Chapter 15
Jevran
He-Who-Stalks-The-Forums
- Location
- Somewhere
-+-
Chapter 15
"Excuse me?"
Lisa looked up from her desk to see a woman wearing a concealing brown trench coat and fedora standing before the desk. The only part of her that was visible was her porcelain white face that could have given the best supermodel image issues.
Lisa however, was not a supermodel, so she just smiled pleasantly. "Yes? Can I help you?"
The woman tucked away a stray lock of white hair that had fallen loose from her fedora and smiled pleasantly. "I understand you are recruiting new manga artists. I would like to submit my work for consideration."
"Oh! Of course!" Lisa scrambled to clear the papers littering her desk. "I will need a sample of your work and your name. Things like age and education aren't important for this job. We're equal opportunity employers."
"Of course! I have them right here!" The woman produced a plastic paper folder from within her voluminous trench coat and slid it across the desk towards Lisa.
Lisa took the folder and flipped through the sheets within. "Wow!" She said. "This is quite good." And she was being fully honest. The pages depicted heroes in costumes fighting various giant monsters in epic battles. Granted, most pages depicted the heroes losing horribly, but that could be fixed.
"Thank you." Lisa, her attention still on the pages, heard the woman talk above her. "It was a little hard to adapt my concepts to paper medium, but I think the results speak for themselves."
"Mhmm," Lisa said. Still not raising her head, she examined a picture of a city going up in flames while dozens of costumed heroes fought a giant winged tentacle monster in the sky. "And what did you use before? A tablet?"
"No. I created my art on the fabric of fate itself."
"Mhmm," Lisa said. She flipped to the next page in the folder, that had someone that looked suspiciously like Alexandria choking to death. Then what she heard registered, and Lisa slowly raised her head to meet the gaze of the smiling woman. "The fabric of fate huh? What was your name again?"
The woman's smile never wavered. "You already know my name Sarah." She shed her trench coat in a single movement, and her fedora was flicked away by a toss of her head, a cascade of silver hair falling free. All over her body, dozens of angelic wings unfurled as she levitated off the ground. "I'm your good friend Ziz!"
Lisa screamed and jumped back. Her chair clattered to the ground, Lisa tumbling over the chair and hitting the ground. She ignored the fall and continued the scramble away on all fours.
"What's the matter Sarah?" The Simurgh asked as she floated after Lisa. "Didn't you say you were an equal opportunity employer? Are you discriminating against the endbringers?"
"I don't care about discrimination!" Lisa screamed. "I just don't want to end up barking mad!"
"Lisa!"
"I never wanted this job!"
"Lisa!"
"I never wanted any of this!"
"Lisa!"
"I was perfectly happy shoplifting!"
-+-
"Lisa!"
"Aieeeeee!" Lisa screamed and jumped to her feet.
Something slapped her across the face. "Lisa! Calm down and get a grip!"
"Huh?" Lisa blinked and looked around owlishly. She was in the back of a van. There were four other boys in here with her, and she could see the landscape flashing past the windows.
Memory came flooding back and Lisa fell back into her seat with a groan. "Sorry guys. I had a nightmare."
"Focus on the mission sister," Erigor said. "Offer up your prayers to Set and your mind will be cleared."
"Yes, thanks." Lisa began to fake mutter a prayer under her breath.
The mission. Her boss, the glorious high priestess, had gotten it into her head that the construction of the giant amusement park was going too slowly, and a prayer session with a number of cultists(herself included) had produced an utterly ridiculous plan by which they might speed up the process. That had resulted in the five of them leaving Brockton Bay in this van to carry out their 'mission'. Though that lunatic Erigor kept calling it a quest.
"There it is." The voice of the driver brought Lisa's attention back to the present. "Cornell University."
It loomed ahead of them, giant rectangular buildings surrounded by a ten foot high wall. Her power told her what the buildings were, lecture halls, labs, dorms. Somewhere in there was the mission objective.
"This is a terrible idea," Lisa said.
"Have faith sister! Our divine mission has yet to lead us astray!" Lisa sometimes wondered what it was like inside Erigor's head.
The van pulled up beside the University gates, and four of then, sans the driver, piled out and made their way towards to gates. Lisa brandished a document that said they were to be interviewed by the staff for next years uni entrance, and the security let them through.
Once inside, it took them a while to get their bearings and find their way. It was a typical university, with treelines pathways between the buildings and students wandering the grounds in small groups.
"That one," Lisa said. The building she pointed at had a prominent sign that identified it as a laboratory.
They all trooped inside, with Lisa once more taking point. They went up several flights of stairs and ended up in front of one of the chemistry labs.
"This is it?" Erigor asked.
"This is it," Lisa said.
"Excellent!" Erigor immediately opened the door and rushed in.
"Hey wait!" Lisa rushed in after him.
Inside she found Erigor already confronting a half asian girl who was gaping at him. Lisa dashed over and jumped in front of him. "Whatever he said, I can explain."
"I only told her the happy new sister," Erigor said. "That she had been chosen to serve a divine purpose."
"What he said," The half asian girl said. "Though I am curious as to how you can possibly explain this."
Lisa sighed. This was going to take some work.
-+-
"So let me get this straight," The half asian girl, who turned out to be named Grace, said. "You are capes. Not just capes, you are the Fallen. And you lot worship Set. The newest Endbringer that has the tentacles. Am I right so far?"
"Correct," Lisa said.
"And your Endbringer came to you through some prayer session and told you to recruit me?" Grace went on.
"It's called the Endbringers Tarot, but essentially correct," Lisa said.
"Right, right. So……. with all this in mind, I have a question." Grace stopped and drew in a deep breath. "WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I DO THIS?"
Lisa sighed. This is going to take a while. "Let's break this down." She held up one finger. "One, you recently triggered as a tinker. A tinker that makes bombs." She watched in smug satisfaction as Grace's mouth dropped open. However she gave no sign of it as she held up the second finger. "Two, you were gonna hold the University hostage because they gave you bad grades. But you know inside that it never would have worked out. Hostage situations never do. What you want, what you really want is for them to acknowledge that they made a terrible mistake." Lisa held up the third finger. "But the best way to show them up is to go out into the world and do something great." Fourth finger. "And that's what we're offering. A chance to do something great. Something that'll write your name into history."
Grace stared at them with dropped jaw. She stared for a full five minutes.
"I think you damanged her," Scratch hissed in Lisa's ear.
"Give it a moment, she'll come around," Lisa hissed back.
"I don't know, she looks pretty out of it," Erigor said. He didn't bother to keep his voice down.
"Shhhh! She'll recover right about now," Lisa said.
And on cue, Grace came back to life. She shook her head a few times and rubbed her face before speaking. "How do you even…….Oh forget it! What do you even want me to do?"
Lisa obliged. "We want you to make a bomb that will speed up time inside a large area for a set time. It's intended to speed up a construction project. Do two years work in a month. The sort of thing that will change the world. The sort of thing that'll make you legendary."
Grace gaped. "That's………..I don't even. I've never built something like that."
"Can you?" Lisa asked.
"I don't know," Grace said. "Now that I think about it I do have some ideas but…. I might be able to?"
"You won't back down from a challenge!" Lisa grinned. "I'm sure that if you put your mind to it, you can have it done in a flah. So……. what do you think? Will you join us and change the world? Become a legend among capes? Write your name into architectual projects that'll be around for thousands of years?"
Grace thought about it.
-+-
"My faithful!" Taylor roared. "Rejoice! For we are going from victory to victory!"
Her people cheered.
"We owe all this to our Devine Lord, the Holy Set!" Taylor raised her arms towards the sky. "It is by His will that we move foarward! It is by His blessing that we lay low our foes! It is by his design that we make this city a better place!"
Taylor had learned a lot since joining the cult. Giving speeches was one of many. It hadnt been easy for withdrawn girl like her, but she managed. When she froze up or her fear welled up, she imagined herself as her mom lecturing in Brockton Bay U and the cultists as her students. It had been hard to get into character at first, but now it came easy.
The proof was in her cheering followers.
"And now!" Taylor tundered. "Join me in giving thanks to Him for giving us his blessing! Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Halle-"
"-High Priestess!"
Taylor spun to meet to gaze of a member of the Paladins. "What is it?"
"We caught an intruder Holy One!" Taylors heat froze. "But do not fear! Sister Amelia caught her before she alerted anyone to us. And Lord Valefor assures me that no one knows of her presence here."
Taylor breathed again. "Good. We need to decide what to do."
"About that," The paladin said. "Lord Valefor humbly requests that you come and look at her."
Taylor was curious. But that curiosity vanished the moment she saw who they had captured. The slumping captive kneeled on the ground between two paladins, one of them Sister Amelia, showing clear signs of beating and abuse. Valefor stood next to them.
"Shadow Stalker," Taylor said. "A Ward found us."
Said Ward jumped when she laid eyes on Taylor and began to struggle, but the two Paladins held her down. Shadow Stalker didn't use her power to escape however, and Taylor imagined that Valefor had commanded her not to use it.
"There's a bit more to it Holy One," Valefor said. Then in a single movement, he leaned down and pulled the Ward's mask off and Taylor met the girl's terrified gaze.
Taylor's jaw dropped. "Sophia!"
"Indeed," Valefor said. "The corruption of the city seems greater than we ever imagined."
"This is why no one did anything," Taylor said. "This is why they got away with everything."
"Yes," Valefor said. "However, we have her now. And I can only imagine that this is His will. He has delivered her unto you to be judged."
Taylor frowned. "You mean sacrifice her like Coil? I don't know. She's ot as bad as him, for all her faults."
"Your compassion does you credit Holy One," Valefor said. "But we must look at this from more than one angle. If she is a gift from Him? Do you want to offend Him by refusing? And are you telling me that you never wanted vengeance on her?"
Taylor thought for a moment. Then she looked down at a frightened Sophia. Then she started to smile slowly. Then she gestured to Sister Amelia.
-+-
Here is chapter 15. Enjoy and tell me what you think.
Chapter 15
"Excuse me?"
Lisa looked up from her desk to see a woman wearing a concealing brown trench coat and fedora standing before the desk. The only part of her that was visible was her porcelain white face that could have given the best supermodel image issues.
Lisa however, was not a supermodel, so she just smiled pleasantly. "Yes? Can I help you?"
The woman tucked away a stray lock of white hair that had fallen loose from her fedora and smiled pleasantly. "I understand you are recruiting new manga artists. I would like to submit my work for consideration."
"Oh! Of course!" Lisa scrambled to clear the papers littering her desk. "I will need a sample of your work and your name. Things like age and education aren't important for this job. We're equal opportunity employers."
"Of course! I have them right here!" The woman produced a plastic paper folder from within her voluminous trench coat and slid it across the desk towards Lisa.
Lisa took the folder and flipped through the sheets within. "Wow!" She said. "This is quite good." And she was being fully honest. The pages depicted heroes in costumes fighting various giant monsters in epic battles. Granted, most pages depicted the heroes losing horribly, but that could be fixed.
"Thank you." Lisa, her attention still on the pages, heard the woman talk above her. "It was a little hard to adapt my concepts to paper medium, but I think the results speak for themselves."
"Mhmm," Lisa said. Still not raising her head, she examined a picture of a city going up in flames while dozens of costumed heroes fought a giant winged tentacle monster in the sky. "And what did you use before? A tablet?"
"No. I created my art on the fabric of fate itself."
"Mhmm," Lisa said. She flipped to the next page in the folder, that had someone that looked suspiciously like Alexandria choking to death. Then what she heard registered, and Lisa slowly raised her head to meet the gaze of the smiling woman. "The fabric of fate huh? What was your name again?"
The woman's smile never wavered. "You already know my name Sarah." She shed her trench coat in a single movement, and her fedora was flicked away by a toss of her head, a cascade of silver hair falling free. All over her body, dozens of angelic wings unfurled as she levitated off the ground. "I'm your good friend Ziz!"
Lisa screamed and jumped back. Her chair clattered to the ground, Lisa tumbling over the chair and hitting the ground. She ignored the fall and continued the scramble away on all fours.
"What's the matter Sarah?" The Simurgh asked as she floated after Lisa. "Didn't you say you were an equal opportunity employer? Are you discriminating against the endbringers?"
"I don't care about discrimination!" Lisa screamed. "I just don't want to end up barking mad!"
"Lisa!"
"I never wanted this job!"
"Lisa!"
"I never wanted any of this!"
"Lisa!"
"I was perfectly happy shoplifting!"
-+-
"Lisa!"
"Aieeeeee!" Lisa screamed and jumped to her feet.
Something slapped her across the face. "Lisa! Calm down and get a grip!"
"Huh?" Lisa blinked and looked around owlishly. She was in the back of a van. There were four other boys in here with her, and she could see the landscape flashing past the windows.
Memory came flooding back and Lisa fell back into her seat with a groan. "Sorry guys. I had a nightmare."
"Focus on the mission sister," Erigor said. "Offer up your prayers to Set and your mind will be cleared."
"Yes, thanks." Lisa began to fake mutter a prayer under her breath.
The mission. Her boss, the glorious high priestess, had gotten it into her head that the construction of the giant amusement park was going too slowly, and a prayer session with a number of cultists(herself included) had produced an utterly ridiculous plan by which they might speed up the process. That had resulted in the five of them leaving Brockton Bay in this van to carry out their 'mission'. Though that lunatic Erigor kept calling it a quest.
"There it is." The voice of the driver brought Lisa's attention back to the present. "Cornell University."
It loomed ahead of them, giant rectangular buildings surrounded by a ten foot high wall. Her power told her what the buildings were, lecture halls, labs, dorms. Somewhere in there was the mission objective.
"This is a terrible idea," Lisa said.
"Have faith sister! Our divine mission has yet to lead us astray!" Lisa sometimes wondered what it was like inside Erigor's head.
The van pulled up beside the University gates, and four of then, sans the driver, piled out and made their way towards to gates. Lisa brandished a document that said they were to be interviewed by the staff for next years uni entrance, and the security let them through.
Once inside, it took them a while to get their bearings and find their way. It was a typical university, with treelines pathways between the buildings and students wandering the grounds in small groups.
"That one," Lisa said. The building she pointed at had a prominent sign that identified it as a laboratory.
They all trooped inside, with Lisa once more taking point. They went up several flights of stairs and ended up in front of one of the chemistry labs.
"This is it?" Erigor asked.
"This is it," Lisa said.
"Excellent!" Erigor immediately opened the door and rushed in.
"Hey wait!" Lisa rushed in after him.
Inside she found Erigor already confronting a half asian girl who was gaping at him. Lisa dashed over and jumped in front of him. "Whatever he said, I can explain."
"I only told her the happy new sister," Erigor said. "That she had been chosen to serve a divine purpose."
"What he said," The half asian girl said. "Though I am curious as to how you can possibly explain this."
Lisa sighed. This was going to take some work.
-+-
"So let me get this straight," The half asian girl, who turned out to be named Grace, said. "You are capes. Not just capes, you are the Fallen. And you lot worship Set. The newest Endbringer that has the tentacles. Am I right so far?"
"Correct," Lisa said.
"And your Endbringer came to you through some prayer session and told you to recruit me?" Grace went on.
"It's called the Endbringers Tarot, but essentially correct," Lisa said.
"Right, right. So……. with all this in mind, I have a question." Grace stopped and drew in a deep breath. "WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I DO THIS?"
Lisa sighed. This is going to take a while. "Let's break this down." She held up one finger. "One, you recently triggered as a tinker. A tinker that makes bombs." She watched in smug satisfaction as Grace's mouth dropped open. However she gave no sign of it as she held up the second finger. "Two, you were gonna hold the University hostage because they gave you bad grades. But you know inside that it never would have worked out. Hostage situations never do. What you want, what you really want is for them to acknowledge that they made a terrible mistake." Lisa held up the third finger. "But the best way to show them up is to go out into the world and do something great." Fourth finger. "And that's what we're offering. A chance to do something great. Something that'll write your name into history."
Grace stared at them with dropped jaw. She stared for a full five minutes.
"I think you damanged her," Scratch hissed in Lisa's ear.
"Give it a moment, she'll come around," Lisa hissed back.
"I don't know, she looks pretty out of it," Erigor said. He didn't bother to keep his voice down.
"Shhhh! She'll recover right about now," Lisa said.
And on cue, Grace came back to life. She shook her head a few times and rubbed her face before speaking. "How do you even…….Oh forget it! What do you even want me to do?"
Lisa obliged. "We want you to make a bomb that will speed up time inside a large area for a set time. It's intended to speed up a construction project. Do two years work in a month. The sort of thing that will change the world. The sort of thing that'll make you legendary."
Grace gaped. "That's………..I don't even. I've never built something like that."
"Can you?" Lisa asked.
"I don't know," Grace said. "Now that I think about it I do have some ideas but…. I might be able to?"
"You won't back down from a challenge!" Lisa grinned. "I'm sure that if you put your mind to it, you can have it done in a flah. So……. what do you think? Will you join us and change the world? Become a legend among capes? Write your name into architectual projects that'll be around for thousands of years?"
Grace thought about it.
-+-
"My faithful!" Taylor roared. "Rejoice! For we are going from victory to victory!"
Her people cheered.
"We owe all this to our Devine Lord, the Holy Set!" Taylor raised her arms towards the sky. "It is by His will that we move foarward! It is by His blessing that we lay low our foes! It is by his design that we make this city a better place!"
Taylor had learned a lot since joining the cult. Giving speeches was one of many. It hadnt been easy for withdrawn girl like her, but she managed. When she froze up or her fear welled up, she imagined herself as her mom lecturing in Brockton Bay U and the cultists as her students. It had been hard to get into character at first, but now it came easy.
The proof was in her cheering followers.
"And now!" Taylor tundered. "Join me in giving thanks to Him for giving us his blessing! Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
"Halle-"
"-High Priestess!"
Taylor spun to meet to gaze of a member of the Paladins. "What is it?"
"We caught an intruder Holy One!" Taylors heat froze. "But do not fear! Sister Amelia caught her before she alerted anyone to us. And Lord Valefor assures me that no one knows of her presence here."
Taylor breathed again. "Good. We need to decide what to do."
"About that," The paladin said. "Lord Valefor humbly requests that you come and look at her."
Taylor was curious. But that curiosity vanished the moment she saw who they had captured. The slumping captive kneeled on the ground between two paladins, one of them Sister Amelia, showing clear signs of beating and abuse. Valefor stood next to them.
"Shadow Stalker," Taylor said. "A Ward found us."
Said Ward jumped when she laid eyes on Taylor and began to struggle, but the two Paladins held her down. Shadow Stalker didn't use her power to escape however, and Taylor imagined that Valefor had commanded her not to use it.
"There's a bit more to it Holy One," Valefor said. Then in a single movement, he leaned down and pulled the Ward's mask off and Taylor met the girl's terrified gaze.
Taylor's jaw dropped. "Sophia!"
"Indeed," Valefor said. "The corruption of the city seems greater than we ever imagined."
"This is why no one did anything," Taylor said. "This is why they got away with everything."
"Yes," Valefor said. "However, we have her now. And I can only imagine that this is His will. He has delivered her unto you to be judged."
Taylor frowned. "You mean sacrifice her like Coil? I don't know. She's ot as bad as him, for all her faults."
"Your compassion does you credit Holy One," Valefor said. "But we must look at this from more than one angle. If she is a gift from Him? Do you want to offend Him by refusing? And are you telling me that you never wanted vengeance on her?"
Taylor thought for a moment. Then she looked down at a frightened Sophia. Then she started to smile slowly. Then she gestured to Sister Amelia.
-+-
Here is chapter 15. Enjoy and tell me what you think.
