Chapter 44- Enemies, meetings, and ideas
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
11th August, 2011. Thursday.
Calvert sighed, stepping out of the car once it was firmly hidden in the secret parking area that he used when he needed to enter his base, and started making his way through the hidden pathways that would let him get to his office to change into his costume and start work.
And there was a lot of work, this time. The aftermath of Endbringer attacks were always frantic and scrambled, trying to patch together survivors and fix up damaged cities, and while most of that was already done after the last two weeks of work, this attack was still shaping up to be more confused than most. With everything that was now leaking out from the various Capes that had been involved at the fight, that wasn't a surprise.
The sudden appearance of another pair of strange creatures, ones apparently familiar to Team Inari and willing to listen to them, was worrying enough. That the smaller one- rumours called it Jirachi- was able to destroy Behemoth without much effort, leaving behind nothing at all, was pretty horrifying.
He couldn't help but be curious as to what the threat report the PRT was obviously working on would say. He'd have to take a look when it was completed, but he was fairly sure the answer would involve 'Shaker: Yes' somewhere.
It was also a shame that Calvert hadn't managed to get in on the meeting that was happening between Inari and Costa-Brown today. Being only a civilian consultant, he didn't have the sort of sway needed to get into that sort of thing now, especially not on the short timescale that it had been arranged. From what he knew, the official contact had only been two days ago, which was an incredibly short period of time to organise everything. It seemed like Inari had just dropped everything to get to this meeting, which was… also very interesting. Most Cape teams with any amount of influence would likely have arranged for the meeting to take place later, in order to give them more time to prepare.
That implied one of two things; either Inari's leaders were confident in their ability to handle this meeting, even the newest members of the team, or they were ignorant of the amount of sway they held in the aftermath of the Simurgh Containment Zone clears and the destruction of Behemoth.
And Calvert didn't think it was possible to be that ignorant.
Frowning to himself, and trying to figure out what on Earth Inari's plan was, he opened the door to his office and froze.
Sitting on his desk, completely without the glass-and-Tinkertech casing he'd had put around it, was that strange crystal that had suddenly appeared nearly two months ago.
He hadn't ordered it to be brought to his office. If he was going to do that, he would've done it after getting into costume. As it was, he was in a business suit, having dressed in order to appear that he was going to some kind of meeting rather than his base. He also wouldn't have had it brought to his office unshielded, since he had no idea what it was or what it might do. Two months worth of examining it had given them nothing, even letting Tattletale use her powers in another timeline- while he was out of the way in case of strange reactions, of course- had only given her strange errors and cryptic nonsense. They couldn't damage the thing to take samples, any sort of scans that they did to it just showed it being a normal rock with crystals in it that didn't match any known crystals. It didn't make any sense, and for the most part he'd had it stored and left alone because they couldn't get any information out of it.
Now, though? Now he had a problem. He couldn't call for someone else to take it away, since he was still unmasked and having Thomas Calvert in this base would make no sense, but to get to his costume he would need to pass through his office into his quarters on the far side, which meant walking past his desk- and while the rock hadn't ever done anything before, he still didn't want to be around it unshielded. He could just leave, call someone in to remove it and stay out of the way while they did, but then the mercenaries might question where he was, which had the potential to be awkward even if they did understand that it was because he was out of costume.
Weighing his options for a moment, Calvert began slowly edging along the room, keeping away from his desk and the rock, then paused again.
What am I thinking? He scolded himself, with a slight head shake. Why sneak around the room and possibly put himself at risk? If something went wrong, it could go wrong in a timeline where it could be undone. Then he could reevaluate what he wanted to do.
He split the timeline-
Legend shuffled his papers around for the fifth time in the last ten minutes, glancing at the clock again as he did. Almost eleven, almost time for the meeting to start.
He could feel Rebecca giving him a look from the corner of her eye, probably irritated with his fidgeting, but it was the only thing he could really do at the moment. It wasn't like there was anything to do other than arrange his notes for the sixth time and make sure everything was set up for the meeting- interview, really, though that wasn't how it had been presented.
Legend was pretty sure Inari knew what it really was, though. It was fairly obvious, and the leaders were experienced in dealing with these sorts of things according to all the conversations they'd collected about them, even if the two newest members weren't. Rebecca seemed to want to try and draw Inari even closer, and while he agreed that having that sort of power on their side would be useful, he was also just as sure that it wouldn't be happening. From the conversations they'd had- on PHO, with various Protectorate and Ward members, with Director Piggot- the way they were working with the PRT currently seemed very similar to the way that they'd worked before they arrived here, and he doubted that they'd want to change that for something that was much more structured- and, dare he think it, also a lot more limited.
But they could really do with having a meeting about the Behemoth fight, and how Jirachi had been able to destroy him, so he hadn't been able to say anything about how much of a doomed endeavour it probably was to try and recruit them this way. Instead he'd just gotten himself into the meeting and decided to wait. And maybe try and guide the conversation away from recruitment.
"Will you stop that." Rebecca hiss-snapped, as he moved his notes around for the eighth time. He winced, then glanced at the clock.
"They should be here soon, I think?" He replied, rather than responding to that. Rebecca looked at her phone.
"Dragon confirmed that they're on their way." She agreed, willing to let it go. "We should get a notification from security that they're being bought up any-"
The phone buzzed.
"-Minute now." Rebecca gave her phone a wiry look, seeming slightly amused, then shuffled her own notes before sitting up straighter and checking the recording device on the table. There was only the one, rather than also having the systems in the room recording things, out of respect for the sensitive nature of the whole thing- as much as Inari's involvement in Behemoth's demise was now public knowledge thanks to people on PHO, the PRT itself hadn't made a public statement yet, wanting to speak to Inari themselves first before they did anything.
It said a lot about the sort of power these people had, really, that the PRT was unwilling to release a statement without consulting them, Legend thought in amusement. And also said a lot about the state of the PRT, really, but that was a bag of worms that was probably best opened at any time other than when they were about to have a meeting.
The door opened, one of the security team walking in to hold it there, and trailing behind them was the five members of team Inari; Eon first, Shadow slightly behind him on the left, Swarm slightly behind her on the right, and the newest pair of Jirachi and Deoxys floating in behind them, standing close together.
While Legend was no expert in alien body language, he thought they seemed nervous as the group stopped a little away from the table and bowed.
"Legend. Chief Director Costa-Brown." Eon greeted, as the pair of them stood as well. "I believe this is the first time we've had the honour of meeting in person, Chief Director."
"It is, yes." Rebecca nodded, stepping around the table in order to offer them her hand. She had to stoop a little to do so, but Eon handled it easily, quirking something of a smile as he did.
I suppose they're quite used to it now, aren't they. He thought, as he moved to do the same. "It's good to see you again, Inari. And in rather better circumstances."
Shadow chuckled. "Yes, Endbringer attacks aren't exactly the best time to get to know a person." The group moved away to take seats at the table- aside from Jirachi, who remained hovering over Deoxys' shoulder between them and Swarm- so they took their own seats again as well, Rebecca giving them a welcoming smile.
"Now, I'm not sure how familiar you are with these proceedings, but essentially we'll be asking for a recitation of the events leading up to Behemoth's destruction, as best as you can. The device in the middle of the table is a recording device, so you'll need to speak clearly to make sure it's picking things up. We're only making the one recording, which isn't quite usual procedure, but given the sensitive nature of the situation we figured only having the one recording to store would be a better idea."
"That makes sense." Eon nodded. "Jirachi can speak aloud, but Deoxys can't, so we'll make sure that anything they wish to add is translated over properly."
"We'll keep that in mind." Legend replied. "We're also going to be taking notes for the PRT's official press release on the subject, and we'd like to give you five the chance to make sure there isn't going to be any information that might be dangerous to your team in it."
The three original members of the team tilted their heads slightly, seemingly understanding the unusual nature of the offer, and agreed.
Those particular formalities out of the way, Rebecca leaned forward slightly and clicked the button on the recorder, clearing her throat.
"Today is August eleventh, two thousand eleven, it's eleven-oh-three AM. Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, with Legend also present, interviewing team Inari about the events of July twenty-sixth during the attack of Behemoth on New Delhi, India. The team is made up of Eon, team leader, Shadow, team second, Swarm, team third, and team members Deoxys and Jirachi. This record is specifically for archiving purposes."
And definitely is not an attempt to get to the bottom of the sort of power we're dealing with in the hopes of maybe being able to use it for ourselves, not at all.
The recitation of events was fairly simple, mostly Jirachi and Eon speaking in turns about things. Occasionally Deoxys input something themselves, which required a few minutes of back and forth conversation within the group to make sure that everything came across properly- Deoxys' method of speaking was unusual, and it gave Legend slight chills every time he heard it- but for the most part the group left the two of them to handle things. Legend wasn't sure why; Eon made sense as the leader, and Jirachi made sense as the person who'd actually destroyed Behemoth, but it seemed usual that neither Shadow nor Swarm had wanted to give their own views on things, especially seeing as Deoxys had.
Possibly they'd worked something out before they arrived?
It took about half an hour to cover everything, going from the arrival of Jirachi and Deoxys on Earth to the end of the fight, and by the time they turned off the recording Legend felt rather exhausted from just listening to the situation. He could hardly imagine how insanely stressful and tiring things must have been in the heat of the moment.
"Thank you." Rebecca, of course, looked unaffected, sitting back with the recorder in hand. That recording would be uploaded into the databases once Inari had left, and probably also sent along to the Thinkers to see if they could glean any sort of extra information out of it, but for now it was set to one side while Rebecca reviewed her notes. "The press release for this is going to be… difficult." She sighed, tapping her pen on the desk. "There's probably a lot of information that we wouldn't really want to put out there, mostly because- no offence- knowing how powerful you are could frighten a lot of people."
Jirachi gave a sigh of his own, raising a small hand to touch his throat. 'I understand… even agree, honestly.' He admitted. 'Eon's been explaining how this world works, and I suppose that as much as knowing that someone out there can destroy those monsters is a good thing, it could easily cause a lot of panic because people don't know how to react to the change in the status quo… We actually saw a lot of that sort of thing when Dungeons started to appear, back home. The Dungeons changed things, and a lot of Po- of spirits didn't know how to handle that. There was quite a lot of trouble… it's why I ended up with Deoxys, and why I was running with trustworthy groups before that.'
'Agreement. Danger; high.'
"I think the best way to frame it would be to be honest." Shadow finally put in, waving her tails a little. "Admit that it was Jirachi, and admit that it was one of his abilities that did all the damage. But also admit that it's incredibly difficult to do, requires a lot of charge time as well as being exhausting, and that the main reason it was able to destroy Behemoth so totally was because of Deoxys' assistance with the shield."
"And don't say anything about the leftover pieces." Swarm interjected. "No-one knows anything about the bits Leviathan left behind- well, the public doesn't," she amended, giving them a look which clearly said that she knew there was quite a few people around the PRT that knew about them, "And giving the impression that nothing was left behind is probably for the best. Sure, it might make things more dangerous for Jirachi in that people think that he's capable of destroying an Endbringer entirely, but that's a lot less dangerous than giving the idea that there might be pieces of Endbringer sitting around somewhere."
'Especially given that they became Time Gears.'
"We'll probably want to avoid anything about Jirachi's other powers as well." Eon continued. "As much as things like Wish Challenges could be useful, those becoming public knowledge could be extremely bad."
'Those battles aren't usually too violent, though...'
"To people like us, no. But to normal humans? It could cause a lot of damage."
"Wish Challenge?" Rebecca asked mildly, though with obvious curiosity. Legend couldn't blame her; he was curious as well, it sounded interesting.
The group all paused, swapping looks between them. It almost seemed like they were speaking without words, which was pretty impressive given that some of them were new- then again, Legend thought uneasily, two of them can speak into people's minds… what's to say that they can't do that? That would make dealing with them a lot more worrying- before Jirachi floated slightly forward, folding his arms.
'A Wish Challenge is something I can do. It's pretty powerful, and one of the reasons that my kind tend to have Guardians or Teams of some kind to help them. Or they hide out in Dungeons, where most spirits can't reach us.'
"It's dangerous?"
'Only if you're not careful. And trust me, I'm careful with it.' He frowned. 'A Wish Challenge is a type of battle, one only done between a Jirachi and a different spirit. It's pretty formal, compared to a lot of other battles, and kind of ritualistic. Jirachi have the power to grant wishes through various forms; mine's a Wish Challenge. The challenger asks me for a battle, I accept, and if they win the battle then I'll grant their wish. If there's multiple challengers the battle is harder, and usually I'll adjust my strength based on what sort of spirit I'm fighting- and what kind of wish it is, if I'm able to find out more about that before things start. And there's restrictions, too. I can only do one wish per battle, and I can't do too many wishes in quick succession, it's too tiring; small wishes and I can do… maybe a half dozen, but the bigger they get the more power they need, so the less of them I can do. And my powers aren't omniscient, either, I need information on the target.I might be able to… I don't know, destroy a building? But I'd need a lot of focus to know what the building was, where it is… so pictures, addresses, things like that. If you wanted me to kill the Endbringers, I might be able to, though I'd probably have to do it one at a time and there's a possibility that I might end up going into comet form, but killing the thing behind the Endbringers isn't going to be happening because I'd need an identity for whatever's behind it.'
Legend jolted, and in the corner of his eye he could see Rebecca do the same. "There's someone controlling the Endbringers?"
Jirachi shrugged. 'I've no idea, I was using that as an example. If there was, though, I'd need the information about who or what it was to be able to remove them. Kill wishes take a lot of power, too, to the point where I'm actually pretty much guaranteed to need to return to my comet form- that's what I use for travelling, and I won't wake up for a while, so that's not ideal. Wishes also need to be done pretty quickly after the challenge is over, too, so you need to figure out what you want first- that's also better for the challenger because if I know what the wish is ahead of time I can tailor the battle's difficulty better, where if I don't know things then I usually end up going for much more powerful ones off the bat.'
"Interesting…" Rebecca mused, settling back. "Yes, I think that's something we should keep out of the public eye. Preferably no-one but your team should really know about it… though if you find that you need to use it for something, then I'd recommend you do so."
Eon nodded, shifting slightly as he flicked his tails. "Yes, I quite agree. There's likely a few things we could use them for, but we shouldn't let it into the public eye. Too many people trying to come forward with Challenges would be annoying, even if Jirachi can refuse them. So keeping that out of the public eye would be a good idea… we won't mention it on any of our PHO releases either. If something comes up where we actually need to use a Wish Challenge, then we'll deal with that then, but until that happens keeping quiet is for the best."
"That sounds like a good idea to me." Legend nodded. He could tell that Rebecca didn't quite agree with him there, but he couldn't really find it in himself to care. As much as she might want to use the wishes thing against Zion, keeping it a secret would be a good idea- and besides, it wasn't like she was going to keep it quiet from the rest of Cauldron anyway. She'd undoubtedly tell them all the next time that they had a meeting together, and the only thing that would lead to would be a massive argument as they attempt to figure out a way to get a hold of Jirachi and use him to their advantage, likely only ended when Contessa couldn't come up with a way to actually make it happen.
That sort of thing had been happening a lot in the last few months, and he couldn't see how this time would be any different.
So all this agreement was doing was keeping it from the public eye, and he absolutely had no problems with doing that. Keeping the general public from trying to get into fights with the spirit that had killed Behemoth was somewhere at the very top of his new priority list, right below 'hope that can be repeated with the other Endbringers' and 'keep them from trying to destroy any of them'.
"Is there much else, then?" Swarm mused, tilting her head slightly. "I mean, we've agreed to keep the press release down to a minimum of information, we're keeping the Wish Challenges out of the public eye, and Team Inari's going to be making an announcement that Jirachi and Deoxys are a part of our team. I don't really think there's anything else."
Rebecca disagreed with that, too, he knew, but there wasn't anything she could do here. Trying to recruit the entirety of Inari into Cauldron might be a good idea on paper, but in practise it was going to require a bit more manoeuvring than they had room for in a simple meeting like this one. So instead, she nodded, shifting to stack her notepaper out of the way and standing to shake hands.
"I believe it might be." She said. "Thank you for coming all this way to speak with us securely. We'll ensure that the recording of this is stored safely, and there'll likely be a press release in the coming week about everything that occurred during the Behemoth fight."
"It was a pleasure to meet you all properly." Legend added, shaking hands as well. "As much as I hope the next time we see each other is just as quiet, well…"
"It's likely that that will be during the next Endbringer attack." Eon finished, as they all slipped out of their seats and back into position. "Assuming so, we'll likely be there. The Simurgh, right?"
"Yes."
"Then hopefully we'll be able to do even more damage to those damned things." He sighed. "Until then."
"The troopers will show you out." Rebecca dismissed, watching as they left the room- Swarm actually breaking from her position for the moment to hold the door and leaving behind Deoxys.
"That went well." Legend muttered to her, sinking back into his seat and looking at the recorder as the reality of the last three quarters of an hour or so hit him properly. "Now we just need to hope that Inari keeps doing that well, because…"
The amount of destructive power they now held was incredible and horrifying, and he truly hoped that they didn't see it outside of an Endbringer attack ever again. Unless it was being used against Scion, he supposed, in which case it would probably be more reassuring than anything.
"I'd like to get them into Cauldron." Rebecca frowned, looking at the recorder herself. "But that might be difficult."
"They do seem used to the way they work."
"Jirachi and Deoxys are apparently from before that system. We might be able to use that, if we manage to get to them before they end up too entrenched in Inari's group."
Legend thought back over the meeting, to the easy way that the two powerful spirits had deferred to the apparently weaker Kyuubi. Somehow, I doubt that you'll have a chance…
Eon settled himself carefully on the couch in Dragon's craft, curling up so that Swarm could sit on the other end as Shadow curled into her own ball in between the two of them. Deoxys took the other one, sitting up straight and watching around them closely- as if there was likely to be an actual threat inside the craft itself- while Jirachi placed himself next to them and lent into their leg, bringing his streamers around him like some form of cocoon.
'Are all meetings like that?' He asked, as they started up. His telepathy was likely adjusted to Dragon to hear as well, given that she was in the front of the craft and it wasn't like this was a team-only debrief or anything, and Eon made sure to make a mental note of that.
Swarm laughed. "A lot of the time, yes." She nodded. "Or at least most of our PRT ones seem to be, so it's not surprising that ones with people higher up end up the same way. But it was pretty successful too, which is nice. I wasn't sure if things would be more of a problem, dealing with people that don't deal with us regularly."
"So things went well, then?" Dragon asked over the speakers as they began to leave the city. It wouldn't be too long back to Brockton Bay, he knew, but it would be enough time to give Dragon an idea of their chat which she could then pass on to Director Piggot and the others so that they would have an idea of what happened.
It was a fairly roundabout chain, and probably unnecessary, but also Eon didn't want to get out of one meeting and immediately go into another meeting about the first. So instead, informal debrief that passed things along and then let their friend deal with it.
Just like Rhythm Forest...
"Pretty well, yeah." Eon told her. "Basically they wanted a recap of how we got Jirachi and Deoxys all the way up to the end of the Endbringer fight, and then they wanted our opinion on how much we wanted released, and then I accidentally mentioned Wish Challenges so we had to go over that."
"Wish Challenges?"
'Not it!' Jirachi immediately put in. Swarm laughed again, loud and bright- she was doing a lot better now, since they'd all had that talk about her place in the team, Eon thought gladly- and projected an obvious grin towards the small Mythical.
"I'll do it." She volunteered. "I'm pretty sure I can give a decent idea of what it is after that explanation."
And she did, too, Eon thought proudly as he listened to her explain the situation to Dragon. It wasn't quite so in-depth as the one that they'd given to Legend and Chief Director Costa-Brown, but it was good enough to get everything across- and explained very well why they didn't really want the general public knowing about that particular capacity of his.
"I have a question." Shadow asked softly, once Swarm had tapered off into silence and Dragon was out of her own inquiries. "Jirachi, do you have any sort of healing power?"
He tilted his head slightly- a move that was almost unnoticeable wrapped up like he was in his streamers, and faintly adorable in the sort of way tiny things that could kill you were- and blinked at her. 'No?' He replied, sounding confused. 'I mean, that was why I was in the fight with the others all in the first place, rather than with you in the healing area. I've not really got many Moves because I spent most my time travelling with Deoxys...'
"No, I mean-" She paused, tilted her own head in return, then made a little wave with her paw. "I mean, can you heal with your wishes?"
'I… should be able to?' He said, after a moment. 'I mean, there shouldn't be a problem with it. It might take a bit of power, but there's nothing in my normal limitations stopping me, so… Why do you ask?'
Shadow sat up straight, tails drifting back and forth happily. "Because there's someone in Brockton Bay that I wasn't able to help." She explained. "Neither was Panacea. We don't know why, but our powers just didn't work. I was wondering if yours might be able to."
The faint memory of Battery, lying still in her costume after Leviathan's attack, floated through Eon's mind- things had been hazy then, sure, but he remembered that, remembered how distracted and miserable Assault always was since then- and he bolted upright as well, looking down at his second in command.
"Would that work?"
"I think we'd need to ask Director Piggot for permission." She said. "And maybe some of the people in her Protectorate team as well. But if Jirachi can't see any problems with it, and if we can find a place to do it all safely in… then maybe we could do a Wish Challenge to heal Battery?"
Battery's health was something that had been weighing on her for a while- on Amy, as well, though Shadow more- because it was the first time that she'd stumbled across something that she couldn't heal for no apparent reason. There'd been times where her Moves had failed her before, for one reason or another, but usually they were able to figure out why and sort something different- even if it was only using Berries instead of Moves because of the problem being caused by something weird. But not even that had worked, when they'd offered it over to the medical team, and the combined feeling of failure and the upset that it had caused Assault the past few months had been pressing on her so heavily that it was almost a physical weight.
"Should I put in a call to Director Piggot for you?" Dragon asked.
"No." Eon shook his head. "We'll be back in the Bay soon enough, we can just meet her ourselves and put the idea forward."
There goes any hope of avoiding another chat about the meeting and heading home, he thought, a little mournfully. But it was for a good cause, so he settled down again to start composing an idea of the arguments he might have to make, and the report he'd have to give.
And those were a good distraction from worrying about Shadow, because he knew that if they got permission to do this she was going to be the one who challenged Jirachi to a battle...
GIYGOGAGOHGWOOH!
Calvert sighed, stepping out of the car once it was firmly hidden in the secret parking area that he used when he needed to enter his base, and started making his way through the hidden pathways that would let him get to his office to change into his costume and start work.
And there was a lot of work, this time. The aftermath of Endbringer attacks were always frantic and scrambled, trying to patch together survivors and fix up damaged cities, and while most of that was already done after the last two weeks of work, this attack was still shaping up to be more confused than most. With everything that was now leaking out from the various Capes that had been involved at the fight, that wasn't a surprise.
The sudden appearance of another pair of strange creatures, ones apparently familiar to Team Inari and willing to listen to them, was worrying enough. That the smaller one- rumours called it Jirachi- was able to destroy Behemoth without much effort, leaving behind nothing at all, was pretty horrifying.
He couldn't help but be curious as to what the threat report the PRT was obviously working on would say. He'd have to take a look when it was completed, but he was fairly sure the answer would involve 'Shaker: Yes' somewhere.
It was also a shame that Calvert hadn't managed to get in on the meeting that was happening between Inari and Costa-Brown today. Being only a civilian consultant, he didn't have the sort of sway needed to get into that sort of thing now, especially not on the short timescale that it had been arranged. From what he knew, the official contact had only been two days ago, which was an incredibly short period of time to organise everything. It seemed like Inari had just dropped everything to get to this meeting, which was… also very interesting. Most Cape teams with any amount of influence would likely have arranged for the meeting to take place later, in order to give them more time to prepare.
That implied one of two things; either Inari's leaders were confident in their ability to handle this meeting, even the newest members of the team, or they were ignorant of the amount of sway they held in the aftermath of the Simurgh Containment Zone clears and the destruction of Behemoth.
And Calvert didn't think it was possible to be that ignorant.
Frowning to himself, and trying to figure out what on Earth Inari's plan was, he opened the door to his office and froze.
Sitting on his desk, completely without the glass-and-Tinkertech casing he'd had put around it, was that strange crystal that had suddenly appeared nearly two months ago.
He hadn't ordered it to be brought to his office. If he was going to do that, he would've done it after getting into costume. As it was, he was in a business suit, having dressed in order to appear that he was going to some kind of meeting rather than his base. He also wouldn't have had it brought to his office unshielded, since he had no idea what it was or what it might do. Two months worth of examining it had given them nothing, even letting Tattletale use her powers in another timeline- while he was out of the way in case of strange reactions, of course- had only given her strange errors and cryptic nonsense. They couldn't damage the thing to take samples, any sort of scans that they did to it just showed it being a normal rock with crystals in it that didn't match any known crystals. It didn't make any sense, and for the most part he'd had it stored and left alone because they couldn't get any information out of it.
Now, though? Now he had a problem. He couldn't call for someone else to take it away, since he was still unmasked and having Thomas Calvert in this base would make no sense, but to get to his costume he would need to pass through his office into his quarters on the far side, which meant walking past his desk- and while the rock hadn't ever done anything before, he still didn't want to be around it unshielded. He could just leave, call someone in to remove it and stay out of the way while they did, but then the mercenaries might question where he was, which had the potential to be awkward even if they did understand that it was because he was out of costume.
Weighing his options for a moment, Calvert began slowly edging along the room, keeping away from his desk and the rock, then paused again.
What am I thinking? He scolded himself, with a slight head shake. Why sneak around the room and possibly put himself at risk? If something went wrong, it could go wrong in a timeline where it could be undone. Then he could reevaluate what he wanted to do.
He split the timeline-
Legend shuffled his papers around for the fifth time in the last ten minutes, glancing at the clock again as he did. Almost eleven, almost time for the meeting to start.
He could feel Rebecca giving him a look from the corner of her eye, probably irritated with his fidgeting, but it was the only thing he could really do at the moment. It wasn't like there was anything to do other than arrange his notes for the sixth time and make sure everything was set up for the meeting- interview, really, though that wasn't how it had been presented.
Legend was pretty sure Inari knew what it really was, though. It was fairly obvious, and the leaders were experienced in dealing with these sorts of things according to all the conversations they'd collected about them, even if the two newest members weren't. Rebecca seemed to want to try and draw Inari even closer, and while he agreed that having that sort of power on their side would be useful, he was also just as sure that it wouldn't be happening. From the conversations they'd had- on PHO, with various Protectorate and Ward members, with Director Piggot- the way they were working with the PRT currently seemed very similar to the way that they'd worked before they arrived here, and he doubted that they'd want to change that for something that was much more structured- and, dare he think it, also a lot more limited.
But they could really do with having a meeting about the Behemoth fight, and how Jirachi had been able to destroy him, so he hadn't been able to say anything about how much of a doomed endeavour it probably was to try and recruit them this way. Instead he'd just gotten himself into the meeting and decided to wait. And maybe try and guide the conversation away from recruitment.
"Will you stop that." Rebecca hiss-snapped, as he moved his notes around for the eighth time. He winced, then glanced at the clock.
"They should be here soon, I think?" He replied, rather than responding to that. Rebecca looked at her phone.
"Dragon confirmed that they're on their way." She agreed, willing to let it go. "We should get a notification from security that they're being bought up any-"
The phone buzzed.
"-Minute now." Rebecca gave her phone a wiry look, seeming slightly amused, then shuffled her own notes before sitting up straighter and checking the recording device on the table. There was only the one, rather than also having the systems in the room recording things, out of respect for the sensitive nature of the whole thing- as much as Inari's involvement in Behemoth's demise was now public knowledge thanks to people on PHO, the PRT itself hadn't made a public statement yet, wanting to speak to Inari themselves first before they did anything.
It said a lot about the sort of power these people had, really, that the PRT was unwilling to release a statement without consulting them, Legend thought in amusement. And also said a lot about the state of the PRT, really, but that was a bag of worms that was probably best opened at any time other than when they were about to have a meeting.
The door opened, one of the security team walking in to hold it there, and trailing behind them was the five members of team Inari; Eon first, Shadow slightly behind him on the left, Swarm slightly behind her on the right, and the newest pair of Jirachi and Deoxys floating in behind them, standing close together.
While Legend was no expert in alien body language, he thought they seemed nervous as the group stopped a little away from the table and bowed.
"Legend. Chief Director Costa-Brown." Eon greeted, as the pair of them stood as well. "I believe this is the first time we've had the honour of meeting in person, Chief Director."
"It is, yes." Rebecca nodded, stepping around the table in order to offer them her hand. She had to stoop a little to do so, but Eon handled it easily, quirking something of a smile as he did.
I suppose they're quite used to it now, aren't they. He thought, as he moved to do the same. "It's good to see you again, Inari. And in rather better circumstances."
Shadow chuckled. "Yes, Endbringer attacks aren't exactly the best time to get to know a person." The group moved away to take seats at the table- aside from Jirachi, who remained hovering over Deoxys' shoulder between them and Swarm- so they took their own seats again as well, Rebecca giving them a welcoming smile.
"Now, I'm not sure how familiar you are with these proceedings, but essentially we'll be asking for a recitation of the events leading up to Behemoth's destruction, as best as you can. The device in the middle of the table is a recording device, so you'll need to speak clearly to make sure it's picking things up. We're only making the one recording, which isn't quite usual procedure, but given the sensitive nature of the situation we figured only having the one recording to store would be a better idea."
"That makes sense." Eon nodded. "Jirachi can speak aloud, but Deoxys can't, so we'll make sure that anything they wish to add is translated over properly."
"We'll keep that in mind." Legend replied. "We're also going to be taking notes for the PRT's official press release on the subject, and we'd like to give you five the chance to make sure there isn't going to be any information that might be dangerous to your team in it."
The three original members of the team tilted their heads slightly, seemingly understanding the unusual nature of the offer, and agreed.
Those particular formalities out of the way, Rebecca leaned forward slightly and clicked the button on the recorder, clearing her throat.
"Today is August eleventh, two thousand eleven, it's eleven-oh-three AM. Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, with Legend also present, interviewing team Inari about the events of July twenty-sixth during the attack of Behemoth on New Delhi, India. The team is made up of Eon, team leader, Shadow, team second, Swarm, team third, and team members Deoxys and Jirachi. This record is specifically for archiving purposes."
And definitely is not an attempt to get to the bottom of the sort of power we're dealing with in the hopes of maybe being able to use it for ourselves, not at all.
The recitation of events was fairly simple, mostly Jirachi and Eon speaking in turns about things. Occasionally Deoxys input something themselves, which required a few minutes of back and forth conversation within the group to make sure that everything came across properly- Deoxys' method of speaking was unusual, and it gave Legend slight chills every time he heard it- but for the most part the group left the two of them to handle things. Legend wasn't sure why; Eon made sense as the leader, and Jirachi made sense as the person who'd actually destroyed Behemoth, but it seemed usual that neither Shadow nor Swarm had wanted to give their own views on things, especially seeing as Deoxys had.
Possibly they'd worked something out before they arrived?
It took about half an hour to cover everything, going from the arrival of Jirachi and Deoxys on Earth to the end of the fight, and by the time they turned off the recording Legend felt rather exhausted from just listening to the situation. He could hardly imagine how insanely stressful and tiring things must have been in the heat of the moment.
"Thank you." Rebecca, of course, looked unaffected, sitting back with the recorder in hand. That recording would be uploaded into the databases once Inari had left, and probably also sent along to the Thinkers to see if they could glean any sort of extra information out of it, but for now it was set to one side while Rebecca reviewed her notes. "The press release for this is going to be… difficult." She sighed, tapping her pen on the desk. "There's probably a lot of information that we wouldn't really want to put out there, mostly because- no offence- knowing how powerful you are could frighten a lot of people."
Jirachi gave a sigh of his own, raising a small hand to touch his throat. 'I understand… even agree, honestly.' He admitted. 'Eon's been explaining how this world works, and I suppose that as much as knowing that someone out there can destroy those monsters is a good thing, it could easily cause a lot of panic because people don't know how to react to the change in the status quo… We actually saw a lot of that sort of thing when Dungeons started to appear, back home. The Dungeons changed things, and a lot of Po- of spirits didn't know how to handle that. There was quite a lot of trouble… it's why I ended up with Deoxys, and why I was running with trustworthy groups before that.'
'Agreement. Danger; high.'
"I think the best way to frame it would be to be honest." Shadow finally put in, waving her tails a little. "Admit that it was Jirachi, and admit that it was one of his abilities that did all the damage. But also admit that it's incredibly difficult to do, requires a lot of charge time as well as being exhausting, and that the main reason it was able to destroy Behemoth so totally was because of Deoxys' assistance with the shield."
"And don't say anything about the leftover pieces." Swarm interjected. "No-one knows anything about the bits Leviathan left behind- well, the public doesn't," she amended, giving them a look which clearly said that she knew there was quite a few people around the PRT that knew about them, "And giving the impression that nothing was left behind is probably for the best. Sure, it might make things more dangerous for Jirachi in that people think that he's capable of destroying an Endbringer entirely, but that's a lot less dangerous than giving the idea that there might be pieces of Endbringer sitting around somewhere."
'Especially given that they became Time Gears.'
"We'll probably want to avoid anything about Jirachi's other powers as well." Eon continued. "As much as things like Wish Challenges could be useful, those becoming public knowledge could be extremely bad."
'Those battles aren't usually too violent, though...'
"To people like us, no. But to normal humans? It could cause a lot of damage."
"Wish Challenge?" Rebecca asked mildly, though with obvious curiosity. Legend couldn't blame her; he was curious as well, it sounded interesting.
The group all paused, swapping looks between them. It almost seemed like they were speaking without words, which was pretty impressive given that some of them were new- then again, Legend thought uneasily, two of them can speak into people's minds… what's to say that they can't do that? That would make dealing with them a lot more worrying- before Jirachi floated slightly forward, folding his arms.
'A Wish Challenge is something I can do. It's pretty powerful, and one of the reasons that my kind tend to have Guardians or Teams of some kind to help them. Or they hide out in Dungeons, where most spirits can't reach us.'
"It's dangerous?"
'Only if you're not careful. And trust me, I'm careful with it.' He frowned. 'A Wish Challenge is a type of battle, one only done between a Jirachi and a different spirit. It's pretty formal, compared to a lot of other battles, and kind of ritualistic. Jirachi have the power to grant wishes through various forms; mine's a Wish Challenge. The challenger asks me for a battle, I accept, and if they win the battle then I'll grant their wish. If there's multiple challengers the battle is harder, and usually I'll adjust my strength based on what sort of spirit I'm fighting- and what kind of wish it is, if I'm able to find out more about that before things start. And there's restrictions, too. I can only do one wish per battle, and I can't do too many wishes in quick succession, it's too tiring; small wishes and I can do… maybe a half dozen, but the bigger they get the more power they need, so the less of them I can do. And my powers aren't omniscient, either, I need information on the target.I might be able to… I don't know, destroy a building? But I'd need a lot of focus to know what the building was, where it is… so pictures, addresses, things like that. If you wanted me to kill the Endbringers, I might be able to, though I'd probably have to do it one at a time and there's a possibility that I might end up going into comet form, but killing the thing behind the Endbringers isn't going to be happening because I'd need an identity for whatever's behind it.'
Legend jolted, and in the corner of his eye he could see Rebecca do the same. "There's someone controlling the Endbringers?"
Jirachi shrugged. 'I've no idea, I was using that as an example. If there was, though, I'd need the information about who or what it was to be able to remove them. Kill wishes take a lot of power, too, to the point where I'm actually pretty much guaranteed to need to return to my comet form- that's what I use for travelling, and I won't wake up for a while, so that's not ideal. Wishes also need to be done pretty quickly after the challenge is over, too, so you need to figure out what you want first- that's also better for the challenger because if I know what the wish is ahead of time I can tailor the battle's difficulty better, where if I don't know things then I usually end up going for much more powerful ones off the bat.'
"Interesting…" Rebecca mused, settling back. "Yes, I think that's something we should keep out of the public eye. Preferably no-one but your team should really know about it… though if you find that you need to use it for something, then I'd recommend you do so."
Eon nodded, shifting slightly as he flicked his tails. "Yes, I quite agree. There's likely a few things we could use them for, but we shouldn't let it into the public eye. Too many people trying to come forward with Challenges would be annoying, even if Jirachi can refuse them. So keeping that out of the public eye would be a good idea… we won't mention it on any of our PHO releases either. If something comes up where we actually need to use a Wish Challenge, then we'll deal with that then, but until that happens keeping quiet is for the best."
"That sounds like a good idea to me." Legend nodded. He could tell that Rebecca didn't quite agree with him there, but he couldn't really find it in himself to care. As much as she might want to use the wishes thing against Zion, keeping it a secret would be a good idea- and besides, it wasn't like she was going to keep it quiet from the rest of Cauldron anyway. She'd undoubtedly tell them all the next time that they had a meeting together, and the only thing that would lead to would be a massive argument as they attempt to figure out a way to get a hold of Jirachi and use him to their advantage, likely only ended when Contessa couldn't come up with a way to actually make it happen.
That sort of thing had been happening a lot in the last few months, and he couldn't see how this time would be any different.
So all this agreement was doing was keeping it from the public eye, and he absolutely had no problems with doing that. Keeping the general public from trying to get into fights with the spirit that had killed Behemoth was somewhere at the very top of his new priority list, right below 'hope that can be repeated with the other Endbringers' and 'keep them from trying to destroy any of them'.
"Is there much else, then?" Swarm mused, tilting her head slightly. "I mean, we've agreed to keep the press release down to a minimum of information, we're keeping the Wish Challenges out of the public eye, and Team Inari's going to be making an announcement that Jirachi and Deoxys are a part of our team. I don't really think there's anything else."
Rebecca disagreed with that, too, he knew, but there wasn't anything she could do here. Trying to recruit the entirety of Inari into Cauldron might be a good idea on paper, but in practise it was going to require a bit more manoeuvring than they had room for in a simple meeting like this one. So instead, she nodded, shifting to stack her notepaper out of the way and standing to shake hands.
"I believe it might be." She said. "Thank you for coming all this way to speak with us securely. We'll ensure that the recording of this is stored safely, and there'll likely be a press release in the coming week about everything that occurred during the Behemoth fight."
"It was a pleasure to meet you all properly." Legend added, shaking hands as well. "As much as I hope the next time we see each other is just as quiet, well…"
"It's likely that that will be during the next Endbringer attack." Eon finished, as they all slipped out of their seats and back into position. "Assuming so, we'll likely be there. The Simurgh, right?"
"Yes."
"Then hopefully we'll be able to do even more damage to those damned things." He sighed. "Until then."
"The troopers will show you out." Rebecca dismissed, watching as they left the room- Swarm actually breaking from her position for the moment to hold the door and leaving behind Deoxys.
"That went well." Legend muttered to her, sinking back into his seat and looking at the recorder as the reality of the last three quarters of an hour or so hit him properly. "Now we just need to hope that Inari keeps doing that well, because…"
The amount of destructive power they now held was incredible and horrifying, and he truly hoped that they didn't see it outside of an Endbringer attack ever again. Unless it was being used against Scion, he supposed, in which case it would probably be more reassuring than anything.
"I'd like to get them into Cauldron." Rebecca frowned, looking at the recorder herself. "But that might be difficult."
"They do seem used to the way they work."
"Jirachi and Deoxys are apparently from before that system. We might be able to use that, if we manage to get to them before they end up too entrenched in Inari's group."
Legend thought back over the meeting, to the easy way that the two powerful spirits had deferred to the apparently weaker Kyuubi. Somehow, I doubt that you'll have a chance…
Eon settled himself carefully on the couch in Dragon's craft, curling up so that Swarm could sit on the other end as Shadow curled into her own ball in between the two of them. Deoxys took the other one, sitting up straight and watching around them closely- as if there was likely to be an actual threat inside the craft itself- while Jirachi placed himself next to them and lent into their leg, bringing his streamers around him like some form of cocoon.
'Are all meetings like that?' He asked, as they started up. His telepathy was likely adjusted to Dragon to hear as well, given that she was in the front of the craft and it wasn't like this was a team-only debrief or anything, and Eon made sure to make a mental note of that.
Swarm laughed. "A lot of the time, yes." She nodded. "Or at least most of our PRT ones seem to be, so it's not surprising that ones with people higher up end up the same way. But it was pretty successful too, which is nice. I wasn't sure if things would be more of a problem, dealing with people that don't deal with us regularly."
"So things went well, then?" Dragon asked over the speakers as they began to leave the city. It wouldn't be too long back to Brockton Bay, he knew, but it would be enough time to give Dragon an idea of their chat which she could then pass on to Director Piggot and the others so that they would have an idea of what happened.
It was a fairly roundabout chain, and probably unnecessary, but also Eon didn't want to get out of one meeting and immediately go into another meeting about the first. So instead, informal debrief that passed things along and then let their friend deal with it.
Just like Rhythm Forest...
"Pretty well, yeah." Eon told her. "Basically they wanted a recap of how we got Jirachi and Deoxys all the way up to the end of the Endbringer fight, and then they wanted our opinion on how much we wanted released, and then I accidentally mentioned Wish Challenges so we had to go over that."
"Wish Challenges?"
'Not it!' Jirachi immediately put in. Swarm laughed again, loud and bright- she was doing a lot better now, since they'd all had that talk about her place in the team, Eon thought gladly- and projected an obvious grin towards the small Mythical.
"I'll do it." She volunteered. "I'm pretty sure I can give a decent idea of what it is after that explanation."
And she did, too, Eon thought proudly as he listened to her explain the situation to Dragon. It wasn't quite so in-depth as the one that they'd given to Legend and Chief Director Costa-Brown, but it was good enough to get everything across- and explained very well why they didn't really want the general public knowing about that particular capacity of his.
"I have a question." Shadow asked softly, once Swarm had tapered off into silence and Dragon was out of her own inquiries. "Jirachi, do you have any sort of healing power?"
He tilted his head slightly- a move that was almost unnoticeable wrapped up like he was in his streamers, and faintly adorable in the sort of way tiny things that could kill you were- and blinked at her. 'No?' He replied, sounding confused. 'I mean, that was why I was in the fight with the others all in the first place, rather than with you in the healing area. I've not really got many Moves because I spent most my time travelling with Deoxys...'
"No, I mean-" She paused, tilted her own head in return, then made a little wave with her paw. "I mean, can you heal with your wishes?"
'I… should be able to?' He said, after a moment. 'I mean, there shouldn't be a problem with it. It might take a bit of power, but there's nothing in my normal limitations stopping me, so… Why do you ask?'
Shadow sat up straight, tails drifting back and forth happily. "Because there's someone in Brockton Bay that I wasn't able to help." She explained. "Neither was Panacea. We don't know why, but our powers just didn't work. I was wondering if yours might be able to."
The faint memory of Battery, lying still in her costume after Leviathan's attack, floated through Eon's mind- things had been hazy then, sure, but he remembered that, remembered how distracted and miserable Assault always was since then- and he bolted upright as well, looking down at his second in command.
"Would that work?"
"I think we'd need to ask Director Piggot for permission." She said. "And maybe some of the people in her Protectorate team as well. But if Jirachi can't see any problems with it, and if we can find a place to do it all safely in… then maybe we could do a Wish Challenge to heal Battery?"
Battery's health was something that had been weighing on her for a while- on Amy, as well, though Shadow more- because it was the first time that she'd stumbled across something that she couldn't heal for no apparent reason. There'd been times where her Moves had failed her before, for one reason or another, but usually they were able to figure out why and sort something different- even if it was only using Berries instead of Moves because of the problem being caused by something weird. But not even that had worked, when they'd offered it over to the medical team, and the combined feeling of failure and the upset that it had caused Assault the past few months had been pressing on her so heavily that it was almost a physical weight.
"Should I put in a call to Director Piggot for you?" Dragon asked.
"No." Eon shook his head. "We'll be back in the Bay soon enough, we can just meet her ourselves and put the idea forward."
There goes any hope of avoiding another chat about the meeting and heading home, he thought, a little mournfully. But it was for a good cause, so he settled down again to start composing an idea of the arguments he might have to make, and the report he'd have to give.
And those were a good distraction from worrying about Shadow, because he knew that if they got permission to do this she was going to be the one who challenged Jirachi to a battle...
GIYGOGAGOHGWOOH!
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