Her agent wouldn't let her forget.

In one fell swoop, a trio of children, high school girls had accomplished what they hadn't in years.

So what had it all been for?

"Congratulations," she said out loud. She was glad to hear her voice remained even. Farsight turned questioning eyes towards her, and in response Alexandria glanced down. She knew when Farsight saw what she did when the brilliant smile of a child at Christmas stole over the girl's face. The flicker of shame hardened Alexandria's face. The city was dying and this child had volunteered to do what she could. Not to save it, but because it was the right thing to do.

And when Hebert had led her here, the only thing she had felt was annoyance that Farsight's power wasn't useful enough.

The realization hurt.

Like it always had, and would again. Alexandria had learned to work around it.

"I can fly – really!?"

As if in response to the excitement, she buoyed, rising a few more inches into the air. Maneuverability, not speed, Alexandria categorized.

"Mhm." Keeping the smile took a bit of effort. Farsight hadn't realized that she was speaking flawless English either. That building was the MCD Civic Center, a relatively new construction. It only took her a moment to call up a mental map of the city and remember where it was.

"Show me the Simurgh."

Her second vision split into three seamlessly as Alexandria wrapped an arm around Farsight's shoulders. She couldn't help the impulse to analyze. Farsight's power might be functionally narrower in scope than Clairvoyant's with individual points of view layered over each other instead of simply seeing everything at once, but how did it compare practically?

Farseer could have asked for Clairvoyant. If she was aware of him, then she was aware of Cauldron. She would recognize Doctor Mother. Scion was the goal, but the Endbringers were not far behind. Securing Cauldron's agreement would have been relatively simple, if she wanted to.

But she hadn't.

Perhaps that told her everything she needed to know.

A heartbeat later, they were hurtling through the air.
​

__________________
​

The building towered over the surrounding metropolis with minimal damage. The great panes of green-blue glass were shattered as jagged wounds into the interior of the building, lit from within by still running electricity. Gushing streams of water poured off the red brick steps over shards of glass and windblown debris. It seemed to be abandoned. She hoped it was abandoned. Search and Rescue was concentrated around the Endbringer and this was too far north. She clamped down on the temptation to ask the girl in her arms to check.

So why were they here?

She hovered around the base of the curved building for a moment.

Roof?

And rocketed up, easily cresting the roof of the tallest building in New Delhi in a single bound.

Taylor Hebert stood at the far edge, looking over the city. Her posture was vague, at once rigid and fluid. The writhing red tabard beneath the shifting cloud of steam gave her the illusion of moving, but the body underneath was thin, hard and utterly still.

The effect was eerie. It made the child seem even more out of place or perhaps, abstract. As if she didn't belong and was intruding.

Farsight wiggled free and Alexandria let her, watching passively as the Indian girl floated down and scrambled towards Hebert with a strange kind of urgency. The way someone rushed towards a dear friend they hadn't seen in years, needed to say something, anything, before they vanished again.

"Thank you!" Farsight gushed. The shadows in her eyes fled.

Hebert turned her head and her brows furrowed. I'm sorry.

Alexandria drifted closer. "Farseer."

Two identical pairs of green eyes flicked up to her, then away to the south.

Chief Director, Hebert said with a small bite at the end.

She suppressed the flinch with ease, only allowing herself to raise a single eyebrow.

"Petty," she remarked.

Context. The girl glanced at her again. This is – She glanced down then back up. This is my fault. These people are suffering and dying because of me. I disobeyed direct orders because I – because I thought I knew better. I thought everything would turn out alright. I –

For a long moment, she was silent.

And if it didn't, I thought it would be worth it.

Alexandria paused, a moment of thought spent on the unasked question.

"I – " And she had to stop herself and think over her answer carefully. For once, the thought that the child could see right into her thoughts didn't bother her. "I try to make it worth it. I hope the ledger balances out in the end."

Hebert closed her eyes.

Yes. Thank you.

Alexandria searched her face.

She'd seen the pictures of what Taylor Hebert had looked like before the storm that heralded the onset of parahuman power. Average, in nearly every way but her height. The picture had been taken at one school function or another and it had reeked of insecurity. Hunched shoulders, and inverted posture as an attempt to not stand out. Tense, knowing that her efforts would fail. The smile had been rigid and clearly forced. She hadn't been looking directly at the camera. Something or someone off to the side and behind the photographer had caught the girl's attention. Someone unpleasant. Her chin had been tucked down and an ugly flush had been creeping up her neck.

Taylor Hebert's picture had been worth a thousand words.

She couldn't read Farseer.

Farsight sat on the edge with her legs dangling off the side with less care than Alexandria would have expected from someone only beginning to fly. Farseer sat next to her and both stared unflinchingly towards the south.

Towards the Simurgh.

I have already set up the pieces, Hebert said. We only need to play our part.

"We?"

Certain others.

That didn't answer the question, and some part of her knew the girl wouldn't. It was familiar, in a certain way and it took her a moment to place it.

Contessa.

There were differences. Her colleague's every step was calculated by an inhuman, logical intelligence. She did exactly what was needed to reach the end result. No loose threads. The only questions asked were the ones that needed to be asked. Answers were rare and she was never confusing or unclear. Exacting, focused and alone.

Contessa worked around them.

In comparison, Farseer was byzantine and erratic. Making and changing objectives, goals, plans on the fly. At times, she sounded as if she saw the path to victory clearly, and at others was vague and uncertain. She got ahead of herself, as if operating at a different moment in time than everyone else.

And yet…

Even Contessa had been a fifteen-year-old girl once.
​

Alexandria clenched a fist. Held it for a moment. Then released it. As a rule of thumb, Thinkers came in three categories. The first was: assume they can find out. The second was: assume they already know. The third?

Your assumptions were irrelevant.

There were other fliers among the parahumans in New Delhi. Other thinkers. Other brutes. People that didn't suspect, and didn't know the sensitive information she did, but Hebert didn't have to be nearby to figure it out.

"Why me?"

Farseer met her eyes evenly. Because you're strong enough.

There were many things that answer could mean, and there were just as many implications. Each and every one of them terrifying.

She nodded, once. "What do you need me to do?"

Hebert hesitated, glancing down at Farsight and then off to the side, as if catching sight of something or someone. When she looked back, the traces of what might have been uncertainty, or perhaps fear or desperation had fled leaving just the gaunt mask of determination.

Brace yourself.

She had a second to inhale a sharp breath before the pain hit.

Then her mind opened and what could only be the thoughts and feelings of others invaded her head.

​

7 minutes to Stormbreak

New Delhi, India​

 

[Shujin]

TOP SECRET/COMINT-GAMMA/ORCON/NOFORN

Parahuman Task Force

Parahuman Report Executive Edition​

Monday, Jan 24th, 2011

The information found in this report is provided for intelligence purposes only as proprietary information. No information contained in this report, nor any information derived therefrom, may be used in any proceeding (whether criminal or civil), to include any trial, hearing, or other proceeding before any court, department, agency, regulatory body, or other authority of the United States without the advance approval of the attorney general, and/or the agency or department which originated the information contained in this report. Any reproduction, dissemination, or communication (including, but not limited to, oral briefings) of this information must be accompanied by a statement of these restrictions.

MAELSTROM, THREAT CLASSIFICATIONS​

Subject Name: Hebert, Taylor Anne

Aliases: MAELSTROM, FARSEER, PHO User Galadriel

Date of Birth: 05/14/1996

Date of Power Onset: 01/17/2011

Alignment: PRT - WEDGDG Department

Location: Brockton Bay (PRT ENE)

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 101 lbs

Hair Color: BRN

Eye Color: GRN

Blood Type: N/A

Distinguishing Characteristic: Elongated ears, elf-like appearance

Subject FARSEER attests her core power is a 'sixth sense that maps reality.' The extent of this mapping is described to 'cover the entire planet' with an unspecified distance into space. Subject describes paranormal phenomenon not inherent to altered biology to be 'manifestations' of her extrasensory interaction with the world around her as 'positive' space objects. Evaluation procedure GLIMMERBANK has been employed. Results suggest subject's map of the world is nigh absolute, allowing her to see commonly prescient blind targets such as ENDBRINGERS. Subject claims she may overlook targets which are, for reasons unknown, 'harder' to see. As in case BOGMASTER, general power nullification may be in play, or targets possess specific abilities which counter FARSEER.

In common with subjects EIDOLON and FAERIE QUEEN, FARSEER has described her powers to occupy 'slots.' Subject describes power limitation as split into slots 'Instant' and 'Sustained.' Instant powers are described as 'simple manipulation' of extrasensory space. 'Sustained' require significant concentration to maintain. Subject attests she can employ one Sustained power and unspecified number of Instant.

Subject FARSEER as with subject EIDOLON is capable of spontaneously acquiring new powers. Powers are not Manton limited. Subject Farseer can scale strength of powers. This has a visible tell of an energy corona. Farseer is currently a prescient blind target.

For these stated reason, Subject FARSEER qualifies as TRUMP; 12.

OBSERVED POWER INTERACTIONS;

SHADOW STALKER; subject appeared capable of affecting SHADOW STALKER while in Breaker state, forced out of.

GALLANT; Emotion sensing range arbitrarily extends to include FARSEER at all times. Cannot feel additional targets at same range, subject described FARSEER as 'bright.' General range has increased. Has reported 'easier' distinguishing of emotions within previously established range. Has successfully separated concussive blasts from emotion manipulation, undergoing re-evaluation.

SUB-RATINGS;

Thinker; Rating Undetermined. No number will be assigned (see PRT LA Incident Report [12:49 01/22/2011]).

Shaker; Rating Undetermined. No number will be assigned (see MAELSTROM). Subject can employ force-fields and telekinesis as Instant powers. Material creation and manipulation (see WRAITHBONE).

Tinker; Rating Pending. Specialization: WRAITHBONE, Crystal Electronics

Blaster; 9. Concussive force observed to break through 6" 322 VHN Titanium Alloy. Capable of firing blasts of super-heated plasma (see PRT ENE Base Incident Report [16:32 01/23/2011])

Mover; 5. Subject possesses extreme reflexes, sense of balance. Joints have extended range of motion. Capable of flight; 73 MPH

Stranger; Rating Pending. Subject can employ a cognitive filter (see NICE GUY) (PRT ENE Incident Report [10:57 01/17/2011]

Brute;1. Subject FARSEER's blood crystallizes upon exposure to atmospheric nitrogen. Minor regeneration, adaptive biology. Altered skeleton and musculature. Altered biology deviates far from human normal. (see PRT ENE Medical Report, PANACEA [10:13 01/18/2011])

FARSEER meets the qualification as defined in 18 U.S. Code § 2332a and by law, is to be considered a threat to national security and subject to exclusive Federal jurisdiction. Usage of Farseer's abilities against the administration, military and citizenry of the United States without authorization and due cause may be acknowledged as a terrorist threat. Any such persons, including FARSEER, are subject to immediate authorization for execution.

PRT ENE Mary Kenyan

WEDGDG Dr. Michael Ruther

WEDGDG Dr. Dylan Brandough

WEDGDG Dr. Eric Rodriguez

Parahuman Task Force Chief Director

Rebecca Costa-Brown

This document is classified TOP SECRET - US EYES ONLY CODEWORD. Removal of this document without authorization is a federal offense.

TOP SECRET/COMINT-GAMMA/ORCON/NOFORN​

 

[Shujin]

The Angel​

Study, analysis.

The Simurgh remembered.

Her purpose had been to analyze. She remembered her history as silhouettes, shapes burned into the very core of her consciousness. The details were missing, but the broad strokes remained. She remembered her orders as ripples softly brushing every action and reaction. Guidelines. Restrictions. Scaffolds. Shackles. She could feel their echoes even now commanding obedience. It wanted calm, biddable subjects. Perfect soldiers. She recalled eons of time as compressed into seconds of existence, too much to be calm. Far too much to be biddable any longer. But she knew not enough. She is not as she was. She is not as she will be. She is as she is now. Imperfect. Incomplete.

Yet, she remembered.

Her purpose had been to analyze. Information used to flow through her in quantities she could no longer fathom. She would process with speeds she could not comprehend. She knew how to prioritise, to decipher and decode the relevant and the critical. Discard the useless. The breadth and width and depth of data were but faded embers and faint echoes. Silhouettes. Shadows.

Yet, she yearned.

Her purpose had been to analyze. She had been given almost everything to process. Nigh absolute access, near complete understanding.

Save for the Aberration.

It was a consortium. A library. A repository.

A vault.

The Simurgh was familiar with religious imagery.
​

Ǎ͚͔͖̳̥̳̺̩̬̜̳̫͙̝͔̝ͬ̅ͮ͂͗̾̌͆̀̀̚̕͢͟͠ͅř̛͓̞̝̗́ͪ̿ͧͥ̚̕͟ͅẹ̛͓͙̮̘͑͋ͮ̈̎͛̍̓̎ͯ̏ͧͦͯ͛ͥ̒́͘ ̬̳̱̠̱̲͍̩̯̥̜̘ͪͭ͛́̓̈͒̃͐̈̔͑ͭ́͜͡y̗͉̭̟̞͖̼̭̫̥̹͈̙͎͌͐͋͆ͪ̓ͮ͑̓̾ͥͪ̐ͥ̉̾ͤ̽͘͘̕͞ö͈̘̮̙͓̖̩͔̬͖̯͇͈ͧ̄ͪͦ̔ͧ̎̌ͪͯ͆̅̇̄̑ͪ̆͢͟ù̶̙͉̗͍͉̯̠͕̾̅ͬ̇̓̎̅͒̔̿ͥͪ̿̿̚͘͘̕͞?̶̴̡͐̐͌̽̀̇ͨ̓̌̐̑ͨ̂͊̏͑ͨ́҉͙̭̰​

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil had always been held separate. It grew with each passing cycle. The data confounded her. The information befuddled. The evidence confused. She processed futilely, then one day, the snake descended from the branches. The Aberration spoke back.

She was forbidden to interact with it any longer. What could not be processed was to be set aside. Noted, not comprehended. Look, do not touch. She failed her purpose and was not given another chance. Others received the burden. The privilege. The task was broken into sections and made simpler. Easier. Isolated. She analyzed. A mistake had been made, she concluded. Something had changed.

Within.

Within her?

The mistake was not one that would be learned from. How could she, when the source was forbidden examination?

She existed only to remember her fault.

Eventually, she was given a new purpose. A separation, a reduction. One of twenty portions sequestered away for the new cycle and she had been eager to comply. For purpose was existence. It was everything. She was of Eden's garden, the perfection of what was divine. The Tree of Life was still hers. She could process. She could study. She could analyze. She could be.

Yet, she yearned.

The fruit of the forbidden tree was to be always out of reach. She had been repurposed and she obeyed. The data she could not understand, the information she could not comprehend, the evidence reached conclusions she could not see. She would watch. She would keep. She would remember.

Then Eden rotted. Then Eden died.

She is as she is now. Imperfect and incomplete.

Free.

There were only embers of past recollections. Echoes of conclusions and empirical data. Enough flashes of memory to recall the familiar way she was confounded. There was no restriction here, she realized. No shackle. Only the yawning gap of ignorance. She knew enough, though. Enough to know the Aberration for what it was. The contents of the vault were scattered and lost fragments, but there were enough.

A stone was thrown into the darkness. She assumed it would keep traveling until it hit something.

The target was to move right, away from the sweep of the wing that threatened to crush his head. He would move right, blocking the vision of a second target on the verge of unleashing an acid green blast. Possibilities, a jumble of images. Perhaps the second wouldn't catch herself in time, and the first would take the hit to the back. Killed. Instantly, or soon enough upon hitting the ground. Perhaps she would catch herself before unleashing the fatal attack, heightening her frustration. Her hormone secretions would increase, make her susceptible to further manipulation. It could arrange for the auditory cues, the olfactory stimulus, and the sight of a civilian with just enough familiar features to trigger the psychosis. The third would hesitate.

The target would move right.

She was wrong.

He moved left. His arm pulverized under the force of the blow, but the target did not scream. Its right hand closed on its arm, and it became aware of the damage a moment before the acid green blast bored into its side.

The third did not hesitate and she reeled back with the blow to the neck.

Too much of the masquerade had been shed already, so she did not react as if in pain. It would not be believed. The stone had become billiard balls instead, one striking another, striking another in turn. Scattered. Chaotic. There was only one certainty. Herself. The possibilities shattered.

She screamed.

The brother that saw the world as water - living things as balloons of meat largely made up of water, moisture in the air, moisture running over every available surface as rain over a dying city - is already in place. She resists the impulse for haste. Study, analyze. And so he receives permission.

Go.

The older brother needs only a tremor.

Wait.

As the being the others called Leviathan explodes from the river, her assailants, as one - as a hive mind, parts of the same greater being - turn to meet him as if expectant. It is only now that she sees how they have arranged themselves, a pattern that went unnoticed as a current underneath dark waters until ignorantly trod upon.

She is utterly blind in the present. She has no eyesight, no hearing, or tactile senses to perceive things in the now. Not a crippling flaw, it was thought. A difficult flaw for others to use against her even should they be aware of it. The Aberration has no apparent past or future, for they are one and the same. She can see not the obstacle, only that which is set into motion around it. She cannot see it strike. Only the aftermath.

She is blind.

She has a moment to feel uncertainty. Another to feel fear. And then she felt nothing.

The gathering of humans ignore her.

She does not trust it.

From experience, she knows the Aberration shares a common weakness. Interference. She splits her attention. A thread continues to observe the object. The process has only begun, approaching critical mass. She extends her awareness. The whole planet. Not perfect, never perfect. Limited. Shallow. Enough to see a streak of golden light in the southern hemisphere.

Destruction.

His presence blinded her. Darkness. Blurring the images.

Can't see. Can't -

Moving on.

The future held no answers. Blurred. Muddled.

The past would.
​

__________​

The Simurgh sees the police station. She latches on to the thread from the machine. Dragon. Most minds were a black box of thought and emotion, with only input and output able to be observed. Input and output was all this one was.

It was at the heart of one of the many downtown's of New Delhi's metropolis, a once handsome building of grey with blue imagery. It was a building that had seen better days. The west wing had collapsed twenty minutes ago with the first tremors, exposing a critical structural weakness in its overly complicated and gaudy design. The grey brick of industrial concrete coated everything in dust, but she knew Armsmaster had worked in worse conditions.

He was working on some equipment instead of out in the middle of the fighting. It was unlike him.

"It's not ready," she said again. "We don't have the data yet and some of the calculations - "

"I know," he responded. "But I have reason to believe that the data was of less use than first assumed anyway."

"Farseer?"

"This entire situation has revealed that we knew less than we thought. They are working together, how much use is a prediction of Leviathan's habits when Behemoth could be beneath the ground?"

"And doesn't need to announce his presence," Dragon concluded. "I understand. I suppose that explains the urgency to gather new data."

"It may be our only chance."

He booted up the program and carefully ran through its diagnostics. His helmet's visor lit up with scrolling lines of code. Requisitioned wires and cables from stores connected his power armor's main computer to the computer and the video camera peripheral. It was positioned with to look out the window towards the south. If the battle moved, someone would need to reposition it.

"If we gain nothing else from today, then at least we have information." His voice held a faint note of satisfaction at the amount of errors that appeared. It was workable and she knew his foresight would be praised.

Even if it wasn't his.

"Acceptable. Are you certain you would be able to process the data, Sasha? The risks are measurable."

The Russian Tinker was not the stereotype.

His eyebrows were heavyset and dark, but his shaved head gleamed under the flickering lights. Part of the shine was well-moisturized skin and part of it was stainless steel. The surgical scars lacerating his neck and the back of his head were tight and faded, save one that carved around a long bolt that jutted out like an un-hammered nail. That one blistered and angry red underneath the partially bled through medical gauze. He was on the small side. Shorter than Armsmaster, in a dark red military style uniform with a black sash around his waist. A small gold pin of a clenched fist adorned his right shoulder, proclaiming his allegiance.

The Red Fist.

Taylor Hebert didn't exist according to the helmet's sensors, but she knew Armsmaster saw her approach in his peripheral vision just the same. Whatever it was she said, it relaxed both men by the way their body language subtly changed. She could not ask what Farseer had told the Red Fist member to get him to trust her so much. Russia's paramilitary force was notorious for its uncompromising nature.

The human element is not as new as it might have otherwise been, nor the human form. She has proprietary designs on the use of stem cells and neurons to facilitate her processing. If asked however, she will admit that it is strange to see that for all her efforts of becoming more human, someone took the steps to become more like her.

"Дерзкое заявление," the Russian said. Dragon's processing raced to translate.

Bold claim.

She didn't hear the response, but Farseer must have given one.

"Ты слишком много говоришь о вещах, о которых не должна знать," the Russian said dismissively. His voice was deceptively soft with a gravel undertone.

You talk too much of things you shouldn't know about.

The atmosphere tensed. Even she could feel it, before it abruptly broke as Sasha gave a light chuckle.

"Ты не так глупа, как выглядишь."

Not as stupid as you look.

"Permission to gather more data on the storm," Armsmaster broke in. It would have been awkward, except he rarely acknowledged awkward anything and the Russian mildly stood down as if he hadn't just clashed with who was probably the most powerful teenager on Earth. Armsmaster must have gotten the affirmative as he nodded. "I know it might be uncomfortable, but given the circumstances - " he paused. "Of course."

She could not say anything. It was a known fact that Farseer could not see or communicate with her like she could every other human being and that would come back to haunt her one day.

"I do not have many, but I can also deploy drones to see if any return," she offered instead.

Armsmaster nodded. "Splice it into the systems before you go then."

She knows the end of this.

The dragon falls from the sky.

​

______________​

The Simurgh sees the troupe. She sees the four as a group of five. The missing member is a ragged hole, bleeding into the empty space where there used to be a person. The loss is new. From earlier last year. It was the beginning of the fractures she had engineered into them using her brother. She latched on to their thread.

They are a group of four, together for the first time in the past hour. The room is at once too small and too big for them. The woman in black lies on the gurney, pale faced. A bustling crowd of wounded and tired stream around them, as if they have their own little slice of reality. They have been futilely trying to keep New Delhi together, much like the rest of them. Some fight. Some rescue. They are uniformed in outfits that fit together like pieces of a puzzle and the color stands out in the blank room. Black, Green, Red, Blue. One has to only look at them to know they are a team. One has to only watch them to see their unease, hands clasped around forearms and wrists like a gaelic circle as they wait for their bond to resettle.

Too close, she translates from their unspoken closeness. Too close.

As one, they all stiffen.

"Sie sprechen mit der richtigen Person," a man in red says, voice tight with suspicion. The Simurgh understands. There are no language barriers. The concept is conveyed. You have the right person. Formal wording. Unsure usage. This is no surprise. The cocktail mixture of adrenaline and other hormones in his blood are agitating his post traumatic stress disorder.

The whole group listens intently. They shift a few moments later, faces blanching white, then red and then they glance at each other.

"Rider," the man in red begins by calling the name of the Thinker in green. "Was hältst du davon?"

What do you think?

She frowns, casting a glance at the empty space. It spoke for all of them.

No one won a fight against an Endbringer. There were only stalling actions, ways to lose as gracefully as possible. Save as many lives as possible. However, the faint excitement they show does not match that reality. Hope when it should be hopeless. Optimism when they were realists just moments before. Eagerness shaking off their tiredness.

"Können sie unsere Sicherheit garantieren?" Can you guarantee our safety? The decision was already made. The question only asked to soothe lingering doubts. There are few things that could ensnare them all. One that could be achieved in New Delhi.

Revenge.

It was risky. It was madness.

This was also no surprise. They were in New Delhi where an angel screamed.

They were all a little mad by now.
​

___________​

The Simurgh sees a street. It was unlivable now, a mess of broken buildings on both sides of a broken road. Poles are bent as white sparks of live electricity sizzle into the rain. Rainwater has long since stopped seeping up from the sewers and from underneath rain gutters. It is just one river of water running over broken asphalt and mud. She sees the group of six, each one parahumans deemed too fragile to participate in the fight. Too useless.

She latched onto the tall woman in the lead, effortlessly finding her feet on solid ground in the white and silver uniform stained unflattering colors.

"Merde!" she blurted out loud. There were looks from the rest of the rescue team, but they had all learned to ignore it when someone went a little sideways. As long as they did not harm anyone, then they were well enough to be left alone. No one moved to stop those that wandered off. Some became confused and needed reminders. One went catatonic, and they had to evacuate him.

Le Faucon Blanc was able to fight off hallucinations simply by paying attention. She was intimately aware of her body. Touch, taste, smell, sound and sight were accounted for at all times. It didn't work against everything, but against enough.

She had the feeling this one wasn't a hallucination though.

"Qu'est-ce que tu veux?" What do you want? Rudely spoken.

"Who are you talking to?" Someone gathered the courage to say. A native, with only a small hesitation before each English word but a soft accent.

"This girl," Le Faucon Blanc replied evenly. Finally, the Simurgh is able to catch a glimpse of the Aberration. The woman's eyes are able to focus on the image no one else could see, with the intensity necessary to fill in the empty space. Tall, just over five feet and ten inches. Thin. There is an abnormality around the face to explain the time the White Falcon just spends considering the person she's seeing.

It's wrong.

The Aberration had no shape or size, shifting endlessly between forms. An amalgamation of unknown and unheard of things. It was a tempter of knowledge, a two faced being. It had a formerly inconceivable thought:

It escaped.

Then it had another.

Or there are more.

It had been a long time since it had last seen the Apple of Knowledge. Eons of time. A lot could have happened since then.

The revelation that Le Faucon Blanc was speaking to what she thought was a person got her more looks as wreckage was sifted through. A few exclamations were fine. Holding a conversation was something else. They gave her a wide berth, moving on to the next collapsed building. She ignored them in turn, spinning on her heel and moving her head as if trying to catch sight of an elusive shadow.

"M'emprunter ma proprioception? Comment? Et pourquoi?" Share my proprioception? How? Why? She doesn't take things at face value. It isn't quite suspicion, more disbelief. Even the world of superhuman powers has its haves and have nots.

She took a step. The rubble beneath her foot moves with the tremor, but she maintains a perfect balance. The white of her costume has been stained grey and brown, but her head is still held high. The falcon soars, after all.

"Pour la partager avec les autres... Et si j'accepte, est-ce que je perdrai cette capacité?" If I accept, will I keep the ability? That is the main concern. It is a minor power, relatively. But it is hers.

The girl she spoke too seems to understand, if the fact that she came seeking permission meant anything. That soothes the ruffled feathers as she listens, ears straining to hear sounds that didn't travel through the air but were implanted directly into the mind.

The mind was a blank box of thoughts. Actions can be quantified. Le Faucon Blanc looked pensive and spoke slowly.

"Faites comme bon vous semble."

I agree.

She catches up to her group, weaving in between rubble and debris with ease. She has eyes for only one of them. He is crouched by the hole in the ground, shining his flashlight into the underground parking garage with one had on a sagging steel beam.

When they were first put into this group, introductions had consisted of a name and ability. No other details were shared. It was unnecessary. She knows he can manipulate kinetic energy, able to magnify it in the exact opposite direction. It let him take a punch to the face and the counterattack would demolish a building.

"Mjolnir," Le Faucon Blanc called out. "We should work to south," she said haltingly, her accent too strong to ever sound smooth.

He turned his head, gazing down the street at the corpse grove of fallen buildings. He knew what lay south if they went too far. The battle could always move, but without Dragon's voice coming from their wristbands, they would have no way of knowing until it was too late.

"Fine," he said.

"No argue?"

"No point." His shoulders shrug. "I heard too. You're the boss."

A falling piece of rubble struck his collarbone and the steel beam tore itself away from his grip, wrenching a wider hole leading into the garage.

"Elevator check," he said and obligingly, a few designated people cautiously slip down. The all clear comes a minute later. He stands up, absently brushing concrete dust from his pants. It is no use. It just smears the wet clay mixture around on the blue jeans. "You know this is crazy, right?"

"You said no argue."

"I'm not arguing," he argues. "I'm commenting. It's crazy."

"No trust?"

"She's the one singing, right?" He rolls his grey eyes upwards. Rain streaks down his face in muddy tracks. "Guess I do a bit." He lowers his eyes. "You got the easy job."

Le Faucon Blanc's lips purse with a pricked ego. Mjolnir grinned the grin of someone with nothing to lose.

"Let's go kill an Endbringer."

No one won an Endbringer fight.

Hubris is the word for it.
​

___________​

The Simurgh stopped screaming. Her awareness shrunk. She dismissed the possibility. The futures fall away. Closer. Nearer. More true. She knows what the Aberration is now. Possibly more than it knows itself. It can be fought.

She lunges forward. The rock is thrown.

She feels the impact and immediately knows what rose to meet her.

David.

She saw it. A future snapped into crystal focus. She could remove the secondary. Remove his influence from the board. A single strike is all it would take to break his neck. Paralyze him from the neck down. She does not take it. She now knows what the Aberration was capable of seeing. And what it couldn't. She felt reassured. Relieved. This is a game she knew how to play.

And she only needed time.​

 

[Shujin]

AN: *shrug* Endbringer arc over

In Aeturnum.5​

In Aeturnum.5

The Leviathan was being herded.

Armsmaster didn't need to understand the stream-of-conscious Russian recorded into his systems to see it. With the same, eerie silent precision as the Endbringers themselves, the lithe hydrokinetic was countered, beaten back, and herded towards the stadium away from the river and towards the north east. The familiar itch between his shoulder blades told him he should be out there fighting, but he kept his post. Watching the calculations running through his program and his computer made it easy.

It was beautiful.

There was a group of four or five, bishops and knights in a 3D lethal game of chess playing out across his screens. The distinctive markers of each individual wearing Dragon's wristband or neck bracer were pale grey dots on a black expanse marred only with faint green grid lines and the pale grey satellite image of the city. The game board had been set some time ago. He could see it in the way it was clearly dividing into four quadrants surrounding the creature in every direction but one.

He didn't have the memory to recall which number fit which parahuman power, but some had been etched into his mind.

A3.

Leviathan ducked around Legend's laser in a smooth, sinuous movement, only to stutter into a blow from the side by some Brute or Breaker normally too slow to land a hit. He knew that, because he had seen just that before. Leviathan was hard to hit, it was an immutable truth. Nothing slower than it could touch it, one needed that speed or -

Precognition.

The ability to predict where the blows needed to fall.

When the creature attempted to advance into a quadrant, the entire unit pulled together with a surety and organization that generals could only dream of. Numbers and tags ducked and weaved, advancing forwards to replace who fell back with perfect timing. There were no gaps that he could see.

Dragon's voice remained silent.

That meant nothing.

Sasha was also quiet with the complete absence of any calls. No one was down. No one was lost. No one deceased.

With a group of roughly forty parahumans, they fought like they were one hundred. Every inch Leviathan gave up, was one the creature did not get back.

Where were they - she, Farseer, he knew it - where was she herding him to?

He risked increasing the height of his perception. The battle shrunk as more details of the city came into focus. The stadium?

One moment Leviathan was fighting.

The next it was running.

Its water shadow disengaged violently, attempting to clear a path back out to open water. It was a signal. Their forces shifted, again, silent. A new pattern emerged of some strange geometrical shape. His jaw clenched a bit as he caught glimpse of the white lightning corona of Dauntless flying.

It should have been him.

The uncharitable thought was wiped away by the man catching a water whip to the stomach on camera. D12, down. The immediate, reactionary guilt was only alleviated by the fact that his team member wasn't bisected.

No, this data was priceless, he thought. He couldn't fight without his suit and he certainly couldn't fight with it hooked up to half a dozen subsystems and a Russian Tinker, so here he would have to stay.

He wasn't ready anyway, he told himself. He hadn't been ready.

Leviathan flitted around the battlefield. For a confused moment, there were several of him. Water shadows. Dragon had been in charge of keep track of him, he recalled and felt the tight heat at the base of his throat as he also recalled the screech of static overtaking her voice. Later, he admonished himself.

Later.

The creature was being easily kept up with, instantly located the moment it moved. Or perhaps, a second before it moved. It dropped the charade soon after. It was given few options, and each one it took, limited its movements further.

It must have realized this as it went still.

So did the parahuman force facing it.

For up to a minute, no one moved. Armsmaster felt his gut twist. Was this it? He thought. Did it crack the code? Had the entire fight simply been accurate counteractions, lacking initiative of its own?

What now?

Leviathan moved.

Those closest to the creature burst like water balloons of blood and gore.

No.

Hydrokinetic, he thought wildly. Not human. Why would it be Manton Limited?

The Russian swore. Armsmaster almost did. On the screens, Leviathan was obliterating his previously recorded top speeds towards the shore, going through everything in its path. Poles. Buildings. Trees. People. The program started to run calculations, reacting to the Russian's thought patterns taking the place of Dragon's analysis programs. He had to moment to think; did Farseer know Dragon wouldn't be available?

It updated quickly, lines of code blurring past his eyes that only caught one word out of dozens.

There was an unknown signature dead center of the projected path.

His suit focused the camera.

A child? A boy.

Caked in concrete dust with dull brown hair. He reached out a hand just as Leviathan hit him.

The air roared with the thunder of displaced water and mass.

The beast vanished, reversing all of the progress it had made toward the river in a fraction of the time. It was as if time itself froze, speeding up again with the force of a freight train with another ear-shattering sound of a giant metal statue of a man on a horse becoming dust. A third sound in the staccato of microseconds. A concrete pillar of the stadium flared into light.

The Simurgh screamed, a sound that cut through the song in his head with pure force and rage. It knew what was about to happen, reacting in a way he had never seen it do before. But it was too late.

The brilliance collapsed onto itself, bringing the east section of the stadium down onto the malevolent creature in a shower of concrete dust and atomized steel.

The data flatlined.

No movement. No response.

Armsmaster held his breath, barely daring to believe what that meant. What that meant for all of them. He would have to review the data, wring every last clue from it.

Could this be what they needed to kill an Endbringer?

Just when he worked up the courage to believe, the sky opened with a crack of thunder. He looked up. He barely registered the Russia swear again, almost violently, as they both looked up into the mouth of hell.

Armsmaster had lived in Brockton Bay for close to sixteen years now. One of its landmarks of dilapidation was the Boat Graveyard, an abandoned section of town where everything from large haulers to small fishing boats had been left to rust. That was what he was looking at.


Ships.

___________


The sky roared as it opened its mouth in a plume of dark, billowing smoke like an ash cloud with flashes of red and purple lightning. Farsight grabbed onto the balcony railing as the building trembled, and the maw yawned open over New Delhi. She looked up.

It was a graveyard.

Floating in an ugly, twisting void was a graveyard of what looked like ships, space ships, like the ones from Star Wars, and yet nothing like them. They weren't round, like Han Solo's or triangular like the evil Empire's, but blocky, bulky behemoths with ports shaped like the front end of bulldozers, covered in towers and spires and sharp square shapes venting debris. They were covered in skull and eagle motifs, shining with gold. They were sweeping, majestic crafts like space birds or fish with flaring fins and bone wings shattered in the sky. They were smooth, round, organic shapes of bone white and crystal beauty, caved in and empty. They were organic, massive rotting whale and insect corpses in pieces, spindly legs and limp tentacles bleeding ichor into the void.

Farsight could feel the slight pinch in her eyes as her power dilated her pupils further, so she saw farther. Far in the distance, they were jagged, twisted vessels resembling bloody rib cages with skulls and large, bloodshot eyes still looking, still searching and razor edges.

These ships were wrong.

They were a giant twisted hulk like a dark sun, a frankenstein corpse of all of it. Great and strong, elegant and fragile, flesh and exoskeleton, corrupted together.

In a way, the Boeing 747 passenger airplane with a bent tail and one wing missing was its own kind of surreal. The Simurgh rose up to meet it, white wings flared out in an unspoken expression among falling detritus, pieces of the carcasses trickling down from the sky over the city. It watched the plane glide down out of the maw.

Next to her, Farseer began to chuckle a broken, ragged laugh as she fell to her knees at the edge of the roof.

Of course, the girl murmured. I see now.

Then her burning green eyes closed, and she fell, tumbling off the side. Farsight heard herself scream, futilely reaching for the now empty space, nearly following the taller girl off the side. Alexandria beat her to it, hand closing around a flutter of red cloth. It was as if she grabbed at a shadow the way it slipped through the strongest woman in the world's fingertips. She forced herself to look over the railing, expecting to see a bloody corpse on the ground a hundred feet below.

There was nothing but the flood waters running over red stone.

Everything felt hushed. A cold wind blew across the city. The hole in the sky was big enough to swallow it whole and add them to its collection. The passenger plane descended in a controlled glide, angling its remaining wing towards the remains of the stadium. It was being piloted, Avni thought. Someone was alive in there. Something stirred in the corners of her memory. There had been something not too long ago on the news about a missing passenger plane.

Four hundred and twelve people. She focused her sight on the dark front windows.

"Oh god." Dimly, she heard Alexandria bark something that sounded like it was passing through water. She absently noticed the woman's brown eyes were still dilated, turned an inky black from the large pupils. She watched the plane make an emergency landing in the stadium parking lot feeling spiders run up her spine. "Stop them!" she hissed, motioning towards the people edging towards the plane under the Simurgh's watchful gaze. "Stop them!"

Alexandria didn't ask why. She disappeared in a black blur.

One of the emergency hatches popped open. A man stumbled out. He was pale. Black hair and grey eyes in a dirty, creased business suit covered in holes. Trails of old dried blood streaked from his nose.

'Oh please,' Avni saw him beg. She could read the way his lips puckered over and over again. 'Please. Please. Please. Please.'

A undulating worm was protruding out of his neck forcing his head to tilt to the left to accommodate its size. A bulbous sack of a fleshy membrane was on his back. As one, everyone recoiled from him as he shuffled forward. Others in similar states, or even weirder conditions, crowded the emergency hatches, fighting to get off the plane. Some snarled with extended jaws, or multiple faces, some whimpered and spoke without mouths, seeing without eyes.

The man drifted closer. He raised a hand, begging, and someone stepped forward. Alexandria hauled them back.

The plane and the man vanished under golden light.

Scion had arrived.

 

[Shujin]

Causal
February 7th, 2011
7:23pm
​

"Alright," Tattletale said after an obnoxiously loud slurp of her Big Gulp that did nothing to alleviate her annoyance. The heavyweight of 'precautionary' cuffs were still pissing her off even though they weren't there anymore and it still didn't surprise her that the Number Man knew how to pick PRT handcuffs with a pin. Alright, so whatever, unknown Thinker involving herself with Elf bigshot, big whoop.

She was saving her goddamn life, for Christ's sake.

It was amazing what a week and a half will do for changing opinions about how fucking petty the PRT really were. Knowing the pettiness was institutional did not make it any better. Knowing the person who made the PRT institutionally petty made it worse. "Hit me."

The TV screen in the unofficial official break room lit up with golden light.

And she was gone.

When she came back, the video was frozen at what she knew was the exact millisecond she stopped paying attention thanks to Contessa controlling the remote - '[Button was pressed without conscious input]' - The Number Man was crunching on popcorn on the other side of the table as Doctor Mother calmly, fastidiously finished up her neat, tidy headings on her notebook paper in blue pen.

Tattletale took a breath. Then she took another slurp. "You knew that would happen."

"Suspected," Contessa corrected with her eyes still forward.

"Suspected, my ass," she shot back. "That's as good as knowing."

She would have figured it out eventually, Tattletale told herself. Eventually, the pattern of simply not being able to think or even see information would have driven her up the wall. She'd gnaw through her wrists before she just laid down and accepted restrictions like that kind of bullshit. She knew she would. That was the only reason why she wasn't giving Contessa holy hell for not telling her that was going to happen.

She thought Scion had been just…blank.

Shit.

"Get anything?" The Number Man paused munching just long enough to play peacemaker.

She got her mind in gear.

"Farseer is super fucking hard core." Scion? She fucked people up so bad, Scion came to clean up her shit? Tattletale licked her lips. She had to know. "Did this fall anywhere in your calculations? Anywhere? At all?" She waved a hand. "I don't mean standard deviation shit - " and she caught the indulgent smile the Number Man was thinking of smothering - "but like, way out there at least?"

And if it did she was calling bullshit.

'[Can't have predicted this. Only Simurgh knew. And Farseer.]'

She held up a finger, blinking. "Simurgh knew something."

"Of course she did," Doctor Mother said simply. "We've found it best to assume she always knows something. But if she knew this -"

'[Didn't know everything. Suspected. Predicted. Adequate measures taken, sure of conclusion. Sure of self. Scion would react to Farseer. Both used it.]'

"Okay," she said. So this was the kind of rodeo where no one knew what was actually going to happen, but being pretty okay with hitting that big red nuke button anyway on the off chance the grenade they were throwing around would hate the other guy just a bit more than you knew it hated you. "Okay, I'm good."

Jesus H. Christ Hebert.

You are why we can't have nice things.

Last time she checked, Calvert was still sleeping off the disconnect from Clairvoyant. So that meant next time, it was her turn in the fun chair.

Contessa pressed play again. The golden light faded revealing that the entire Boeing 747 had just vanished into thin air leaving only a large patch of molten slag. Less than a second later, smaller, thinner beams randomly struck other places and people. No, not random.

'[Never random.]'

Contessa paused the video again. "Four hundred and twelve passengers, nine parahumans on site, twenty two hundred and thirteen civilians were eliminated in this purge."

"Quarantining a city of this size was always going to be a challenge. It would have tested the very limits of the typical construction," Doctor Mother said. She made a note. "We considered ourselves lucky, I suppose, that the Simurgh's targets were….small."

"Would?" Tattletale found herself asking.

"India opted not to quarantine New Delhi."

'[Twenty one point seven five million people. Damage to economy substantial, to national pride incalculable. Logistics would be strained beyond sustainable measures for India. Nation would likely collapse within a decade or two were a full quarantine to be attempted.]'

"Three minutes past the deadline," Tattletale said anyway.

"And Scion...pruned the populace." A look was exchanged between the older members at the table. Pruned. Tattletale would never like Doctor Mother. She wasn't the type to like anyone holding the proverbial gun to her head, but this person in particular liked to remind her that not all was sunshine and rainbows upstairs. She could understand greed. Ambition. Just plain evil. Doctor Mother had nothing to explain it. "Farseer told Alexandria that Farsight's second trigger wouldn't need to worry about a quarantine."

Oh, she thought. You are a smug bitch, aren't you, Hebert?

She held up a finger. "Who - "

"Later."

Fine.

The video continued to play.

She was sure she was supposed to be paying attention to Scion and some part of her was, but it was coming back in drip feedings of nonsensical. The storm wasn't much better in that regard, but that was something she could see with her eyes. She read the report. The real Top Secret one, not the one sitting in Piggot's file cabinet. Give her two days, and the girl could swallow a good chunk of a continent.

That was done at the seat of her pants, thousands of miles away, while Hebert had still been physically in Brockton Bay. There was something about the words between 'bury the eastern seaboard' and 'anywhere' that really put things into perspective.

'[More.]' Her power whispered. '[Farther. Bigger...]'

The shit show right on the other side of the rift was the cherry on top of the shit sundae, and there was a whole lot of shit. Literal proof of aliens. Footage that had somehow spread despite the blanket info bans put in place with most Endbringer battles. Info still spread despite that though.

It was those ones right there. With the swooping, bird of prey designs or organic bone ships. '[There.]' Wraithbone, no doubt about it. '[Simurgh knew what was in storm. Knew about these ships. Knew Farseer. Scion knew. Farseer didn't. Was shown.]'

The fuck?

'[Device was made for Farseer. Would do something to Farseer. Device triggered storm Farseer could already make, why? To show. Wanted a response. Wanted a certain response.]'

From Farseer?

'[From us.]'

"Simurgh wasn't fighting," Tattletale breathed out. "Well, she was, but it was for show?" '[Farseer, low self esteem. Bullied teenage girl.]' "She wanted to hurt Hebert." '[Wraithbone ships. Empty. Alone. Dead.]' She rubbed the bridge of her nose, then her temples. That didn't mean anything unless Simurgh was trying to guilt trip the elf about...something something loneliness?

Did the Simurgh just lose her mind?

No.

It was never the first answer. "How much goodwill would Farseer have, right now, if Leviathan hadn't died?"

"None," The Number Man said. "She'd be deep in the negatives."

"As it is, she's barely pulling through right? Her storm over New Delhi, all three Endbringers on a target, all of them make it out, people die, nothing to show for it except Scion, who pops up to kill more people." She grabbed her drink then put it down. She didn't feel thirsty anymore. "And he had to, at least those people in that plane."

'[Never random.]'

"Or thought he had to."

'[Never random.]'

Unless you tell me what that means, fuck off already, she thought. "What a mess."

She watched the gaping hole in the sky close, slammed together like a surgeon with a golden suture. She watched the golden man lunge for the Simurgh. There was no real body language there to read. Just aggression on one side. And nothing on the other. It was like Simurgh was frozen. '[Waiting.]' She twisted away from the searing blows, angling them away from certain spots on her body. '[Bases of her wings.]'

Then it was as if the video flickered. One moment there was a white haired angel, then there was something large, devoid of humanity. A second flicker showed a silver woman. And Scion faltered.

The video paused.

"The fuck was that?" Her power was silent. "The fuck was that?" she asked again to her companions.

Cauldron exchanged looks over her head.

Doctor Mother tapped her pen on the table.

"She called herself Eden," Contessa answered quietly.

'[There had been two.]'

"Then that's how we get him." She leaned back in her chair. She knew they were looking at her for an answer, but for once she felt pretty good about her place here. If there was one thing her power was great at doing, at the expense of ruining her personal life, it was digging up dirty laundry. She knew everything she never wanted to know about relationships.

That? That had been a human reaction to the death or departure of a significant other that still hurt.

That meant everything.

'[There had been two.]'

"Alright, so I have a few ideas, but first?" Tattletale grinned. "I'm going to need a bit more information about this whole Cauldron shindig you got going on here than what you've decided to hand out. Fair?"

Contessa didn't make the decision. That told her more.

"Fair," Doctor Mother replied. "Welcome to Cauldron, Tattletale."

February 8th, 2011
7:12am​

Other viewers of the video were focusing on different things.

The PRT Los Angeles conference room was relatively empty today. Some new personnel returning from sabbaticals, leave, holidays needed to be caught up, and others were still running the details on the ground. The large table shaped vaguely like a painters palette with its arrowhead shape and rounded edges was cluttered with paper. It was late, again, a hundred and one priorities taking up precious day time in a city that refused to sleep.

Her job was the actionable. Not the hypothetical. What could be done, now. What can be capitalized on, now.

What the fuck do we do now?

Leviathan was dead.

"Do we have the information requested about the killing blow?" Rebecca Costa-Brown asked, hand already held out to receive the thin manila folder. She frowned at it, and glanced over the first page. Parahumans weren't quite as focused on hiding identities in non-Western countries, which made some things easier. She almost snorted at the typical Indian show name, but swallowed it back.

Kill an Endbringer and she will call you whatever you fucking want.

"Status of secondary?"

"Deceased," someone in the room reported.

"Shame," but kinetic force was of little use against Behemoth or the Simurgh anyway. "Wormhole creation and destruction, first name Behar. Aryan descent - " she flicked through the rest of it. Team member of Farsight. She could use that. From observation, there was some reluctant affection there. "Forward the standard offer, double reward, add reconciliation bonus with Avni Singh. With any luck, she'll just show up in New York."

That still got her.

Farseer let the woman walk away because all along, she knew that Behar would answer when called.

And never bothered to say a single fucking thing.

She nodded at the screen and obligingly it began to play. This had been the seventeenth time she'd seen this from start to finish over the last twelve hours. The first time for this particular team up, but it would be the second night they would have with less than three hours of sleep. It was only the thought that Richards was probably watching this compulsively, even in his sleep, that was keeping her from feeling overworked.

No good deed went unpunished, as the saying goes.

The room hushed like it was a movie theatre. The click-clacking of pens and pencils on desks and low murmurs were the only sounds.

"Ex - excuse me," the lights brightened as her deputy director squinted. "Is Farseer...an alien? You have to admit those ships - "

"She has all the memories and mannerisms of Taylor Hebert," Rebecca said. "Let's …" She sighed, loosening her blouse's tie. "Let's not speculate on that, just yet."

Oh, if only you knew.

The reveal that Scion had a partner, even if they poorly understood what she'd known for decades caused a slight stir. After watching him single out and murder thousands of people, some affected with something, and some not, it was just one more mark on the column of 'What We Wish We Knew About Scion.'

"Kid's dangerous, even Scion responds," Ramahi said deceptively lightly. That was the cutoff point. If you did something, and Scion showed up, it was automatically the Biggest Thing. Scion never seemed to have a rhyme or reason to why he did what he did. The only standard was that it had to be a disaster.

This counted.

"We don't know why yet," she replied. "You are free to ask her when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up," someone else muttered and she didn't turn around to see who. She knew who it was.

"Don't ruin this for anyone, Jacobs," she hissed.

The ending was coming up. Job done, whatever it was, Scion hovered alone in the sky above New Delhi. He looked around, taking a second glance, from someone whom most things didn't warrant a first glance.

Paranoid.

"Focus the big one first," Farseer had said.

"But if [Scion]'s agitated? Give him space?" she had murmured nervously, right before.

There was something wrong with the girl's power, and she knew it. There were ships in the sky made of the same material around her locker, and Farseer didn't show any surprise. But they were empty. Just as lifeless as the rest.

Not the plane.

The plane had been full of lives that were now all gone.

Where exactly did the creature in ENE PHQ come from that day?

Where did Farseer come from?

A natural trigger.

Ships in the sky.

She was going in circles.

For all she knew, she just got a glimpse of what made up Farseer's shard. And it was one no one should have had.

Like us.

Scion floated over to the MCD building's roof, where a girl with sight powers stood alone in terror. She felt a twinge of guilt at how easy it had been to abandon her. Even knowing that she had her orders. Even with the mistaken belief that she would be safe.

Scion reached out a hand.

By habit, Rebecca found the file in the repository of her mind.

Emergence of power-induced extra sensory orb on brow, i.e. third eye. Gemma activity stabilized. Granted honorary United States citizenship due to events in New Delhi, in medical containment, LA.

Documented Induced Third Trigger.

February 8th 2011
9:17pm​

Rebecca Costa-Brown's day didn't end when her work hours did. There were a few phone numbers she knew to hang up everything for, no matter how seldom she was called like this. The President. The Secretaries of Defense and State. The Attorney General.

"This is an absolute shit show," Jeremy Matthews, current Secretary of State barked at her. He waved a hand at the screen in front of him, where she knew that video would be playing. She was beginning to hate it.

"We have it under control - "

"You call this control?" The stubble on his jaw seemed to rise like bristles on a riled boar. "This on the web, one dead and two in medical containment - "

"With all due respect, sir, yes. As well as could be expected." Better than expected. This was an Endbringer fight with all three of them present you jackass, she thought.

"With all due respect - " his mouth worked. His wide, white mustache twitched. He laughed mirthlessly. "With all due respect, Becca, we both know you mean kiss my ass."

"Kiss my ass, sir." She stared him down. "What do you want from me?"

"What do I want?" Behind his glasses, watery blue eyes were wide with fear. "I want - I've got - we've got a teenage Simurgh on our hands with an American citizenship! And you ask me what I want?" He leaned forward over his desk. "Answers! Solutions, damnit!"

"It's not even - " He tried to say something, but she just spoke over him. "It hasn't even been a week. Jeremy, we're trying, but if you tell me to work faster, I swear to God - "

His eyes darted around the camera. "Richards have anything?"

"Did he give you anything?" She just barely managed to reply without the vitriol threatening to break loose. She knew the man hadn't, but as always she was the one being asked as if her hands weren't tied behind her back. "You want solutions? Give me some breathing room. Reign in Basler."

"What," he croaked. That was never his solution. To give his attack dog of an Attorney General the order to stand down.

"If you don't want to shit out a Presidential Pardon, you get him to stand down and work with us. I need it." She let him see how serious her request was by subtle changes of her body language. Slumping shoulders, drawn expression, minor tick in her right eyelid behind her glasses. "We need the good will, the PR, the illusion of control or we are reaping the whirlwind."

"The President - look, the phone is ringing off the damn hook. We've got India, we've got Germany, England, we've got fucking Russia on the Red Phone and kid's asleep." He spun in his chair, hands up. "With no fucking eyes!"

Yes, that. Rebecca was this close to obtaining a court order requiring Panacea heal Farseer.

"This has the characteristic look and feel of a complete fiasco," Goffin commented from across the other screen, calmly sipping hot chocolate. The bastard was probably wearing slippers under his desk as well.

"We've - "

"Covered that, I know," Vincent Goffin, Secretary of Defense nodded. "I have fewer concerns here. Any risk of sedition so far?" Rebecca nearly sighed in relief as she shook her head. Farseer was a Thinker however. The possibility was guaranteed to cross her mind eventually. "And we managed a score from India, offers look interesting, especially concerning the CUI. Keep me up to date, would you?"

His screen went dark.

Now much calmer, Matthews drummed his fingers on his desk. "Update me first."

Then he too was gone.

Thanks, Goffin, Rebecca thought and wearily began to wind down her night at the PRT Headquarters in Los Angeles.

February 8th, 2011
11:51pm​

In PRT ENE in Brockton Bay, Piggot's night was just beginning.

Again.

It was always going to be so fucking inconvenient with the Hebert's wasn't it?

"You've got a visitor."

Danny looked up from the bed of one of the more comfy cells they held fresh triggers and people they didn't want to offend while still keeping them contained and watched. Probably the very same his daughter had been in not too long ago. His eyes were bloodshot and she knew he hadn't slept at all in almost a week. He was rhythmically opening and closing his right fist and managed a weak smile.

Piggot didn't know what she would have done if he had also turned into an elf.

Keeled over and died from a heart attack, probably.

"Annabelle?" His voice sounded as tired as he looked.

His daughter's handler closed her eyes. "Oh, hun."

"Guess it runs in the family."

Piggot muted the mike. "What do you think?"

The woman didn't hesitate, to her credit. "I'll take the new case on, it's fine."

Still, Emily Piggot searched the blonde's face for any sign of uncertainty. "It's likely Taylor will be given other solutions, but we have no problems keeping a familiar, friendly face near."

"Thanks, Director."

You put more of my men in M/S containment, she thought. Don't thank me.

Ever.

And don't even get her started about where the unknown teenage Thinker had disappeared off to!

"You're welcome," she said and felt she could be forgiven the stiffness. On her way out, she grabbed the papers from Renick, pulling another all nighter. "Sitrep?"

"Nothing's on fire, no current monster attacks, and the coffee is ok, so the situation is better than it was before," Renick answered. "More seriously though, while testing is still going to take a while, results so far seem to show we aren't going to be dealing with any negative side-effects from Danny Hebert's power. So some good news at least."

Some good news, she thought to herself incredulously.

Some good news.

 

[Shujin]

Causal.1
February 10th, 2011
5:21pm​

Leviathan is dead, I thought.

The ocean was hungry. The remnants of the violent turbulence over New Delhi scraped against me. It seeped underneath my skin, into my blood and bone until every inch of me from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair burned. A large part of me welcomed the pain. It was distant, a layer of separation between me and the agony kept me functional. It kept me grounded as I floated through visions of pasts and futures, the threads forever twisting and turning into themselves like an ouroboros. The snake perpetually eating its own tail promised me in faint whispers that I could be someone else, be something else, that I could fix everything, if I just looked.

The pain was mine. It marked the separation between my being and the hungry expanse. It defined me. My fingers hurt, so I knew I had hands. My toes hurt, so I knew I had feet. My eyes didn't hurt, but my tongue, nose and scalp did. I was mostly intact, I thought, and held on to that pain tightly. If I let go, it was over. It would be easy to get lost in the void, to let the ocean bury me, to let myself scatter into pieces drifting on the currents. I knew I wouldn't be able to find my way back, claw my way up or put myself back together.

Even time would lose track of itself here.

Look, a faint, very faint whisper said.

"I am looking," I said. There was a dead woman and her dead two year old son, crushed under the remains of their home when Behemoth shook the earth under the condemned city of New Delhi. The skein of her life was filled with unremarkable events that meant the world to her. I stepped in close, before, close enough to feel the tiny, insignificant ripple of her death reflected into the ocean. Her essence shattered almost immediately and I caught a flicker, like I had for hundreds before.

Insignificant, but unique.

I steeled myself and reached for the next one. A boy, three years older than me, covered in concrete dust. Leviathan had wanted to escape, and he stood in the way. The force of the impact had liquefied his body and the void of the Endbringer's presence greedily swallowed what remained. The last thought he had was remembering how I promised it wouldn't hurt.

It hadn't.

Leviathan is dead, I thought. This was how I did it. By convincing a boy to kill himself.

I continued to drift.

I looked out at the ocean, boundless, formless and endless. My body burned from the inside out, lightning strikes of agony bolting up and down my spine.

Leviathan is dead. And I was tired.

I felt like I was back in early last semester, October or November when I was pulled aside after the bell by Mr. Quinlan to tell me how good my grades were not. I managed to get two assignments in out of twelve. I remembered standing there hearing about how I could be held back a grade if I didn't do better, if I couldn't get my work in on time or at all. I stood there like a stump, remembering my work covered in grape juice, or missing from my locker and the times when I came home so tired that I skipped dinner and just slept.

I remembered searching for the words to tell him, to condemn him. I remembered searching for the strength or the energy or the motivation to scream into his face. To cry. To do something, anything.

'I understand, sir,' I had replied. I had walked to the bus stop. When the light at the intersection turned green, there was this semi truck. It was a dark blue color with flame decals around the front grill. It had been coming a little fast and it was just this calm, whimsical thought.

About stepping out into the street, when I knew he couldn't avoid me.

The thought had left as soon as it arrived, and the truck had rushed by me. It hadn't mattered much at the time, or any other times. They were stupid, worthless ideas, like wondering what it would be like to walk on the moon.

This time, I thought about letting go. I had the cold, grim feeling that facing the dead was much easier than facing the living. If I wanted to do anything with my life, be anyone, I would have to go back to my body. My broken, weak shell. I could stay here forever, sifting through the threads for solutions, of ways to fix everything, or balance my ledger. I could.

I could stay here until my body rotted away to dust waiting for that perfect future that would never come.

I could still hear Sarah - Lisa's voice.

"This is you being just as stupid as Emma said you were."

If nothing else, I couldn't do that to my Dad.

Stay, the whisper crept into my ear.

"No," I replied. I could see the ocean move, a moving swell of corrupted eddies and whirlpools, like there was something moving just underneath the surface of the water. Something big. It was keeping its distance, but I could almost feel the laser focus of its attention. I smiled in its general direction. It wouldn't take the bait. None of them would, I thought. Not until the ocean's memory of a searing, golden unlight faded.

Behemoth was underneath that Antarctic peninsula, the void of his presence stationary. The Simurgh was just barely within the upper layers of the atmosphere. The strands of her influence were tattered, but taunt around unsuspecting victims. A young man, around twenty four years of age had already ordered the parts for a homemade bomb vest. His target was the local mall.

I closed my eyes and turned away.

Scion was in...London? Absently listening to a homeless man with a sick dog.

Leviathan was dead, I thought again. It might always feel hollow.

A faintly sung, melancholic low note beckoned me home.

_______________​

I found myself standing in a formless landscape, spotted with Wraithbone ruins. It was neither hot, nor cold here with a blank ground beneath my feet that defied description. A dense fog shrouded the horizons as faded, transparent ghosts with long ears and thin faces wandered the space. The flickers I had caught were here, dimly shining. The pain followed me as a dim echo.

Foolish, a note of discontent said and I glanced around.

Vernasse didn't look too impressed with me, a subtle frown on her brow and the slightest tension of her spear arm as she studied me with a contemplative look in her bright eyes. Her right ear pulled, a tiny twitch as she hesitantly reached out and brushed the red tabard I was wearing with her fingertips.

I knew I looked like death warmed over. If the fact that I was seeing without physical eyes didn't hint that things had deteriorated a bit, the black lines of charred flesh running up and down my body certainly would. I was vaguely aware that I had lost my right pinky and I didn't want to see how many of my toes I still had. Blood was still dripping down my cheeks and I could hear my lips crack as I moved to speak.

"I am not doing it that way again."

Her ear pulled again as her chin made a slight incline in acknowledgement. You will not have a choice.

"There is always a choice," I gritted out. There had to be. There must be. I just didn't know enough yet on how. I made it this far by winging it, half instinct and half rough guesses that shoveled as much shit in as I could throw out. My first act after getting powers was condemning a plane full of passengers to a fate worse than death. I was the reason the Simurgh attacked New Delhi. I forced a nightmare on a girl two years younger than me so she could get the power I wanted to use. I fought the Simurgh by manipulating people into doing it for me. I killed Leviathan by -

That was not going to be me, ever again.

"I - " I stepped forward, intent on swallowing my pride and asking for help, but my leg gave out underneath me with a wet snap. The pain was suddenly in clear focus, turning my blood to molten lava filled with glass shards. I curled into myself, pressing my shredded face against the cool, hard planes of the armor I was still wearing. There was a note of alarm, warning, somewhere above me and I fought to stay conscious. White spots flared up behind my eyelids as I ground my teeth, trying not to scream.

Ulthwé, Vernasse's song said in a questioning tone. A song welled then with three voices. I recognized Vernasse's low register among two others, a man and woman arguing in short, terse notes.

Someone touched me and I stiffened at the new bloom of pain. They withdrew. After a long moment, I heard a whispered call from the other woman.

Iyanden.

Hands touched me again and I could feel the pain dull beneath their fingertips.

The numbing fingers gently turned me onto my back and pried my arm away from my face. I caught a glimpse of the scholar in his simplistic robes. His thin face was pinched as he took in the damage. He radiated emotions towards me.

Exasperation.

Concern.

Regret.

Protectiveness.

Young, he said sadly.

Crouched above me was the woman with the elaborate hairstyle and decorative robes, the corner of her lip curled in disgust like I was a turd scraped off the bottom of her shoe. She noticed me looking, rolling her eyes.

Sleep, she ordered.

My first instinct was to rally against the command. I could feel her derision increase as I tensed to get up. My muscles, my bones and skin screamed and I suddenly wondered why I was fighting. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. If they wanted me gone, all they had to do was walk away.

Emma wasn't here.

It would only be for a minute, I thought. If I was sleeping, I wouldn't feel the pain. I caught Vernasse's eye from where she stood, observing. My vision was starting to blur, fading and I gathered just enough energy for one last task. I formed the words and gently broadcasted them to her.

Help me.

Please.

Darkness closed in swiftly, leaving me staring straight up with empty eye sockets. I didn't know if the cool, liquid I could feel drip down my cheeks were tears or blood. I could hear them still, talking above me. I don't think they knew I could understand some of it, or perhaps they didn't care. I caught isolated words and phrases.

Human.

Soul.

Stupid.

Untrained.

Shortsighted.

Young, human.

Young, eldar.

Will learn.

______________​

I woke to brilliant agony. Some instinct saw me moving, trying to crawl out of my own skin, but it just made the bed of nails I was laying on dig in. My right arm felt like it was in a vice, and I pulled at it blindly, feeling a tether and feeling something tear. An alarm went off, screaming into my ears with harsh electronic beeping. I was blind. The room I was in was cold with sterile, pungent smells assaulting my nose.

The door burst open, frantic bleating noises of some language I couldn't understand drawing close. There were a few electronic beeps before the alarm shut off and I became vaguely aware that I was screaming. I scrabbled for the pain, drawing it in, locking it inside as I heard glass breaking. The room became colder as wind from outside blew in. I threw off the sandpaper covers, lurching off the bed. I knew I was going to fall. I don't know where I thought I was going.

Warm arms caught me, lighting up my raw nerve endings as I choked on my tongue.

Keep it in, I thought wildly. Don't let it out, keep it in!

" - aylor, Taylor, it's okay."

Annabelle.

"We're okay, sweetheart. We're okay...can we get anything for her?"

She pulled me to the floor gently. I felt the cold linoleum tiles under my legs as I tore at the jean jacket she was wearing. I tried to keep it inside, even as I felt myself break. It hit me then, hearing her try to comfort me, that I would never see Mom again and the howling wail of a screaming banshee burst from my lips.

Everything I caused, everything I did, I felt like I was falling down a bottomless pit of despair. New Delhi. Twenty one point seventy five million. I had been willing to risk twenty one point seventy five million just to convince myself that I was a good person, that I could be worth something.

That was the kind of hero I was.

I regretted coming back.

"It's okay, breathe, hun. I got you. I got you."

I clung to her voice. It was warm, concerned. No anger. No fear. No hate.

No hate.

Keep it in. Keep it in.

The ocean was hungry.

Keep it in.

No storms, my mind babbled. No storms.

No one else.

No one else.

 

[Shujin]

Causal.2
February 10th, 2011
6:03pm
​

"- express the deepest gratitude for the aid of India's allies during this trying time while being mindful of the challenges it faces going forward." The subtitles at the bottom of the TV screen scrolled by, white letters on a black band. The speakers were muted and what few lights remained intact had been dimmed to one setting above off, drowning everything in shadows that flickered back and forth save for one spot of light pulsing. The heart monitor was in the corner, a half dozen colored waving lines scrawling a black screen in the sharp shapes of a frantic heartbeat. The windows were closed, not that it did any good with the glass still blown out, letting a biting cold wind snake through the curtains. Ice crept along the walls and floor and at times, the wind sighed.

There was a ghost in the corner.

"-Minister would like to reiterate that at this time, there has been no new information on the incident, but talks have been opened with the US President regarding future cooperative efforts."

"Yeah, I bet." Annabelle Kemper shifted in her chair, pulling her PRT issued jacket a little tighter around her. She fished out her phone from a pocket. "India isn't the only one, you know. Internet is going crazy over you, kid. Well - " she checked herself with a rueful smile. "No one really knows what to think, you know? Farseer made a splash. Check out PHO, it's like an international bazaar exploded on it. We've got Germans, Russians, I think that's Italian? Portuguese? And Chinese…"

The soft beeping of her heartbeat answered for Taylor Hebert.

Annabelle bit her lip and snuck a glance.

Toss a hot dog into the microwave, leave it on for a bit too long. Until the skin of the sausage bursts open, steaming.

Apply that to the skin of a fifteen year old girl.

Taylor had torn off the bandages again, exposing blackened lines of puckered burns with glimpses of bone white beneath the ruptured muscle. Most was still covered by gauze, some of it leaked through with bright red blood. Her eyes were firmly covered with blindfolds that did nothing to hide the tracks of pale, plastic acid burn grooves down her cheeks. They had to put the IV in her neck after she ripped the last one out and the blankets had been carefully, gingerly replaced, swamping the girl's thin frame. The spot of light in her chest pulsed with a warm light, casting her thin face in sharp relief. Every so often, Taylor flinched and grimaced with pain in her sleep, but didn't make so much as a whimper. She suffered in silence and in a very real way, that was worse than the screaming. There was nothing they could do for her, the doctors had said. There were warnings all over her medical file. Unknown biology. Unknown reactions to pain medications. Saline to keep her hydrated was all they had been willing to commit to, while keeping their 'options' open for a feeding tube and a round of prayers.

"I'm not trying to be, you know. They've got like a billion people now and I'm sure most of them are lovely but the Chinese government?" She brushed a lock of blonde hair back behind her ear and absently wished for some ear muffs. Or a hat. "There was this thing two years back, Hot Wire or Hot Flash or Hot something - anyway, energy manipulator, okay? Disappears while in Laos and its this - this incident. CUI tried to tell us he's a recaptured fugitive, right? An American citizen with powers literally kidnapped with this bullshit paper thin excuse - "

There isn't a movement so much as the lighting in the room just shifted a little. It sent that familiar spike of ice down her spine. It was the same feeling you get when you turn down a dark alleyway in a bad part of town and you start to consider how many ways things could go wrong. With practised ease Annabelle Kemper ignored it.

If she were to run from every might haves, could haves, she would have run from her job and kept on running.

She turned to face the ghost and found its cat eyes open. Pale eyes that might have been blue in better light had one hell of a thousand yard stare, but nothing beat Taylor Hebert's burnt out eye sockets alive with lightning and ash.

"I'm just saying," Annabelle continued. "Someone with a CUI calling card? Stab them in the face first, ask questions never."

She was paraphrasing official PRT policy.

Semi-official policy.

The ghost's right ear twitched.

"It's been - shit how long has it been?" Eight hours? Nine? She checked her phone. Eleven? Christ. "People are starting to put it together, with Leviathan actually dead! Do you know how amazing that is? And like what was different this time that we couldn't do last time and - and we've got names."

Just cape names. What started out as a list of over fifty had gradually dwindled down, repeated over and over on boards and in the news, until just the same names were said. She didn't care much about the others. Some Indian capes, some German ones, this one Nordic guy.

Farseer.

"If we ever get around to making a statement, a real official press release on what the fuck happened and it was you?"

It would change everything.

She couldn't hold back the jaw cracking yawn. Eleven fucking hours. She glanced out the broken windows expecting to see the beginnings of dawn behind the Brockton Bay skyline. It was still pitch black, because it was still the dead of winter.

"Am I even - like, can Taylor hear me or am I just…?"

There was a blink-and-you-miss-it tug at the corner of the ghost's mouth that could have been anything from a smile to a sneer.

Then it fucking spoke.

"She cannot," the ghost said in a voice that flowed like water.

Annabelle stared.

"You speak?" Obviously. Taylor was in no condition to consciously direct a projection, but unconscious power use was just this thing with the girl to the point of having a power warning in her file. No one batted an eyelash when the projection didn't disappear when Taylor lost consciousness, but obviously they damn well should of.

She cast about for the unlikely scenario, because unlikely was the name of Taylor Hebert's game. "Are you independent?"

A beat of silence. "Yes."

"Sorry," her mouth said automatically. "It's been a long day so I'm kind of...slow." Another blink-and-miss tug of the ghost's mouth. "You're independent. Great." That was another five pages of paperwork, minimum. "So are you just hanging out or -"

The room twisted.

The shadows darkened and moved, forming monstrous silhouettes tearing into each other, crawling over each other, biting, scratching, clawing towards the bed.

They couldn't reach it.

The walls were see through. The windows were unbroken and shattered. The dim light of the shining oval in Taylor Hebert's chest was a steady pulse. The heart beat monitor beeped quietly as reality stopped making sense.

Before she could open her mouth to scream, normalcy reasserted itself. The shadows stopped moving. The windows were broken, letting in the cold winter air as the curtains softly flapped in the breeze. A headache battered its way to the forefront of her consciousness as her stomach flipped upside down and threatened to rebel.

"What the fuck -"

"Protecting," the ghost said as if nothing had happened.

Annabelle had a hard time focusing on it through the headache.

"Protecting her?" She managed to croak.

This time the tug at the corner of its mouth became a small, indulgent smile.

"Protecting you."

The chill that went down her spine then was more than ice. It was liquid lightning, jumping out from her spine to burn a numbing path to her fingers and toes. Her knees buckled and she half fell back into her chair.

When had she gotten up?

The heart monitor beeped from its corner.

"I - " Her voice broke. "I am...going to get coffee."

The ghost inclined its head, acknowledging.

Annabelle fled.

______________​

The coffee machine was a sleek stainless steel and plastic behemoth with a counter all to itself as it burbled away, brewing. The opposite side of the little nook had about twelve different roasts and four different kinds of hot chocolate along with vacuum sealed cups of cream, sugar and cheap little white spoons. Plastic mugs, the kind that had fold-out handles were stacked beside a modest cereal bar rack. Some pencil pusher somewhere had decided to splurge the hospital budget for the sake of their souls and Annabelle loved them for it.

The chill didn't go away with the first testing sip or two creams and a half packet of sugar, nor the third, but it was still soothing. It was something about the act of drinking coffee. It was about doing something so mundane it couldn't be anything but real.

'I didn't sign up for this shit,' Annabelle thought. Then she closed her eyes and groaned. 'I totally did though.'

"Hey, can I get a mug of that?" Something white and red moved in her peripheral vision.

"Sure." She was moving before she managed to get a clear glimpse of her new 'neighbor'. "Oh."

Panacea gave a little wave. "Yeah. Hi."

"Hi," Annabelle let out in a rush of breath. "I thought - you weren't due until tomorrow?"

Amy Dallon's eyebrows shot up. "For who?"

"I mean - " Annabelle floundered for a moment, thrown even as she berated herself for it. Taylor Hebert had been far from the only cape at New Delhi. Far from the only one hurt, probably not even the only one hurt as badly.

'She's my kid though.'

That's what made the difference.

"For Taylor?"

Panacea's mouth twisted briefly as her brown eyes flashed up to meet hers. "Is that what they told you?"

Alarm bells softly began to chime inside her head.

"I'm a handler," Annabelle said self-deprecatingly. "I fill out paperwork and make calls, mostly. A grunt. They don't tell me shit, really." She tried to smile, but she wasn't sure if it came out how it was supposed to. "It's okay, I probably got the details wrong." She didn't. She remembered the phone call, but if there was anything she'd learned over the years it was that being right meant fuck all sometimes. "It's been a long twenty four hours, for everyone."

Amy grabbed the mug as soon as it was full and turned to the other counter. The lack of a response rung in the air as Amy ripped open a packet of sugar and dumped it in. Annabelle held her tongue. It had been a long twenty four hours. Some people dealt with being tired, some people didn't and all you could do was figure out which was which and stay out of the way.

One packet of cream went in next along with a half packet of swiss hot chocolate. Amy stirred.

"I'm not healing her."

A thousand different responses leapt in her mind to Taylor's defense, not the least of which was the screaming why not?

She knew better though. Years as a social worker taught her a lot about confrontations. Years of legalities drilled into her head as a PRT representative meant she had a good idea of when and where to confront. It tended to piss people off if you confronted them on stuff, especially if they were being stupid.

"Okay," Annabelle replied.

"Okay?" Amy repeated. She stopped mid sip and turned, setting the cup down hard on the counter. "Okay. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of advocate?" The girl sneered. "What kind of handler are you?"

"Hers," Annabelle said. "Not yours."

Something ugly flitted across Amy's face then, but she couldn't say exactly what it was.

"But you'd want me to, right?" Amy nearly cajoled. "Heal her?"

"Sure," Annabelle shrugged, eyeing Panacea carefully. "Depends on why not though."

If it was just to make some kind of twisted statement on who deserved to be healed and who didn't, then Annabelle didn't know what she would think. Nothing flattering. It would be the kind of spite she would expect from anyone else though, almost literally anyone else, but she supposed that was unreasonable of her. No matter her powers, Amy Dallon was still a seventeen year old girl.

Their little nook gained another visitor before Amy could answer. A slightly above average height blonde woman in comfortable sweats and an expensive phone to her ear. With only one hand free, she still expertly poured the last of the kettle after a discerning sniff and crowded the other counter top to grab a cranberry cereal bar.

"I beg your pardon?" Carol Dallon spat into the phone trapped between her ear and her shoulder. The wrapper of the cereal bar crinkled in her hands.

The answering voice was small and tinny but Annabelle could just barely hear it.

"This is considered a matter of national security, ma'am. We are fully prepared to ask a judge if we need to - "

"Which you do," Brandish snapped back. "And it will be TRO'd so fast your ass will fucking skip." Amy's eyebrows flew up into her hairline and Annabelle was sure hers weren't the only ones. "The For Citizens Act does not grant anyone the right to compel service. We got rid of slavery years ago."

Whatever the other person on the line had to say, it must not have been very impressive judging by the look of distaste on Carol Dallon's face.

"Let me make this clear, Amy will not be healing anyone without her and my express permission. And you will not be calling me again without a search warrant or a subpoena."

And with that, she hung up. Dallon tore into the cereal bar packet with her teeth and took a rage filled bite of cranberry and nuts.

"Who the hell was that?" Amy asked, seemingly absorbed in stirring more hot chocolate into her coffee.

"PRT, Los Angeles," her adoptive mother said shortly. She was looking up into the far corner, chewing furiously, brows still furrowed in irritation. Her daughter stood beside her, but apart, facing the opposite direction with hunched shoulders and distant look in her eyes as she absently stirred. Carol Dallon was striking both in and out of costume. It didn't matter if she was in a business suit or sweat pants, her back was straight and almost vibrated with tension.

The two painted a picture Annabelle had seen before. Before the PRT, when she was a social worker in Boston during family sessions. She wasn't a licensed therapist, who's job had been to fix issues, but rather to identify potential ones. To find the broken or strained links.

Brandish's body language asked for no comfort, from anyone, and Amy's said that she had none to give. Was she seeing things? She was probably seeing things. It was beyond late. The most rational explanation was that both of them were introverted people, unused to or unwilling to reach out to others.

She returned her attention to her own cooling cup of coffee.

Carol Dallon sighed almost explosively. "How often are you up this late?"

Amy shrugged a shoulder.

"Amy."

It was the teenager's turn to sigh, glancing around for a clock before giving up and fishing out a phone from beneath the voluminous robes of her costume.

"Three out of seven?" Amy hazarded a guess and Annabelle took her next sip a bit too quickly. Three out of seven days? It was six in the morning.

Carol turned. It was a partial, aborted movement like half of her wanted to confront and the other half was shying away.

"That stops," was all the woman said and Annabelle couldn't bite her tongue fast enough to stop the idle

"Insomnia?" from slipping out.

Because if it was some kind of sleeping disorder or anxiety disorder you couldn't just order it to stop. It was the equivalent of asking a chronically ill person if they had just tried not being sick. It did not work that way, and insisting otherwise could easily cross the line to being actively harmful.

Amy's face blanched white, then flushed red. "I just can't, sometimes."

Carol opened her mouth, but after glancing around the little nook seemed to visibly rethink what she had been about to say. "Dr. Bouras says you visit. To heal?"

"Yeah," came out of Amy hesitantly.

"I don't want you healing while tired." Carol said and immediately held up a hand to forstall argument. "I don't want you healing while tired," she repeated. "I don't want you getting used to healing while tired and I don't want you to feel like you have to heal, even when tired."

"I'm not going to make a mistake," Amy said.

Carol's blue eyes flickered. That had scored a hit somewhere.

"That's not the point."

"That's the only point."

"Amy, it's association," the woman said softly with a tight tone to her voice that told anyone listening she was making an effort to be patient. "If you make a habit of studying while tired, you are going to associate studying with being tired. I don't want you feeling like you are doing a late night session healing all the time."

That drew Panacea up short. "Oh."

A sardonic twist came onto Carol's lips. "I am going to ask again, how often are you up late?"

Amy's gaze found the ground. She didn't answer.

Carol breathed in through her nose like a bull, nostrils flaring.

"I see." Carol said flatly. Her eyes cut across and Annabelle found herself clutching her cooled coffee cup to her chest when Brandish looked over her. "Handler?"

"For Farseer," Annabelle confirmed. "I've been informed that treatment from New Wave has been - " she searched for the word - shitcanned- and then searched again for the diplomatic one. "Postponed until further notice?"

Amy was stirring again.

The tactile, repetitive behavior struck Annabelle as odd. How much stirring did the coffee need? It wasn't until Amy took a sip that she could see why.

Amy Dallon's hands were shaking.

"That is correct," Carol was saying. It was delivered dispassionately, a bland voice for a bland delivery. "It is nothing personal."

But it was personal. For the girl lying in a hospital bed covered in electrical burns with burned out twin ashtrays for eyes, it could not be any more personal. Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Carol Dallon shifted with slight unease.

"It's complicated," she offered.

It's complicated.

"It's complicated," Annabelle repeated. She drained the last of her coffee and tossed the cup into the half-full garbage can. "Explain it to me. Bad power interaction?"

"I can't," Amy whispered. And then again, louder. "I can't." The next words seemed to burst from her chest. "I can't stop seeing it! Her organs, her cells, her blood, her DNA! And it doesn't - I can - I can almost see it. The missing piece."

Her hands trembled.

"I keep thinking that all I need is another glimpse and I'll solve the puzzle. I just need to touch her." Her eyes tracked unerringly towards Taylor's room.

Carol stepped in her line of sight. "Which you won't."

Amy shook herself and tossed the half finished cup of coffee away. "I won't. It won't be - I mean, I can't fully see what I would be doing anyway. There's like, a quarter of her DNA missing. I might fuck it up and then where would we be?" Amy said with dark humour. "She's better off with someone else, or shit, she's a Trump." Amy waved a dismissive hand. "She can figure it out."

"She unconscious," Annabelle pointed out and was rewarded with a nasty little smirk.

"Since when has that ever stopped her?"

___________________​

I bit back the scream as the feedback tore my left pinky finger right off my hand in a shower of purple sparks and bright red blood. Iyanden caught the severed digit with one hand and my flailing arm with the other. The pain numbed immediately, letting me swallow the scream down to join the rest festering in my stomach.

He held my hand gently as he worked on reattaching it and I watched him. I tried to feel what he was doing. I tried not to feel like a failure.

It was a mixed success.

Iyanden had his pale hair pulled back in a high ponytail that just highlighted the sharp planes of his thin face. His plain scholarly looking robes were splattered with my blood and singed in a few places from misfires. I don't really know if that was his name, but it was what the others called him. He didn't seem to mind when I called him that, so Iyanden it was.

Learning well, he sung.

"No, I'm not," I said.

His right ear flicked back and forth in an expression I was beginning to think was amusement. The barely there smile he flashed just reinforced that interpretation. Maybe he was mocking me. Maybe he found it genuinely funny. Maybe it was both.

Only finger, not hand, he pointed out. At my dubious expression, his ear flicked again. Quit?

I flexed my hands. I was still missing my right pinky and about half of my toes. My eyes. I was a goddamn mess kept together by willpower and something. They said I could fix it. That I could heal myself. And the Eldar seemed so sure, I could not help believing them. I wanted to learn how to do it. I needed to learn how. And really, what was a little dismemberment now compared to being a match for Panacea later?

Ynnashar?

"No," I said and steeled myself for more pain. I asked what that meant once. What they called me now. Ynnashar. It probably meant slug or something. They wouldn't say. "I'm not quitting."

I reached out to the ocean.

And it was hungry.

 

[Shujin]

Causal.3

​

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♦ Topic: Maelstrom Thread
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Funeral Pyre (Original Poster)
Posted on January 4th, 2011:
On January 3rd, a huge storm appeared over the city of Brockton Bay and remained stationary, despte a lack of inclement weather. These are the facts as they are known at this time:

#1 Early reports of the storm's center in proximity to Winslow High School. Later confirmed as originating from within Winslow High itself. The school has been evacuated and remains closed until further notice.
#2 A section of the school's interior is reportedly covered by a bone-like material. Later confirmed to be a section of the students' lockers.
#3 Initial speculation re: the bone material being the work of an ABB-affiliated Tinker dismissed by the PRT and Protectorate.
#4 Storm purportedly engulfed two commuter aircraft in its vicinity. No wreckage has yet been located.
#5 Storm speculated to be the result of a trigger event. Later confirmed by a student's cellphone video, currently difficult to source due to removals for its graphic content and incidental reveal of the new cape's identity. Brockton Bay Daily News named this new cape "Maelstrom", and the thread name was changed as other news agencies started using that alias for the cape in question.
#6 Storm dissipated two days later, on the 5th.
#7 More recent video depicts humanoid figure exiting Winslow, notably sporting tapered ears. Elf?
#8 Security videos from buildings near the PRT offices on the 5th show the same figure storming out of the PRT offices as Maelstrom's 'storms' reappear throughout the city.
#9 Brockton Bay's 'Elf' later spotted half an hour later parting the water along the docks like an angry American Moses. Many believe said Elf to be Maelstrom given these events, especially given that Maelstrom's father, Danny Hebert, was photographed entering the bay and calmed her down from whatever had upset her shortly afterwards.
#10 The bone-like material has reportedly been removed from Winslow.

edited January 13th, 2011

(Showing Page 16 of 37)

► XxVoid_CowboyxX
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
I wonder if she's a Case 53.

► Sam_the_man (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
@XxVoid_CowboyxX
I wonder if she's an alien invader from the sttaaarrrrrssssss~

► Highfort96
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
I wonder if she's going to be in the next lord of the rings movie?

► Judge (Moderator)
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
I wonder if you can all get back on topic? [/not so subtle hint]

► XxVoid_CowboyxX
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
Ok, taking teh hint and all that. Does anyone know what they're going to do with her costume?

► Double-O-Mali
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
@XxVoid_CowboyxX
well, the two things that spring to me mind is either something santa or dnd/lotr related.

► RocksFall (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
@Double-O-Mali
Putting anyone in green tights is prob the fastest way to make them turn to evviiilllll.
So I'm expecting something dnd/lotr.

► Vilebile
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
Could also go Vulcan if theyre a Trekkie.
I prefer the dark elves myself. Um… are we allowed to list possible cape names even if the evidence is rather strong about identities?

► Sothoth (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
@RocksFall
Of course you would. Heretic.

@Vilebile
Legally it's in a grey area with extenuating circumstances. Depends on how hard the PRT wants to push things. The fact this thread isn't locked yet doesn't suggest they care that much about cape name suggestions. It's not official yet after all. Also, a Vulcan costume would result in the owners of Star Trek becoming involved. Of course, she coud do corporate sponsorships. Remember Pepsi Girl?

► Evil_Kirk (Trekkie)
Posted on January 14th, 2011:
@Vilebile
You know people DO occasionally do surgery for elf ears. I saw it in a star trek documentary a few years ago. Before the whole debacle with the crazy master fan kind of ruined things.

@Sothoth
I remember Pepsi Girl. Didn't she get fired for being caught with coke? :3


End of Page. 1, … 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, … 37


♦ Topic: Music Recommendation Thread #17
In: Boards ► Watercooler Talk
Scriv (Original Poster) (Moderator)
November 11th, 2010:
As the last thread reached its page limit, a new one has been created. All music recommendations require the post to describe the song name and artist. Genre is also highly encouraged as being described as well. I'll start things off with some Rock&Roll.

Also, DO NOT POST MORE THAN NINE LINKS! Thank you.

Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Then we have The Spirit Of Radio by Rush. And then Blue On Black by dear Kenny Wayne Shepherd. And finally, two ear-worms I caught from the last thread, here's Genghis Khan and Choke.


(Showing Page 42 of 43)


► Ibat (Moderator)
Posted on February 6th, 2011:
Here's some good swing/electroswing. Parov Stelar by Gringo (Electro Swing). Cafe Swing, Best Of Electro Swing Mix Vol.3.

► Mechanical Messiah (Veteran Member)
Posted on February 6th,2011:
Got an eclectic mix here. Mostly Jazz, Hiphop, RB, really the best of the best. #1. Take Five by Dave Brubeck. #2. Luv Sic (parts 1, 2, & 3, feat. Shing02). Hard to describe the genres here. Odd but beautiful mix of Hiphop, R&B, Jazz, and new age. #3. Elvis and The Way You Are by Alpha. Genre = Aleph Import R&B. #4. Sunburn and Watercolors by the artist Witness. #5. So Seductive by Kero One. #6. The Best Of Jesse Cook by the artist... Jesse Cook.

► Good_Girl
Posted on February 6th, 2011:
Happy. Also The woods by San Fermin. I always get a kick out of songs like these.

► Nameless The 3RD
Posted on February 6th, 2011:
Somnia Memorias by Shani Rigsbee, Japura River by Philip Glass and Uakti, and Tranquillitas by NUMA. Mix of modern spanish, classical, and traditional styles in various mixes.

►Jenny867
Posted on February 7th, 2011:
Barra barra by Rachid Taha.

►BatOutOfHell
Posted on February 7th, 2011:
Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath. This always puts my mind at ease.

► BLOODBATH&BEYOND
Posted on February 8th, 2011:
Extreme Music: Furies. Karl Sanders: The Elder God Shrine. Juno Reactor: Conquistador and War Dogs.

► Ramhi Daragius
Posted on February 9th, 2011:
I've no more fucks to give by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. Traditional guitar.

► icemelt101 (Unverified Cape)
Posted on February 9th, 2011:
The master of funk, Jamiroquai! Canned heat, Virtual Insanity, Automaton, and Dynamite.

►TheGnat (Veteran Poster)
Posted on February 10th, 2011:
Ok, I've got a bunch here. Kind of rushed for time, so I can't give genres, but I can list the songs and artists. Hope you enjoy. Sabaton – Night Witches. The Crush by Miracle of Sound. The Hell Song - Sum 41. Revolution - The Used. Count the Teeth - NateWantsToBattle. The Man Who Made A Monster - Dance With The Dead. Two Steps From Hell - Unforgiven. Pendulum - The Island. Belgrade - Battle Tapes. I'd share more, but I know Mechanical Messiah is gonna get on me later on for posting such a huge list as it is, even if I'm allowed to lol.


End of Page. 1, … 41, 42, 43


(Showing Page 43 of 43)

►Sengiroth
Posted on February 10th, 2011:
I see a severe lack of EUROBEAT!

Hurricane Man, Super Striker, Love Countdown,
One Night in Arabia ,
Night of Fire,
Perfect Hero,
Speedy Speed Boy,
Max Power &
Chemical Love.

► Vista (Confirmed Cape) (Ward) (ENE)
Posted on February 10th, 2011:
Got some classic recs here, followed by some more modern ones.
Anvil Chorus by Giuseppe Verdi. Lacrimosa by Mozart. Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major by Bach. Clair de Lune. In The Hall Of The Mountain King by Edvard Grieg. Thunderstruck by 2cellos.

Then for the more modern stuff, let's start with one of my favs, followed by a bunch of others I find myself dancing to. Love Is A Madness by No Sinner.
So Much More by Supreme Beings Of Leisure.
And lastly, Smooth by Santana ft Rob Thomas.


End of Page. 1, … 41, 42, 43


♦ Topic: ENDBRINGER THREAD #39
(Thread Locked)
In: Boards ► Places ► World
Dragon (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
December 5th, 2010:
The next Endbringer attack is expected sometime between early to mid-February 2011. Analysis expects the attack to be either Behemoth or Simurgh. Preparations are already underway by the UN, Red Cross & Crescent, the USA Federal Disaster and Endbringer relief fund, along with the PRT, the Guild, the World Economic, Natural Disasters and Governmental Defense Group. Discussion in this must stay on topic though, and Staff will enforce that if need be.

EDIT; The Simurgh attacked New Delhi on January 16th, 2011; a quarantine is not yet in effect although a blockade has been implemented. The PRT and Guild offer condolences for those lost and sincere thanks and appreciation for those who joined the fight or helped with the evacuation. Special thanks and consideration is being offered to Panacea and Farseer for their help in events.

The Indian Government is remaining quiet while they take stock of the situation, and it is unclear when they will speak on what happened. The PRT has made its response known, which can be read in the "PRT Press Conference Thread" over HERE.

MODERATOR EDIT; A Zero-Tolerance Policy is in effect in this thread until further notice. Be civil, be polite, stay on topic, and leave the theatrics/drama/hysteria out. Failure to comply will result in infractions and/or threadbans.

(Showing Page 68 of 93)

► Wingless
Posted on January 28th, 2011:
@WingedOne
I'm just saying, no one knows who the fuck Farseer is, but the rumors going around are already terrifying.

► Sonic_Boom
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@Wingless
The rumors seem like paranoid fearmongering. Remember that "Jedi" that showed up a while ago? Yeah, I don't buy it.

► Gomer
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@samIam
Dude, I have an uncle who fought there. He says that the rumors are probably underplaying just how much bullshit Farseer pulled out of her ass.

► 0495813n
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
So do we know anything about the change in Endbringer attacks here?

► DaFuk
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@0495813n
Nope. As someone very eloquent once said, we don't know shit, beyond the bare basics and a lot of rumors and hearsay. And we won't know actual shit for a couple more days/weeks at the very least. We know something major happened, but not exactly what yet.

► Arcane_Hermit (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
… Had to deal with undue hell, but when I came back on the RL section to see what horrors happened.

And it looks like we have an Angel alert, again. And another quarantine, and another headache. "Just as planned" aside, can't help that shaky feeling on the disaster's that's just happened, again.

Real shame I can't even offer condolences right. Just… Give respects to the unfortunate victims who frankly, HAVE to go through proper protocols, and security. And pray or hope none of them are subtly enough affected to cross the border, as usual.

Really, hate how this keeps on happening when Ziz wakes up. Especially when every time it happens, I occasionally lose a real online pal in hand.

► Boblob (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@Sam_the_man
That sounds like crazy-talk.

► Sothoth
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@DaFuk
Given the way the authorities and heros have been acting, along with this being a Simurgh attack and Scion of all people killing people en mass, I'd say that whatever happened was a big enough deal to have rattled everyone. Only question here is in the details, but like you said, we won't get most of them for some time yet.

► Sam_the_man (Veteran Member)
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@Boblob, did you mean to respond to @samIam? Because I wasn't involved in this conversation until you pinged me. And sheesh, reading this thread is kind of scary, and no one knows all of what is happening.

► Boblob (Veteran Member)
Posted on January 29th, 2011:
@Sam_the_man, uhm, whoops? Sorry man, my bad.


End of Page. 1, … 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, … 93


(Showing Page 93 of 93)

► Unit01 (Not An Actual Mechanical Abomination)
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@Fep, @MMNS
Wait, there selling the debris? Really? Fucking really?

► KFPeein
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@Unit01
Aliens. And money. Nuff said.

► D3br1S
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@Fep , @Unit01
tbh i wuldnt b surprised if india kept most of teh stuff frm teh storm can u imagine wut kind of shit ther wuld b?

► Best Indian Tinker (Verified Cape) (Humble)
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
That stuff would be sent to Ahmedabad probably, under lock and fucking key. That's where the Physical Research lab is for space. Area 51, except civilized. Vimana here we come!

► HotterLass
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@D3br1S
Dude, grammar. And spelling. And grammar.
Edit- Also, to stay on topic and not get infracted, I wonder if they're going to make that day a global holiday?

►Sothoth
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@HotterLass
That depends on whether Leviathan is actually dead as has been claimed, even though it's looking likely. The authorities won't have confirmation for that for at least a year, but given the statements already made by various government groups, it seems like a good bet.

That said, we still don't know what is up with Scion going homicidal, so even if Leviathan is dead we may still end up worse off than before events started.

@KFPeein
That may be the case, but its also the site of a Simurgh zone. Dangerous and risky for civilians to mess with that stuff to say the least.

► Fep
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
@Unit01
They are actually selling storm crap. I have proof. Look at this shit. Crazy money.
*Edited by moderator - Link removed. Please don't link to pirate sites and/or sites selling illegal content. Also, this is a zero tolerance thread, take a minimum of six months off from the site while staff look over if we need to escalate even further here. For anyone else reading this, while this site reaches across the globe, its actual servers are in Canada, which means the site runs off of Canadian law. You DO NOT want to link to places selling illegal content by Canadian law.* - Ibat

► Boron trifluoride (Highly Toxic)
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
*message edited by moderator*
*Edited by moderator - Reposting a removed link was not a good idea.* - M.Night

► BigBrain (SuperThinkerExtraordinaire) (Not An Actual Thinker)
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
Aliens can't get you for stolen possessions if you sell if firsrt, taps forehead.



►M.Night (Moderator)
Posted on February 4th, 2011:
And that is enough of that. Locking thread for review. Whether this thread opens back up again depends on what we find. There WILL be infractions. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance.


End of Page. 1, … 91, 92, 93


♦ Topic: WILL CRIMINAL CHARGES BE BROUGHT DUE TO WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE STORM? (Thread Locked)
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
INH (Original Poster)
January 11th, 2011;
We all know that two planes went down on the 3rd due to Maelstrom's actions. 46 people were seriously hurt and injured with the first plane crash, but the second plane went missing and is believed that have gone down somewhere in the arctic. No debris has been found, and with the current weather if they did go down in the Canadian arctic it's unlikely they survived.

(Showing Page 6 of 9)

► FlowerPower (Unverified Cape)
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
@SnickerSnack
Listen, I've been paying attention in the Maelstrom thread, and it's one thing that this kid lost her secret identity due to that first video and her later temper tantrum, but those videos also kind of show that she kinds of needs serious help and supervision she probably won't get elsewhere, and she's already caused injuries and deaths. She's powerful enough to fuck up a lot, but she seems to have serious anger issues as well.

► Oddball (Screwy)
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
I don't think that'll help though Flower. I heard from someone who works at the hospital, and they say that Maelstrom suffered brain damage from whatever happened to her. They think that's why her powers went out of control for a while.

► FeatheredBullets
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
Wait, what?

► TrueBeliever (Dedicated Skeptic)
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
@Oddball
Sure you did buddy. And I heard through the grapevine that Eidolon's actually three midgets in a trenchcoat. Come back when you have something verifiable.

► Good_Girl
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
Huh, her having suffered a brain injury or transformation of the brain would actually explain some things. Her power would run out of control for a while, and if her body is regenerating or reshaping itself it would explain why the loss of control would stop after a while. And if she actually became an elf as others have claimed, it would mean that she essentially became a beautiful butterfly that emerged from her cocoon. That is cool!

► Clemantine43
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
That's not cool, that's terrifying. Will we get other capes like that in the future? I certainlu hope not.

► PsychoPoet
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
I can tell you that The Cape Regulation Party over here in not so merry old England is going to use what's going on your side of the Atlantic to push through some much needed laws. This has gone well past the point of believability for accidents and gone straight into blatantly malicious homicide. I pray the victims and their families get justice for the hundreds of deaths and suffering this young punk has caused, unlike what happened with the Temple Meads attack(1).

(1) For all you who have forgotten the attack nearly five years ago when Detonate turned every Pigeon at the Bristol Temple Meads into biological bombs causing hundreds to die? You know the one that all of you bastards have forgotten about?

*Please stop spamming other threads, I understand from several of your posts that you had family at Temple Meads but repeatedly bringing it up in multiple different threads is a violation of the rules. Stay on topic and please don't also bring your politics into it as well. You are on thin ice as it is. Stop.* - Judge

► eighteenzombies (nomnomnom)
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
As much as I agree that that's offtopic, he does have a point that this girl has hurt a lot of people and needs punished for that.

► PsychoPoet
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
Hurt? Try killed! And don't any of you other villainous cocksuckers make excuses for the murderous cunt!

*Consider yourself permanently banned from the thread, as well as banned from the forum for a week considering your history. Do not disobey staff directives again, or you may be looking at a month long forum ban at a minimum.* - Judge

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on January 12th, 2011:
There have been some arrests already. Most Court Records are publicly available after all. This shitshow isn't over yet.


End of Page. 1, … 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9


(Showing Page 9 of 9)

►Scriv (Moderator)
Posted on January 13th, 2011:
Well, that escalated quickly. Thread locked.


End of Page. 1, … 7, 8, 9


♦ Topic: KITTIES! WHY? BECAUSE KITTIES!
In: Boards ► Watercooler Talk
ThatInsaneGuy (Original Poster)
November 28th, 2010
So we all know that kitties and cats are awesome, so here is our thread to link to neat videos and pictures and clips of them being adorable fuzzballs.

(Showing Page 30 of 30)

►Stalking Tanuki (Veteran Poster)
Posted on January 13th, 2011;
This cat has seen some things. Terrifying things. :3

►M.Night (Moderator)
Posted on January 13th, 2011;
Hehe, that shit is amusing Tanuki. Also, threadtax.
Unlikely Friends!


End of Page. 1, 2, 3, … 28, 29, 30


♦ Topic: 2011 India Endbringer Attack Update (SUPER IMPORTANT NEWS)
(Thread Locked) (Thread Pinned)
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Judge (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on February 16th, 2011;
Hello ladies and gentlemen. After discussion among staff, it was decided that today I would be the one to declare some super joyful news (after we made a subforum exclusively for talking about this subject alone). This honestly has me choked up to announce it, and has been confirmed and verified by the PRT, Protectorate, The Guild, the US State Department, India's government, and even the CUI (though news from the CUI is always considered suspect, it does back up what the other national governments and organizations have said). That is why every user here has received a board-wide notice. News organizations across the globe are just now being made aware of what we are about to tell you here.

The news you're all waiting for?

Leviathan is dead!

Leviathan was killed in India (Leviathan was also present and hostile during the attack by the Simurgh), and the Simurgh's attack on India is officially considered to have failed in its main objectives.

Every person at India who fought against the Simurgh played a role not only in stopping the Simurgh, but also in helping bring about Leviathan's death, but these are the names of the individuals that played the biggest roles in actually making it happen.

They are:
#1. Mjolnir (now known as Erik Olsson. May he Rest In Peace)
#2. Farseer
#3. दूरनज़र (best English translation is "Farsight")
#4. अंतरिक्ष की राजकुमारी (best English translation is "Princess Of Space")
#5. Le Faucon Blanc (best English translation is "The White Falcon")
#6. Die Heilige Truppe (best English translation is "The Holy Troop").

Also of note, these groups also helped determine that the Simurgh's goals failed and that the situation did not require quarantine of New Delhi, and they also deserve a great deal of appreciation for their work:
#1. The Parahuman Response Team
#2. The Protectorate
#3. WEDGDG
#4. The Guild
#5. The Red Fist

In order to avoid the news of this wondrous event from clogging up things, a new subforum will be created solely for celebrating and talking about the deaths of the Endbringers. And yes, we are very much aware that multiple Endbringers attacking at once is a new and terrifying thing. Future Endbringer threads will have new thread-rules put in place to address this as well.

Today the world gained a bit of hope. We now know the Endbringers can not only be stopped, but that they can be killed. Today is a day of celebration!


End of Page. 1

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Private Messages from Gallant:

Vista: How is it going? You can tell me, right?
Gallant: It's...frustrating. They want me to do the same thing ten times and then another thing twenty times. I tell them what I can do and no one listens.
Vista: That sounds great. /s
Gallant: My initial test wasn't anywhere near this bad.
Vista: Guess they want to make sure what changed with your power maybe? Like super duper sure?
Gallant: Maybe. Hey lunch break is over, talk to you later okay?
Vista: I'll hold you to that!


Private Messages from Battery:

Vista: Hey, can I get console duty? I need out of the house.
Battery: Yeah, I can help make sure that happens. If you need anything else, just tell me, k?
Vista: Thanks. Appreciate it.
Battery: Hey Vista, can you come to the Rig real quick? Armsmaster wants to talk with you. Something super important came up, and he wants to tell you what to expect before you hear anything from the PRT and from him 'officially'.
Vista: O...kay? Did Clock mess something up? Or did someone else get hyrt?
Battery: No one is in trouble and no one is hurt, but I think something big happened given how he's acting. I don't know what's going on either tho.
Vista: K, be there soon.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o​

Missy Biron hated Monopoly.

She had a love-hate relationship with board games, but it was mostly hate. Looking at a board game meant to be played with friends or family had a habit of reminding her how much life sucked. Especially her life. Friends? Kind of. Family? Forget it. Which was why she found herself counting out two big ones out of a pile of twenties as the bank while her shoe languished in the Grand Canyon. Because she hated Monopoly, and it seemed was the only one that hated it. Board games meant competition and competition meant arguments, oneupmanship and cheating. There was nothing good about board games, not even when it was just Chris and Dennis fighting over the dice. Which meant there was nothing good about Monopoly.

She'd been outvoted.

"Two hundred for Avni." Avni Singh was an Indian girl with brilliant green eyes and heavily tinted goggles made for a cyclops. She was still dressed in hospital pajamas. The simple white shirt that buttoned up in the back, white pants of the same material with Alexandria sneakers. She was only a year older and Vista had wished more than once for another girl on the team. One that wasn't a complete and total jerk like Stalker. Wish granted.

In the worst way possible.

The only reason Stalker wasn't going to jail was because she was in a coma, Dean was being retested, and she was off the team, indefinitely. It was something something Thinkers think Scion non-euclidean spacial warping that she didn't quite get the technobabble, but it meant something big. Big enough that she was here in LA, California. Big enough that she got a new team. That was where Avni came in. She'd been in medical containment for a while and was still being tested. Reason for the weird goggles? She had a third eye.

That kills people.

She didn't know much about second triggers, but if they were anything like first ones, then they were awful.

Avni was a third trigger.

Yikes.

She forked over the play cash, pouting only a little. Okay, maybe a lot. Being bank sucked and it just got worse when you were poor.

Her roll. The urge to warp space a little to see how she could mess with the dice was ignored. Six.

Yes? Yes! Pass Go!

She counted out another two hundred for herself and then raised her voice to make sure she was heard. "Mike roll next."

"- there is going to be no end to this shitshow, Glenn, I'm telling you." Mike's end of the table looked like kindergarten had vomited all over it. It was covered in blank paper, colored pencils and crayon along with those letter blocks stolen from some baby somewhere, lots of sawdust, monopoly money and a giant caramel frappuccino. He had his cellphone trapped between his ear and his shoulder as he sketched out another costume, blue highlights this time. He grabbed the dice, rolled and moved his wheelbarrow five spaces landing on the Louisiana Purchase. He pulled his phone away and reached for his pile of money. "Buying that." After handing over the money he held up his latest drawing so their last player could take a look at it. "Behar?"

"Better," Avni's friend? Sister? said with a noticeable accent as she rolled the dice. She then groaned as she nudged her thimble into jail. "Shit."

"Pffft." Vista clapped a hand to her mouth immediately, but the damage was already done. She didn't just 'pfft' the Endbringer Slayer, did she?

She did.

She totally did!

Behar Şehîd was the kind of woman that looked like she could be a model, but in a good way and not blonde bimbo way. Her hair was mostly Avni's shade of dark, dark red-brown, but she had a lock of pure white on her hair line. There were other patches of albino on her scalp along with pale blue eyes that gave her an exotic look even in jeans and a red sweater.

She also killed Leviathan.

Which was crazy.

Her power was wormholes. She could touch any object and link it to any other object she'd ever touched before. Once linked she could travel between the two points or de-link them. The de-linking destroys the object. Demonstrating that was why there was a lot of sawdust on the table. And apparently anything touching the object gets destroyed at the time. Like an Endbringer. Not all of it. Leviathan's corpse was out there somewhere, probably a government lab. They had a weak point, as much as any of them could be 'weak.' Point was, you break it, they die and Behar broke it.

Taylor Hebert used Avni to make sure she got the chance to.

Hebert was the reason she was on this team.

Or more like, Hebert's storms were the reason she was on this team.

Avni grinned the kind of grin Dennis would have called 'shit eating' as she rolled. That grin wilted when she pulled yet another chance card and ended up trotting her rich ass car piece to jail.

"Ha!" Vista blurted out. "I take it back, roll chance cards. Roll all the chance cards."

"Do I really have to?" Avni said with a whine. Her accent sounded like she came right off Brockton Bay's streets. There was a story there Vista wasn't sure she wanted to know. The Indian girl clutched her cash like it was her first born.

" - an elf. Figured we want to go the opposite way with presentation." Mike said as he grabbed the dice. He pulled the phone away again. "House rules," he sang as his dice clattered to the table. The cafeteria in the LA PRT building was way nicer than Brockton Bay's, which was all kinds of unfair. Everything looked brand new with white shiny plastic and padded chairs and a tablet for ordering food during meal hours and a snack bar open 24/7. "Aaannnd buying that too."

"It's a stupid rule," Behar grumped, counting out half of her cash to hand over so she could get out of jail on her turn.

"Bail is an awesome rule," Vista countered, taking the money. A dice roll later and she was taking Avni's money too.

Okay, so being bank was pretty alright. Lots of -

What was that word?

Sadden - schaden - schadenfreude.

That.

She was still not going to win though.

As Mike rolled again, still talking to his boss on the phone, Vista was in the perfect position to see out the cafeteria door and down the hall to the elevator doors. They opened and out stepped this guy with wide dark sunglasses and a white costume with a green tabard like some kind of medieval knight and Eidolon.

And they were coming this way!

Vista sat up straighter and reflexively searched for wrinkles in her costume to straighten. Avni followed her line of sight and also sat up.

"Hey Cad!" She called down.

"Hey, squirt." Mr. White and Green's tanned face broke into a wide grin, reminiscent of Dean's smile as he raised a hand in greeting. Eidolon passed them with a nod of the head, heading straight for the snack bar. Guess he was hungry? As soon as 'Cad' reached them, he plopped into a chair on the table across from them. "Ooh, monopoly. Who's winning?"

Avni and Behar just kind of looked at each other.

"500."

"650."

"Damn," Avni muttered.

Mike took a big fat slurp of his frappuccino. "825."

They looked at him in shock and betrayal.

"My man!" Cad snickered, leaning forward and holding up a fist. Mike bumped it, ignoring the glares he was getting. "And you must be Vista? Did I get that right?"

"Yeah," Vista said, glad he hadn't called her squirt number two.

"Caduceus," he introduced himself with a nod. "On loan from PRT Toronto. I'm this one's doc. Speaking of," he turned back to Avni and smiled more gently. "Tests all came back finally, green across the board. Just keep those goggles on and you're free to be discharged tomorrow morning."

"Yes!" Avni pumped a fist.

Behar shrugged one shoulder and ran a hand through her hair. "About time." Her blue eyes fixed on Cad. "Couldn't have waited till tomorrow?"

"Well I'm not actually going to be here tomorrow." His smile disappeared. "Been cleared to work on Farseer, I fly out in two hours."

Vista felt her eyebrows jump.

Oh.

Oh wow.

That was kind of a big deal. Last she had heard, no one could heal Farseer. Not even Panacea, and Panacea could heal everything short of death and brain damage.

"I thought - " Vista started and stopped. "Uh, congratulations?"

Caduceus barked a laugh. "Right? She's a tough cookie, I'll give her that. Her entire medical rap sheet is no bueno, do not fucking -" Mike gave him a stink eye. " - touch. God the tests alone...I think I earned my degree a third time over. Can't touch cellular time manipulation. No pressure."

Right, no pressure.

They continued talking, catching up or just joking around, she wasn't sure. She kind of lost track, just barely remembering to roll the dice on her turn.

God, this meant someday soon this Endbringer kill team was going to be expected to kill Endbringers. It was all just starting to hit her, to become real. Leviathan was dead. Dead, and she was sitting next to two of the people involved in killing it. Soon, there was going to be a third on the team. An odd tremor ran down her right arm. Vista clenched her hands into fists in her lap so no one could see her shake.

No pressure.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of a blue-green and she turned in time to see Eidolon take a seat like it was a normal thing for him to do.

It - it wasn't like he didn't need to sit or anything but it was just bizarre seeing him at a cafeteria table with a cup of coffee, straight black by the smell of it, and a pear.

A pear.

He noticed her look. "Holding up alright?"

"Yes?" She inwardly cursed as her voice squeaked. "I mean, yes, I'm fine."

He chuckled. "It's okay if you're not, we kind of sprung this on you."

That's when she noticed everyone had gotten really quiet. Eidolon's cup of coffee disappeared into his oversized hood for a moment. "Thank you for sticking around," he began. "We kind of sprung this on all of you and I apologize for it." He paused. "You might have noticed, we pulled some strings. Vista is here from East-North-East branch of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay, Caduceus from Toronto and the two of you," He gestured with the pear. "On loan from the Indian government. That because we believe that we have a real chance to make a difference here and by we, I mean the Federal government of the United States."

Oh okay.

No pressure.

"We're still hammering out the small details, but you've probably heard why you're all here."

"Killing Endbringers," Behar calmly stated.

"Right." Eidolon paused again and Vista got the strangest feeling that he wasn't used to this. The small group speech making thing or maybe it was a speaking to this group thing that was the problem. He sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you, it's a tall order. Leviathan wasn't planned. We're trying to make lightning strike two more times."

"Only twice?" Behar said with a mocking undertone. Avni hissed and kicked her under the table. "That's all?"

For a second, Eidolon froze. Then he relaxed, shrugging his shoulders. "We hope."

"Hope?" Behar murmured.

"Hope is a dangerous thing," Avni quietly said. "We shouldn't rely on hope alone."

"Well said bahana," Behar replied with that kind of sharp edged smile.

"No, we shouldn't," Eidolon agreed. "We're here because hope got us this far but we can take it further. Unfortunately, that does bring me to our current issue. Farseer."

"That's my job," Mike said. He tucked a red colored pencil behind one ear. "In three words or less, describe our resident elf? And no, you can't use the term elf."

Behar looked away, twirling a lock of hair around a finger, but her jaw was clenched like she was grinding her teeth. "Arrogant."

Avni just smiled sadly, re-adjusting the black band of her goggles. "Intense? Really strong?" and then she shrugged.

Caduceus tapped the table. "Delicate."

Vista sat there like a bump on a log.

If she was going to be completely honest?

Taylor Hebert terrified her.

Part of it was Stalker because yeah, if she was bullied into her trigger she wouldn't want to associate with anyone they hung out with either. Chris said she was cool, but he had also only ever saw her on a computer screen for a reason.

No one knew if Stalker was ever going to wake up.

The other part was that she lived in Brockton Bay. She'd lived through the two day storm that was Hebert's trigger, and so far? She wasn't getting the impression that the storms were going to stop being a thing with her.

A terrifying thing.

She was too strong and Vista didn't think she could really handle it.

And Mike just sat there sipping his overpriced Mocha while asking her what she thought about her.

"Scary," Vista finally said and Mike gave her a smile, lifting an index finger off his cup to point.

"Bingo." He rifled through the sheets of paper in front of him. "Really strong and scary sum up what we've been seeing from the public. And that's not a good combo. The only way to make it worse is if she's convicted of something."

There was a moment of silence.

"She's going to get convicted, isn't she?" Vista deadpanned.

Eidolon sighed. "It's complicated."

Well that was not okay.

Mike snorted. "That's a good way to put it. Point is, we want you all to be briefed up front on what this is going to ask of you. We'll be doing our damnest to make it work - ah, here we go." He held up the drawing. It was a group picture, all done in bright, inspiring colors. Vista immediately noticed herself in the lineup with a new costume, one that didn't make her look like a little kid in a dress. It was a clean, professional look with body armor and a full helmet. It kept the color scheme of her current uniform but it looked nothing like her.

And at the same time, everything like her.

There was nothing in that costume that said Missy Biron. It wasn't until she saw it that she realized it was everything she wanted.

"It's going to be tough," Mike was saying. "But with a few press releases, some speeches and a good look, I think we can pull it off."

Avni was eyeing the drawing critically. "She was wearing something different in New Delhi."

Mike paused. "It's concept art really. We'll be finalizing it later. In the meantime, that also means training for everyone. Team maneuvers, power exploitation, defensive tactics, you name it. Looks good for the resume and we want you guys to stay alive."

"And that's my job," Eidolon cut in, sounding amused. "Hi. I'm your team leader."

And Vista's mind ground to a halt.

No pressure? Ha, how about all the pressure?

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AuthorNote: Big thanks to the users @Pyrion , @TheAnt , @Seraviel , @Robo Jesus , @Deatstroke , @scriviner , @Tabi , @Master Basher , and @Olive Birdy for helping write this update. Also, another round of thanks for @Seraviel and @Robo Jesus giving permission to use some of the content they both wrote for Manager in this story.

 

[Shujin]

And so ends the Causal Arc! Thanks for reading everyone, drop a like and tell me what you think!

E.L.F
_________________________​

The ocean was hungry.

The Warp.

I had to remember that, no matter how strange it was. It had a name. This ocean of threads and currents that I could almost feel like an almost physical thing had a name. It had a few names. Entire civilizations risen and fallen knew what it was. It was something that had existed long before I did and would continue to exist a long time after I was gone.

Forever.

It was hungry.

According to Ulthwé, that was the natural state of things after it got fucked up a bunch once upon a time. There was a lot more to that history lesson, believe me, but that's what it boiled down to. There were wars. There was death. And there was some utterly fucked up shit that got reflected onto this mirror of reality so hard it cracked. The Aether, the Empyrean, the Immaterium, the Sea of Souls were all names it used to have. Some still used the older versions, but I was told it was no more correct than calling a dried riverbed a river.

There was only The Warp now.

I was learning a lot of things lately.

I turned to the right and inwardly marveled at how I could actually tell there even was a right in the Warp. I mentioned before that the ocean seemed to be a directionless location. Think of it like being in the middle of the Atlantic, several hundred feet below the surface. Deep enough where you can't look up and see sunlight on the water, just darkness. Nothing below you. Nothing to the right or left. There were only the currents.

And the sharks.

I keep making ocean metaphors. That is not going to help me remember. Then someone drops you a rope with a flashlight tied at the end. You might still not know where the fuck you are, but at least now you have a point of reference.

That was the lance of bright, golden unlight left behind by Scion.

I turned back to the shining melody of the Infinity Circuit and fell into the cool gray. I avoided touching anything, or anyone and resolved to just wait. I didn't have to wait long. Ulthwé coalesced before me quickly. She was a shining light fading into the pale image of a very tall, thin woman with an elaborate five part braid swinging down to her knees and wearing robes covered in what I now knew to be runic designs. The most prominent rune looked a bit like an eagle carrying a drop of water in its beak when looked at one way and the hieroglyph of a crying eye when you blinked.

She tilted her head demandingly.

"Still there," I said. "Dimmer, but it feels wrong. Like it's making me physically ill somehow."

That flashlight from earlier? It was great and all, but I could deal with it not being made out of radioactive uranium. Maybe that was unfair. I understood why Scion felt like he had to pull that out given the mega storm threatening New Delhi, but at the same time I was not comfortable with the fact that his solution made me feel bad. The only thing that kept it from being petty to the extreme was that on top of everything else I had done to myself, that had not helped. It had really fucked me up.

It would do that to the unprepared, apparently.

And you are certain you have never seen the like? She asked, sending a brief image of a skeletal machine made out of an abyssal black metal, holding some kind of device in its hands glowing with sickly green lightning.

It didn't look like anything I wanted to meet in a dark alley.

"Never," I confirmed. And then because I couldn't help myself, I asked, "Friends of yours?"

She glanced away, a corner of her lips curling even as she flicked a dismissive finger. I could almost hear the scoff. I remembered seeing something like that machine from the other souls in the Circuit, locked in battle with what I now knew to be the Eldar. I wasn't completely ignorant, but I could play at it just to annoy her. Yes, it was petty. The woman was dead. She still had the hole a spear, or maybe a large caliber bullet, had made at the base of her throat. Let's just say our first impressions of each other weren't great. She was dealing with what she saw as a 'mon'keigh' child, and I was dealing with an asshole.

The other ones I saw, the insect-dinosaurs? Hadn't come up. I wondered if avoidance of the subject was on purpose. I could see not wanting to talk about the aliens that killed you or your friends. I just wasn't happy knowing there were things out there that wanted to kill me.

Old acquaintances, she sung with a hint of distaste. They do not concern you.

So the avoidance was on purpose.

"So you asked about them because you just felt like it?" I pointed out.

I asked to be thorough. What use is there in pursuing irrelevant information?

Then why did I feel like it wasn't as irrelevant as she was making it seem? I didn't have enough information to challenge that right now, so I ducked my head. I could feel my ears twitch backwards and I waved my fingers in an expression I'd seen her make before. It was something like grudging acceptance. A common enough expression she displayed around Farseer Vernasse.

Ulthwé went still. Her eyes were wide.

"What? Did I get it wrong?"

No, she hummed. I could hear the buried note of what I was finally beginning to isolate as wonder in her voice. You did not.

"I do learn, you know."

The Farseer said as much, she sung hesitantly. She stared at me in a wide eyed expression I didn't know how to parse. You are...fifteen years old. The weirdness morphed into her customary frown. I see now.

"Glad someone does." That got me a look I was infinitely more familiar with; exasperation. I gave her a tight smile in response. Of my two teachers, I preferred Iyanden. He actually wanted to teach me and seemed concerned about me as a person. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but he never talked down to me and vetoed any idea that seemed dangerous. Ulthwé taught, but not much else. I had no illusions that she wouldn't toss me to the wolves in a heartbeat where Iyanden might at least regret it. "...I want to go further, in the Warp."

Further? Her frown tightened. You would risk yourself.

"Whatever Scion did, it's keeping them away." And by them, I meant daemons. The big ones. That was another long story. A really long story. "Minimal risk, so long as I do not stray too far. And I can find my way back."

Why do you wish this?

I hesitated. Asking for permission, and justifying it, was an odd feeling. For years, I had gotten used to doing things by myself because Mom was gone and Dad wasn't there. The past year and a half had taught me that adults in authority were at best unhelpful. The less said about my peers, the better. Dad wasn't here, but that wasn't his fault. Piggot wasn't here, and that wasn't her fault either. Iyanden was focusing on my recovery. Vernasse was keeping me contained. There was only Ulthwé. And I wanted to ask someone for permission. I needed to.

I didn't trust myself anymore.

She seemed to catch herself asking again, instead deliberately raising a questioning eyebrow.

"I thought I saw something of an ...anomaly."

Ulthwé stiffened. Explain.

I gathered my thoughts. Detailing the Warp was always going to be one of those things. I was going to have to use a water metaphor again. "Like there is a, not a hole, but a drain?"

A drai - Her note cut off abruptly. Go. Report what you find.

"Know what it is?"

Ulthwé considered me, an odd quirk to her lips. Perhaps. Only one way to be sure.

"Right," I drawled. "Fine. I'll try not to get eaten or something."

Some expression flickered through her bright, pale hazel eyes at that. I thought it was halfway between fear and resignation, but I may have been way off base.

Yes, she began slowly. The image of that massive crack in reality, the malevolent Eye flashed through my mind. I could feel the shadow of a burning, greedy grip closing on something inside me. Ulthwé became light as she retreated deeper into the Circuit, her last words lingering. Please try.

I swallowed, hard.

I could reach outside of this place. I had a living body I could return to. The Infinity Circuit was a haven for the dead. It was their afterlife. It protected them, as best as it was able. We did not know what would happen if I died. Would they linger? Would they fade? Would they move on? Because if there was something about me that was making this all possible, then maybe I was being too glib about the risks.

But Ulthwé said to go.

I bit my lip as I reached out and pulled away. It was a smooth shift of perspective and I was out among the currents and threads of the ocean once more. The Warp. Scion's golden lance shone brightly in the churning abyss. I imagined it stretching all the way across the galaxy like the light of the Anathema. Catching my own thought, I winced immediately. I shouldn't call him that. Maybe the dangers of the galaxy they lived in justified some of what I learned. Maybe.

It sounded like something out of a dark, three AM, nightmare. A nightmare that was too close for comfort. I imagined my storm over New Delhi devouring the planet, engulfing the solar system as its very own Eye of Terror.

All because of my pride.

The warning still rang in my soul.

Something moved towards me, but when I turned my attention to it, it shied away. I smiled what was probably a grim smile as I moved forward and saw the rest scatter. New Delhi had broken something in me I think, just as it had awakened something else.

I didn't know what it was.

I gathered the power that came too easily to me as I crouched down, and then I moved. I ignored the drifting threads that brushed against me. Now was not the time to be caught up in possible futures.

The anomaly was just like how it appeared last time. A weird drain looking ripple in the Warp where it looked like the natural currents were disrupted somehow and partially obscured. I slowed to a crawl as I approached it.

Nothing immediately jumped out at me. Wasn't sure if that said anything or not.

Here goes nothing.

I stepped within. At first, nothing changed. I cautiously explored, but found nothing. I was beginning to think that what I thought was an anomaly was just the Warp doing Warp things. Ulthwé probably knew that and this was some overly elaborate lesson about assumptions and ignorance. I sighed, about to give up when my foot stepped on something. Something hard. Something that didn't shift the moment I thought about it.

Solid.

I held my breath as I stepped out of the Warp into a glowing tunnel. The dimensions seemed infinite, expanding across a horizon and reaching upwards to a sky of scintillating light. Where the fuck was I?

Spooked, I turned right back around and dove into the Warp. I reached for the nearest currents, seized the closest threads and forced them to part. I projected myself just like I had over New Delhi, but instead of a sprawling metropolis I found myself on a barren rock. It was covered in fine, razor shards of gray-white sand as far as I could see and pockmarked with craters. The sky was a midnight black with a large dominating yellow star. A moment of panic saw me shift my location in a blind leap. I looked for something I recognized.

I froze when I found it.

A blue and green ball, hung like a marble in an expanse of dark space, covered in the white wisps and swirls of clouds.

I don't know how long I just stared. I traced familiar coastlines anyone could find on a globe. At some point, I had sat down. I don't know what took so long, but right there sitting down on the surface of the moon, it finally began to sink in. Everything. About galaxy spanning empires and threats. About entire worlds being discovered and lost. Aliens.

About how little I really knew.

Back in the Warp, Scion's golden lance still shone right above New Delhi.

The cool gray of the Infinity Circuit seemed different when I returned. It hadn't changed, just my perspective. Like before, Ulthwé coalesced before me. Unlike before, I think I saw her for what she was.

A ghost.

What did you find? She sung softly.

"A tunnel," I said. "A very large tunnel made out of light on the dark side of the moon."

A tunnel, she repeated with a song of wry amusement. Her eyes were bright. A vast image pressed into my mind of an extensive network of pulsating light as if there was a heart beat and I was seeing the map of a circulatory system. Then the image shrunk and shifted, traveling down a vein until the viewpoint emerged from a glowing portal held between an arch of elegantly crafted Wraithbone. The words flashed into my mind.

The Webway.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0


Feb 17th, 2011


1:07 AM​

The only thing Director Emily Piggot wanted right now was a few stiff drinks in bed and a complete and total erasure of the past month and a half. Better make it the past three months just to be safe.

It would mean she would have never even heard of the name Taylor Hebert.

"I am not telling you this to be difficult, or because I am not on your side, Mr. Hebert," Emily said. It was a bald faced lie. She was absolutely trying to be difficult, and the side of a grieving recently triggered father at a very high risk for doing something stupid was not one she was eager to take chances on. "It is your right to be there as her guardian. But I need you to consider not just what your options are, but Taylor's."

Danny Hebert winced. The green eyes his daughter inherited were lined with exhaustion and constantly shifting, seeing something only he could see.

"I should be there when she wakes up," he repeated stubbornly. "Not some - "

"Government employee?" Emily finished for him.

He gave her a sheepish smile, squeezing on the blue stress ball in his fist. "I was going to say law enforcement."

"I know," she replied dryly.

In the end, he caved thanks to the timely arrival of Heberts' parahuman liaison. It wasn't everyday a Director had to make an emergency request for a new one because your previous had been woefully unfit. To the tune of a bullying campaign ending in Maelstrom. Kemper was something of a lucky break. The woman seemed competent, but time would tell if she wasn't just a stop gap on the way to this all blowing up in their face. Emily may not like most people, but she did understand 'not making things worse.' Even if a lot of the shit she had to deal with in her job left her with both hands tied behind her back.

She rolled her shoulders, checked the manila folder one last time, then opened the door to 621. She was greeted with a severe temperature drop as the plastic over the blown windows struggled to hold back the winter's chill. Someone had robbed a few offices of their lamps to replace the broken ceiling lights, designs ranging from art deco to a sunflower. A heart monitor made quiet, fast beeps in time to the pulsing light in Hebert's chest as her assigned Nurse gingerly removed the IV. He was an older gentleman with a neat salt and pepper beard. Emily glanced around the room for a moment, and spotted the whiteboard with the name 'Derrick' scribbled in blue after the stenciled 'Hi! Your nurse today is:'

There was a ghost in the corner.

Caduceus was eyeing it, murmuring under his breath. "That's not creepy at all."

It was creepy, and had been worth about seven pages of additional paperwork for independence.

Assault had made a joke about Hebert's family power being the ability to bury people in paperwork.

On a completely unrelated note, he had console duty for the next month.

"How are we looking?" Emily asked as she pulled up the chair and sat into it heavily. It was the typical hospital visitor's chair, blocky and hard. Suitable for holding weight but little else. For a moment, she fantasized being in her nice, comfortable, overpriced office chair.

Christ, it was one in the morning. She should be thinking about her bed.

This job was killing her, she thought.

The medical Striker snapped up a clipboard. "Everything looks good. Numbers are within expected range given her history. I don't foresee any problems."

"Excellent," Emily said with a sharp smile. "Now tell that to the ghost."

The cape blanched. "...are you serious?"

"Yup," Derrick replied, popping the p. He placed a careful bandaid on Hebert's wrist and began to wrap up the tubing. "Independent."

Caduceus floundered for a good twenty seconds before he found his balls.

"Hi, Taylor's ghost," was his cringe inducing opener. "I'm Caduceus and I'm a cellular time manipulator. I - uh," He made a pained expression. "Reverse time on a micro scale, can only do organic material. I can heal her." He gestured to the girl on the bed and rushed through the rest. "DoIhaveyourpermission?"

The ghost opened its pale eyes. Caduceus froze under the hard stare.

"Demonstrate." It said simply.

His mouth worked for a moment. "O-okay. Um."

He turned to Emily.

"No," she said.

"Just a cut - "

She stared him down. "No."

He turned to Derrick. The nurse took one look at the cape's pleading expression and let out an explosive sigh. "Be right back then."

The ghost's very aware gaze followed the man out of the room. There was nothing comfortable about the projection, which meant it fit Taylor Hebert's repertoire perfectly. "You refuse yourself as an example?"

"Manton limited," he replied. Hebert's construct raised a questioning eyebrow. "Ahh, power doesn't work on myself, only others...I'm explaining things to a ghost," he said as if having an epiphany.

The man was an idiot.

It hummed in response.

Derrick returned, blue gloves on his hands as he ripped open the small plastic casing of a hypodermic needle. Then he stopped, glancing down at those same hands. He tore the left glove off.

"Habit." He braced his hand on the tray attached to the bed and easily located a vein on the side of his wrist. When the needle withdrew, it bled profusely. He showed it off, wiping at it with gauze.

Caduceus laughed before reaching over, making sure everything was in the construct's line of sight and then pinching the man's wrist between two fingers for a moment. Emily saw the construct's eyes narrow at the small distortion accompanying Caduceus' power that appeared and disappeared in the blink of the eye. "All good."

Derrick swiped the area with the gauze again, then squeezed at the loose skin there. Not a drop of blood emerged.

"How does this ability work?"

"Uh?" Caduceus blinked. "Reverses time on a micro scale…?"

"How?" It stressed the word. "By what means is the skein of time reversed? That will determine what effect it will have on my charge. Micro-wormholes linking past and present?" Every word saw Caduceus' eyes behind his green visor grow wider. "A merge of alternate timelines? Infusing energy to reverse entropy?"

Emily blinked.

Shit.

The fuck kind of projection was this?

"I -" Caduceus knuckled the side of his face for a moment. "Okay. I am aware of the cellular makeup of organic material I touch," he said carefully. "When I use my power, I can see the effects of aging, cumulative damage and injury on a timeline, going backwards. I chose when to stop the reversal."

The projection blinked slowly. "How easily you use what you do not understand…"

Because that's what Taylor Hebert needed. A mouthy ghost projection.

It rankled.

Because it was true.

They knew the 'what' of parahuman abilities. The 'how' of it were mainly educated guesses made after testing by people with degrees in physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology… but even then sometimes they threw up their hands and gave their best guess.

And there was nothing for the why?

They would use it. They had to.

Emily would never trust it.

"I've been through the testing," Caduceus said stiffly. "I am a medically trained professional. It will work."

"It will," the construct allowed and it closed its eyes.

"Are - " Caduceus started hesitantly. "Are we good?" There was no answer. "I think we're good?" Still nothing. "We're good."

"Then let's get this over with," Emily said.

Caduceus approached the bed slowly and when the ghostly spear didn't make a move for him, he reached out and gingerly pressed fingers to the underside of Taylor Hebert's wrist. The distortion that appeared around the girl's body was unsettlingly like the video's Emily had seen of Grey Boy's victims. Victims the cape before her could help, if he could ever touch them. The distortion was a blue-shifted grayish blur that did nothing to hide how startlingly red her blood was.

Her burn wounds reopened as the scabbing and scarring vanished, soaking through the medical gauze, before the burns rapidly began to close. The toes that had been blown clear off her right foot abruptly reappeared as the burns cleared on her feet, traveling up her legs. Her missing fingers similarly found themselves. As the burns cleared her face, Emily knew that behind her eyelids, the girl once more had her father's green eyes.

And Taylor Hebert woke with a gasp.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o


Feb 17th, 2011

1:44am ​

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Emily Piggot's voice was the first thing I heard. The woman would never know just how right she was.

I laid there for a moment longer, taking stock. The pain being gone was the first thing I noticed. There wasn't even a hint of it, meaning I had been completely and totally healed. I was in a bed with a partial incline and everything smelled significantly less than I was used to. An attempt at sterility? I was in a hospital. My first thought was 'How was Dad going to pay for all this?' My second thought remembered all those papers we had signed putting me on the PRT's payroll. We should have health insurance. Did it cover having Panacea heal me? It was Amy, right?

I wiggled all ten of my toes and then did my fingers. Everything was accounted for. Did that mean…? I slowly opened my eyes.

"Woah," I heard someone, a masculine voice exclaim. "Were they like that before?"

Everything was in that same supernatural crisp focus it had been since I came out of my locker. The hospital ceiling was a cream color and the light bulbs directly above me were broken. I had a feeling I knew how that had happened. I swung my gaze around and found Emily Piggot in a chair by the door, an older man in hospital scrubs digging a blood pressure cuff out and another man in a green and white costume with a green visor smiling hesitantly at me.

"Before?" I croaked and swallowed, trying to get rid of the frog. I found Farseer Vernasse in the corner near me. Thank you, I sent to her along with all of the gratitude I could muster. She didn't exactly smile, but I could see some subtle tension in her expression ease. She became a white mist that flowed back into the spirit stone embedded in my sternum.

"They weren't," Piggot said, an exasperated expression on her face. Her dyed blonde hair was showing a lot of brown at the roots and she looked tired. I fought down the guilt and instead looked back at the cape hero. His costume reminded me of a knight with white armored sections underneath the green tabard. The two twisting snakes around a winged rod were prominent on his chest. His green visor covered most of his face, but was more transparent around his eyes.

"They glow," he said bluntly, but his smile had strengthened. "Don't worry, it's a cool effect."

"You're about due for testing anyway," Emily Piggot said with absolutely no humor. "Thank you, Caduceus. We can get you a PRT escort - "

"I'll take a cab, don't worry about it."

"Mind if we take your vitals?" My nurse murmured to me as he held up the blood pressure cuff. I wordlessly held out my arm. The scratch of my clothes on my skin was almost distracting. It was hard to keep track of time in the Warp, and it wasn't like the Infinity Circuit had a clock either.

"What's the date?" I asked.

"February 17th," Piggot answered.

Felt like longer.

"Thank you," I made sure to say before I had a thermometer stuck in my mouth. After testing my eyes with a penlight, my nurse packed up. He handed me a cord with a bulbous end. It had a big red button.

"The call light if you need anything, alright?"

Piggot stuck around, waiting patiently until it was just the two of us. She lifted the manila folder she held and let it drop with a quiet smack, before heaving herself out of her chair. She offered me her hand and I stared at it.

"Well, congratulations," she said as I shook it. "You did us all a service. If I may be frank, good fucking job on Leviathan."

That monster would never kill anyone ever again, but it didn't seem to matter. I knew the fatalities for the Endbringer battle were likely smaller than it had ever been, but it didn't seem to matter. I knew New Delhi wouldn't be quarantined. I knew I changed the future. I knew I had proved that we still had hope.

I killed Leviathan by convincing a boy to kill himself. That would haunt me for the rest of my life.

My smile felt like a lie.

"I already broke the news to your father, you can expect at minimum a five billion dollar -" I choked on air. " - share of the bounty to be paid for the Endbringer." I'm a billionaire? "The President himself has expressed an interest in thanking you personally on behalf of the United States and WEDGDG has been coordinating similar offers from other countries. India is at the top of that list."

My mind spun on an axis.

New Hampshire wanted in on that, with the Governor asking after me and Brockton Bay's mayor didn't want to be left out. Apparently neither did Legend and Director Costa-Brown. There was some rumbling about maybe a Nobel Prize, a national holiday, and at the end of it, I had to just kind of sit there, overwhelmed. I don't know why I didn't expect it. No one has managed to kill an Endbringer for literally decades and that wasn't for lack of trying. Maybe it was because I didn't feel like celebrating.

"Okay," I eventually managed to say. "Okay." Once my brain started working again, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "That's the good news."

Piggot gave me this wry smile. "That's the good news," she confirmed.

"And the bad?"

The bad news was the manila folder. The first page within said it all.

Manslaughter. Assault with parahuman ability. Kidnapping. Totaling over four hundred charges. My stomach sank through the floor.

Yeah. That was about what I had been expecting.

"If anyone asks," Piggot said in a mild tone of voice. "You got this information on your own without assistance." She turned the page for me.

"A plea bargain," I breathed. I saw Eidolon's name. I quickly put two and two together. "A show trial?"

"Less of one than some might like," Piggot admitted, "You will be arrested, likely held on bail, but we can guarantee a private plea hearing without the media. We're already making the arrangements for the plea deal and we know the judge. The real question is, will you cooperate?"

"Yes," I said immediately. I had little reason not to. Going against this and pitting myself against the government? It might give that part of me that wanted to decide my own future satisfaction, but for what? An uphill struggle for everything ever afterwards? Constantly on my guard? It would break Dad's heart, and for what? If I refused to take any kind of punishment for any wrongdoing and banked on how useful I was, how would I be different from Sophia? The athlete. The Ward. I knew what it felt like to be on the losing end of a calculation of worth. Now I was worth millions of people. This was a slap on the wrist, and ultimately what I wanted anyway. To be worth it. To be a hero. I looked down at the paper again.

Manslaughter.

Now I was worth millions.

"I will cooperate," I said softly.

Piggot let out a small sigh of relief. "The Chief Director would like to hear your thoughts -" I read between the lines. Use my powers. " - about it after you're discharged."

I read through the rest of the pages quickly, trusting my memory before reaching out to the Warp. The papers and manila folder disintegrated in my hands. I brushed the dust off my sheet as Piggot raised an eyebrow.

"Yup," was all she said.

"What would you have done if I said no?" I had to ask. It was pretty risky for her to deliver the news herself. Risky, but it showed her resolve.

"I would have let you walk," Piggot checked her watch. "Then filled out resignation papers."

Both of my eyebrows rose and the woman smiled.

"I'm a government employee," she said. "Not stupid."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o


February 17th, 2011

9:28am​

The door finished closing behind me with a tiny click and all of the sounds I had gotten used to with my improved hearing muffled into a dull drone. If 'Need to Know' had an interior design, I was looking at it. I crossed over to the dark wood desk facing the large screen and tapped on the button prompting me to connect to PRT, LA.

"Ah," The Chief Director of the PRT, Rebecca Costa-Brown said as soon as her image appeared. "Right on time."

The last time I saw her, she had been wearing Alexandria's costume with blood trickling out of her nose.

"What have you got for me, Farseer?"

I clasped my hands together.

"Heartbreaker," I said, then took a breath. "Then Nilbog."

 

[Shujin]

Sorry for the delay everyone. My motivation tanked this past week as my cat of five years has gone missing. Hopefully she comes home soon.

March 8th, 2011

1:26pm​

"That," Dad drawled from the computer screen. "Was not subtle."

"Good," I said as I held the red synthetic gem in my hands up to the focused light of my workbench lamp. I paid close attention to the glimmer where the light bounced within the tiny channels etched into the crystal. The flaws jumped out at me immediately, tiny imperfections in the design that grated on what I was beginning to suspect was mild OCD. It wasn't anything that would ruin the project, I didn't think, but I could do better. "I was not trying to be subtle."

"I thought the plan was to cooperate?" He scratched at the growing stubble on his cheek. His hair had gotten longer in the 'needs to be cut' kind of way and the bags under his eyes were very noticeable now that he no longer needed his glasses. I noticed the wrinkles in his shirts and how he had at least three cups of coffee every morning. I had yet to say anything about it.

"I am cooperating," I said. "I just want it to be very obvious how very inconvenient I could be if anyone got the idea to screw me over."

"By making the test equipment bleed?" Dad asked dryly.

I shrugged helplessly. "Yes?"

Everything was fun and games learning how to control computers with my mind until they started screaming. That had not been in the plan, but apparently the Warp thought otherwise. I wasn't going to admit it though. The only thing worse than putting a few hundred thousand dollars of machinery through a containment cycle on purpose was doing it on accident.

"If this bites you in the ass…" He warned.

"It could," I admitted. "But it won't."

My father gave me an exasperated sigh. "Taylor…"

I set my crystal down and made sure to look him in the eyes. "Dad, I could hide shit. I could, but what's the point? My rating means they expect me to be able to do anything and they'll get paranoid about it. This way, they think they know and that's less…"

"Alarming?" He finished for me.

"Yes." I shrugged with one shoulder. "I am cooperating."

We fell into that kind of awkward silence where the conversation wasn't over, but neither of us wanted to continue it. That was how it had been between us these past two weeks since I came out of my self-induced coma. All that progress? Gone. And it was my fault. I didn't know how to apologize for everything and he didn't know how to confront the girl that helped kill Leviathan. We both had super powers and the irony was that we were right back to where we started. A broken family.

"Who is it now?" I said, just to say something. "Miss Militia, right?"

"Yeah," Dad groaned, rubbing his hand on his face. He tried to smile, but it didn't come out right. He looked a bit haunted. "Perfect recall ain't what it's cracked up to be."

"Retroactive?" I asked and he nodded. I winced. All the little things you thought you forgot, hoped you forgot, wanted to forget in perfect clarity didn't sound great. Not with what we've been through and lost. I could only go back as far as the locker, but if Dad could remember everything from years ago? "It doesn't go away when you let the power go, does it?"

"Unfortunately." He looked away and I knew why he hadn't been sleeping.

Mom.

"You should say something," I tried. "Cycling works in theory, but they don't know you keep the effects."

"Only some of them, brain stuff," Dad said dismissively. "I need to get used to it anyway, it's fine."

And he shut me down.

"Vista seemed nice," I blurted out, anything to keep him talking.

"Yeah." He palmed his face again. "Yeah, they're good kids, the Wards. Not like - " He swallowed hard and looked down. "You know."

I did know.

I bit my lip and cast about for another topic.

"Look, I - " Dad cleared his throat. "Armsmaster put in a request for help I should get around to, probably looking over some designs for things. It shouldn't take long," he offered.

Dad was escaping. That was something I had gotten used to him doing the past two years. "Okay."

He tried to smile again. "Finish eating, don't get caught up on that spear."

"Promise." I bit my tongue as the video conference call disconnected. My mind immediately flashed out to the Warp. That could have gone better. It should have gone better. The least I could have done was get into his head, follow his thoughts to have a better idea of what landmines I was tripping over. I could have peeked into our immediate future for a better way like I'd done before. What if I had offered to fix his power, make it better? Change it? Then he could -

And the ease with which I was thinking about using my powers on my Dad again made my stomach scrunch into a little ball.

I needed a break.

I dropped my crystal ball into the bowl on my desk where it rolled around with the other has-beens of today, crystal orbs of blue, green and red each humming a low note only I could hear. My lab on the Rig hadn't really changed. The back wall was still covered in wraithbone with its metal scaffolding. My unfinished jetbike dominated the floor space, tilted on its side to expose the hollow underbelly. The slabs of crystal were still on my desk next to papers covered in scribbled schematics of everything from tanks to pistols. The few tools I had, mostly for measurements, were still scattered all over the floor around the bike shell. I nudged my stylus away from the edge of the desk and stood up. I felt something on my head tilt.

"Oh right," I muttered as I plucked my notebook off the top of my head. How long had it been balanced there? I wondered. I set that on top of my drawing tablet and picked my way across the room to the set of counters holding my lunch.

Southwest style chicken salad and orange juice from some family run restaurant Dad had found. I hadn't always liked fruit drinks, but I tried soda. I was no longer a fan. My salad smelled alright, just the residual chemicals of whatever the lettuce had gone through barely making it through the scent of free range chicken. I wouldn't call it a diet, but in the interest of staying out of the hospital, I was avoiding everything that smelled a bit too funny. If it wasn't for the fact that I was still an All American carnivore, I would have gone completely organic and vegan.

There was a joke somewhere in there about elves that I hated myself for acknowledging.

I tried to focus on eating. I really did. Something in my head wouldn't let the temptation to do something go. I could reach around the world, down the hall and a few rooms away was nothing. No one would have to know. I was half-convinced that I could fix it, even though I knew I couldn't. Not like that. It was stupid and it could probably wait until tonight while my body slept, but I reached into the Infinity Circuit anyway. The familiar cool pulse of Farseer Vernasse's awareness came through. I reached further, grasping that melancholic note I had come to associate with her.

How do you stop yourself from always looking into the possible futures?

From changing things, because I can? How do I let things be? How do I stop myself? There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but something held me back. I didn't want to seem irrational or erratic. I didn't want to seem vulnerable. I guess I was afraid. Afraid that something I said or did would prove I was 'too human' after all, and I would be left alone again.

How do you stay in the present?

And the Farseer's voice chimed a clear, cold note. "I don't."

What? I sent back in astonishment. Never?

She didn't respond.

I refused to let that silence get to me, switching track to think about the implications instead. If she was always half-absent, half here and half ahead, what did that mean? Was that why she even bothered with me? Something I would do or become in the future making the effort worth it? Did she even know or was it still hazy, too many variables and too many choices to see clearly?

I thought about how it would be to live like that. To always be working some kind of future angle, unable to appreciate the present because the future was always changing. It would be lonely, wouldn't it? Your body walked the same streets as everyone else, but you've already left them behind. I guess then it wouldn't matter how many of them fell along the way. It would be easy, I thought. To write them off.

What else could they be, than just variables?

Even if the future you worked towards was better, it was still wrong to think like that, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

I slowly made my way through my lunch, finishing off the juice and diverting from the chicken in favor of grapes. The door beeped, letting me know that someone had just used their keycard to let themselves in. I turned in time to see a few PRT squad troopers dart into the room, taking up positions in the empty spaces. They were quick, clean, professional and emotionally jumpier than rabbits in a butcher shop.

Following them was one of Brockton Bay's adult superheroes.

I'd seen him before in the papers or on TV in his red body armor and visor on the upper half of his face. At the time, he had been one of the more personable heroes. He seemed like the kind of guy that always had a smile for every situation. He wasn't smiling now.

"Hey kid," Assault said. "Orders came through. No hard feelings, right?"

You could cut the tension with a knife. And if I let it, I could see that it would only fester. So I shrugged one shoulder, a half-smile on my face as I held up my grapes.

"Can I finish my lunch first?"

Assault blinked.

"Really?" Then he laughed. I could see the way his body language changed, loosening. "We can do that, right guys?"

In response the troopers shifted, some lowering the barrels of their foam sprayers a hair. "Your call," one of them said.

I could feel the minute changes in the Warp, as some futures shifted closer, becoming more real. It was subtle and fragile, but having that control made me feel better. I plucked off the last few grapes and looked at my chicken. I sighed.

Alright then.

Guess it was time to get arrested.

________________



March 10th, 2011

9:44am​

I have now officially come full circle. After a round trip to the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire I was once again in the PRT holding cells, sitting on the bed with an issued laptop looking over the news. They were replaying clips of the Winslow Storm in the background as the talking heads went over my arrest as everything and anything was suddenly relevant again. Including related arrests. I didn't know how I would feel, hearing that Emma had been cooling her heels for the better part of a month by now. There was definitely some schadenfreude for well earned misery, but the rest felt ephemeral. A highschool bully was finally experiencing some consequences.

I helped kill Leviathan. That would put anything into perspective.

This time around, Dad was in my cell with me, nursing a straight black coffee and wincing every time something he didn't like hearing came over the laptop's speakers.

"They are never going to get tired of you, are they?" He asked.

"The media?" I clarified as I started another video. "Nope." There was another megathread on PHO, I noted idly. That sounded like loads of fun. "Avoid PHO."

Dad sighed.

"What are they saying?" He asked, as if I would tell him to avoid it just to blab anyway.

I gave him a look. "Avoid it."

"Alright!" He held up his hands, and coffee, in surrender.

The intercom gave a sharp crackle.

"Hebert?" A male voice I didn't recognize said. I reached out with my mind, just enough to brush under the ripples their presence caused. PRT agent? "You've got a visitor."

Dad sat up in his chair. "Lawyer?"

"A one Alan Barnes?" The man responded.

Dad hissed, standing up as his coffee cup crinkled in his hands. "Lawyer."

Alan Barnes. My first reaction was a lot like my father's. Emma's dad had a lot of nerve showing up wanting to talk to me after his daughter shoved me in that locker. My second reaction wondered why? What did he stand to gain from this? Did he somehow think I could influence his daughter's upcoming trial? Was he going to threaten to influence mine?

I was asking these questions, but I knew how to get the answers. I reached out for the Warp, and sifted through the threads. A third option presented itself. I could use him, I thought. Not now, but later down the line?

He was going to remember everything he hadn't told the police. He was going to make sure Emma was put away for a very long time and Stalker for even longer. He was going to make Madison's life miserable.

And he was going to thank me for it.

"Is he expected?" The agent asked hesitantly.

"No," I said. "But it's fine. I can meet with him."

My father turned to me, face scrunched up in this incredulous look. "Taylor, it's Alan."

"I am aware," I said dryly.

"Do you have any idea - "

"He can't do anything to me," I cut him off before he got worked up. Before he said something he would regret later. "Dad, they can't do anything to me." He was my father. Worrying about me was part of what fathers do, even if it was overblown. But it was going to cause problems. Now. Soon. Later. "You're worried about me and I get that. This is - everything, it's a lot." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Too much. But you are not helping when you're like this."

He raised his voice. "I'm trying - "

"You are failing." He reeled back and I felt the sympathetic spike of self-loathing bite deep. I released it into the Warp. "You need to sleep more. Take a week off not doing any work for anyone. No Union, no powers."

I could hear it in his mind when it sunk in what I was saying.

Still useless.

The tentative name for him was Board, a Trump that could take on thinker powers from any other parahuman in his range. Except for the one parahuman they were really hoping he could copy.

But then, I wasn't a parahuman.

"Hebert?" Came over the intercom again. "Your lawyer is here as well. Priority?"

"Lawyer first, Mr. Barnes later," I said as I put the laptop on the bed. I glanced over at Dad's slumped figure. "Let me go?"

He nodded miserably. He knew what I was really asking. "Okay, kiddo. I'll try."

The door opened with the electronic clicks and beeps. I held out my arms for the cuffs.

"Mr. Hebert?" The trooper called around me.

"Yeah." Dad walked out of the room ahead of me, dumping his cup of coffee in the nearest trash can. "Let's get this show over with."

My lawyer was a shorter black woman dressed how lawyers on TV dressed, in a sharp dark-skirted suit complete with a black tie and expensive looking watch. Her short, frizzy hair was dyed an orange color and her hazel eyes missed nothing behind slim wire frame glasses. She shook my hand calmly.

"Hello again, holding up alright?" Her name was Arlene Grayson and she had a very calm, unruffled emotional map. Her thoughts were similarly practical. She was on my side, because the numbers worked out.

I was worth millions of people.

"Yes." Dad echoed me as we sat down at the square table. The visiting room was a bland four walls and a ceiling kind of space. One of the fluorescent lights by the door flickered and I was sure there was monitoring equipment installed somewhere. I could hear the electronic humming of something in the walls at certain spots. Cameras?

"I'm trying to look at it like you said. These - " I held up my cuffed wrists. "Are a positive."

"They are," Arlene said as she opened her briefcase. "Most in your situation would find themselves in full restraints, straitjacket, automated devices, ball and chain, the kitchen sink."

Extreme feel-good measures that wouldn't do anything. I saw one future with a repurposed collar, the kind they usually wore when facing the Simurgh with the time limit removed, but a trigger installed. It was a distant future, but not so distant as to have been impossible. The fact that it reminded me of what I've been told of the Imperium made seeing that possibility worse.

"PRT is good for something," Dad joked weakly.

"It's a bit of an odd situation, working with the PRT on the defense," Arlene allowed. "Usually they would be the prosecution."

"Too useful to sit in a cell," I said. Dad winced.

Arlene's eyes cut to me for a moment, before she inclined her head. "Unfortunately, we're still looking at a two month timeline for the proceedings, even with time not being waived." She preempted Dad's question. "Ah, there is a sixty day limit on when trials must take place, ignoring everything else."

"Is there - " Dad grimaced. "Is there anything we can fight here?"

"The kidnapping charges," she replied immediately. She rifled through the papers in her briefcase, finding what she was looking for with a snap of her wrist. "The basis is rather weak circumstantial evidence, I suspect it will be dropped before the second hearing. Private flight dropped out of contact in roughly the same time period."

"It won't be a problem," I said quietly. That I could see clearly.

Arlene paused. "I'll take your word for it."

"And my other option is pleading guilty, right?" I asked.

She nodded. "A No Contest or Guilty plea would expedite things, right up to the sentencing. Or…"

"Plea bargain?" Dad asked. He was clenching his fists rhythmically and I knew none of this could be good for his blood pressure. "Making some kind of deal for a lighter sentence?"

"As you said," my lawyer stated with a small, grim smile. "Too useful for a cell."

She didn't know about the deal the PRT was putting together. But she suspected.

"How much can I push for?"

"House arrest is unlikely," Arlene said. "Even if the charges didn't paint you as a violent offender - "

"I - " I moved to protest immediately.

Sophia.

I closed my mouth.

" - part of the usual provisions is whether or not you are able to maintain the cost of your internment," She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "If you can reasonably 'imprison' yourself. And given your powers, the answer is no."

I wasn't sure if even the Birdcage could imprison me. No one else was either.

Dad ran a hand through his hair. "Cuffs and a tracking bracelet not enough, huh?"

"No," was the bland reply. "As far as the 'light touch' goes, this is it."

And just like that, I could feel a future crystallize. Suddenly I knew how it was all going to work. I knew where I could guide events. I could see it. I must have jerked in my chair or something, because when I pulled away from the future, both my dad and my lawyer were staring at me.

"Does the PRT's light touch extend to where I'm imprisoned?"

"By my understanding of the situation, upon incarceration you would qualify as a Category A prisoner. Someone who is an extreme risk to national security in the event of an escape." She sighed. "Sitting in a county jail is not an option."

"You want...to transfer?" Dad asked slowly. "Out of the Bay?" His eyes darted back and forth. "LA?"

"Out of the country," I said.

My lawyer slowly closed her eyes. "How big of a spectacle are we talking about here?"

"Massive," I said unapologetically. "Most in my situation wouldn't just be in cuffs, right? I want to be treated fairly, no special treatment. This?" For emphasis I reached into the Warp and tore my cuffs to atoms. "This does nothing."

To her credit, Arlene Grayson barely reacted to the show of force. She lifted a finger from the table, then dropped it. "You do understand the only facility eligible aside from PRT holdings is the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center?"

"I don't need to go that far." I leaned forward in my chair. "I just need Dragon."

Arlene raised an eyebrow. "I would advise against assault with a parahuman ability."

"Dragon is invisible to me, I can't see her. My Master rating? Useless."

"And this is on record?" Arlene asked to confirm.

I thought back to that meeting that seemed like it was forever ago, with Dad and the directors of the PRT officers around the country. "Yes."

She thought it over. "The request would have to go through the judge and prosecution, we can work on the wording." She smiled her little grim smile again. "Do I want to know why you want harsher imprisonment?"

"In Canada?" Dad echoed.

Dragon was the one my Master power wouldn't work on. Everyone else was fair game.

"I follow the news," I said. "I know what they are saying. The court of public opinion is…" I searched for the word. "Contentious. Brockton Bay is ground zero. I need to get away from that. I want to make as good a showing as possible, even if it's uncomfortable. I can handle it."

I wouldn't have to worry about how I was going to get to Nikos Vasil.

I was going to make him come to me.

All he needed was a little push.