I'm a bit rusty at 2e since 3e came out a year ago, but here's a short overview on how surprise attacks work, especially with the White Veil Charms, should they exist, which they don't. (And here's where I drop the joke in favour of clarity)
The rules for unexpected attacks are fairly simple (and weren't used much in 2e because everyone had a surprise negator anyway, but luckily we're up against lots of people without a proper paranoia suit) 1. You roll the attacker's (Dex+Stealth) against the victim's (Wits+Awareness). If the target is distracted or similar, it takes a penalty to the roll and receives a bonus if it is especially alert and on guard. If the attacker tries the attack from plain sight, he takes a +2 to the Difficulty of his (Dex+Stealth) roll.
2. If the attacker wins, then his attack is unexpected and is made against a Defence Value (DV) of 0. In other words, a single success on the attack roll means it hits. It could still miss, if the attacker got no successes on his attack. (It is possible for a bonus to raise a DV, even if it is set to 0. For example, you might be in cover behind a rock. Even if you don't see a sniper aim at you, they'd have to roll more than a single success because you benefit from cover.)
3. After the attack hits, you determine damage as usual, though you usually hit fairly hard since you get a lot of threshold successes (successes over the DV) which adds to damage.
Now, how good is Warden at these things, I'm sure you ask?
1. First, she needs to beat her opponent's (Wits+Awareness) with her (Dex+Stealth). ALEHOUSE MEMORY STANCE removes the +2 Difficulty for attacking from plain sight, though in can't be used after any fight has already started. Since we're not planning to have her enter open combat, this should be fine. Still, she'd have to beat her opponent's Wits+Awareness with her Dex 2 and Stealth 0. If she succeeds at this roll, BLINDED BY LAUGHTER prevents anyone from noticing her attack and from rolling Join Battle.
2. After that, actually hitting should be fairly easy. She has Martial Arts 5 and Dex 2. Baring very bad luck, she will always get at least one success and hit the DV of 0.
3. Damage roll is skipped, as we don't aim to do any damage and have a Charm to prevent it.
So at first glance, our odds at step 1. are fairly bad, right? But thankfully, we have OWL CLUTCHES AT THE NIGHT. It's a Charm used after seeing how many successes you got on your attack roll and lets you take back the entire attack, if you get at least (Opponent's Perception+1) successes with a (Wits+Martial Arts) roll. So we can effectively re-try beating our opponent's (Wits+Awareness) again and again, until we get it right, assuming we can make this roll. The combo is even fairly cheap in terms of motes. ALEHOUSE MEMORY STANCE and BIRDSONG OVER BLADES both last (Martial Arts) actions, so they don't need to be activated each time (And they cost a total of 5m). We pay 5 motes per attempt for OWL CLUTCHES AT THE NIGHT and BLINDED BY LAUGHTER and none of the essential Charms have a willpower cost.
...Except Warden's Wits rating is only 2. With a stunt, she'd be rolling 9 dice, good against less perceptive opponents, but far from foolproof. We've just shifted the issue of "she's really bad at Stealth" to "she's not really that witty, either." It is an improvement, but...we'll, let's only try and drug or spike people in situations where we could get away with it if we got discovered for now, unless it's really important.
Though you weren't around for all of Taylor's meditation sessions, you did at least catch her first. Thankfully she'd somehow managed to prevent an anima flare, which would have been a problem given that your group had been stuck in the back of a PRT van leaving New York at the time.
Knowing what you know now - that meditation usually causes an anima flare - your group should have probably told Taylor to just wait.
Her anima's lack of a 'friend or foe' check isn't what brings that meditation session to mind, however; instead, you're remembering how all her charms started popping out of her body.
Besides the slightly different perspective you've gained from getting an injection of magical ninjutsu directly into your brain and soul, you don't… feel much different? Given Taylor's own comments, you'd think that having four of your original charms swapped out for five new ones would have fixed the "alignment" problem.
No… there's still that slight discomfort in the back of your head, like wearing too-tight leggings with too-big underwear: something you only notice if you move in a specific way or pay attention to it. In fact, you wouldn't have noticed at all without Prayer and Taylor specifically asking whether you could feel any kind of irregularity during the PRT tests.
Oddly, it was the absence of that feeling that stopped you from trying to meditate earlier today.
Which… makes sense. Your charms know how to work in a fully-Essence environment just fine, after all - it's all this completely normal Earth reality that your magical robot powers have problems handling.
… which sounds like something you've read in one of those bad capefics about Taylor, actually. Weird. Maybe you should look that author up after all this.
Still, you're probably oversimplifying it since all this magic stuff is more Taylor's Thing. Along with Science, Tinkering, and Bugs. And Cooking.
Ugh, as much as you like just thinking about stuff you've never been good at meditation… or is that why you're bad? Too much thinking?
Right. Charms popping out when Taylor meditated before. That means… she... unattuned them? Somehow? You're still not really sure what "attunement" even means or how it works. So maybe… start there?
Eyes still closed, you shift from your seiza position on the loose dirt and bring the bottoms of your feet together in one of the stretching positions that Bladedancer had you do during warm-ups. It's not especially comfortable, but if your charms are going to stop popping out of your everywhere then you'd rather keep as much space free as possible - your butt being largely free of Charms except for those glowing circles on the sides, while your calves and thighs have some glowing circuitry and metal reinforcements that you wouldn't want getting trapped.
Okay, space secured. Now… maybe focus on your energy grids and power lines?
Just wondering about them brings the mental images to the fore, much more easily than your previous mediation efforts. Because of your time in the vat? Maybe. Still-...
Oh, you can still see your old charms that are inside Lord Grasp!
(You will allow yourself this one instance, otherwise you're just going to keep getting distracted: Lewd.)
Right. Traded-in Charms still visible. Though… they're not as… bright?
You have the two spiral hexagons with varying amounts of power inside them (zero and lots), glowing wires trailing down from them attached to your various charms. Some wires are glowing like strips of LED lights, connecting to the nearby buzzing nodes of power that are your (you guess) equipped charms, while other, dimmer wires trail down further to your unequipped, and un-lit charms.
Huh. Now that you're looking at all of it again, you can see they're not in the same order as before. Is that because Lord Grasp shuffled them around when he was stuffing things inside you-
LEWD okay last one. For real.
…
You know, you're surprised Lord Grasp hasn't actually hit on you given how much he talks about lewd stuff. Though his stories about his previous owners didn't seem to imply that he was interested in them, either, so maybe he's only into… other... buildings? How would that even… work?
...
Going back to Charms now! Let's see, glowing power lines annnnd- phew, got it back!
Uhhh… right, what were you doing? Oh, yeah, the dimmer ones… are unattuned? Maybe? That sounds right, since they're not equipped.
So… how do you… unequip your current ones without having Lord Grasp tear them out? Hmm…
Maybe… focus on the charms themselves?
Actually, maybe instead of thinking of them just like hazy floating balls of glowing blue energy… try to focus on what they actually look like? You've already seen the five that Lord Grasp put in, so you should be able to figure those-
Five of the hazy orbs start to vibrate, but as you focus your attention on one at a time, they stretch and warp… slowly… into…
Glass mannequins, standing atop glowing blue pedestals - each's respective wire plugged into its glowing base.
… makes sense? You can see the charms within them like before, except any exposed circuitry, panels, or studs are actually glowing like you're sure they are now if you were to look at yourself in the mirror. Looking at each in turn...
Huh. Perfected Lotus Matrix is the charm you noticed earlier as a circular disk at the back of the skull. Why does that seem… familiar-?
"I know Kung Fu."
Right. Siiiigh.
Another really weird coincidence to add to the pile.
As you're focusing on it, however, you notice it's not just a stand-alone Charm - it's actually got some sort of overlapping starmetal-and-adamant filagree set into the skull-facing side, their combined designs forming some kind of fractal-like flower. Maybe if you try pushing a little bit more essence into it you can see what it does?
Mentally, you pull at the spiral of power above and drag it down the line towards the charm… except… there's… resistance…?
Whatever, just shove-
The whole charm surges and crackles with power, blasting away any other conscious thought as-
-two familiar hue three nothing to see four out the door-
-insight, mantras, katas, forms, mnemonics, positions, attitudes too much too much-
…ssssSSSS-FZZT
Like one of Chris' tinkertech projects overloading and fizzing in a show of sparks, the entire Perfected Lotus Matrix Lotus Charm - and its submodule, Lotus Filament Conduction - glows incandescent in your mind's eye and then winks out, cutting off the torrent of enlightenment that was threatening to turn your brain into double-speak-filled mush.
The line running down from your smaller spiral of power is completely dark for a long moment of absent thought…
… but then one hexagon fills… two hexagons fill...
CLICK-VMMM-ZZZZzzzz...
But before you have any chance to panic (or have any thoughts whatsoever) about damaging your Charm, the two newly-refilled hexagons in your smaller spiral empty out again with a 'On-button'-like click, causing a rush of power down the darkened line.
...aaaand you can think again.
Ugh.
Ow.
What...? What was that? Why… couldn't you even think...?
...
Oh. Right. You weren't supposed to be able to remove that Charm.
Huh.
Well… now that you're looking at it more critically, you can tell that the circuit running from your Personal essence reserve looks far more solid and vibrant than the others - the only possible exception being the one you're pretty sure runs to your Safe Space Charm, because that one looks like a firehose instead of a circuit.
You… aren't looking forward to repeating what you just did with that one. Probably… save it for last? Mmmhm.
Alright. Not as… painless as what Taylor did, but it… worked?
No slight headache from thinking too hard about the Style you definitely don't have, so you're pretty sure that counts as "working as intended." Ah, and… well, if you had been having trouble with a Martial Arts Style encoded in your charm… then you would probably be relieved at being able to remember the actual names of the moves that Style might have!
Some pretty amusing names… and some… kind of disturbing names… huh.
Good thing that Style doesn't exist, because the PRT would definitely have reason to panic if it did. Not that you would ever use it's ability to cause people to suddenly dissolve into a screaming puddle of corrosive acid weeks or months after you hit them…
… Autochthonia isn't a very nice place, is it? Taylor said it was hard for the humans there to make a living in a world made of metal, lightning, steam, crystal, oil, and smoke, but…
Well, a theoretical Style based around looking harmless while hitting things with delayed-action poisons and effects... would only be useful against other people.
And then there's your Personality Override Spike. And Transcendent Brutality Programming. Heck, your Rogue Cell Isolation Protocols, Conceptual Entropy Module, and Agenda Recalibration Protocols Charms are pretty terrifying, too, if not as blatantly evil-sounding.
Alchemical Charms are designed by humans and made by humans, not by Autochthon, you remember Taylor saying during your PRT tests.
But… you remember the drawings Taylor had of their cities! They looked huge and tough and awesome… not like what you'd imagine nations of super-evil people would make. If everything was twisted and wrong there, they'd look more like… China or North Korea, right? Things falling apart everywhere, the highest government members living in luxury while everyone else suffers and dies in poverty…
Still, even if the humans living in Autochthon aren't some hundred-million-strong crazy-evil cult-nation, your Charms make it pretty clear that life is… not good over there.
And Sakura might be over there.
Would she be an Alchemical too? Starmetal? She'd probably have the best chance of the two of you to make it...
… huh? One of your Charms is lighting up on its own. It's… one you haven't really used before? You don't think so, at least, but it's also one of those "always on" charms so you may just not have noticed: Hierarchical Dogma Lock.
What did Taylor say this one did? Umm… makes it… hard for people to convince you to do something? Something something "greater good"? Ugh, you were too busy having a meltdown from learning about your charms so now you can't fix your charms!
Hmm… it's not glowing anymore now that you're not thinking about Sakura? Well, now it is again but… that doesn't quite feel right? It's not Sakura that was triggering it but… uh… your memories about Sakura? That's…. closer?
Trying to think about how she would be doing in Autochthon's body? ...No?
So, less about Sakura herself and more… your past with Sakura? Hmm… closer.
Your life with Sakura?
Your life before?
...sss-zzt...
The Charm pulses with energy as a slight pulse of energy seems to flow through it, causing the vague blue orb to stretch out into another glass mannequin. Inside the transparent copy of your own body, you notice this charm is also installed in your brain - making you wonder just exactly how everything actually fits in there without squeezing your brain into the size of a raisin - looking like three tiny white-metal circuit boards lined up together.
Once of which is glowing much brighter than the others now. Huh.
Oh.
You are Saki Kurosawa.
Right. You know Taylor has had to deal with people doubting whether she was actually the same person, but you've just… never thought otherwise? She's Taylor, and you're Saki. It's really not that hard.
The first little circuitboard buzzes faintly, apparently... satisfied? Is it… helping reinforce that idea? Odd, and maybe a little overkill, but whatever - this Charm's line seems to be barely drawing any power at all, so it doesn't feel like it's taking up resources you could use for another Charm. Now… what are the other two circuitboards doing?
…
No thoughts pop into your head by themselves, so… are they blank? Do you need to give them ideas to reinforce?
Right. Well, the obvious one is that the Charm should make sure no one can convince you to give upon Sakura. Get to it, Charm!
…
Nothing? Huh. Why…
Uh… maybe something to do with… "greater good"? Concepts? Ideals?
Well, smut is obviously for the greater good-
...sss-zzt...
… you do not feel at all ashamed by how easy that was, because yes, smut is truly the way to the hearts of the people. And their minds. And their pants.
Now for a third ideal… hrmmmm.
As much as you want to make it one of your ships, that… probably is a waste right now, since you get the feeling this isn't something you can easily change. So as funny as it would be to have bullshit magic reinforcing the truth of "Weld/Taylor OTP" or "Broadcast/Kid Win OTP" you should probably use this power to help the rest of the Assembly somehow (...more than getting Taylor a boyfriend would help the Assembly, which… would probably not be insignificant).
Well, that does bring up Taylor's - and Cauldron's - problem of losing sight of what it means to be human in the face of all these impending disasters. As worried you're getting that Taylor is on the fast-track to the deep-end, maybe… that can be something you focus on? Not just for Taylor, but… in general?
Ironically, you're reminded of a line from an Alexandria/Eidolon fic: "The Big Picture is made up of lots of Little Pictures, after all. Without them, there'd be no Picture left."
...sss-zzt...
Just as the third circuitboard buzzes with energy and starts to settle down, you grab hold of another few motes from your Peripheral pool and shove them down… down… down-
…ssssSSSS-FZZT
CLICK-VMMM-ZZZZzzzz...
...phew. No mind/soul-tearing, no dangerous overload of epiphanies and enlightenment, just a more comfortable feeling with the Charm and a better understanding of how it works - like that it's got three installations because of its Multimodal Duty Integrator submodule, instead of just being able to support one ideal. Better still, apparently you can use its Herald Infuser submod to give someone else that shares one of your three ideals the same boost your Charm gives you like how Taylor gives people her Thinker boost!
... might be a while before you can get the rest of the Assembly behind your second ideal, but it's a noble cause - they'll come around eventually.
Alright… now that you've got proof that you're not going to be frying your own brain for each charm you fix, time to move on to the next one. Now where to start?
Industrial Survival Frame? Hmm, well, both Taylor and Prayer have this one so it's as good as any to start diving into…
Slowly opening your eyes, the breath you release tingles your teeth and tongue - as if the very air you had been keeping within yourself was charged with the static from your anima. It's a cool, soothing effect, though you can't help but notice the metallic taste in your mouth and the scratchy feeling in your throat.
You're glad you saved your Safe Space Charm for last. That… hurt, but the power boost at the end… what a rush!
"Warden?"
The world around you looks roughly the same as you last saw it - save the sun having moved a few dozen degrees in the sky - but Lord Grasp's slightly-distracted tone instantly causes you to come to full alert.
"Yes, Lord Grasp?" you smile, taking your time to rise to your feet in an uncaring, unthreatening manner. Just as you thought, your voice is a bit hoarse. "Is- is everything alright? How long was I out?"
He hums absently, shifting his legs to pull them up and out of the ground with minimal disturbance to the surrounding rocks and dirt.
"Mmmm… roughly three hours, my dear, but it was largely uneventful apart from your occasional horrific screams of pain and Lord Iris inhaling your totemic anima from his spot over the lake."
...uh... what-?
As you blink, he nonchalantly gestures upwards with one of his enormous claws.
"Oh, and we have an audience."
Vacantly following his claw with your eyes, you turn your head back around and look up. Odd, you don't notice anything- oh, you see him!
You wave and smile even wider, since Legend can probably see your face from up there.
Sure enough, the small figure in the distance - only recognizable due to Legend's iconic pale-blue-and-pure-white bodysuit - glides down, slowing to hover a few dozen feet above the ground. His own smile is one of relief and humor, though there's a tension in his body that makes you suspect that Lord Grasp is making him nervous.
The fact that he's hovering just outside of what you think is the range of Lord Grasp's claws is more evidence to that thought.
"Saki!" he grins, uncrossing his right arm from his chest to wave in greeting. "How was your meditation?"
"A-ah," you exhale, half-laughing awkwardly as your grin grows strained. "It was… good! Was I really… screaming?"
His grin grows strained as well, though he shakes his head as he snorts in good humor now that you appear to not be in pain or trouble. "Dragon called me to let me know you were meditating here, but I was busy dealing with a fight between the Adepts and the Housiers. I got here about ten minutes ago and I could hear you all the way up there and you were throwing off small arcs of lightning. I was worried, but…"
His half-hidden gaze tilts up and to the right as he nods to Lord Grasp.
"Well, the sparkling building-scorpion seemed to be taking it alright so I guessed it was just something you were handling on your own. I was actually about to head back because you'd settled down again, but then your 'anima' stopped and..."
Then he shrugs as if to say 'so here we are.'
"Oh, I'm sorry," you bow slightly, clasping your hands in front of you at the same time. "I didn't mean to interrupt what you were doing. A-and I'm sorry that I… ran away last night."
There's a barely-noticeable flicker of hesitance from Legend as his head tilts towards Lord Grasp again, then he floats over to you and lands on the ground before putting a hand on your shoulder in reassurance.
"There's no need to apologize, Saki. I can tell you're trying your best, and that's all that matters."
Your face heats up as you smile in embarrassment, nodding in relief... as you inwardly pout that Legend doesn't want to join the Assembly.
It's not fair! He's just… so cool!
… but no, you're not going to try to convince him if he doesn't want it on his own. He's got a family, right? That… that would be something Cauldron would do. Ugh.
Wait, Legend knows about Cauldron because they made him, right? Does he know about everything they do? He has to know that Alexandria is Chief Director Costa-Brown, at least, which…
It… feels like a betrayal? That he's been lying all this time to everyone? Maybe you should ask…
...no, that… that feels like something to ask Taylor about first, since you don't even know if Legend knows you know about Cauldron.
Ugh. Conspiracies are dumb.
You shove away the frown that threatens to creep up on your features and instead focus on something much more important: your Charms!
"Oh! Right!" you perk up, grinning happily and bouncing on your toes, "Lord Grasp and I figured out that he has a room where I can switch charms in and out, like Taylor said she could do with Lord Iris! He had five new charms for me to try, and after we figured out that I can't have them all in we swapped out my Doom Spike and Evil Claws to fit the new ones in."
Legend leans back slightly from your exuberance, and you can practically feel his eyebrows raise behind his dark-blue visor.
"Five new powers? That's… quite impressive, Saki. Do you know what they do?"
"Yup!" you nod, though realization drains a bit of your energy and cheer. "Though two of them… are... kinda bad."
"Ah," he sighs, shoulders sagging as his smile grows sad. "I'm sorry to hear that. Should I be worried?"
You shake your head. "N-"
Wait a minute. Legend is… right. Huh.
"Aaaactually," you draw out, frowning as you absently look away while considering the full power you now understand your charms hold. "I… think I could use them to get everyone to stop hating gay people!"
Legend freezes.
"...what?"
You can't help yourself smiling at this excellent idea. Boys Love shouldn't be Forbidden Love!
"They... super-charge me when I'm trying to convince whole groups of people to stop caring about something or think differently about something," you nod, touching your lips in idle thought, "and that'd be a great way to test it!"
Yes… hot, sweaty, guy-on-guy action in the mainstream media! You can see it now-
"Tatsu. Stop."
You blink, looking back to see Legend's mouth set in a thin, stern line as his grip grows firm on your shoulder. Noting that he has your attention again, he nods slowly to emphasize his level tone of voice.
"I… appreciate your interest in helping… accelerate the general state of LGBT acceptance in the world, Tatsu. Honestly, I do. However, using powers to make it happen is not something I'll ever condone. If it doesn't happen naturally, it will never last - and worse, it will give legitimacy to the vocal minorities that fear any kind of change or 'deviancy.'"
… but… it's… they don't-
… Okay, Conceptual Entropy Moduledoes work on other people directly, so… you... guess people could see that as mind control? Ugh, this is exactly what Lord Grasp was arguing with you earlier, except you're on the other side now.
Frowning, you square your shoulders and shake your head firmly.
"It's not forcing people to change, though! It just helps me piece together a better argument, so it's-" ugh, no, can't use Erasmus or Accord! Oh, right... "like… Alexandria! It's a Thinker power, not a Master power!"
His grip lessens, and from the way his mouth relaxes you think you've got him… but then he takes a deep breath and shakes his head.
"I get what you're saying, Saki, and I'm sorry I doubted you like that… but... I suppose it's worth giving you the talk I usually only have with any new, openly-gay Protectorate members or Wards."
Legend sighs, grimacing as he takes his hand back and crosses his arms over his chest again. His voice loses the force you've always heard him with, a shade of weariness settling over the Protectorate paragon.
"It's not public knowledge, but... I've worked with a number of Thinkers and precogs over the years... and we've generally come to the conclusion that America will accept us faster, more permanently if we don't force the issue too much. It's why I don't give speeches at pride parades, as much as I know it would help those that are having a hard time and may need that boost of confidence, that reassurance that things are getting better."
You blink, nodding absently as you recognize the truth in part of that; you've heard that Earth-Aleph is much less tolerant than Bet is, and that it's in large part due to Legend publicly coming out in the 90s. Still, there's a reason that there's still a higher-than-average number of non-straight people having Trigger Events…
Sighing yourself, you see where this is going already. After all, if you actually managed to use either (or both) charms against whole cities… or against the entire US… the change would be pretty rapid.
"I get it," you nod, averting your eyes in thought. As bummed as you are that you couldn't convince Legend of this, you're a little glad he talked you out of it, too. Still, maybe you can still turn this around somehow? "Sorry… I'm... still getting used to having powers like this."
This draws a chuckle from Legend, his body regaining some of its confident energy as he smiles wryly.
"Now there's a familiar phrase if I've ever heard one. Not every Ward is as willing to listen to other people before they start tossing them around, though."
You don't think he means Taylor - he's probably seen a lot of dumb mistakes over the years - but… he probably isn't not thinking of her.
Hmm, you're already getting better at this double-speaking way of thought. You're glad you meditated.
"Oh!" you gasp, because this can work as a good subject change. Turning back to Legend, you let the still-lingering feeling of relief from your meditation widen your smile. "That's right! When I was configuring my charms, I got back my memories of all the places Nowhere and Strider took me before!"
Legend perks up, revealing a wide smile of perfectly-white teeth.
"Really? That's good to hear, Saki - though I heard Nowhere and Strider both enjoyed their time with you before, so they're probably going to be disappointed that they won't have another excuse to repeat the trips."
"A-ah," you giggle, hiding your mouth behind your hands, "they're both funny… in different ways."
You're not going to reveal that Nowhere grudgingly (at first) showed you a few red light districts, or that Sakura and you got Strider hooked on smutty capefics by making him read some of your own. Those who have been inducted into the Halls of Smut shall stand together!
… probably going to need to turn down your prettiness even more for Strider when you talk to him again, though, since he isn't really good around girls.
"A-anyway," you keep going, getting back to your previous thought and cranking up the Maximum Cuteness. Wide eyes, vulnerable body language, hopeful expression… go! "I was wondering: since I can teleport anywhere now… if I could show the other Wards? We… I… didn't get the chance to, before… everything happened."
Legend… slowly… leans back, letting out a tight breath through his nose as his mouth purses in thought.
"You're not…" he finally manages, voice awkwardly tight, "using one of your new powers... are you?"
"No!" you protest, batting your eyes in shock. "That-"
Idea!
"Oh!" you exclaim, holding up a finger, "Wait! Just a second!"
Turning back to the looming structure of Lord Grasp, you extend an arm in the air dramatically, pointing to the heavens.
"Lord Grasp! Dress me!"
The command works a little too well.
"Oh thank the Maidens," Lord Grasp heaves, his gates flying open to vomit forth a tide of cloth, powders, scents, and glittering accessories that nearly bowls you over. "I was this close to just spanking you for going into battle without your proper ornamentation! One more minute and I would have buried the two of you out of sheer embarrassment!"
At least, that's what you think he says. It's hard to hear, getting spun and tossed around by animated lengths of silk and cottons while trying not to choke on the sudden onslaught of creams, powders, and perfumes hitting your face and hair.
You want to make a 'lie back and think of England' joke, but not only would Lord Grasp not get the reference you would get a mouthful of rouge for the effort.
The whirlwind ends as suddenly as it started, though you stop spinning facing out across the Crater Lake and have to turn back to look at Legend again - who has wisely floated a few paces back and is now struggling to hold back a laugh.
Time to show him!
The world around you shifts.
Where there is light, color fades away to leave only pure, inspiring white. Where there is shade, the darkness itself is magnified until it is complete, arresting black. Any gradation between light and shadow disappears, and soft, smooth angles are drawn out into stark, contrasting edges.
As the world transforms into a living, cell-shaded display of power and awe, you augment the effects of Patriotism-Provoking Display even further by using your Radiant Iconography Array.
Combined, you look like a massive black-and-white, stylized mural, upon which you are standing proudly and looking and pointing out into the great horizon - black and white lines radiating from you into the distance. Arranged below you, following your gaze with awe and hope, are the rest of the out-of-costume Philadelphia Wards. Finally, completing the picture is a massive banner hanging in the air over your assembled group, proclaiming your most dire message:
"ONLY YOU CAN GIVE THEM THE VACATION THEY DESERVE!"
And just to hammer it in, you're letting your body shout that same message via your Emotive Aesthetics of the Body Electric charm as you remain stoic and inspiring.
For a while, there is silence.
Cautiously, but without changing your expression or posture, you stop your Background charm from smothering the ambient noise - just to make sure Legend isn't accidentally getting silenced by it as well.
...
You turn your head just enough to see Legend still staring at you, motionless.
"I believe you broke him, Warden," Lord Grasp's voice drifts into your ear, though you hear him stifling a giggle.
Even if you have Legend's (resigned) support, it's not a matter of popping over to New York and scooping everyone up for an impromptu field trip; the fact that you will be using your "parahuman" abilities to facilitate the travel moves it from an entirely-civilian affair that the PRT would have no oversight over… to something that requires paperwork.
This is further complicated by the other Brockton Bay-native Wards being in the (expedited) final stages of adoption or emancipation, so in the end it turns out that the PRT has complete veto rights over all of you until those processes complete.
Except for Aisha.
Well, Taylor too, but she's opting out of the field trip. Apparently that's making her Youth Guard representative even more upset, but Taylor didn't sound too put out about it.
So while everyone else is going to be spending the next day or two convincing their various Youth Guard and PRT representatives - except for the Philadelphia-native Wards, who have actual guardians to convince - to sign the glorified Field Trip Permission Form, you now have an excuse to go with Aisha to speak with her brother about allowing her to also become your next Assembly member.
It… reminds you that Gloria Sato offered to be your legal guardian and stay with her in New York after Behemoth's attack, but… Sakura and you had always wanted to get to know the Brockton Bay Wards - maybe even be ones - and… well, most of them were going to Philadelphia. It all happened so fast that you only realized on the road trip that your parents probably would have wanted you to go with her… but then you didn't want to hurt the other Wards' feelings.
Also, Gloria was adopting the five girls from the cheerleading team that had survived, so you two didn't feel like it'd be fair to make that number seven.
… maybe you should call her, after you're done with Aisha's talk? She always made time when the two of you wanted to hear a familiar voice, even if it was in the middle of the night after the two of you woke up from a nightmare.
Ugh, but you've got power testing scheduled again after you get back from this! Well, you can just leave a voicemail to let her know that you're okay and you're thinking of her. She'd like that.
"Everything alright, Saki?"
You blink, focusing on the distorted-mirror images of the elevator's doors to meet Hannah's gaze.
It's still so weird to see Miss Militia out of costume. You keep glancing over, expecting to see her American flag scarf covering everything below her eyes but instead you can actually see her mouth! She's not very good at using makeup to hide the tan line, though - it's only almost hidden, so she looks like she's a few weeks back from going skiing.
Maybe you should have let Lord Grasp do her makeup? That might have helped soften the blow that he has to stay in your Safe Space while you're in Civilian Mode like this - at least until you get some kind of dog-purse that will obscure him enough to not draw attention.
"Saki?"
Oh, right. Uh…
You trace a line across your face to mask the blank stare you've been giving her.
"It's still…" you hesitantly begin, squirreling up your own expression in concern
She winces, then looks back into the semi-reflective elevator doors and leans forward enough to examine herself. Squinting, she tilts her head back and forth a few times before sighing and breaking out a small tube of concealer in order to make a few corrections.
A few dabs, a few rough smears, and she's… well, you give her a shrug and weak smile because it's not really much better. Maybe worse?
She definitely needs to get out more. Going to have to work on fixing her up with someone when you all get back to Philly. Not Armsmaster, at least not until you get your kiss. Maybe… Oooh, Uriel! That might work- wait, no, Fraternization Rules. Normally not an issue because then it'd be FORBIDDEN LOVE.. but that's only for OTPs and you're not feeling that here. Chevalier? Sakura wouldn't like it because she wants a kiss from him... buuuuuut... that'd mean you win the bet so…
Okay, that's settled. Now, how to start this…?
You giggle lightly into your slightly-too-long hoodie sleeve.
"You remind me of Mr. Hoover."
Well, now that was an interesting reaction: confusion, realization, embarrassment, then complete deadpan. This just suddenly got far more... salacious.
You love that word.
"Oh?" she offers, clearly attempting to sound neutral as she stares blankly ahead but you're on to her now! "I didn't know... Mr. Hoover wears makeup."
The elevator finally dings on the twenty-third floor, allowing your genuine snort of laughter to echo into the elevator waiting room. Hannah hurries ahead a bit too quickly, allowing you to follow her lead as she navigates through the austere hallway to the correct hotel room.
You weren't sure how much Aisha's brother is getting as a member of the Guild, but it's obviously enough to get a suite for a week on the top floors of the Four Seasons.
"You both never take breaks," you sigh, because that seems to be the cause of a lot of problems in your life right now. "You're going to forget what it's like to be normal. And happy."
She doesn't slow stop, meaning you can't see her expression but Hannah keeps her voice down as the two of you keep going.
"Just because I'm busy doesn't mean I can't enjoy my job."
"... have you met Kali?"
Her stride falters for a split-second, then she makes the final turn a little too quickly.
"... we're here."
You scrunch up your face for a moment as you step up next to her and give her a Glare, but she stares straight ahead at the white door with a flat expression again.
You keep it up.
She's going to start sweating... any second now…
Huffing overdramatically, you sag your shoulders and then poke her in the ribs like you sometimes do when Sakura needs to reign it in. Sadly, she doesn't squeak like Sakura does but... you imagine it anyway.
"Gonna set him up with someone else then," you grumble just loud enough for her to hear and then knock on the door.
You barely finish the first knock when the door is yanked open by a wide-eyed, hopeful-looking Aisha.
"Hey! You-"
She notices Hannah and her enthusiasm crashes to a halt, turning into a confused train wreck. Pointing to you with her free hand, she moves the finger to Hannah and then back to you.
"Is… uh… I thought you'd want… Sirkalla… with you?"
Oh. You didn't actually tell her yet, but she must have figured it out when you said you wanted to talk to Brian. Except… Hannah doesn't know either. You were going to wait until everyone was settled and feeling safe before bringing that up, so better cut that off before Hannah gets suspicious.
Shrugging, you give the mildly-confused older woman a quick, blank look before returning to Aisha. "Hannah's going to be our chaperone for the trip, since Sirkalla's got work to do for her promotion, so I thought Brian might want to meet her."
Aisha practically deflates, the energy behind her eyes dimming for a split-second before her gaze grows distant and skeptical.
"O-oh, uh… alright. That's cool," she half-grins distractedly, then shuffles to the side enough for you and Hannah to enter and makes a sideways motion with her head. "C'mon in."
Hannah heads in first and you shuffle into the suite behind her, quickly glancing down to make sure if you're supposed to take your shoes off - judging by Aisha's own white-and-purple running shoes, it looks not.
"Yo, Lees-" Aisha calls out in a huff as your group enters the suite proper, "turns out you were wrong. False alarm, I guess."
The wide-open sitting room has three large white couches and two white-wooden tables scattered about, offset by the cream-colored carpet and drapes that cover windows on the far wall. A walk-in kitchen is visible on the right, with doorways leading off to rooms also on the right and left.
You only distantly notice these things, because most of your focus is instead on the three other girls sitting on the couch angled towards you: a skinny blonde girl around Taylor's age, a short, middle-eastern, college-aged girl with thick, dark curls, and Panacea.
Oh, right, and there's a cute guy sitting at the table next to their couch.
Why is Panacea-... wait, no, she's called Wyld now, right - why is she here if Aisha thought that you were going to be talking about Conversion? Why are any these girls here?
And why is the blonde girl giving you a deer-in-headlights stare? At least the older girl and Amy- no, Amelia - are just looking at you appraisingly. Wait what-
The blond girl winces hard, then leans forward into her hands and lets out a long, tired groan.
"This," she mutters, voice dripping with disdain, "is going to suck."
The beefcake at the table is wary of both of you, though you get the impression from his muted surprise when he first looks at Hannah that he's surprised to see her for a number of reasons. Regardless, he mostly ignores the blonde's grumbling and rises to greet the both of you - giving you a confident-but-cautious smile that really helps explain why Kinzey is dating him.
You'd need to get his black leather jacket and red shirt off, but you're pretty sure he could pull a pretty close imitation to Weld. Mmm- wait, you need to convince the dark-chocolate beefcake, not undress him!
You can practically hear Lord Grasp in the back of your head saying "the two need not be mutually exclusive," which worries you enough to take a split-second to check that, no, he's only parked next to the portal with an oversized tub of brown-and-red flakes. Wait what-
"-nd you're… Saki, right?"
"A-ah, yes," you blink, awkwardly shaking his hand and half-bowing, allowing yourself to be embarrassed to cover the what the frac can Lord Grasp hear your thoughts in there? You've been letting the portal show what you're seeing so he can keep up with what's going on outside, but you genuinely hope you were just imagining his retort back there. "It's nice to meet you!"
He snorts in good humor, some of the tension in his wide shoulders dropping off slowly like a wet towel- no! Bad! Focus!
"I… have to admit," he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck, "you're... not what I was expecting."
Hannah grunts, raising an eyebrow as she crosses her arms over her chest.
"Expecting?"
He rolls his eyes and sighs at already slipping-up, holding up his hands in surrender before motioning with a thumb at the girls on the couch.
"Sorry, I've been having to put up with Lisa talking about how you're some mind-controlling propaganda robot of the apocalypse. And before you say anything, since we're all out of costume here: she's Inquisition, our Thinker."
You blink a few times, noticing how Hannah narrows her eyes slightly before looking again at the glum blonde. She's… kind of cute, you guess, what with the light freckling, blue eyes and slim figure, but you think she looks like she could use a few good meals.
"Gee, thanks, Brian," the girl in question mutters, which in turn prompts Amelia to stand up from where she was comforting the Thinker on the couch and greet you as well.
"Hello… Hannah," the potential-world-ending-plague-generator-in-a-cute-blue-dress smiles, the two veteran heroines shaking hands. "It's nice to finally meet you out of costume."
Hannah nods, a light smile tugging at her lips. "It is. You're looking much happier, Amy."
She doesn't quite wince, but her smile falters for a moment. "Ah, I prefer Amelia now, actually. It's my real name."
"I see," the older woman blinks, then nods slowly. "Amelia. And leading a new team, too."
It's very slight, but you notice Brian fidget slightly as his 'team leader' looks between the rest of the room's occupants and then turns back with a smile.
"We're still figuring things out, since we didn't really expect our first fight to be against the Slaughterhouse Nine, but the Guild has been really supportive. Even if we've only been together for a few weeks, I think we've helped a lot of people and saved a lot of lives, and that's what counts, right?"
At Hannah's supportive nod, Amelia turns to you - her short head of light curls bobbing at the motion.
"And… Saki," she grins, though there's more regret than cheer there, "I'm… sorry I wasn't there for you and your sister. I was busy dealing with Bonesaw and didn't watch where Burnscar-"
"That's- that's okay," you interrupt, wincing as you shove down the flare of memories in time to only shiver lightly. "It's not your fault. A-and it's nice to meet you, too," you end with a light bow, hands folded in front of you.
"Right," she sighs, but you can still hear some self-doubt in there. "Sorry, I didn't mean-... nevermind. Still, you look… good, now!"
Straightening up, you smile and nod, trying to ignore the slight confusion in her statement.
"Thank you, I-"
"Oh God you can shapechange too."
The entire room turns to look at Lisa, who has gone even more pale as she stares at you in horror.
You turn to Brian and Amelia, because even if you just want to turn around and walk out of this mess…. Taylor and Prayer are relying on you to make this work.
"Is... is this going to be a problem?" you sigh, trying to inject as much embarrassment, weariness, and as much you are making your guest feel bad! as you can into your voice and posture, shrinking ever-so-slightly towards Hannah for support.
And wow, you have to stop yourself from looking surprised as practically the entire room rounds on the horrified blonde.
"What the fuck, Lees," Aisha snarls, a sentiment that is echoed (with less vulgarity) by Amelia and Brian. "She hasn't even done anything and you're already trying to pick her apart! Kick a fucking puppy while you're at it!"
"Can't you see?!" she winces, holding up her hands parallel with her temples before shoving them towards you as if to redirect everyone's rage back at you. "This! Right here! All she had to do was say one thing and you're all jumping at me! She can't turn her powers off either!"
Aisha just snorts and mutters a "you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me" under her breath, while Amelia and Brian share mixed looks of concern between each other and then back to you. Hannah, meanwhile, has put her left hand on your shoulder and is giving the Thinker on the couch an unamused glare of her own.
"Um."
The almost-squeak from the short girl sitting next to Lisa is just enough to get everyone's attention, forcing you to look at her in earnest for the first time and oh Maker she is adorable. Big, dark eyes, full lips, a button nose… it's like she's a coffee-colored doll! She's even wearing a subdued gothic-lolita dress! You're certain Sakura would be thinking of all sorts of fics to put her in if she were here.
The far-too-cute girl opens her mouth again as if to say something, then looks to you in surprise and blinks.
"O-oh, right! I'm Sabah - or Skein, but I used to be Parian! Nice to meet you."
Your first impulse of jealousy (because you have magic what's her excuse) at her disarming cuteness is quickly abandoned when her name actually registers.
"Wait," you blink, straightening up. "Didn't… Taylor sell you spider silk?"
"Ooh!" she perks up, "Yes! That was me! You knew about that?"
You shrug, smiling fondly at the memory. "Well, she was making so much and we asked her what she was going to do with it all."
"That makes sense. You… wouldn't happen to know if she's going to have more to sell soon, would you? I ran out during the fighting."
Amelia coughs, looking like she's trying hard not to smile. "Sabah…"
"… ah, sorry sorry!" she blushes darkly, worrying her hands in her lap. "I was just going to ask: what do you look like normally?"
After fidgeting in silence for a second after her question, you give Brian and Amelia a reluctant look. Though Amelia looks carefully blank, Brian, for his part, rubs his chin and shrugs.
"Aisha did sorta confirm that you're 'dangerously hot', so I… guess we're all kinda curious too."
You turn to give a flat Glare at Aisha, who blinks in surprise when you look at her directly before muttering a curse and looking away.
Taylor did warn you to keep Industrial Survival Frame active all the time, after all.
"Fiiine," you sigh, weakly shrugging. "But I'm not getting naked like Taylor."
It's only said in jest, but only Hannah and Aisha are the ones that give a genuine laugh - besides Lisa's groan, Brian just gives a blank look of bewilderment while Amelia and Sabah fail to hide their disappointment.
Ugh, Sakura would have had so much fun teasing this team. You don't even get to use innuendo right now because Kinzey needs someone that isn't Penny.
Well, at least you're glad you didn't wear makeup despite Lord Grasps complaints. You even dialed down your beauty a tiny bit from your new 'normal' and wore some non-descript hoodie, shirt, and jeans from the PRT HQ's Emergency Incognito stash. Which you're pretty sure is just the (cleaned) Lost and Found from all the exhibits, tour rooms, and gift shops.
You deactivate both your disguise charms and close your eyes, breathing out the air from your lungs even though the shuffling around of your skeleton and musculature doesn't require it. When you open your eyes again, you're back to your default five-foot-nine height and more-generous figure… that you could have sworn the clothes should be hiding more of?
You don't pat yourself down because that's what Taylor would do right now, but also because your Husk-Sculpting Apparatus charm gives you a full mental image of your body when you think hard at it. No, you're back to your default… ah, right, you guess the height and size change actually makes this outfit fit properly.
Too well, given the complete brain meltdown that is going on in the room right now - Hannah excluded, though she's shaking her head and sighing to herself. Aaaand Lord Grasp is laughing it up in your Safe Space since he can see what you're seeing too…
Mmmmaybe time to cut this off before Sabah starts drooling. They're probably all going to need a cold-... actually, that's a good idea.
Lifting your hands grandiosely, like you're about to conduct a symphony, you make sure everyone is aware that you're about to do something…
… and then you use your Background charm make everyone (except Hannah) feel like they just got a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on them. No visuals or sound effects, just cold and wet.
Judging by the sudden eruption of panicked flailing, sputtering, and cursing, it works well enough for you to cut the effect off almost immediately - which has the double effect of further jarring everyone's minds as they pat themselves down and realize they aren't actually sopping wet.
"Sorry!" you call out forcefully enough to be heard over the confusion.
Which… only makes them turn to look at you again, and their various protests - anger, confusion, surprise - all die on their tongues as your beauty knocks them for a loop again. Thankfully, and to her credit, Aisha is the first to break out of this second round of entrancement without your prodding.
"Ugh, Saki," she groans, shaking her head and deliberately looking away. "What… what the fuck was that? It felt like-"
"You gave us a cold shower?" Lisa boggles absently, blinking unsteadily and holding her head in disbelief as she stares past you for a split second before closing her eyes completely and groaning again. "Argh! You… what… what is that sound…?"
"Sound?" you ask, glancing at Hannah - who seems equally confused - before looking back at the struggling Thinker. "I'm not making-"
"Please! Just-... just turn on your disguise again! My head feels like it's crammed inside one of Dragon's server farms when it's on overdrive."
It… takes you a second to figure out what she means, but you think you have an idea: something like the humming you hear when you meditate on your charms? That's kinda weird, didn't Taylor say that parahuman powers shouldn't really interact with charms?
"Wait!" Amelia breaks out next, blinking and taking a step towards you with her hands outstretched. "Can-... can I touch you?"
…
When you turn to look at Hannah, she is just failing to hide her amusement, the traitor.
Fine! Forget it! You were trying to hold back, but if they're just going throw themselves at you like this...
"... I'm getting Lord Grasp out here."
***
Lord Grasp's appearance works as another shock to the group, though his cat-sized form appearing on your shoulder in a swirl of black-and-white hexagons does cause some alarm at first.
You're not quite sure what it says that actual discussion can take place only after everyone had to be put in "potential threat" mode, but it's probably not good.
Also, apparently Amelia only wanted to see what her power made of your Shapechange charm. Well, you're pretty sure she did want to get lewd, but that's what she meant to say at first. You were fine with allowing her to hold your hand (Sabah looked blatantly jealous Maker dangit Sakura you're missing this!), which… promptly made the former-healer go cross-eyed when you shifted from your default state, to your human disguise, then to your 'new normal' look.
She woozily left to go join Sabah on the couch after that, mumbling absently about "DNA restructuring" and some other terms that Taylor would probably understand but sounded like gibberish to you.
Your mechanical companion in turn served as a distraction for everyone else while Hannah, yourself, and Brian moved to the furthest table from the group to actually talk like grown-ups. While you weren't surprised that Aisha and Sabah were caught up in his opulent splendor and self-indulgent exuberance, Lisa suddenly seemed very eager to engage him in conversation once she cracked open her laptop and pulled up an Old Realm translator from Dragon's servers. Amelia just looked amused at it all, though you noticed she was giving Lisa a few taps on the hand or neck every-so-often when you looked over.
You had a niggling feeling that you should be worried about Lisa's eagerness, but Lord Grasp is a Big Boy… Building. Scorpion. You trust him to handle himself.
The talk with Brian - the first part, at least - isn't even a challenge, since he isn't really opposed to Aisha visiting a few places all over the US for three solid days. Your argument is made even easier by the fact that the PRT has picked out and cleared your itinerary, your group will be coming back to New York to sleep each night, and Hannah will be tagging along the entire time.
His only real complaint, in the end, is that he's not able to go himself.
"I'd never really thought about travelling all that much… before Behemoth, I mean," he shrugs, leaning back in his chair and handing the pen back to Hannah. "No money and not much in the way of prospects, so I tried to keep focused on what needed doing now."
The thirty-something Protectorate veteran nods in commiseration, stacking up the papers and sliding them into their folder.
"I travel for S-Class events, but… even though I'll technically be 'working', I think this will be my first vacation in…" she hesitates, frowning as if she doubts the memory. "... Over a decade. "
"Damn," Brian whistles lowly, glancing at you to see your own frown.
Meeting his eyes, you give him a sage nod in return. "She needs a boyfriend."
Brian smiles wide, chuckling into a fist as Hannah tries to resolutely force down her blush while getting the papers in order. "...We should go."
Shoot! You thought you'd have more time to think of a way to work Aisha's conversion into casual conversation! Your shipping needs have worked against you!
"Uh," you blurt out eloquently, still keeping your voice down as you look between the two now-confused faces, "I… have... something… else… to talk with Brian about?"
You really wish you could smother the sounds from this table with your Background charm, but Lisa pretty much instantly figured out everything you were doing before… and that would just make you look shady if she pointed it out.
Hannah's embarrassment fades as she raises an eyebrow, clearly waiting for further explanation, while both of Brian's eyebrows have jumped up completely to his tight-dreadlocked hairline.
"Wait… do you mean…" he trails off as you wince and nod, which causes him to cover his face with a large hand and groan.
Hannah turns back to look at you with increasing concern. "Saki?"
You hold up a hand to get her to wait, then orient your body in your chair to face Brian fully and give him a Look.
Can we keep this between us or do you want to get HER involved?
Your Body Language charm even manages to perfectly communicate that the "her" is Lisa, not any of the other girls in the room, even though the direct translation to English would be unclear. Japanese would have worked (because it's better), and so would have Old Realm (because it's… best? Better than English, at least...), but you're pretty sure Brian doesn't know either of those.
Staring at you through the splayed fingers on his hand, Brian blinks owlishly a few times - the PRT testing showed that communicating full sentences with your Body Language charm is a bit of a shock for people not expecting it - then closes his eyes, crosses his arms, and takes a few deep breaths in thought.
While he does so, you let your Body Language charm guide your motions as you shoot Hannah a silent message with another Look, a phone-like gesture with your left hand, a nod, and then and jerk of your head towards the group on the couch while raising your eyebrows meaningfully.
I talked with Taylor. We want Aisha to be next.
Because your Body Language charm is just amazing like that.
Hannah stills for brief moment, sighs, then schools her expression and sits back down in her chair. As Brian remains silent for a few more moments, the older combat veteran shifts (very slightly) in her seat a few times, but otherwise keeps her expression closed and locked on the maybe-college-age brother.
Likely because he's started to breathe out very slight puffs of thick, black smoke from his nose. Watching him more closely, the gravity-defying inky blackness is also… sweating?... up through the neckline of his jacket and from his sleeves. If you were across the room (and had your old, regular eyesight) you probably wouldn't even notice it - up close and with your new-and-improved eyes, it's almost like he's nervously sweating pure shadow.
That's…
Um…
… you think it's really hot, but you also got strangled by pure shadow earlier today… so you're not sure what you're feeling right now.
...
Dangit, Kinzey totally owes you for not stealing him for yourself! They better get married and have a million shadow-crystal-generating babies in the new world you're helping save-slash-build!
Hannah clears her throat, quietly enough that you think just you and Brian can hear it- oh, whoops, you were biting your thumb there. You give her a nod in thanks.
"Alright," Brian finally breathes out tiredly, bobbing his head up and down slowly to himself as the shadows melt away into the air around him. He opens his deep-brown eyes and fixes you with a meaningful stare that No Saki think of the Maker!
"I'll hear you out, but I want to know everything: what it felt like, any doubts or problems you've had, what you wished you had known beforehand… I heard you didn't get really get a chance to say 'yes' or 'no', or even prepare, so…"
He shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly before glancing sadly at the group on the sofa - looking past Lord Grasp's antics on the coffee table to Aisha's grinning expression as she pokes Sabah over something they're whispering about.
"I just…" trails off, his voice quiet, sad, and hard, before resuming at an even lower volume. "I don't know how much she's told you about how her life was like with our mom, but I doubt it was anything good. Everything I've… all of this," he makes an off-hand gesture at the room in general, "started because I just wanted a way to give her a place she could go to sleep in without having to worry about some drugged-up sleazy shitstain sneaking into her room."
You can practically feel Hannah wanting to ask why he didn't go to the PRT for help, but you tap her on the foot with your own shoe's toe to signal for her to let him finish. She glances your way, but you keep meeting Brian's gaze with your own.
"So yeah," he mutters, shaking his head again before leaning on the table with his elbows and clenching one hand over a fist. "I'll hear what you have to say. But if I have any doubts…"
He glances at the group on the couch again, then gives you a half-feigned shrug.
"If you're right, and this is good for her… you shouldn't have a hard time convincing all of us of that."
***
You tackle the biggest points first, because even if Lord Grasp is a master of distraction, Lisa is bound to wonder what's taking so long eventually. Thankfully, he largely lets you talk without any interruptions - and then you just bowl over some of the times he does try to interrupt, anyway.
Are you really Saki? Will Aisha still be Aisha? Yes. You remember everything, especially the parts you really wish you didn't, and you believe it down to your very soul. You honestly can't tell how much of that is helped along by your charm, though, since you didn't doubt that fact before you 'locked in' that belief, so you don't bring it up.
Hannah does make a small interruption to ask if "you remember?" but it doesn't sound like she's asking about your life before conversion so you try to get her to clarify. She looks confused by that, but then waves it off and has you focus back on your explanation to Brian.
Something to ask her about later, for sure. You'll try to remember during your vacation.
Is it going to change Aisha? ...Yes. It's uncomfortable to admit it, but you've talked more in these last few days than you did in the last month before the Nine came. What you're wearing now is more what you'd normally like to wear, but instead you're practically always covered in world-class gowns and dresses (you blame Lord Grasp, but it's true). But… you're having to deal with a lot of… bad stuff and you can't just run away or let Sakura do the talking for you.
There's a quote you've been thinking of from one of Sakura's Alexandria/Rime fics: "If you want to change someone, give them power."
Hannah is very carefully blank at that statement, but Brian looks thoughtful for a while before nodding in apparent understanding.
Will this make Aisha safer? Yes. On top of immortality, which means she'll outlive both Brian and all his babies with Kinzey (you keep going, not giving him time to react to that), Alchemicals are just plain tougher than humans. She's definitely going to get Industrial Survival Frame at least, which apparently makes you immune to the Simurgh and almost all the 'poof, you're dead' Endbringer and parahuman attacks, but on top of that she'll most likely have plenty of ways to escape danger that she would never have access to without conversion.
You can't say she will for certain, but since she's going to be the Stealth specialist for the Assembly you trust that the Great Maker will go overboard on her like he did for your own PR specialty. On that same vein, you also mention it's possible that she'll get a spirit companion as well, which would undoubtedly be yet another powerful being (at least as strong as an A-Ranked parahuman) dedicated towards keeping her alive and happy.
Hannah has nervous flinches at those two prospects, but manages to smother the reactions before Brian notices.
Will this make Aisha's life better? ...Maybe? You… haven't even been back a week, and already you've had to deal with - again - a lot of bad stuff…
… annnnd just as Brian's asking you to clarify what you mean by 'bad stuff', your time runs out.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
You don't even have to look behind you to know that Lisa is probably standing and pointing at you angrily. Instead, you let your shoulders sag and lean back in your chair, giving Brian a (non-charm-enhanced) not this bullpoop again look.
Surprisingly, he gives you a knowing look and nod before leaning back himself and turning enough to throw a casual, hard look at the aggrieved Thinker.
"I'm fine, Lisa, thanks for asking."
… a billion babies, Kinzey! She owes both you and Taylor for taking this slab off the market!
"No, I mean she's-..." there's a pause as Lisa's voice trails off in a grunt. "Uh, wow, yeah, didn't need to know that."
Wait what.
"What time is- oh shit it's already four?" Aisha's surprised voice pipes up, growing more confused by the moment. "Jesus, Bro, just sign the damn field trip papers. And this better not be a trend - I don't want to have to learn how to forge your signature, too."
Brian winces, but doesn't manage a response before Lisa's increasingly-hysterical voice interjects.
"He-... he's already signed the papers! Goddamnit they've-... she's been talking about converting you! They want to replace you next!"
A very put-out Lord Grasp undercuts Lisa's exclamation with a sigh.
"I gather from her tone she did not take my pearls of insight to heart, Warden?"
Blinking, you turn around to get a clarification for that but instead get a pair of hands on your cheeks as Aisha ignores the concept of "personal space" to nearly headbut you in the soulstone.
"You serious?!" she hisses out between teeth clenched in manic glee, staring at you with equally-wild and wide eyes. "Don't think I didn't notice you didn't deny me when I asked before! Taylor said 'yes'?!"
It happens so fast and so naturally, you only notice it when you have to reflexively force the essence to go through Aura-Dampening Component instead of just straight from your Peripheral essence pool…
...
… or, rather, when nothing out of the ordinary happens.
Because you don't shove Aisha away, she simply stumbles back from when you stand up and raise your own left hand to balance yourself - causing her to lose her balance and tip over the nearest couch's back and tumble over it embarrassingly.
Yes. That is exactly what happened, and no one should be suspicious.
You glance at Lisa anyway, meeting her glare. Except you're not sure what gives you away, because she blinks, looks to Aisha, then back at you… and then scrunches up her face as if she thinks something might have happened there, but doesn't have any evidence for it.
Can she-… can she read your mind? You're pretty sure if Industrial Survival Frame blocks the Simurgh, it'd block her, so that's probably not it. Maybe just… body language? The fact that you looked at her first after you- after Aisha stumbled, and she picked up on that?
Ugh, you're starting to get why the PRT says to go after Thinkers and Masters first. You don't want to deal with this! It's not just her being annoying and second-guessing everything - there are things you can't talk about now and she's probably going to try to weasel them out of you. You don't want… them to have to come and fix things, because that probably means everyone but you and Aisha are going to be dead by the end of the day.
… this is why you have the Doom Spike, isn't it? Uuughhh.
You sigh, ignoring Aisha's whooping and obscenity-laden cheering, as well as Lord Grasp's confused exclamations as it sounds like Aisha has picked him up and is dancing around with him.
Opening your eyes again, you give Brian a meaningful enough glare that his attention is drawn back from whatever is happening behind you.
"Look, I-..." you sigh again, shaking your head as you give a meaningful glance to Hannah and turn back to Brian - not bothering to keep your voice down, but not speaking loud enough that you'd be heard over Aisha's excitement.
"Do-... do you get that there are PRT secrets I... can't tell you? Missions that have to be... classified for a while, but... eventually will get out? Because that's what we're dealing with right now, and we think Aisha can help."
His face hardens, scrutinizing you as he straightens up fully in his chair and crosses his arms.
And then someone's sitting next to you at the chair, but you don't turn around since it's probably Lisa by the way Hannah's eyes narrow. Because Maker damnit, but… at least she doesn't say anything immediately - probably waiting for Brian to speak.
Brian's eyes flicker to probably-Lisa, darkening further as they exchange a silent stare for a few moments before he looks back to you.
"She's fourteen. I'm her guardian. I have a right to know."
...okay, yes, he's right, but you can't tell him because he'll probably be killed for knowing and any more excuses means Lisa is definitely going to know something is up and might figure it out anyway because Thinker bullsh-poop!
Flip it, Taylor said basically everyone knows about this one...
You cast your gaze down at the table and sigh, long and tired because you are.
"How… much do you know about where Alchemicals come from?"
"Where you say you come from," Lisa snorts beside you, as if that's a completely different thing.
You glance sideways at Brian.
He's about as done as you are. "Lisa. Shut up or leave."
This close to her, you can feel her initial shock turn into a vibrating, desperate fury - enough so that you're this close to-
No. Calm.
Grabbing her and shoving her into your Safe Space - as deeply satisfying as it might feel - would look horrible, and wouldn't actually solve anything.
The first new fic you're writing is going to be Inquisition/Erasmus, though. And it'll be totally cracky and OOC and filled with wacky, impossible smut but it'll still exist.
If it exists on the Internet, at least one person will get off to it… and Lisa will be stuck with that realization, that memory... forever.
You turn your head to look at her, meeting her rapidly-paling expression of shock and disgust.
You smile.
It's a nice smile.
Except she knows that it's not.
You turn back to Brian, to explain how the impending death of your god will destroy the universe.
Many Faces of Lewdness:
[X] Emergency Smut: Be normal, but use fictional characters as inspiration when in trouble.
- [x] Stunt: A stadium full of fans raucously awaited the reveal of the new Tatsu. Mrs. Sato hugged a stage-frightened Saki. "You can do it, dear. You are brave, powerful, and above all, a good person. If you have to, draw upon a favorite role model," Gloria shared in a conspiratorial whisper. "Legend channels Optimus Prime when he gets stuck."
Brakes on the Steamroller:
[X] Good First Impression: Use minimum amount of Bullshit to get things started, but still let Brian have some control over the result.
- [x] Stunt: Saki fidgets slightly in her old costume as she faces Aisha's brother and his teammates. "Ano… whether I'm still me aside, have you ever been where your own power was killing you?" The room lights up, two scenes in parallel: Who dying unnoticed while Chevalier fought, and a nightmare, Twins maimed and wired up inside the Safe Place, help unreachable.
Stroll Around Town(s):
[X] Saki spends time with the Wards all across the US.
- [x] Stunt: The humpback arced back into the water with a thunderous impact, splashing seawater up into the air and across the faces of the gawking teenagers. As the tourmaster turned the boat back towards Honolulu, Saki busied herself mopping the spray off a gesticulating Lord Grasp's carapace. Miss Militia watched in poorly-concealed amusement while the sun warmed her skin.
Hero Worship:
[X] Prayer works with the PRT to give the new Case 53s things to believe in that aren't her/Autochthon (Henchmen Background unavailable).
- [x] Stunt: As you look over at your new comrades you smile. Some are reading, textbooks, fairy tales and one even reading Don Quixote (you hope you won't have to keep them away from any windmills). Others are exercising, a few are chatting with each other and the staff members caring for them... Yes, they will be great heroes in time.
Free Actions:
[X] EOA - Free Action: Cenotaph laid flat on the conference table as Prayer's crystal spiders crawled about him. Worry, love, regret and shame each competed for emotional space in the Soulsteel teen as she operated on her father with her multitools. Moonsilver tears streamed down Taylor's face. "I'm sorry! I should've told you...*sob* I should've told you about Emma."
[X] FPoP - Free Action: Sirkalla twirls a strand of hair idly as she gathers endless forms from the bin. Waivers to absolve the PRT and associated organizations of responsibility, the paperwork for the registration, testing, housing and allowances for new Case 53s. Forms to authorize special forms for those unable to use a pen, and then the triplicates, "Maker give me strength."
[X] WoRI - Free Action: Saki logs back into her account, checking off the new posts since she was indisposed, and to a certain creeping dread, finding her new and improved self already the subject of highly speculative and novel-length productions. Maybe Lord Grasp would be interested in an account of his own, once he learns the language.
XP Expenditures:
[X] EOA - 2 XP - Lore (Entities ●○○)
[X] WoRI - 2 XP - Larceny (Copying ●○○)
[X] FPoP - 2 XP - Craft (Shards ●●○)
[X] EOA - 2 XP - Linguistics (Specialty: Autochthonian)
***
Between Taylor's tools, Prayer's… swarms of tiny, crystal, magic healing-spiders… and Taylor's father's own parahuman power, the damage done by Lord Grasp's tail-cannon is completely healed in a matter of minutes.
Still, Taylor is an emotional wreck during the process, sobbing about how she was sorry that she never told him about what "Emma" and "Sophia" had been doing to her - something about the bullying that you'd heard about from the news and the nation-wide anti-bullying program that the PRT started in the wake of Taylor's "death." You don't hear anything from him in response save for a few coughs, and after a while Taylor's sobs trail off into an awkward silence.
You'd like to help but...
Beyond giving Lord Grasp a Glare that causes him to stop blatantly threatening the remaining Cauldron members in the room, you remain silent until Taylor and Prayer finish putting the older man back together - deliberately sitting back down to avoid looking at the bloody scene, you empty your mind and return Doctor Mother's stare.
A panic-inducing flashback of your own is not what's needed right now.
However, just as Taylor appears to finish up and starts to round on Doctor Mother with a murderous look, another door-like portal slides open to reveal a new Cauldron member: a well-dressed white male in a grey suit and square glasses that looks more like a well-to-do math teacher than a Cape. He's carrying a large black briefcase in his left, his right hand resting comfortably in his pants pocket, but he freezes and blinks owlishly as the scene in front of him registers.
A little too thin, kind of pasty. Probably in his late thirties, so too young for either Contessa or Doctor Mom. Drat.
As the rest of the room turns to him, he shuts his eyes, wincing uncomfortably, and leans through the portal to deposit the briefcase on the white floor.
"I will be in touch, Administrator," he sighs in too-calm voice, shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. Retracting his hand, he turns and begins to walk away - down a familiar-looking white corridor - as the portal snaps closed behind him.
There's a moment of awkward silence, then Taylor growls, swiveling back and pointing a right forearm at Doctor Mother, shifting it from a cluster of menacing obsidian operating tools to a clawed hand.
"...what the fuck was the point-!?"
"You have two minutes until Dr. Marie arrives at your door, Administrator," Contessa interrupts, raising her stern voice just enough to grab Taylor's attention. She unclasps her left hand from behind her back and gestures at the awaiting black-leather luggage. "Your vials and relevant documents are in the briefcase, Balance solutions kept separate as per your request."
Taylor's mouth snaps shut for a moment, the glowing veins along her neck and face pulsing brightly as she scowls at the pre-cog, before glancing briefly at the resting body at her feet.
"'Provoking reactions'?" she sneers at the two Cauldron operatives.
Doctor Mother turns away from you to meet Taylor's furious gaze, frowning lightly before shaking her head once. "Mr. Hebert is more valuable to us alive and field-ready than as an experiment, Administrator... but we have learned from this event regardless."
Taylor's face settles into a cold glare for moment before she sighs and rolls her eyes. Waving off the Cauldron pair, she places a hand on Prayer's shoulder - the large armored woman still bent over Taylor's father's prone form. The cerulean juggernaut looks up for brief second, nods mechanically, then looks back down, prompting Taylor to look across the table at you and Lord Grasp.
Sorry about all this, Saki."
Discarding whatever was left of your Maleficent impression, you sag slightly and offer a weak smile of acceptance. "I-It's okay, Taylor."
The meaningful glance you give her, however, communicates what you really want to say: We'll talk later.
Whether reacting to your spoken or unspoken message, Taylor's demeanor cracks a bit more for a moment, just enough to offer you a smile in return before she straightens up and marches past the Cauldron women to collect the black briefcase near the far wall. With only a slight bending of the knees, she taps the reinforced case with her right index claw - causing the entire thing to shrink and fold in upon itself in a quiet whirring of unseen gears, then disappear entirely as it is sucked into the small, temporary hole at the end of her digit.
"Door," Contessa quietly calls out as the process finishes and Taylor straightens up, "Weaver's quarantine room."
Another rectangular portal slides open along the wall in front of Taylor. She pauses for a heartbeat in front of it, then turns her head just enough to glance your way again - her mouth set in a determined line as she nods once.
We'll get through this.
Then she turns back, steps through the portal, and she's gone.
The silence lasts for only a few moments before Prayer's form shifts a few times, then straightens up fully and directs a long, meaningful gaze at the Cauldron pair. Only Contessa appears to meet her gaze, Doctor Mother having returned to studying you and the still-agitated Lord Grasp, but after an uncomfortably long stare-down Contessa finally blinks and nods.
"Camden."
The Clarity makes her hard to read, but her gauntleted right hand twitches just enough for you to get the impression she'd be sighing in any normal situation.
Sure, you don't get what's going on, but you can sympathize: anything involving Camden is definitely sigh-worthy.
Without saying anything in response, she turns to you and Lord Grasp.
"When will you be returning?"
You glance to Contessa and raise an eyebrow, who returns your gaze evenly.
"Our business is concluded for today."
"I need to talk to Lord Grasp about some things," you sigh, looking back to Prayer with a reluctant frown. "I should be back for lunch, I think?"
Prayer gives a mechanical nod of her crystalline helmet, then turns back to Contessa.
"I will return now."
Contessa closes her eyes for a moment, then nods in approval.
"Door, Vajra's bathroom."
As the portal slides open to reveal a surprising assortment of hair and skin-care products, the cerulean crystal juggernaut strides past the Cauldron duo and through the doorway without further comment - the gateway silently sliding closed just as she passes fully through it.
And then you are once again alone with Cauldron.
"I apologize for today's events," Doctor Mother sighs, visibly settling back in her chair with a sigh as she looks across the table to you, then down to the side at Taylor's dad, then to Crushing Grasp. "Your earlier demonstrations showed that your tail cannon had a significant area-of-effect. We did not expect you would fire it in such close quarters."
Narrowing your eyes at the… suspicious shift to a more casual attitude, you notice Lord Grasp pause as he reads the translation then shimmy his body - much as a peacock might fluff itself up - before harumph-ing in gruff displeasure.
"I fired upon the room across the hall. That insolent miscreant simply happened to be in the way."
"That's Taylor's father," you hiss, discretely poking him in the side with a finger as you keep your posture straight.
Lord Grasp only makes another grunt of indignation, waving off the concern absently but making no further comment. You open your mouth to respond, but snap it shut as your eyes notice the evaluating gazes of Doctor Mother and Contessa.
"Later," you grouse quietly in Old Realm, placing your left hand on his front-right leg while turning back to the two older women with a scowl. "So all that talk about starting the apocalypse now was just to freak us out?"
"Not entirely," Doctor Mother hums, shaking her head with a slight downturn of her lips while gesturing to Contessa off-handedly. "Our original plans for today's interaction did not include the earlier altercation, but Scion's unexpected re-appearance presented us with an opportunity to further enhance our behavioral models for each of you and your Assembly as a whole."
You groan, closing your eyes for a moment as your shoulders sag. Of course the creepy conspiracy has plans within plans within plans… which Lord Grasp apparently screwed up. If it weren't for Taylor's dad, you definitely wouldn't feel bad about that.
"Taylor mentioned that you're trying to figure us out, but…" you shake your head, pointing in the general direction of where you think Taylor's dad is still laying under the other side of the table. "... aren't you going to help him? After you nearly got him killed?"
The older doctor gives you an flat look. "Cenotaph left the room after First Prayer of Perfection's portal closed. Even still, if Enduring Order Administrator and First Prayer of Perfection hadn't attended to him he would have been able to recover by spending time in his Breaker state."
"What?" you blurt out, recoiling in surprise as Lord Grasp mutters something you can't quite catch under his breath. "Then… why did he let Taylor and Prayer-...?"
"He has his reasons," Doctor Mother waves dismissively, before gathering up her portfolio with one hand and pushing off the table to get to her feet with the other.
Contessa tilts her head just enough to catch your thoughtful gaze, giving you a raised eyebrow that practically screams: Ask Taylor.
"We will be in contact with you once you have everything configured," Doctor Mother nods matter-of-factly, before pushing up her glasses to give you one last calculated glance. "Beyond that, we have one last suggestion: it was suggested during your testing that Crushing Grasp may possess more charms for you to equip?"
It's more of a statement than a question, but you glance to Lord Grasp - who gives you a shrug in return - before shrugging. "I… think so?"
Contessa turns away to murmur a quiet "Door" command, causing another portal to open up in its usual space. She turns back to give Doctor Mother a silent glance that you can't quite figure out the meaning to, then gives you a single nod before striding through the portal.
"Now would be a good time to check," the lab-coated older woman muses, turning towards the portal and taking a few steps towards it before turning her head just enough for her to see you out of the corner of her eye.
"Until next time, Warden of Reflected Infinities."
She takes two more steps and the portal snaps closed behind her.
***
As much as Lord Grasp wants to engage in some "vigorous, complimentary redecoration" of the Cauldron base, you don't think that's the kind of "reaction" that the conspiracy masterminds would tolerate.
So the two of you merely knock over all the chairs and flip the conference table before returning to your Safe Space.
Settled back atop the sea of black jade hexagons, you stop Lord Grasp just as he's about to shift back to his fully-furnished form, thinking on Doctor Mother's last words to you.
"Lord Grasp?" you hum thoughtfully, tapping your recliner's armrest with an index finger in a way that communicates Wait, please. "Could I see that room you said was remodeled?"
His scorpid form stills momentarily, then sags as he sighs dramatically.
"I was hoping you'd wait long enough for me to finish redecorating… but I suppose needs must."
You raise an eyebrow. "'Redecorating'?"
"Yes, my dear," he nods. "Would you mind…?"
Rolling your eyes, you giggle at his antics but step out from his palanquin anyway and give him room to unfold to his full, three-storied size.
The transition is as spectacular as ever, though you realize now that each time has been slightly different in the way he transforms - a conscious decision on his part, you suspect, in order to ensure that observers never grow bored of watching him. You hope to never grow jaded enough that it would be an actual concern, but… hmm.
Didn't Taylor say that Alchemicals are immortal? You've read enough fantasy stories to know that immortality is a Big Deal, but it's just… not something Sakura or you have really thought about? You're not even eighteen (yet!), so "Dying of Old Age" isn't really a concern… and you're not sure you've ever heard of a Cape dying of old age, either, since Capes only started appearing in the 1980s. Things have been so crazy over the last few months… will the next few years be the same? The next few decades? Centuries?
You manage to stifle the wince as Lord Grasp finishes his transformation and beckons you to his large open gate with a massive claw. One crisis at a time, Saki...
Wait a minute.
"How do you have six sides now?" you blink, boggling at his apparent exterior redesign. It's still largely the same gold-and-silver pagoda as before, bristling with gems and precious metalworking that will probably make actual architects weep when they finally see him… he just has six walls now instead of four, though the chimney-like tower attached to his 'back' like a scorpion tail is still only four sides-...
… how did you miss the giant crossbow-cannon on the top of that tower before? You're pretty confident it would have been brought up when the PRT scientists were examining him!
"With great effort!" the structure booms excitedly, though you detect a hint of exhaustion in his voice as he preens. "It has been quite some time since I've needed to modify my exterior to such a degree, but I might as well start getting used to matching the theme the Great Maker has gifted you. Now, this way!"
You absently follow his direction and enter through his open gates, only tearing your gaze away from the large weapon when it passes out of sight… and you're pretty sure the gems above the entryway winked at you. Why- oh.
You roll your eyes again, sighing in exasperation as you clamp down on the blush at being caught staring at his gun. You're going to have to get him back for that at some point, though trying to out-lewd him is a… worrying idea, given the casual, off-handed way he's mentioned hosting orgies before.
… ah, you see what he's trying to do here. He wants you to loosen up your own morales in the process of sinking to his level to beat him! Well, you know the winning move now: not playing!
You eye the animated mural of his scorpion-self as it slides along the wall and leads you along, giving it a flat Nope! Not falling for it! look as you cross your arms primly, which causes him to wave his arms and sigh in exasperation.
Victory!
The animated mural directs you through the receiving room, left down a hallway, up two flights of stairs, and then left again, before stopping before closed doorway that sticks out from the rest.
"I can forgive the rush-job," the flowing mural bemoans, "since I now realize that the scarcity of time and lack of preparation the Great Maker and his agents must have been working with. In time, I'm confident I can bring the graft into line with the rest of my being… I just hope you won't think less of me for the jarring aesthetic departure until then."
The frame and door certainly don't match the surrounding vaguely-Japanese aesthetic of Lord Grasp's architecture (which is comfortingly familiar... if you don't think too hard about how it's actually an unnerving reminder of the weird similarities between Creation and Earth), instead they look more like they were torn straight out of some kind of steampunk, technomagical, industrial vault.
Vacuum tubes, wires, gears, pistons, and lots of heavy metal comprise the doorway, though the vast majority of it glimmers in ways that your mind instinctively registers as magical. The overriding color scheme is brass, though there's plenty of gold, silver, and grey parts and lines, with a few glowing crystals for good measure. At the center of it all is a large brass wheel attached to four locking levers that push out to each side of the door frame, reinforcing the "bank vault" initial impression - judging by the extended levers, the wheel has been spun closed.
"It's… very intimidating," you admit, blinking as you take it all in, though now that you're studying it closely… "but it feels… familiar?"
Lord Grasp hums, the little animated scorpion tapping the doorway experimentally. "This entire graft is quite an example of the Great Maker's embodiment of Industry, so it is only natural that it should resonate with you at some level. I just hope that that same resonance doesn't prevent me from fully incorporating it myself. Now, inside..."
The wheel spins, grudgingly in a way that suggests it's far heavier than it looks, until the four levers pull inwards fully with a heavy thunk that resonates through the building. Four of the six glowing crystals wink out with a light pop of static, and then there's a hiss of steam as the door's seals release and the heavy rectangle swings inwards to reveal-
Sitting in a dark room beneath a single spotlight, a table with an indentation that you know matches your own body lies just inside, surrounded by dozens of mechanical arms hovering just above it - each wielding implements of torture and disembowelment straight out of every single one of your nightmares.
But it's not empty because you're lying on it-
Cheerful laughter trickles in through what's left of your ears as pain slicing sawing cutting the blood-soaked blonde preteen looks up at you from the table where she's taking out pieces of Sakura for spare parts.
"Don't worry, Saki! We'll-"
You run.
***
The world blurs as you whip your head around, shaking and screaming as the unfamiliar walls seem to close in on you while you try to flee in panic. Someone is yelling your name but it doesn't matter you need to get out-
The shock of the floor falling out from under you only causes your scream to shift from terror to shock, the brown wood opening up into a hot, white, steam-filled-
SPLASH.
"Pppppfffaahhh!" you sputter, flailing wildly to get your head above water as your feet scrabble on the smooth rock floor of the bath.
"WARDEN!" Lord Grasp's deep, demanding baritone booms through the air, drowning out your own gasping and sloshing. "CONTROL YOURSELF!"
...
You… you aren't... she isn't...
Gold-and-silver pillars around a "natural spring"-like bath, formed of white, black, green, and red marble. Steam fills the air in a way that you would think would be suffocating but instead almost commands your muscles to relax. The water itself soaks through your dress with ease, but as your hands move through it the liquid feels dense, heavy with minerals that… well, they'd probably do great things for normal skin.
The hammering of your heart in your ears begins to slow, along with your reflexive, unnecessary breaths.
"I… I..."
You can't manage much more, eyes and throat welling up as you cover your face in embarrassment and shame.
Lord Grasp remains silent as you cry, but even as you sink back into the bath's built-in seats you can feel the air of the bathhouse swirl and shift to make it less… shockingly hot.
Time passes, horrific memories fading in and out as self-doubt and embarrassment drag them up and your own willpower shoves them back down.
You can't…
"I-I'm… I c-can't k-keep doing this, Lord Grasp," you sob, almost falling apart again with the confession.
The air stirs and the water vibrates with Lord Grasp's forlorn sigh.
"Do you know what kind of healing charms your Assembly possesses? I recall a number of Solar and Sidereal charms that could purge you of your… ailment, but the charms of Autochthon's Chosen are still foreign to me; what I saw from Administrator and Prayer appeared primarily focused on the physical, rather than the direct restoration of the form and spirit."
You wince, head hanging limply as you stare through the water at the distorted image of your flexing hands.
"I don't… think they can fix me like that, Lord Grasp. That's what my charms are for-"
You shake your head groaning.
"- my charms can do, Taylor says. If I don't want to use them for mind-controlling or torturing people."
A pause.
"Then," he begins, slowly, "is there a reason you haven't tried to heal yourself? I know you and Administrator spoke of some sort of… calibration concerns for this new realm, but Charms can't turn against their wielders - they are as much a part of you as your hand or foot."
Even in the warm bath you shudder at the thought, reaching up to wrap your arms around yourself.
"No. Just… no. Taylor's charms were…" you scrunch up your face, shaking your head, "...off. I haven't even tried using... those ones yet - I don't want to use my own brain as a… trial run."
Lord Grasp hums, the entire room buzzing with the doubting sound.
"I agree that using your own mind as a practice arena is poor form, but I remain unconvinced that the Great Maker would thrust you into the world with a flawed tool. Still… this brings us back to our earlier purpose…?"
The hopeful lilt in his tone at the end makes you pause for a moment in thought before you remember what triggered this entire meltdown - then grip your arms tightly and clench your teeth as you shove the storm of emotions back into their hole.
"Can you… change it? Like you said?" you grit out, pleading. "It just looks…"
As you trail off, you note the silence that lingers for a moment before Lord Grasp grunts in concern.
"Warden… not to disparage your… condition, but I was rather shocked by your visceral response to such a technological marvel of divine engineering. In my experience, these types of maladies are given to distorting the senses. Could the suddenness of the reveal have caused you to... see things that weren't there?"
You blink at the doubt in his voice, frowning - and wincing - in thought as you try to remember…
"It was... dark? And there was a... table, that looked like it was… shaped for me. With… tools hovering above it. And… and then I saw-"
You close your eyes and breathe as your heart threatens to tear out of your chest.
Calm.
The cool tingle washes down your head, down your spine.
You breathe. Evenly.
In... out. In... out.
Mind empty, you call up again the memory of what was behind the door - the Clarity helping to filter away the choking emotions strangling the event in your thoughts.
It… doesn't make sense when you look back on it now. Not that you actually believed that Bonesaw and Sakura were there, even before you dipped into Clarity to help you remember without freaking out, but other parts also feel off in retrospect - the lighting, the tools, the table, they all seem… exaggerated.
...
The realization settles over you, a cold, crushing blanket of dread, draining any warmth you feel from the room around you.
This… this is what it is to be crazy, isn't it? Not even being able to trust what you see? What you hear? What you think?
Your empty gaze drifts into focus on your hands again, distorted as they are through the water that comes up to your chest.
You aren't the only one suffering like this, are you? After all, you just got done talking about how Accord might have been driven insane by his power… and then there's all those victims of the Simurgh...
If… if your horrible charms can heal… then you might be the only one able to help them.
You clench your fists. You've been wasting too much time.
Closing your eyes for a few moments, you try to relax. Breathe in… breathe out...
...
No, it's the same as this morning - there's a feeling tells you that you need to meditate outside, not in your Safe Place.
Because that'd be too easy, wouldn't it?
"Ugh," you groan, feeling your wet clothes stick to your body as you climb out of the bath. "Lord Grasp, can I get a change of clothes?"
You pause, narrowing your eyes as another memory bubbling up to the surface.
"Real clothes this time."
"Of course!" he announces, though there's a trace of restrained humor in his tone again as your sopping mess of silks dissolves into a cascade of tiny specks and wisps of white light.
"In my defense, my dear, you only noticed when I pointed it out."
You turn, look for the usual arrangement of eight gemstones above the entryway, then give him a flat Glare.
"I will find a way to get you back... even if I have to work with Taylor to do it."
The eyes glint a humorous green a moment, then turn a shade of dull, nervous blue.
"Ah."
***
Instead of an overly-ornate number like your previous outfits, Lord Grasp instead opts to dress you in a simple bath robe. "Simple" is relative, of course, as its combination of downy furs, lavish silks, and precious-metal embroidery means it would likely cost as much as your family's home in Brockton Bay if you tried to sell it.
You're going to have to think of more excuses to wear it all the time, because by the Maker it feels like you're swimming in pure bliss just walking around in it. The sensation is so distracting that you barely even notice how Lord Grasp guides you back up a flight of stairs and to the vault-like door - only snapping out of it when you're within a few feet of being able to see inside again, as the area surrounding the door is now flooded with light from all the extra candle-like lamps that have been added to the ceiling and opposite wall.
It's enough to make you smile, despite the nervous, anticipatory tremor running down your spine as you carefully… slowly… step around the corner-...
… the Table is there, albeit less sinister-looking in the enhanced lighting, but...
The light pouring in from the hallway reveals a small room - roughly twenty by twenty feet - with a ceiling sloping down at the center. The walls are covered by layers of pipes, motionless gears, pistons, and other industrial machinery, all comprised of different mundane and magical metals of different shades and hues. The floor and ceiling are a flat steel-grey, unbroken except for a ring of clear crystal above and below the Table in the center of the room.
The right wall, however, features something that makes you step back in both shock and confusion: a series of five glass mannequins on brass pedestals, nearly transparent save for bits and pieces of shimmering metal and crystal arranged through them like mock-organs...
Charms.
"What?!" Lord Grasp sputters, making you realize that you must have said that out-loud. His voice has a strange mechanical reverb in this room, and a quick glance reveals that it's an old public-announcement-style speaker above the inside door frame that he's speaking through. "Those are Alchemical Charms? But… they are Artifacts!"
You drift towards the mannequins, oddly entranced by the realization that these things are… somehow… a part of you...?
Oh! Those five other connections that you couldn't figure out before! These… these must be what the lines were leading off to!
Close enough to reach out and touch them, however, it's difficult not to notice how most of these Charms are positioned as if they're… stuck in your brain.
One of them is a sort of helix mesh of crystal and starmetal woven through most of the right side of where your brain would sit, another is a dark soulsteel spike that would sit near the top-front of your brain that's connected to wires running to a small LED that pokes out under the mannequin's right earlobe. A third is a series of small crystalline boxes connected to a series of filaments, the entire device sitting near the top-left part of the brain. The fourth appears to be a flat disk that rests at the base of the mannequin's skull, and an experimental tugging at the mannequin to spin it around reveals that the disk itself looks like a spoked starmetal wheel, ten glittering gemstones arranged along the outside of each spoke.
The fifth and final mannequin, however, is literally covered in tiny nodes of glimmering crystal, their placement and pattern so close together to be almost like pores on the mannequin's skin. The tiny crystals themselves are all networked together by series of hair-thin golden threads, which coalesce into a bundle of threads that would connect to… your heart? Yes, you're pretty sure your heart would rest roughly about there…
Blinking, you step back and look again at the Table as the awful realization fully hits home:
These Charms aren't plug-and-play like pieces of a computer… you need to be taken apart to fit these in.
Your skin flayed, your skull sliced open and stuffed with machinery...
N-...no… you can't…
…
Calm.
...
Closing your eyes, you take a slow, deep breath - relaxing your hunched shoulders, and letting your arm fall from where they were wrapped around yourself in a shuddering death-grip.
Whether or not you want to do this… is irrelevant.
You have to do this. These are pieces of yourself, and deep down you know that you won't be able to fully configure yourself without trying these out at least once.
Autochthon built this room. He built these charms. He built your body. He…
Wait a minute.
"Lord Grasp," you breathe out, turning to look at the speaker above the doorway. "Do you... know how to install these?"
There's a light crackle from the speaker that you interpret as a clearing of his throat, followed quickly by an uncertain bravado.
"Of course, Warden! As disparate as these aesthetics may be, this room is still a part of me after all! I just… haven't had the chance to exercise this room's features! It is not as if I have a spare Alchemical to practice upon, after-..."
He pauses, humming for a split second as the room begins to hum, whir, and glow in a way that doesn't reassure you at all.
"Actually, now that I... consider it…" he muses, just loud enough to be heard over the buzzing mechanical sounds of the room coming to life around you, "I don't believe anyone… else would work? How bizarre! I've tried at length to probe this room's capabilities on my own, but I can feel it resonating with your soul now - like a leg that's only now waking up!"
Judging by the feeling of static in the air and Lord Grasp's own hiss of surprise, he may even be getting a familiar pins-and-needles feeling. The thought is amusing enough to wash away the growing nervousness creeping into the back of your mind as the machinery around you fully awakens.
Six circles of light flare up on the ceiling to fully illuminate the room, and the glass mannequins also begin to glow as their brass pedestals crackle with power. The Table and its surgical arms also begin to rotate and spin - causing you to take a step back reflexively - but you note that the tools along the arms are retracting and reforming much like Taylor's hands do when she's working.
As you watch, the Table slowly rotates to a fully-horizontal position, then slides back up to be fully vertical. Once vertical, however, the glass ring on the floor slides up, revealing that it's a glass tube which clicks into place against its counterpart on the ceiling. Only a few moments later, a thick, syrupy clear-green liquid floods up from the bottom of the tube, filling it completely in less than thirty seconds. With the tube full, the Table twitches and collapses its surgical arms into itself, then slides down and disappears into the floor.
Then, after barely a few heartbeats, the entire tube empties out in a shuddering rush of fluid. Once empty, the tube slides down until it clicks into position just barely visible on the floor, and the Table slides back up.
As astonishing as the entire process was… you wouldn't be surprised if it took just under a minute.
"Well that was exhilarating!" Lord Grasp cheers, the speaker crackling to life behind you again. "Most illuminating, as well! Why, it's like I've known how it works my entire life and am only just remembering that I could do this! I surmise I could even complete an entire operation in mere moments! The wonders of the Great Maker never cease to amaze!"
With this, the surgical arms pop back out of the sides of the Table and it swivels to a forty-five-degree angle like before.
"Come, Warden! Let us begin!"
You turn around and give the speaker a flat look. As smooth as the workings you just saw operated… as much as you trust Lord Grasp with your safety…
Well, your mind tends to notice things.
"I hear boys tend to rush with their first time" you reply evenly, "but this isn't a race."
The entire room descends into silence as the machinery around you seems to halt mid-motion and the electricity powering it freezes in the air.
Only for a moment, before it all comes roaring back with a fuming vengeance. The speaker casts a cascade of sparks as Lord Grasp sputters indignantly, and the arms along the Table flail about in distress.
"W-well I-!" the speaker stammers while huffing loudly. "H-how dare you insinuate that I am anything but the most conscientious of companions! The most tender of attendants! The nerve!"
Even with your Clarity smoothing out any bursts of unhelpful emotions, it's a bit of a struggle to keep the smile from splitting your face as you inwardly congratulate yourself on the devastating strike. Turning to walk towards the Table, you roll your eyes and drive the knife in deeper.
"I hope your inexperience won't be a problem, since you couldn't figure out how to work it on your own."
A strangled groan crackles from the speaker behind you, and the arms along the Table cringe and freeze awkwardly. Ignoring both, you stroll up to the Table and experimentally poke where the metal has been recessed in a shape that matches your own form.
It is a morbid, flinch-inducing thought that smothers your good mood, but it floats up nonetheless: you can't make a classic "be gentle, it's my first time" joke because… well, this isn't the first time you've been sliced up had implants shoved into your brain.
As much as you want to run, flee and hide under the pillows of that amazingly-comfortable bed…
Taylor, Prayer… maybe everyone and everything is counting on you not being such a scaredy-cat. Just because it reminds you of… what happened before… doesn't mean that's going to happen again.
Letting out the breath you didn't know you'd been holding, you shrug off the bathrobe and toss it far enough away so it doesn't get caught in the tube.
Without giving yourself time to convince yourself otherwise, you line up your right arm with the indentation and then awkwardly lean-slash-fall back into the rest of the Table's outline. It's not a perfect fit on the first try, so you shift your legs and slide around until your back and butt actually rest comfortably on the incline.
For a moment, nothing happens.
"Lord Grasp?" you wonder aloud, blinking and trying to lower your eyes to the speaker without moving your head. Is your hair going to get in the way…?
"Just-…" he sighs, initially sounding as if he'd still been holding back retorts from earlier. His tone shifts as the sigh trails off, replaced with something wistful, sad, and sympathetic. "Just a moment, Warden. Are you… sure you're ready?"
You turn your eyes back to ceiling, then eventually close them and muster what's left of your courage.
"No… but go ahead anyway."
A pause.
"Very well," he sighs again, this time punctuated by the whirring sounds of the armatures around the table swivelling to life. "Engaging in three… two… one..."
Before you even have a chance to wince, there is a shock of electricity in the back of your skull-
***
Warm. Calm. Safe.
There's ambient light, but with no obvious point of reference. Are your eyes closed…?
You try to blink, only to realize you don't have eyes.
Or a head.
Or a body.
The realizations instinctively make you want to blink again in surprise, but instead you just sort of… exist.
It feels… like what you remember from your vision of Autochthon. Except instead of an empty void looking out on a massive god-planet, you're just… here. Wherever here is.
"Lord Grasp?"
Somehow, you manage to speak without having a body to make sounds. You even realize it sounds the same to you as your voice does in your head, not the weird way it sounds when you hear yourself in a recording. The harmonic resonance that Clarity gives your voice is also gone…
"Ah! Warden!" Lord Grasp's voice booms from all around you, his relief practically washing over you. "Excellent! Most excellent! Barely any delay in consciousness, and… yes, that shouldn't be as jarring next time. Apologies, I didn't quite use enough power - your soul is…"
He trails off, humming in a way that is once again not reassuring.
"L-Lord Grasp? What do you mean-?"
"Ah, apologies, Warden!" he bounces back. "I must admit that the mysteries and magics of the soul are a bit outside of my area of expertise, but… well, it appears your soul is… connected to something else other than your body? Your sister, perhaps?"
The words come as a shock, but only for a non-existent heartbeat before you're wildly trying to spin around, looking to find this "connection."
"Sakura?!"
You don't spin, because you don't have a body. You don't "look" because you don't have eyes. Instead, you continue to simply exist within a mildly-lit emptiness.
If you didn't feel so safe and warm right now, this would all be very disorienting.
"Now then!" Lord Grasp resumes cheerily, apparently oblivious to your frantic and discombobulated searching. "Let's see about fitting these new charms of yours-…"
A tremor shivers through your bodiless consciousness as you suddenly feel… well, it's almost like you have an ice cream headache and want to throw up at the same time.
"L-Lord Grasp!" you gurgle, spots forming in your vision briefly. "STOP!"
Immediately the sensation cuts out, followed by Lord Grasp's panicked voice.
"Warden! Forgive me, I-... what did I do? I was just following…" he trails off, growing more confused by the second as he rambles on. "Wait. What's this about Charm slots…? Oh, I see, well that's… no… that can't... you can only attune to these Charms with your Personal essence? That's… that's preposterous! For what purpose would the Great Maker handicap your capacity for growth!? None of the other Exalted had any limitation to the number of Charms they could learn!"
You have difficulty understanding what he's talking about, still reeling as you are from the earlier overload of… whatever that was. Your Charms? Attune?
"W-what? Lord Grasp, what's going on? What's wrong?"
"I…" he trails off again, and you can almost feel him shaking his head in dismay, "I apologize again, Warden, but it appears that we have run into a snag: for reasons known only to the Great Maker, it appears that Alchemicals Exalted Charms are an absolute mess. I am unable to simply install these new Charms for you - all of these new Charms require a constant… portion of your Personal essence pool to stop your body from forcibly ejecting them. In short, you will need to trade out some of your current Charms if you wish to install these new ones."
"Oh."
Huh. That… explains the mannequins? If Lord Grasp actually can do all this as quickly as he said before, then this place is really just a kind of... dressing room. For Charms.
Actually, now that you're thinking about it more… this might actually be… nice? You can trade out your Doom Spike and Evil Claws for these other Charms - at least until you've got everything configured and are ready to practice. No more feeling like you have a loaded gun in your hands at all times!
"O-okay!" you manage, liking this idea more and more by the moment. "What are the new Charms?"
Silence.
"Lord Grasp?"
"... oh! Ah, yes… quite," he startles, a wariness in his voice that is causing your non-existent stomach to plummet. "Apologies, Warden, I was just… examining your current Charms, since I never did a good explanation before. It's all quite fascinating, this blend of Artifact and Exalted power! Foremost your Shard of Transcendental Imprisonment looks... it looks... well, actually I do believe I'm going cross-eyed somehow even trying to look at it. How bizarre."
That... doesn't sound reassuring for someone digging around in your brain to be admitting, but the voice rumbles to life again before you can speak up.
"The rest of these are quite more standard-fare, Warden, don't fret! Even if... even if some of these are... a bit… ah..."
You wince.
"Evil?"
"... I was going to say 'severe', my dear." he sighs. "Administrator has the right track: the morality of a weapon is in how it's wielded."
"What about my new Charms?" you sigh, trying to cut him off before he gets it in his head that you shouldn't trade those out. "Are any of them 'severe'?"
There's an odd, shuffling sensation in the back of your mind, and you suspect that if you had physical eyes right now you'd be going cross-eyed.
"Maidens, no," he replies reassuringly, "nothing so blunt. Would you rather I explain them now, or afterwards when you can test them yourself?"
Your formless consciousness projects an imitation of a shrug.
"I need to install them all anyway, I think, but… might as well tell me now?"
Again the flickering in the back of your mind as Lord Grasp clears his throat in a way that makes you think of his scorpion form standing up at a podium, wearing a polo shirt, a sweater-vest, and khakis. You refrain from giggling, somehow.
"First, you have Patriotism-Provoking Display: a Charm that twists the light and shadows around you, making you appear as if you were a stylized statue or poster come-to-life! Like these implements of propaganda, any whom you focus this effect upon will find it harder to resist your requests to support your group. Stylistic and potent, I approve!"
"So I could…" you muse, furrowing your non-existent brow, "...could I use it to help convince people to support the reconstruction in Philadelphia?"
"That… might be too vague, if I'm understanding this Charm's intent correctly. Perhaps if you asked for support for your Assembly? Hmmm. Now that I consider it, Glenn Chambers mentioned something called a 'charity gala'? Apparently your organization requires more funding than your government can provide, which took me quite a while to comprehend I must admit."
You have no face, but you must blanche.
"I… don't think I should be mind-controlling people to make them give us their money, Lord Grasp."
"It's not mind control, Warden," Lord Grasp fumes, and you think you just heard a thump of a oversized claw on something in the background. "What is it with you Earth-born that you insist that anything that affects the mind is equivalent to an unnatural, unresistable compulsion?! Social Charms like this merely enhance your argument, they don't override any capacity for rational thought in your opponent!"
You shrink back at the frustration washing over you from Lord Grasp's tirade, enough to at least… consider that he might have a point. After all, the PRT didn't say your Background Charm was bad even though you're pretty sure it helps you be persuasive. Except… didn't Taylor say that your Background charm was just visuals and sound effects only? It didn't actually influence people directly?
"So… someone would be able to resist this?"
"Yes," he sighs, "that is what I'm saying, my dear, and what Lord Chambers had difficulty believing. I am given to understand that these… 'parahuman' powers are akin to Perfect, irresistible effects, so I can somewhat understand the precedence of concern, but you and your Assembly should at least know the difference!"
"Would-... would someone be able to resist me if I used this?"
"Of cour-"
He pauses.
"Ah…" he coughs, "well… I… believe that would be… hmm."
Again, you feel that shuffling in the back of your mind.
"I confess that this facility gifts me with quite a bit of insight into just how capably the Great Maker designed this body of yours, and combined with the Excellency-analogue Charms you have installed…"
He coughs again, this time much more nervously.
"Frankly, my dear, there shouldn't be a mortal capable of saying 'no' to you if you put your mind to it - and that is before you begin exercising your more situation-specific Charms. Even Enduring Order Administrator and First Prayer of Perfection are unlikely to be capable of resisting your casual capacity for persuasion."
…
"Oh."
It's… so weird. You've heard it's typical for girls to want the power to convince anyone to do what they say, but… you never did? Even if you didn't do much of the talking - that was Sakura's job - you still liked having to argue your point. Your dad always said that debating something was the best way to understand it…
"The 'Excellency' Charms? Those are the super-persuasion Charms I can't turn off, right?" you wonder aloud. "Can you… uninstall those?"
Silence.
"No."
His voice is firm, authoritative in a way you haven't heard from him before.
"I will not aid your misguided attempts at handicapping yourself, Warden, when your ostensible allies are so determined to do it for you."
...But...! No...!
"You don't understand, Lord Grasp!" you plead, flailing into the mildly-lit abyss. "It's-... it's not the same here as it was back then! Things are different! If I can't turn it off, the PRT won't let me-"
"You do whatever you want, whatever you need to do," the abyss growls back, "not only because you are now working with the PRT's true masters, not only because you are one of the few individuals working to stop multiple reality-terminating apocalypses, but because you are not their slave."
FOR YOU ARE EXALTED.
The Vision flashes before your eyes for barely a moment, but... it's enough.
Growing up is hard.
You miss Sakura.
Wherever she is, you hope she's having an easier time than you are.
"... okay."
Lord Grasp lapses into silence for a bit, a feeling of regret mixing into the constant, buoyant sensations of warmth and safety that surround you here.
"... Very well," he sighs, then pauses for a little bit longer. When he resumes, however, some of his earlier energy starts to leak back into his tone. "Let's continue with… ah, yes: Interpolative Syntax Emulator!"
***
Going through the rest of your new charms goes much more smoothly, save for one more hiccup at the end, and Lord Grasp's excitement at being able to interface directly with Exalted Charms eventually manages to infect you again. As for the Charms themselves...
Interpolative Syntax Emulator is basically a Universal Translator, including allowing you to mimic accents, except you have to listen or read a new language for an hour before it kicks in. Probably your most unarguably-helpful Charms, since Lord Grasp says it probably works like the other Exalted versions he saw and it'll let you understand any language - which means you can probably help out Prayer's new recruits when Cauldron delivers them, writing down their language so that Dragon can make a translator for them like she did for Old Realm. Outside of that, though… you probably won't keep it installed all that often once everything is configured.
Conceptual Entropy Module is the first of your two new Charms that the PRT is probably going to panic about, because it lets you effectively make an entire organized group completely stop caring about something. Agenda Recalibration Protocols, on the other hand, can slightly change the opinion of an entire organized group on something. Lord Grasp warned that while he had limited exposure to these types of sweeping social Charms, they often had catastrophic side-effects if not used excruciatingly carefully.
When you tried to clarify the difference between the two Charms, an example from your old home came up: the Empire Eighty-Eight. According to Lord Grasp, if you only spent a few hours over the course of an entire month, with the first Charm you could get them to stop hating non-Aryans, while the second would… well, Lord Grasp said that you could probably get them to twist their "eradicate non-whites" philosophy to "out-breed non-whites."
As much as that made you laugh at first, he then went on to explain that would likely make the group turn all of their females into nothing but breeding stock... and then they'd start pushing that philosophy outwards...
Which made you realize that, yes, you apparently can make the PRT stop caring about mind control effects... but then they'd also stop caring about all the supervillains using mind control powers. Which means they'd stop caring about the Simurgh and all those quarantine zones.
… You're going to talk with Taylor before you try using either of these Charms.
As for Perfected Lotus Matrix…
"...Oh dear."
You'd blink if you could. That mumble sounded like Sakura after you broke Grandma's urn.
"...what?"
Flip, flip, flip in the back of your mind.
"Just-… just a moment, Warden."
… you don't… feel any different? Besides the obnoxious rustling that's now making you remember how colors taste.
"Is something wrong, Lord Grasp?"
"No! No, of course not!"
Flip, flip, flip…
"... Mmmmaybe? It's not my fault, of course, just…"
Flip, flip, flip…
"... What... did you do?"
"Nothing!" he exclaims, and bizarrely you almost feel the sensation of your brain being slammed shut in frustration. "I inserted everything into it's proper place! It's just… well…" he pauses for a moment, making a snort-like grunt that you're pretty sure scorpions can't manage.
"There are two problems. The most dire is that… I don't believe you'll ever be able to remove it."
"O...kay," you draw out, more confused than upset at this news. Abstractly you realize this limits your Charm options now, but… "...but what does it do?"
"Ah! Welll!" he perks up, tone changing back to his usual cheer. "It appears that the artificial Alchemical form is unsuited to natural development of supernatural Martial Arts, which themselves are natural fusions and extensions of the mind, body, and soul. The Perfected Lotus Matrix appears to overcome this limitation - please don't ask me how it does this - and acts as as a library for any Martial Arts Charms that you may learn or develop on your own!"
You'd scowl if you had a face.
"Martial Arts Charms? Are those different than my normal Charms?"
"Quite, dear Warden! Martial Arts Charms are not Artifact-Charm fusions like the rest of your panoply, but rather are pure expressions of your soul's understanding of your body, mind, and the world around you. Simply put, they are clustered into Styles - think of them as you would a tree branch, with Charms either working alongside or building on top of founding Charms - which themselves vary in power: Terrestrial, Celestial, and Sidereal."
"So… each Style has its own Charms? What happens if you learn all of a Style's Charms? Are you stuck?"
"Yes and no - as far as I am aware, at least. I have never seen multiple, distinct Styles share Charms... though there was one Terrestrial style I heard about that allowed for branching schools of enlightenment at its higher stages," he muses, before ramping up in energy again. "Regardless, this is why I am so excited for you, Warden, for herein lies the path for you to ascend past your artificial limitations: there appears to be no limit to the number of Styles your Perfected Lotus Matrix can hold!"
Though his enthusiasm is as infectious as ever, you still reflexively try to lean back from the overly-eager explanation.
"That's… good?" you allow, which gets an impression of a bobbing head in return. "How do I learn new Styles?"
A halting pause.
"Ah. Well, you see, Warden," he starts again, much more cautiously this time, "this is the second concern: you have a Style already encoded within the Charm… except I cannot understand it."
"That's… bad?"
"... perrrrhaps, yes... if... it is a Sidereal Martial Art Style."
Again, you fail to frown due to critical lack of face.
"Those were one of the other types of Exalted, right? They had the most powerful Martial Arts Charms?"
"Yes. And anyone else that... tried to learn their styles…"
"...yes?"
"... they exploded."
…
"...That was why you were worried you couldn't uninstall the Charm."
"Yes, Warden."
"... and... when you say... 'exploded'...?"
A pause.
"...The crater in which we first appeared?"
"Oh."
"Bigger."
"Okay."
"I wasn't there to witness the first attempt myself, of course-"
"I believe you."
"A-ah, of course, Warden," he coughs. "Not that I truly believe that the Great Maker would so erroneously doom his own salvation! You are Starmetal itself - the magical metal of Maidens' Chosen! If there were any other type of Celestial Exalted capable of reaching the tiers of enlightenment only thought reserved to-"
"You can stop now, Lord Grasp."
Your mechanical companion makes a nervous, strangled grunt, but you are oddly detached from his concern.
You've had a bomb in you before, after all.
Except… you don't quite think this is the case, here. You're not sure if it's a gut feeling - since you don't have a gut at the moment - or just some lurking understanding that you haven't unlocked yet due to your unaligned charms, but you could almost call it…
Faith.
It's not the mind-shattering epiphany of your Vision or the bones-deep passion that you can tell Prayer has, just… a quiet reassurance that no, Autochthon didn't actually give you (or Lord Grasp) a bomb to accidentally put in your own body.
"Which Charms did you remove?"
There is a feeling of bafflement that washes over you.
"...Pardon, Warden?"
"You said I didn't have space for all the new charms and my old charms," you explain evenly, a disembodied consciousness floating inside a warm, safe, mildly-lit abyss. "Which did you remove?"
"Ah, I see! Yes, Warden, quite astute!" he rambles, his own nervousness fading as he goes. "Patriotism-Provoking Display, Interpolative Syntax Emulator, Agenda Recalibrating Protocols, and Conceptual Entropy Module all require a single mote of your Personal essence pool to attune, while your Perfected Lotus Matrix requires… permanently… two motes. To make room, I removed two one-mote Charms - Transcendent Brutality Programming and Programmed Catechism Rebuttal - and two two-mote Charms - Personality Override Spike and Multifunction Hypodermic Apparatus."
"Oh," you note distantly, before you feel your attention gravitating towards that last Charm. "I… haven't had a chance to figure out all the things my Drug Spike Charm could do. Can you see all the different things it can make?"
A pause.
Flip, flip, flip...
"Maidens."
That sounded more like an awed expletive than a grimaced curse. Hmm.
"Can you write down what they are and what they do?"
...
"...O-oh! Yes, Warden," he mumbles after a moment.
Flip, flip, flip...
"I… think you may like having this Charm equipped, Warden."
Then he giggles.
… you are no longer dispassionately unconcerned with what is going on.
You are now deeply concerned. For your sanity.
"Lord Grasp…"
"Oh, don't worry," he giggles again, "you'll see. I can even put it back in if you want..."
…
It is imperative you get out of here before he can put that Charm back in.
"I'm getting out now, Lord Grasp."
"Oh fine," he pouts, which immediately makes you wonder if that was an act just to rile you up and distract you from the potential impending existence-ending explosion.
As nervous, anxious, and tired as that last thought makes you feel, the Faith you felt earlier still lingers.
The Great Maker saved you. He's not going to blow you up-
***
Half-coughing, half-vomiting the liquid from the tank out of sheer reflex, you slide off the angled table in a tangle of limbs and stare vacantly at the steel ceiling as your consciousness…
… your soul…
…
Ah.
You suppose that... explains... many things.
Which only makes you boggle at the larger question: why didn't you just start with this installed?
Grah! What the flip, Maker!?
"-arden…? Warden!"
Lord Grasp's worried calls crackle through the speaker, bringing you out of your reverie.
"I-…" you cough, automatically bringing the back of your hand to your mouth to delicately cover it because that way makes you appear... less imposing.
"I'm okay, Lord Grasp," you try again, bowing your head demurely as you carefully lean on the table to stand. "Thank you."
There is a long, pregnant pause as you regain your unsteady footing - your sudden enlightenment bringing into sharp clarity just how frustratingly clumsy you actually are. You're going to need to fix that, but… how? You remember Taylor saying that Alchemical bodies don't physically improve with training, but maybe Tinkertech can help?
Also, you need long, flowing sleeves on everything now, don't you? And… oh, Maker, your Doom Spike and Drug Spike Charms are perfect for this Style. You think you could even work your Evil Claws into it, as horrific that thought is.
Siiiiiigh.
"...Are you… certain, Warden?"
"Yes, Lord Grasp," you sigh, turning to smile genuinely at the speaker above the doorway. "I feel… really, good, actually. Like I've figured a whole bunch of things out… and some things that I didn't even know I was wondering."
"Ah," he snorts, laughing abruptly. "Now that sounds most familiar! Now come, don't leave me in suspense! What Style did the Great Maker bestow upon you?"
You blink, tilt your head cutely and beam happily.
"Nothing!"
***
You expected Lord Grasp to complain about your evasive answers regarding your new Style, but it only takes a few denials for him to drop the subject rather abruptly… and with a hint of nervousness that unsettles you in turn, almost as if he doesn't want to know anymore.
Not that you actually do have a new Style. Lord Grasp must have just been imagining things, what with his inexperience and all.
Because if you did have a new Style, well… you're skilled at fighting now, sure, but way too clumsy to be a front-line fighter. You're supposed to be the PR girl, right? If you're going to fight people, wouldn't it be better if… well… they didn't know you were fighting them? That way you could talk and fight at the same time!
Good thing there is no such thing as Quiet Gauge Style, so no one has to worry about that.
...
You can't wait to not try these moves out on Prayer. She definitely won't see them coming. As for Taylor...? Ugh, you probably can't fool her. Darn.
Though… what are you going to tell the PRT? They're not likely to play along and will want hard measurements and details. Which don't exist, of course.
Worse, Taylor and Cauldron made it clear that anything you do say to people on Earth will eventually get noticed and leaked, because parahuman powers are bullpoop and the Simurgh is out to get you.
Might as well ask Taylor what to do when you see her next. Until then…
… Sakura was always better at talking, but even then the both of you never really lied. Sure you'd find ways to change the subject or give out a little information and let people draw their own (wrong) conclusions, but bald-faced lies? Mother always said they'd come back to bite you eventually…
Maybe...
Maybe... that idea… doesn't have to clash completely with the enlightenment you've gained? You see things differently now, but the more you think about it… could you ever-
Ugh, just trying to think about this hypothetical style in a non-deceptive way makes your head hurt. Not that you would talk about a Style that doesn't exist, but if you even tried… could you?
"Warden?"
You flutter your sleeve-covered hand absently, waving off the concern as you cover your pained expression with the other.
"It's… nothing, Lord Grasp. Just some… worries about what I'm going to tell the PRT."
The eight gemstones above the mirror spin in a way that conveys an eye-roll, the animated bath robe that is helping put on your actual dress throwing its 'arms' up in exasperation.
"Do we need to have this discussion again, Warden?"
You sigh. "No, Lord Grasp."
"Because it sounds quite like we must have this discussion again."
"That's okay, Lord Grasp."
The empty arms prop themselves up on the empty hips, then the whole robe somehow gives you a put-upon look despite being without a head.
The silent staring contest with a bathrobe ends when you decide to finally Glare at it, causing the robe to raise its arms up to signal that it is just done with all this.
"Well then, Warden - what is your plan? We were off to see Administrator before we were so abruptly side-tracked by those knock-off Viziers."
You wince again, sighing as you return to your previous concerns.
"I… think I need to act like I haven't talked with Taylor yet today. I can probably explain why I'm only coming out now because of our testing out your Charm… bank? Vault?"
"No, neither of those, I believe," he hums, filling the room with a low vibration as the bathrobe adopts a thinking pose. "Armory? No… perhaps… ah, yes! A 'vat'! That is the word that has been on the tip of my mandible this whole time! "
"Your vat, then," you giggle, watching the animated robe flutter about before frowning again in thought. "If I transport right to New York, though, I probably won't be able to meditate again there for a while. So… instead of transporting to Brockton and flying to Philadelphia, maybe… I can just meditate there?"
The bathrobe settles down, Lord Grasp growing quiet for a moment before grunting in concern.
"I could not help but notice the telltale signs of significant battles having being waged there, Warden, and Administrator's recollection of her own battle revealed that these... 'Endbringers' are drawn to that stage."
"R-Right," you groan, shaking your head. "Sorry, I-"
"It is perfect!"
…
You look at the bathrobe, then back to the gemstone eyes, then back to the bathrobe.
"What?"
"Exalted are the grandest weapons ever designed!" Lord Grasp booms joyously, the robe opening its empty arms wide. "If you are to wage a war for control of this new reality, what better place to align your own armaments than the beachhead itself?"
You blink.
Right. Siege Pagoda. Honestly, it's easy to forget sometimes.
"I… don't think I can meditate inside, Lord Grasp."
"Ah," he hums again. "That makes things more difficult, then. Perhaps… just outside my gate? If you are not to be within the protections of my defensive Charms, at the very least you must be within clutching range."
You aren't certain how to feel about that mental image.
"So you can... pick me up and toss me inside?"
The headless bathrobe nods.
"Naturally."
You close your eyes and sigh.
"Just… help me get out of this dress."
***
The sun is high above when you float out into the air high above Brockton Crater again. The noon-ish sky is largely cloudless, and the cool sea breeze is almost enough to disperse the stench of sulfur and other toxins wafting up from the artificial lake below.
What remains of your former home is still a ruined, ash-stained hellscape. What parts of the city aren't completely buried under the crater's edge are either sunken into hollow, water-filled pits from the boiled-away aquifers, or smashed flat, melted, then left to rust and ruin.
Have any of the other Wards been back here yet? You know there was at least a few weeks where anyone entering the area had to wear hazmat suits to protect against the toxic fumes, but maybe that's mostly gone now? Except for over the lake, that is.
Peering down from your vantage point in Lord Grasp's palanquin - a few hundred yards above the crater - you still can make out the black orb hanging motionless in the air above the lake's center. You can also see the remote-controlled safety-net drone hovering a few yards below the large ball, which makes you wonder if the terrifyingly-powerful spirit dragged it back over there or if that's just its default position.
Now that you think about it…
"Lord Grasp, do-… do you think he'll mind me meditating here?"
Your mechanical companion is silent, though he rotates just enough to let him get the black ball in his peripheral vision.
"... I… presume" he starts, slowly, "that Lord Iris will... inform us if we are distracting him."
The two of you float there for a bit.
Aside from the distant sound of waves crashing along Brockton Bay's coastline, it's quiet up here.
You cough politely into your fist.
"Y-yes, Warden. Let us begin."
Gliding down on his self-generated puffy cloud, Lord Grasp brings you down approximately near where the safety-net drone dropped you off on the crater's edge before - this area having been packed down by something (probably Taylor and Dragon) to allow for PRT planes and helicopters to land.
Thankfully, that means there's just enough space for Lord Grasp to stretch out.
The process is as mesmerizing as ever, though you note it takes a bit longer than the few times you've seen him unfold in your Safe Space. The way he shudders and shakes his claws in distaste after fully finishing confirms your initial guess as to why.
"Horrid, Warden. Simply horrid. I will not rush you, Warden, but… well, no, I will rush you. Maidens this is so much more uncomfortable - I'm uncertain I can sustain this form for longer than… a month, at the longest. Less if we face actual combat." He shudders and shakes his claws again. "Oh, how embarrassing..."
As much as you want to think he's just showing off again, the genuine embarrassment and shame in his voice silences your impulse to giggle at his antics.
"Are you going to be okay, Lord Grasp?"
Clearing his throat - …would that be the receiving room? - he settles down firmly into the packed dirt and stone and digs his six, massive legs into the ground. After a few seconds of flexing each to make certain he's anchored into the earth, the large gemstone eyes above his front gate glimmer with power.
Then the giant crossbow-gun pops out of the top of the chimney in the back and starts scanning the area.
"Well enough to serve, Warden," he grunts, then uses his bus-sized right claw to poke and flatten the dirt just in front of his wide-open front gate. Finding it steady, the sun glints off his large gemstone eyes in such a way as to make him appear to be sizing you up approvingly.
"Shall we get to work?"
***
Though you weren't around for all of Taylor's meditation sessions, you did at least catch her first. Thankfully she'd somehow managed to prevent an anima flare, which would have been a problem given that your group had been stuck in the back of a PRT van leaving New York at the time.
Knowing what you know now - that meditation usually causes an anima flare - your group should have probably told Taylor to just wait.
Her anima's lack of a 'friend or foe' check isn't what brings that meditation session to mind, however; instead, you're remembering how all her charms started popping out of her body.
Besides the slightly different perspective you've gained from getting an injection of magical ninjutsu directly into your brain and soul, you don't… feel much different? Given Taylor's own comments, you'd think that having four of your original charms swapped out for five new ones would have fixed the "alignment" problem.
No… there's still that slight discomfort in the back of your head, like wearing too-tight leggings with too-big underwear: something you only notice if you move in a specific way or pay attention to it. In fact, you wouldn't have noticed at all without Prayer and Taylor specifically asking whether you could feel any kind of irregularity during the PRT tests.
Oddly, it was the absence of that feeling that stopped you from trying to meditate earlier today.
Which… makes sense. Your charms know how to work in a fully-Essence environment just fine, after all - it's all this completely normal Earth reality that your magical robot powers have problems handling.
… which sounds like something you've read in one of those bad capefics about Taylor, actually. Weird. Maybe you should look that author up after all this.
Still, you're probably oversimplifying it since all this magic stuff is more Taylor's Thing. Along with Science, Tinkering, and Bugs. And Cooking.
Ugh, as much as you like just thinking about stuff you've never been good at meditation… or is that why you're bad? Too much thinking?
Right. Charms popping out when Taylor meditated before. That means… she... unattuned them? Somehow? You're still not really sure what "attunement" even means or how it works. So maybe… start there?
Eyes still closed, you shift from your seiza position on the loose dirt and bring the bottoms of your feet together in one of the stretching positions that Bladedancer had you do during warm-ups. It's not especially comfortable, but if your charms are going to stop popping out of your everywhere then you'd rather keep as much space free as possible - your butt being largely free of Charms except for those glowing circles on the sides, while your calves and thighs have some glowing circuitry and metal reinforcements that you wouldn't want getting trapped.
Okay, space secured. Now… maybe focus on your energy grids and power lines?
Just wondering about them brings the mental images to the fore, much more easily than your previous mediation efforts. Because of your time in the vat? Maybe. Still-...
Oh, you can still see your old charms that are inside Lord Grasp!
(You will allow yourself this one instance, otherwise you're just going to keep getting distracted: Lewd.)
Right. Traded-in Charms still visible. Though… they're not as… bright?
You have the two spiral hexagons with varying amounts of power inside them (zero and lots), glowing wires trailing down from them attached to your various charms. Some wires are glowing like strips of LED lights, connecting to the nearby buzzing nodes of power that are your (you guess) equipped charms, while other, dimmer wires trail down further to your unequipped, and un-lit charms.
Huh. Now that you're looking at all of it again, you can see they're not in the same order as before. Is that because Lord Grasp shuffled them around when he was stuffing things inside you-
LEWD okay last one. For real.
…
You know, you're surprised Lord Grasp hasn't actually hit on you given how much he talks about lewd stuff. Though his stories about his previous owners didn't seem to imply that he was interested in them, either, so maybe he's only into… other... buildings? How would that even… work?
...
Going back to Charms now! Let's see, glowing power lines annnnd- phew, got it back!
Uhhh… right, what were you doing? Oh, yeah, the dimmer ones… are unattuned? Maybe? That sounds right, since they're not equipped.
So… how do you… unequip your current ones without having Lord Grasp tear them out? Hmm…
Maybe… focus on the charms themselves?
Actually, maybe instead of thinking of them just like hazy floating balls of glowing blue energy… try to focus on what they actually look like? You've already seen the five that Lord Grasp put in, so you should be able to figure those-
Five of the hazy orbs start to vibrate, but as you focus your attention on one at a time, they stretch and warp… slowly… into…
Glass mannequins, standing atop glowing blue pedestals - each's respective wire plugged into its glowing base.
… makes sense? You can see the charms within them like before, except any exposed circuitry, panels, or studs are actually glowing like you're sure they are now if you were to look at yourself in the mirror. Looking at each in turn...
Huh. Perfected Lotus Matrix is the charm you noticed earlier as a circular disk at the back of the skull. Why does that seem… familiar-?
"I know Kung Fu."
Right. Siiiigh.
Another really weird coincidence to add to the pile.
As you're focusing on it, however, you notice it's not just a stand-alone Charm - it's actually got some sort of overlapping starmetal-and-adamant filagree set into the skull-facing side, their combined designs forming some kind of fractal-like flower. Maybe if you try pushing a little bit more essence into it you can see what it does?
Mentally, you pull at the spiral of power above and drag it down the line towards the charm… except… there's… resistance…?
Whatever, just shove-
The whole charm surges and crackles with power, blasting away any other conscious thought as-
-two familiar hue three nothing to see four out the door-
-insight, mantras, katas, forms, mnemonics, positions, attitudes too much too much-
…ssssSSSS-FZZT
Like one of Chris' tinkertech projects overloading and fizzing in a show of sparks, the entire Perfected Lotus Matrix Lotus Charm - and its submodule, Lotus Filament Conduction - glows incandescent in your mind's eye and then winks out, cutting off the torrent of enlightenment that was threatening to turn your brain into double-speak-filled mush.
The line running down from your smaller spiral of power is completely dark for a long moment of absent thought…
… but then one hexagon fills… two hexagons fill...
CLICK-VMMM-ZZZZzzzz...
But before you have any chance to panic (or have any thoughts whatsoever) about damaging your Charm, the two newly-refilled hexagons in your smaller spiral empty out again with a 'On-button'-like click, causing a rush of power down the darkened line.
...aaaand you can think again.
Ugh.
Ow.
What...? What was that? Why… couldn't you even think...?
...
Oh. Right. You weren't supposed to be able to remove that Charm.
Huh.
Well… now that you're looking at it more critically, you can tell that the circuit running from your Personal essence reserve looks far more solid and vibrant than the others - the only possible exception being the one you're pretty sure runs to your Safe Space Charm, because that one looks like a firehose instead of a circuit.
You… aren't looking forward to repeating what you just did with that one. Probably… save it for last? Mmmhm.
Alright. Not as… painless as what Taylor did, but it… worked?
No slight headache from thinking too hard about the Style you definitely don't have, so you're pretty sure that counts as "working as intended." Ah, and… well, if you had been having trouble with a Martial Arts Style encoded in your charm… then you would probably be relieved at being able to remember the actual names of the moves that Style might have!
Some pretty amusing names… and some… kind of disturbing names… huh.
Good thing that Style doesn't exist, because the PRT would definitely have reason to panic if it did. Not that you would ever use it's ability to cause people to suddenly dissolve into a screaming puddle of corrosive acid weeks or months after you hit them…
… Autochthonia isn't a very nice place, is it? Taylor said it was hard for the humans there to make a living in a world made of metal, lightning, steam, crystal, oil, and smoke, but…
Well, a theoretical Style based around looking harmless while hitting things with delayed-action poisons and effects... would only be useful against other people.
And then there's your Personality Override Spike. And Transcendent Brutality Programming. Heck, your Rogue Cell Isolation Protocols, Conceptual Entropy Module, and Agenda Recalibration Protocols Charms are pretty terrifying, too, if not as blatantly evil-sounding.
Alchemical Charms are designed by humans and made by humans, not by Autochthon, you remember Taylor saying during your PRT tests.
But… you remember the drawings Taylor had of their cities! They looked huge and tough and awesome… not like what you'd imagine nations of super-evil people would make. If everything was twisted and wrong there, they'd look more like… China or North Korea, right? Things falling apart everywhere, the highest government members living in luxury while everyone else suffers and dies in poverty…
Still, even if the humans living in Autochthon aren't some hundred-million-strong crazy-evil cult-nation, your Charms make it pretty clear that life is… not good over there.
And Sakura might be over there.
Would she be an Alchemical too? Starmetal? She'd probably have the best chance of the two of you to make it...
… huh? One of your Charms is lighting up on its own. It's… one you haven't really used before? You don't think so, at least, but it's also one of those "always on" charms so you may just not have noticed: Hierarchical Dogma Lock.
What did Taylor say this one did? Umm… makes it… hard for people to convince you to do something? Something something "greater good"? Ugh, you were too busy having a meltdown from learning about your charms so now you can't fix your charms!
Hmm… it's not glowing anymore now that you're not thinking about Sakura? Well, now it is again but… that doesn't quite feel right? It's not Sakura that was triggering it but… uh… your memories about Sakura? That's…. closer?
Trying to think about how she would be doing in Autochthon's body? ...No?
So, less about Sakura herself and more… your past with Sakura? Hmm… closer.
Your life with Sakura?
Your life before?
...sss-zzt...
The Charm pulses with energy as a slight pulse of energy seems to flow through it, causing the vague blue orb to stretch out into another glass mannequin. Inside the transparent copy of your own body, you notice this charm is also installed in your brain - making you wonder just exactly how everything actually fits in there without squeezing your brain into the size of a raisin - looking like three tiny white-metal circuit boards lined up together.
Once of which is glowing much brighter than the others now. Huh.
Oh.
You are Saki Kurosawa.
Right. You know Taylor has had to deal with people doubting whether she was actually the same person, but you've just… never thought otherwise? She's Taylor, and you're Saki. It's really not that hard.
The first little circuitboard buzzes faintly, apparently... satisfied? Is it… helping reinforce that idea? Odd, and maybe a little overkill, but whatever - this Charm's line seems to be barely drawing any power at all, so it doesn't feel like it's taking up resources you could use for another Charm. Now… what are the other two circuitboards doing?
…
No thoughts pop into your head by themselves, so… are they blank? Do you need to give them ideas to reinforce?
Right. Well, the obvious one is that the Charm should make sure no one can convince you to give upon Sakura. Get to it, Charm!
…
Nothing? Huh. Why…
Uh… maybe something to do with… "greater good"? Concepts? Ideals?
Well, smut is obviously for the greater good-
...sss-zzt...
… you do not feel at all ashamed by how easy that was, because yes, smut is truly the way to the hearts of the people. And their minds. And their pants.
Now for a third ideal… hrmmmm.
As much as you want to make it one of your ships, that… probably is a waste right now, since you get the feeling this isn't something you can easily change. So as funny as it would be to have bullshit magic reinforcing the truth of "Weld/Taylor OTP" or "Broadcast/Kid Win OTP" you should probably use this power to help the rest of the Assembly somehow (...more than getting Taylor a boyfriend would help the Assembly, which… would probably not be insignificant).
Well, that does bring up Taylor's - and Cauldron's - problem of losing sight of what it means to be human in the face of all these impending disasters. As worried you're getting that Taylor is on the fast-track to the deep-end, maybe… that can be something you focus on? Not just for Taylor, but… in general?
Ironically, you're reminded of a line from an Alexandria/Eidolon fic: "The Big Picture is made up of lots of Little Pictures, after all. Without them, there'd be no Picture left."
...sss-zzt...
Just as the third circuitboard buzzes with energy and starts to settle down, you grab hold of another few motes from your Peripheral pool and shove them down… down… down-
…ssssSSSS-FZZT
CLICK-VMMM-ZZZZzzzz...
...phew. No mind/soul-tearing, no dangerous overload of epiphanies and enlightenment, just a more comfortable feeling with the Charm and a better understanding of how it works - like that it's got three installations because of its Multimodal Duty Integrator submodule, instead of just being able to support one ideal. Better still, apparently you can use its Herald Infuser submod to give someone else that shares one of your three ideals the same boost your Charm gives you like how Taylor gives people her Thinker boost!
... might be a while before you can get the rest of the Assembly behind your second ideal, but it's a noble cause - they'll come around eventually.
Alright… now that you've got proof that you're not going to be frying your own brain for each charm you fix, time to move on to the next one. Now where to start?
Industrial Survival Frame? Hmm, well, both Taylor and Prayer have this one so it's as good as any to start diving into…
***
Slowly opening your eyes, the breath you release tingles your teeth and tongue - as if the very air you had been keeping within yourself was charged with the static from your anima. It's a cool, soothing effect, though you can't help but notice the metallic taste in your mouth and the scratchy feeling in your throat.
You're glad you saved your Safe Space Charm for last. That… hurt, but the power boost at the end… what a rush!
"Warden?"
The world around you looks roughly the same as you last saw it - save the sun having moved a few dozen degrees in the sky - but Lord Grasp's slightly-distracted tone instantly causes you to come to full alert.
"Yes, Lord Grasp?" you smile, taking your time to rise to your feet in an uncaring, unthreatening manner. Just as you thought, your voice is a bit hoarse. "Is- is everything alright? How long was I out?"
He hums absently, shifting his legs to pull them up and out of the ground with minimal disturbance to the surrounding rocks and dirt.
"Mmmm… roughly three hours, my dear, but it was largely uneventful apart from your occasional horrific screams of pain and Lord Iris inhaling your totemic anima from his spot over the lake."
...uh... what-?
As you blink, he nonchalantly gestures upwards with one of his enormous claws.
"Oh, and we have an audience."
Vacantly following his claw with your eyes, you turn your head back around and look up. Odd, you don't notice anything- oh, you see him!
You wave and smile even wider, since Legend can probably see your face from up there.
Sure enough, the small figure in the distance - only recognizable due to Legend's iconic pale-blue-and-pure-white bodysuit - glides down, slowing to hover a few dozen feet above the ground. His own smile is one of relief and humor, though there's a tension in his body that makes you suspect that Lord Grasp is making him nervous.
The fact that he's hovering just outside of what you think is the range of Lord Grasp's claws is more evidence to that thought.
"Saki!" he grins, uncrossing his right arm from his chest to wave in greeting. "How was your meditation?"
"A-ah," you exhale, half-laughing awkwardly as your grin grows strained. "It was… good! Was I really… screaming?"
His grin grows strained as well, though he shakes his head as he snorts in good humor now that you appear to not be in pain or trouble. "Dragon called me to let me know you were meditating here, but I was busy dealing with a fight between the Adepts and the Housiers. I got here about ten minutes ago and I could hear you all the way up there and you were throwing off small arcs of lightning. I was worried, but…"
His half-hidden gaze tilts up and to the right as he nods to Lord Grasp.
"Well, the sparkling building-scorpion seemed to be taking it alright so I guessed it was just something you were handling on your own. I was actually about to head back because you'd settled down again, but then your 'anima' stopped and..."
Then he shrugs as if to say 'so here we are.'
"Oh, I'm sorry," you bow slightly, clasping your hands in front of you at the same time. "I didn't mean to interrupt what you were doing. A-and I'm sorry that I… ran away last night."
There's a barely-noticeable flicker of hesitance from Legend as his head tilts towards Lord Grasp again, then he floats over to you and lands on the ground before putting a hand on your shoulder in reassurance.
"There's no need to apologize, Saki. I can tell you're trying your best, and that's all that matters."
Your face heats up as you smile in embarrassment, nodding in relief... as you inwardly pout that Legend doesn't want to join the Assembly.
It's not fair! He's just… so cool!
… but no, you're not going to try to convince him if he doesn't want it on his own. He's got a family, right? That… that would be something Cauldron would do. Ugh.
Wait, Legend knows about Cauldron because they made him, right? Does he know about everything they do? He has to know that Alexandria is Chief Director Costa-Brown, at least, which…
It… feels like a betrayal? That he's been lying all this time to everyone? Maybe you should ask…
...no, that… that feels like something to ask Taylor about first, since you don't even know if Legend knows you know about Cauldron.
Ugh. Conspiracies are dumb.
You shove away the frown that threatens to creep up on your features and instead focus on something much more important: your Charms!
"Oh! Right!" you perk up, grinning happily and bouncing on your toes, "Lord Grasp and I figured out that he has a room where I can switch charms in and out, like Taylor said she could do with Lord Iris! He had five new charms for me to try, and after we figured out that I can't have them all in we swapped out my Doom Spike and Evil Claws to fit the new ones in."
Legend leans back slightly from your exuberance, and you can practically feel his eyebrows raise behind his dark-blue visor.
"Five new powers? That's… quite impressive, Saki. Do you know what they do?"
"Yup!" you nod, though realization drains a bit of your energy and cheer. "Though two of them… are... kinda bad."
"Ah," he sighs, shoulders sagging as his smile grows sad. "I'm sorry to hear that. Should I be worried?"
You shake your head. "N-"
Wait a minute. Legend is… right. Huh.
"Aaaactually," you draw out, frowning as you absently look away while considering the full power you now understand your charms hold. "I… think I could use them to get everyone to stop hating gay people!"
Legend freezes.
"...what?"
You can't help yourself smiling at this excellent idea. Boys Love shouldn't be Forbidden Love!
"They... super-charge me when I'm trying to convince whole groups of people to stop caring about something or think differently about something," you nod, touching your lips in idle thought, "and that'd be a great way to test it!"
Yes… hot, sweaty, guy-on-guy action in the mainstream media! You can see it now-
"Tatsu. Stop."
You blink, looking back to see Legend's mouth set in a thin, stern line as his grip grows firm on your shoulder. Noting that he has your attention again, he nods slowly to emphasize his level tone of voice.
"I… appreciate your interest in helping… accelerate the general state of LGBT acceptance in the world, Tatsu. Honestly, I do. However, using powers to make it happen is not something I'll ever condone. If it doesn't happen naturally, it will never last - and worse, it will give legitimacy to the vocal minorities that fear any kind of change or 'deviancy.'"
… but… it's… they don't-
… Okay, Conceptual Entropy Moduledoes work on other people directly, so… you... guess people could see that as mind control? Ugh, this is exactly what Lord Grasp was arguing with you earlier, except you're on the other side now.
Frowning, you square your shoulders and shake your head firmly.
"It's not forcing people to change, though! It just helps me piece together a better argument, so it's-" ugh, no, can't use Erasmus or Accord! Oh, right... "like… Alexandria! It's a Thinker power, not a Master power!"
His grip lessens, and from the way his mouth relaxes you think you've got him… but then he takes a deep breath and shakes his head.
"I get what you're saying, Saki, and I'm sorry I doubted you like that… but... I suppose it's worth giving you the talk I usually only have with any new, openly-gay Protectorate members or Wards."
Legend sighs, grimacing as he takes his hand back and crosses his arms over his chest again. His voice loses the force you've always heard him with, a shade of weariness settling over the Protectorate paragon.
"It's not public knowledge, but... I've worked with a number of Thinkers and precogs over the years... and we've generally come to the conclusion that America will accept us faster, more permanently if we don't force the issue too much. It's why I don't give speeches at pride parades, as much as I know it would help those that are having a hard time and may need that boost of confidence, that reassurance that things are getting better."
You blink, nodding absently as you recognize the truth in part of that; you've heard that Earth-Aleph is much less tolerant than Bet is, and that it's in large part due to Legend publicly coming out in the 90s. Still, there's a reason that there's still a higher-than-average number of non-straight people having Trigger Events…
Sighing yourself, you see where this is going already. After all, if you actually managed to use either (or both) charms against whole cities… or against the entire US… the change would be pretty rapid.
"I get it," you nod, averting your eyes in thought. As bummed as you are that you couldn't convince Legend of this, you're a little glad he talked you out of it, too. Still, maybe you can still turn this around somehow? "Sorry… I'm... still getting used to having powers like this."
This draws a chuckle from Legend, his body regaining some of its confident energy as he smiles wryly.
"Now there's a familiar phrase if I've ever heard one. Not every Ward is as willing to listen to other people before they start tossing them around, though."
You don't think he means Taylor - he's probably seen a lot of dumb mistakes over the years - but… he probably isn't not thinking of her.
Hmm, you're already getting better at this double-speaking way of thought. You're glad you meditated.
"Oh!" you gasp, because this can work as a good subject change. Turning back to Legend, you let the still-lingering feeling of relief from your meditation widen your smile. "That's right! When I was configuring my charms, I got back my memories of all the places Nowhere and Strider took me before!"
Legend perks up, revealing a wide smile of perfectly-white teeth.
"Really? That's good to hear, Saki - though I heard Nowhere and Strider both enjoyed their time with you before, so they're probably going to be disappointed that they won't have another excuse to repeat the trips."
"A-ah," you giggle, hiding your mouth behind your hands, "they're both funny… in different ways."
You're not going to reveal that Nowhere grudgingly (at first) showed you a few red light districts, or that Sakura and you got Strider hooked on smutty capefics by making him read some of your own. Those who have been inducted into the Halls of Smut shall stand together!
… probably going to need to turn down your prettiness even more for Strider when you talk to him again, though, since he isn't really good around girls.
"A-anyway," you keep going, getting back to your previous thought and cranking up the Maximum Cuteness. Wide eyes, vulnerable body language, hopeful expression… go! "I was wondering: since I can teleport anywhere now… if I could show the other Wards? We… I… didn't get the chance to, before… everything happened."
Legend… slowly… leans back, letting out a tight breath through his nose as his mouth purses in thought.
"You're not…" he finally manages, voice awkwardly tight, "using one of your new powers... are you?"
"No!" you protest, batting your eyes in shock. "That-"
Idea!
"Oh!" you exclaim, holding up a finger, "Wait! Just a second!"
Turning back to the looming structure of Lord Grasp, you extend an arm in the air dramatically, pointing to the heavens.
"Lord Grasp! Dress me!"
The command works a little too well.
"Oh thank the Maidens," Lord Grasp heaves, his gates flying open to vomit forth a tide of cloth, powders, scents, and glittering accessories that nearly bowls you over. "I was this close to just spanking you for going into battle without your proper ornamentation! One more minute and I would have buried the two of you out of sheer embarrassment!"
At least, that's what you think he says. It's hard to hear, getting spun and tossed around by animated lengths of silk and cottons while trying not to choke on the sudden onslaught of creams, powders, and perfumes hitting your face and hair.
You want to make a 'lie back and think of England' joke, but not only would Lord Grasp not get the reference you would get a mouthful of rouge for the effort.
The whirlwind ends as suddenly as it started, though you stop spinning facing out across the Crater Lake and have to turn back to look at Legend again - who has wisely floated a few paces back and is now struggling to hold back a laugh.
Time to show him!
The world around you shifts.
Where there is light, color fades away to leave only pure, inspiring white. Where there is shade, the darkness itself is magnified until it is complete, arresting black. Any gradation between light and shadow disappears, and soft, smooth angles are drawn out into stark, contrasting edges.
As the world transforms into a living, cell-shaded display of power and awe, you augment the effects of Patriotism-Provoking Display even further by using your Radiant Iconography Array.
Combined, you look like a massive black-and-white, stylized mural, upon which you are standing proudly and looking and pointing out into the great horizon - black and white lines radiating from you into the distance. Arranged below you, following your gaze with awe and hope, are the rest of the out-of-costume Philadelphia Wards. Finally, completing the picture is a massive banner hanging in the air over your assembled group, proclaiming your most dire message:
"ONLY YOU CAN GIVE THEM THE VACATION THEY DESERVE!"
And just to hammer it in, you're letting your body shout that same message via your Emotive Aesthetics of the Body Electric charm as you remain stoic and inspiring.
For a while, there is silence.
Cautiously, but without changing your expression or posture, you stop your Background charm from smothering the ambient noise - just to make sure Legend isn't accidentally getting silenced by it as well.
...
You turn your head just enough to see Legend still staring at you, motionless.
"I believe you broke him, Warden," Lord Grasp's voice drifts into your ear, though you hear him stifling a giggle.
Oh.
Whoops.
***
Even if you have Legend's (resigned) support, it's not a matter of popping over to New York and scooping everyone up for an impromptu field trip; the fact that you will be using your "parahuman" abilities to facilitate the travel moves it from an entirely-civilian affair that the PRT would have no oversight over… to something that requires paperwork.
This is further complicated by the other Brockton Bay-native Wards being in the (expedited) final stages of adoption or emancipation, so in the end it turns out that the PRT has complete veto rights over all of you until those processes complete.
Except for Aisha.
Well, Taylor too, but she's opting out of the field trip. Apparently that's making her Youth Guard representative even more upset, but Taylor didn't sound too put out about it.
So while everyone else is going to be spending the next day or two convincing their various Youth Guard and PRT representatives - except for the Philadelphia-native Wards, who have actual guardians to convince - to sign the glorified Field Trip Permission Form, you now have an excuse to go with Aisha to speak with her brother about allowing her to also become your next Assembly member.
It… reminds you that Gloria Sato offered to be your legal guardian and stay with her in New York after Behemoth's attack, but… Sakura and you had always wanted to get to know the Brockton Bay Wards - maybe even be ones - and… well, most of them were going to Philadelphia. It all happened so fast that you only realized on the road trip that your parents probably would have wanted you to go with her… but then you didn't want to hurt the other Wards' feelings.
Also, Gloria was adopting the five girls from the cheerleading team that had survived, so you two didn't feel like it'd be fair to make that number seven.
… maybe you should call her, after you're done with Aisha's talk? She always made time when the two of you wanted to hear a familiar voice, even if it was in the middle of the night after the two of you woke up from a nightmare.
Ugh, but you've got power testing scheduled again after you get back from this! Well, you can just leave a voicemail to let her know that you're okay and you're thinking of her. She'd like that.
"Everything alright, Saki?"
You blink, focusing on the distorted-mirror images of the elevator's doors to meet Hannah's gaze.
It's still so weird to see Miss Militia out of costume. You keep glancing over, expecting to see her American flag scarf covering everything below her eyes but instead you can actually see her mouth! She's not very good at using makeup to hide the tan line, though - it's only almost hidden, so she looks like she's a few weeks back from going skiing.
Maybe you should have let Lord Grasp do her makeup? That might have helped soften the blow that he has to stay in your Safe Space while you're in Civilian Mode like this - at least until you get some kind of dog-purse that will obscure him enough to not draw attention.
"Saki?"
Oh, right. Uh…
You trace a line across your face to mask the blank stare you've been giving her.
"It's still…" you hesitantly begin, squirreling up your own expression in concern
She winces, then looks back into the semi-reflective elevator doors and leans forward enough to examine herself. Squinting, she tilts her head back and forth a few times before sighing and breaking out a small tube of concealer in order to make a few corrections.
A few dabs, a few rough smears, and she's… well, you give her a shrug and weak smile because it's not really much better. Maybe worse?
She definitely needs to get out more. Going to have to work on fixing her up with someone when you all get back to Philly. Not Armsmaster, at least not until you get your kiss. Maybe… Oooh, Uriel! That might work- wait, no, Fraternization Rules. Normally not an issue because then it'd be FORBIDDEN LOVE.. but that's only for OTPs and you're not feeling that here. Chevalier? Sakura wouldn't like it because she wants a kiss from him... buuuuuut... that'd mean you win the bet so…
Okay, that's settled. Now, how to start this…?
You giggle lightly into your slightly-too-long hoodie sleeve.
"You remind me of Mr. Hoover."
Well, now that was an interesting reaction: confusion, realization, embarrassment, then complete deadpan. This just suddenly got far more... salacious.
You love that word.
"Oh?" she offers, clearly attempting to sound neutral as she stares blankly ahead but you're on to her now! "I didn't know... Mr. Hoover wears makeup."
The elevator finally dings on the twenty-third floor, allowing your genuine snort of laughter to echo into the elevator waiting room. Hannah hurries ahead a bit too quickly, allowing you to follow her lead as she navigates through the austere hallway to the correct hotel room.
You weren't sure how much Aisha's brother is getting as a member of the Guild, but it's obviously enough to get a suite for a week on the top floors of the Four Seasons.
"You both never take breaks," you sigh, because that seems to be the cause of a lot of problems in your life right now. "You're going to forget what it's like to be normal. And happy."
She doesn't slow stop, meaning you can't see her expression but Hannah keeps her voice down as the two of you keep going.
"Just because I'm busy doesn't mean I can't enjoy my job."
"... have you met Kali?"
Her stride falters for a split-second, then she makes the final turn a little too quickly.
"... we're here."
You scrunch up your face for a moment as you step up next to her and give her a Glare, but she stares straight ahead at the white door with a flat expression again.
You keep it up.
She's going to start sweating... any second now…
Huffing overdramatically, you sag your shoulders and then poke her in the ribs like you sometimes do when Sakura needs to reign it in. Sadly, she doesn't squeak like Sakura does but... you imagine it anyway.
"Gonna set him up with someone else then," you grumble just loud enough for her to hear and then knock on the door.
You barely finish the first knock when the door is yanked open by a wide-eyed, hopeful-looking Aisha.
"Hey! You-"
She notices Hannah and her enthusiasm crashes to a halt, turning into a confused train wreck. Pointing to you with her free hand, she moves the finger to Hannah and then back to you.
"Is… uh… I thought you'd want… Sirkalla… with you?"
Oh. You didn't actually tell her yet, but she must have figured it out when you said you wanted to talk to Brian. Except… Hannah doesn't know either. You were going to wait until everyone was settled and feeling safe before bringing that up, so better cut that off before Hannah gets suspicious.
Shrugging, you give the mildly-confused older woman a quick, blank look before returning to Aisha. "Hannah's going to be our chaperone for the trip, since Sirkalla's got work to do for her promotion, so I thought Brian might want to meet her."
Aisha practically deflates, the energy behind her eyes dimming for a split-second before her gaze grows distant and skeptical.
"O-oh, uh… alright. That's cool," she half-grins distractedly, then shuffles to the side enough for you and Hannah to enter and makes a sideways motion with her head. "C'mon in."
Hannah heads in first and you shuffle into the suite behind her, quickly glancing down to make sure if you're supposed to take your shoes off - judging by Aisha's own white-and-purple running shoes, it looks not.
"Yo, Lees-" Aisha calls out in a huff as your group enters the suite proper, "turns out you were wrong. False alarm, I guess."
The wide-open sitting room has three large white couches and two white-wooden tables scattered about, offset by the cream-colored carpet and drapes that cover windows on the far wall. A walk-in kitchen is visible on the right, with doorways leading off to rooms also on the right and left.
You only distantly notice these things, because most of your focus is instead on the three other girls sitting on the couch angled towards you: a skinny blonde girl around Taylor's age, a short, middle-eastern, college-aged girl with thick, dark curls, and Panacea.
Oh, right, and there's a cute guy sitting at the table next to their couch.
Why is Panacea-... wait, no, she's called Wyld now, right - why is she here if Aisha thought that you were going to be talking about Conversion? Why are any these girls here?
And why is the blonde girl giving you a deer-in-headlights stare? At least the older girl and Amy- no, Amelia - are just looking at you appraisingly. Wait what-
The blond girl winces hard, then leans forward into her hands and lets out a long, tired groan.
"This," she mutters, voice dripping with disdain, "is going to suck."
***
The beefcake at the table is wary of both of you, though you get the impression from his muted surprise when he first looks at Hannah that he's surprised to see her for a number of reasons. Regardless, he mostly ignores the blonde's grumbling and rises to greet the both of you - giving you a confident-but-cautious smile that really helps explain why Kinzey is dating him.
You'd need to get his black leather jacket and red shirt off, but you're pretty sure he could pull a pretty close imitation to Weld. Mmm- wait, you need to convince the dark-chocolate beefcake, not undress him!
You can practically hear Lord Grasp in the back of your head saying "the two need not be mutually exclusive," which worries you enough to take a split-second to check that, no, he's only parked next to the portal with an oversized tub of brown-and-red flakes. Wait what-
"-nd you're… Saki, right?"
"A-ah, yes," you blink, awkwardly shaking his hand and half-bowing, allowing yourself to be embarrassed to cover the what the frac can Lord Grasp hear your thoughts in there? You've been letting the portal show what you're seeing so he can keep up with what's going on outside, but you genuinely hope you were just imagining his retort back there. "It's nice to meet you!"
He snorts in good humor, some of the tension in his wide shoulders dropping off slowly like a wet towel- no! Bad! Focus!
"I… have to admit," he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck, "you're... not what I was expecting."
Hannah grunts, raising an eyebrow as she crosses her arms over her chest.
"Expecting?"
He rolls his eyes and sighs at already slipping-up, holding up his hands in surrender before motioning with a thumb at the girls on the couch.
"Sorry, I've been having to put up with Lisa talking about how you're some mind-controlling propaganda robot of the apocalypse. And before you say anything, since we're all out of costume here: she's Inquisition, our Thinker."
You blink a few times, noticing how Hannah narrows her eyes slightly before looking again at the glum blonde. She's… kind of cute, you guess, what with the light freckling, blue eyes and slim figure, but you think she looks like she could use a few good meals.
"Gee, thanks, Brian," the girl in question mutters, which in turn prompts Amelia to stand up from where she was comforting the Thinker on the couch and greet you as well.
"Hello… Hannah," the potential-world-ending-plague-generator-in-a-cute-blue-dress smiles, the two veteran heroines shaking hands. "It's nice to finally meet you out of costume."
Hannah nods, a light smile tugging at her lips. "It is. You're looking much happier, Amy."
She doesn't quite wince, but her smile falters for a moment. "Ah, I prefer Amelia now, actually. It's my real name."
"I see," the older woman blinks, then nods slowly. "Amelia. And leading a new team, too."
It's very slight, but you notice Brian fidget slightly as his 'team leader' looks between the rest of the room's occupants and then turns back with a smile.
"We're still figuring things out, since we didn't really expect our first fight to be against the Slaughterhouse Nine, but the Guild has been really supportive. Even if we've only been together for a few weeks, I think we've helped a lot of people and saved a lot of lives, and that's what counts, right?"
At Hannah's supportive nod, Amelia turns to you - her short head of light curls bobbing at the motion.
"And… Saki," she grins, though there's more regret than cheer there, "I'm… sorry I wasn't there for you and your sister. I was busy dealing with Bonesaw and didn't watch where Burnscar-"
"That's- that's okay," you interrupt, wincing as you shove down the flare of memories in time to only shiver lightly. "It's not your fault. A-and it's nice to meet you, too," you end with a light bow, hands folded in front of you.
"Right," she sighs, but you can still hear some self-doubt in there. "Sorry, I didn't mean-... nevermind. Still, you look… good, now!"
Straightening up, you smile and nod, trying to ignore the slight confusion in her statement.
"Thank you, I-"
"Oh God you can shapechange too."
The entire room turns to look at Lisa, who has gone even more pale as she stares at you in horror.
You turn to Brian and Amelia, because even if you just want to turn around and walk out of this mess…. Taylor and Prayer are relying on you to make this work.
"Is... is this going to be a problem?" you sigh, trying to inject as much embarrassment, weariness, and as much you are making your guest feel bad! as you can into your voice and posture, shrinking ever-so-slightly towards Hannah for support.
And wow, you have to stop yourself from looking surprised as practically the entire room rounds on the horrified blonde.
"What the fuck, Lees," Aisha snarls, a sentiment that is echoed (with less vulgarity) by Amelia and Brian. "She hasn't even done anything and you're already trying to pick her apart! Kick a fucking puppy while you're at it!"
"Can't you see?!" she winces, holding up her hands parallel with her temples before shoving them towards you as if to redirect everyone's rage back at you. "This! Right here! All she had to do was say one thing and you're all jumping at me! She can't turn her powers off either!"
Aisha just snorts and mutters a "you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me" under her breath, while Amelia and Brian share mixed looks of concern between each other and then back to you. Hannah, meanwhile, has put her left hand on your shoulder and is giving the Thinker on the couch an unamused glare of her own.
"Um."
The almost-squeak from the short girl sitting next to Lisa is just enough to get everyone's attention, forcing you to look at her in earnest for the first time and oh Maker she is adorable. Big, dark eyes, full lips, a button nose… it's like she's a coffee-colored doll! She's even wearing a subdued gothic-lolita dress! You're certain Sakura would be thinking of all sorts of fics to put her in if she were here.
The far-too-cute girl opens her mouth again as if to say something, then looks to you in surprise and blinks.
"O-oh, right! I'm Sabah - or Skein, but I used to be Parian! Nice to meet you."
Your first impulse of jealousy (because you have magic what's her excuse) at her disarming cuteness is quickly abandoned when her name actually registers.
"Wait," you blink, straightening up. "Didn't… Taylor sell you spider silk?"
"Ooh!" she perks up, "Yes! That was me! You knew about that?"
You shrug, smiling fondly at the memory. "Well, she was making so much and we asked her what she was going to do with it all."
"That makes sense. You… wouldn't happen to know if she's going to have more to sell soon, would you? I ran out during the fighting."
Amelia coughs, looking like she's trying hard not to smile. "Sabah…"
"… ah, sorry sorry!" she blushes darkly, worrying her hands in her lap. "I was just going to ask: what do you look like normally?"
After fidgeting in silence for a second after her question, you give Brian and Amelia a reluctant look. Though Amelia looks carefully blank, Brian, for his part, rubs his chin and shrugs.
"Aisha did sorta confirm that you're 'dangerously hot', so I… guess we're all kinda curious too."
You turn to give a flat Glare at Aisha, who blinks in surprise when you look at her directly before muttering a curse and looking away.
Taylor did warn you to keep Industrial Survival Frame active all the time, after all.
"Fiiine," you sigh, weakly shrugging. "But I'm not getting naked like Taylor."
It's only said in jest, but only Hannah and Aisha are the ones that give a genuine laugh - besides Lisa's groan, Brian just gives a blank look of bewilderment while Amelia and Sabah fail to hide their disappointment.
Ugh, Sakura would have had so much fun teasing this team. You don't even get to use innuendo right now because Kinzey needs someone that isn't Penny.
Well, at least you're glad you didn't wear makeup despite Lord Grasps complaints. You even dialed down your beauty a tiny bit from your new 'normal' and wore some non-descript hoodie, shirt, and jeans from the PRT HQ's Emergency Incognito stash. Which you're pretty sure is just the (cleaned) Lost and Found from all the exhibits, tour rooms, and gift shops.
You deactivate both your disguise charms and close your eyes, breathing out the air from your lungs even though the shuffling around of your skeleton and musculature doesn't require it. When you open your eyes again, you're back to your default five-foot-nine height and more-generous figure… that you could have sworn the clothes should be hiding more of?
You don't pat yourself down because that's what Taylor would do right now, but also because your Husk-Sculpting Apparatus charm gives you a full mental image of your body when you think hard at it. No, you're back to your default… ah, right, you guess the height and size change actually makes this outfit fit properly.
Too well, given the complete brain meltdown that is going on in the room right now - Hannah excluded, though she's shaking her head and sighing to herself. Aaaand Lord Grasp is laughing it up in your Safe Space since he can see what you're seeing too…
Mmmmaybe time to cut this off before Sabah starts drooling. They're probably all going to need a cold-... actually, that's a good idea.
Lifting your hands grandiosely, like you're about to conduct a symphony, you make sure everyone is aware that you're about to do something…
… and then you use your Background charm make everyone (except Hannah) feel like they just got a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on them. No visuals or sound effects, just cold and wet.
Judging by the sudden eruption of panicked flailing, sputtering, and cursing, it works well enough for you to cut the effect off almost immediately - which has the double effect of further jarring everyone's minds as they pat themselves down and realize they aren't actually sopping wet.
"Sorry!" you call out forcefully enough to be heard over the confusion.
Which… only makes them turn to look at you again, and their various protests - anger, confusion, surprise - all die on their tongues as your beauty knocks them for a loop again. Thankfully, and to her credit, Aisha is the first to break out of this second round of entrancement without your prodding.
"Ugh, Saki," she groans, shaking her head and deliberately looking away. "What… what the fuck was that? It felt like-"
"You gave us a cold shower?" Lisa boggles absently, blinking unsteadily and holding her head in disbelief as she stares past you for a split second before closing her eyes completely and groaning again. "Argh! You… what… what is that sound…?"
"Sound?" you ask, glancing at Hannah - who seems equally confused - before looking back at the struggling Thinker. "I'm not making-"
"Please! Just-... just turn on your disguise again! My head feels like it's crammed inside one of Dragon's server farms when it's on overdrive."
It… takes you a second to figure out what she means, but you think you have an idea: something like the humming you hear when you meditate on your charms? That's kinda weird, didn't Taylor say that parahuman powers shouldn't really interact with charms?
"Wait!" Amelia breaks out next, blinking and taking a step towards you with her hands outstretched. "Can-... can I touch you?"
…
When you turn to look at Hannah, she is just failing to hide her amusement, the traitor.
Fine! Forget it! You were trying to hold back, but if they're just going throw themselves at you like this...
"... I'm getting Lord Grasp out here."
***
Lord Grasp's appearance works as another shock to the group, though his cat-sized form appearing on your shoulder in a swirl of black-and-white hexagons does cause some alarm at first.
You're not quite sure what it says that actual discussion can take place only after everyone had to be put in "potential threat" mode, but it's probably not good.
Also, apparently Amelia only wanted to see what her power made of your Shapechange charm. Well, you're pretty sure she did want to get lewd, but that's what she meant to say at first. You were fine with allowing her to hold your hand (Sabah looked blatantly jealous Maker dangit Sakura you're missing this!), which… promptly made the former-healer go cross-eyed when you shifted from your default state, to your human disguise, then to your 'new normal' look.
She woozily left to go join Sabah on the couch after that, mumbling absently about "DNA restructuring" and some other terms that Taylor would probably understand but sounded like gibberish to you.
Your mechanical companion in turn served as a distraction for everyone else while Hannah, yourself, and Brian moved to the furthest table from the group to actually talk like grown-ups. While you weren't surprised that Aisha and Sabah were caught up in his opulent splendor and self-indulgent exuberance, Lisa suddenly seemed very eager to engage him in conversation once she cracked open her laptop and pulled up an Old Realm translator from Dragon's servers. Amelia just looked amused at it all, though you noticed she was giving Lisa a few taps on the hand or neck every-so-often when you looked over.
You had a niggling feeling that you should be worried about Lisa's eagerness, but Lord Grasp is a Big Boy… Building. Scorpion. You trust him to handle himself.
The talk with Brian - the first part, at least - isn't even a challenge, since he isn't really opposed to Aisha visiting a few places all over the US for three solid days. Your argument is made even easier by the fact that the PRT has picked out and cleared your itinerary, your group will be coming back to New York to sleep each night, and Hannah will be tagging along the entire time.
His only real complaint, in the end, is that he's not able to go himself.
"I'd never really thought about travelling all that much… before Behemoth, I mean," he shrugs, leaning back in his chair and handing the pen back to Hannah. "No money and not much in the way of prospects, so I tried to keep focused on what needed doing now."
The thirty-something Protectorate veteran nods in commiseration, stacking up the papers and sliding them into their folder.
"I travel for S-Class events, but… even though I'll technically be 'working', I think this will be my first vacation in…" she hesitates, frowning as if she doubts the memory. "... Over a decade. "
"Damn," Brian whistles lowly, glancing at you to see your own frown.
Meeting his eyes, you give him a sage nod in return. "She needs a boyfriend."
Brian smiles wide, chuckling into a fist as Hannah tries to resolutely force down her blush while getting the papers in order. "...We should go."
Shoot! You thought you'd have more time to think of a way to work Aisha's conversion into casual conversation! Your shipping needs have worked against you!
"Uh," you blurt out eloquently, still keeping your voice down as you look between the two now-confused faces, "I… have... something… else… to talk with Brian about?"
You really wish you could smother the sounds from this table with your Background charm, but Lisa pretty much instantly figured out everything you were doing before… and that would just make you look shady if she pointed it out.
Hannah's embarrassment fades as she raises an eyebrow, clearly waiting for further explanation, while both of Brian's eyebrows have jumped up completely to his tight-dreadlocked hairline.
"Wait… do you mean…" he trails off as you wince and nod, which causes him to cover his face with a large hand and groan.
Hannah turns back to look at you with increasing concern. "Saki?"
You hold up a hand to get her to wait, then orient your body in your chair to face Brian fully and give him a Look.
Can we keep this between us or do you want to get HER involved?
Your Body Language charm even manages to perfectly communicate that the "her" is Lisa, not any of the other girls in the room, even though the direct translation to English would be unclear. Japanese would have worked (because it's better), and so would have Old Realm (because it's… best? Better than English, at least...), but you're pretty sure Brian doesn't know either of those.
Staring at you through the splayed fingers on his hand, Brian blinks owlishly a few times - the PRT testing showed that communicating full sentences with your Body Language charm is a bit of a shock for people not expecting it - then closes his eyes, crosses his arms, and takes a few deep breaths in thought.
While he does so, you let your Body Language charm guide your motions as you shoot Hannah a silent message with another Look, a phone-like gesture with your left hand, a nod, and then and jerk of your head towards the group on the couch while raising your eyebrows meaningfully.
I talked with Taylor. We want Aisha to be next.
Because your Body Language charm is just amazing like that.
Hannah stills for brief moment, sighs, then schools her expression and sits back down in her chair. As Brian remains silent for a few more moments, the older combat veteran shifts (very slightly) in her seat a few times, but otherwise keeps her expression closed and locked on the maybe-college-age brother.
Likely because he's started to breathe out very slight puffs of thick, black smoke from his nose. Watching him more closely, the gravity-defying inky blackness is also… sweating?... up through the neckline of his jacket and from his sleeves. If you were across the room (and had your old, regular eyesight) you probably wouldn't even notice it - up close and with your new-and-improved eyes, it's almost like he's nervously sweating pure shadow.
That's…
Um…
… you think it's really hot, but you also got strangled by pure shadow earlier today… so you're not sure what you're feeling right now.
...
Dangit, Kinzey totally owes you for not stealing him for yourself! They better get married and have a million shadow-crystal-generating babies in the new world you're helping save-slash-build!
Hannah clears her throat, quietly enough that you think just you and Brian can hear it- oh, whoops, you were biting your thumb there. You give her a nod in thanks.
"Alright," Brian finally breathes out tiredly, bobbing his head up and down slowly to himself as the shadows melt away into the air around him. He opens his deep-brown eyes and fixes you with a meaningful stare that No Saki think of the Maker!
"I'll hear you out, but I want to know everything: what it felt like, any doubts or problems you've had, what you wished you had known beforehand… I heard you didn't get really get a chance to say 'yes' or 'no', or even prepare, so…"
He shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly before glancing sadly at the group on the sofa - looking past Lord Grasp's antics on the coffee table to Aisha's grinning expression as she pokes Sabah over something they're whispering about.
"I just…" trails off, his voice quiet, sad, and hard, before resuming at an even lower volume. "I don't know how much she's told you about how her life was like with our mom, but I doubt it was anything good. Everything I've… all of this," he makes an off-hand gesture at the room in general, "started because I just wanted a way to give her a place she could go to sleep in without having to worry about some drugged-up sleazy shitstain sneaking into her room."
You can practically feel Hannah wanting to ask why he didn't go to the PRT for help, but you tap her on the foot with your own shoe's toe to signal for her to let him finish. She glances your way, but you keep meeting Brian's gaze with your own.
"So yeah," he mutters, shaking his head again before leaning on the table with his elbows and clenching one hand over a fist. "I'll hear what you have to say. But if I have any doubts…"
He glances at the group on the couch again, then gives you a half-feigned shrug.
"If you're right, and this is good for her… you shouldn't have a hard time convincing all of us of that."
***
You tackle the biggest points first, because even if Lord Grasp is a master of distraction, Lisa is bound to wonder what's taking so long eventually. Thankfully, he largely lets you talk without any interruptions - and then you just bowl over some of the times he does try to interrupt, anyway.
Are you really Saki? Will Aisha still be Aisha? Yes. You remember everything, especially the parts you really wish you didn't, and you believe it down to your very soul. You honestly can't tell how much of that is helped along by your charm, though, since you didn't doubt that fact before you 'locked in' that belief, so you don't bring it up.
Hannah does make a small interruption to ask if "you remember?" but it doesn't sound like she's asking about your life before conversion so you try to get her to clarify. She looks confused by that, but then waves it off and has you focus back on your explanation to Brian.
Something to ask her about later, for sure. You'll try to remember during your vacation.
Is it going to change Aisha? ...Yes. It's uncomfortable to admit it, but you've talked more in these last few days than you did in the last month before the Nine came. What you're wearing now is more what you'd normally like to wear, but instead you're practically always covered in world-class gowns and dresses (you blame Lord Grasp, but it's true). But… you're having to deal with a lot of… bad stuff and you can't just run away or let Sakura do the talking for you.
There's a quote you've been thinking of from one of Sakura's Alexandria/Rime fics: "If you want to change someone, give them power."
Hannah is very carefully blank at that statement, but Brian looks thoughtful for a while before nodding in apparent understanding.
Will this make Aisha safer? Yes. On top of immortality, which means she'll outlive both Brian and all his babies with Kinzey (you keep going, not giving him time to react to that), Alchemicals are just plain tougher than humans. She's definitely going to get Industrial Survival Frame at least, which apparently makes you immune to the Simurgh and almost all the 'poof, you're dead' Endbringer and parahuman attacks, but on top of that she'll most likely have plenty of ways to escape danger that she would never have access to without conversion.
You can't say she will for certain, but since she's going to be the Stealth specialist for the Assembly you trust that the Great Maker will go overboard on her like he did for your own PR specialty. On that same vein, you also mention it's possible that she'll get a spirit companion as well, which would undoubtedly be yet another powerful being (at least as strong as an A-Ranked parahuman) dedicated towards keeping her alive and happy.
Hannah has nervous flinches at those two prospects, but manages to smother the reactions before Brian notices.
Will this make Aisha's life better? ...Maybe? You… haven't even been back a week, and already you've had to deal with - again - a lot of bad stuff…
… annnnd just as Brian's asking you to clarify what you mean by 'bad stuff', your time runs out.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
You don't even have to look behind you to know that Lisa is probably standing and pointing at you angrily. Instead, you let your shoulders sag and lean back in your chair, giving Brian a (non-charm-enhanced) not this bullpoop again look.
Surprisingly, he gives you a knowing look and nod before leaning back himself and turning enough to throw a casual, hard look at the aggrieved Thinker.
"I'm fine, Lisa, thanks for asking."
… a billion babies, Kinzey! She owes both you and Taylor for taking this slab off the market!
"No, I mean she's-..." there's a pause as Lisa's voice trails off in a grunt. "Uh, wow, yeah, didn't need to know that."
Wait what.
"What time is- oh shit it's already four?" Aisha's surprised voice pipes up, growing more confused by the moment. "Jesus, Bro, just sign the damn field trip papers. And this better not be a trend - I don't want to have to learn how to forge your signature, too."
Brian winces, but doesn't manage a response before Lisa's increasingly-hysterical voice interjects.
"He-... he's already signed the papers! Goddamnit they've-... she's been talking about converting you! They want to replace you next!"
A very put-out Lord Grasp undercuts Lisa's exclamation with a sigh.
"I gather from her tone she did not take my pearls of insight to heart, Warden?"
Blinking, you turn around to get a clarification for that but instead get a pair of hands on your cheeks as Aisha ignores the concept of "personal space" to nearly headbut you in the soulstone.
"You serious?!" she hisses out between teeth clenched in manic glee, staring at you with equally-wild and wide eyes. "Don't think I didn't notice you didn't deny me when I asked before! Taylor said 'yes'?!"
It happens so fast and so naturally, you only notice it when you have to reflexively force the essence to go through Aura-Dampening Component instead of just straight from your Peripheral essence pool…
...
… or, rather, when nothing out of the ordinary happens.
Because you don't shove Aisha away, she simply stumbles back from when you stand up and raise your own left hand to balance yourself - causing her to lose her balance and tip over the nearest couch's back and tumble over it embarrassingly.
Yes. That is exactly what happened, and no one should be suspicious.
You glance at Lisa anyway, meeting her glare. Except you're not sure what gives you away, because she blinks, looks to Aisha, then back at you… and then scrunches up her face as if she thinks something might have happened there, but doesn't have any evidence for it.
Can she-… can she read your mind? You're pretty sure if Industrial Survival Frame blocks the Simurgh, it'd block her, so that's probably not it. Maybe just… body language? The fact that you looked at her first after you- after Aisha stumbled, and she picked up on that?
Ugh, you're starting to get why the PRT says to go after Thinkers and Masters first. You don't want to deal with this! It's not just her being annoying and second-guessing everything - there are things you can't talk about now and she's probably going to try to weasel them out of you. You don't want… them to have to come and fix things, because that probably means everyone but you and Aisha are going to be dead by the end of the day.
… this is why you have the Doom Spike, isn't it? Uuughhh.
You sigh, ignoring Aisha's whooping and obscenity-laden cheering, as well as Lord Grasp's confused exclamations as it sounds like Aisha has picked him up and is dancing around with him.
Opening your eyes again, you give Brian a meaningful enough glare that his attention is drawn back from whatever is happening behind you.
"Look, I-..." you sigh again, shaking your head as you give a meaningful glance to Hannah and turn back to Brian - not bothering to keep your voice down, but not speaking loud enough that you'd be heard over Aisha's excitement.
"Do-... do you get that there are PRT secrets I... can't tell you? Missions that have to be... classified for a while, but... eventually will get out? Because that's what we're dealing with right now, and we think Aisha can help."
His face hardens, scrutinizing you as he straightens up fully in his chair and crosses his arms.
And then someone's sitting next to you at the chair, but you don't turn around since it's probably Lisa by the way Hannah's eyes narrow. Because Maker damnit, but… at least she doesn't say anything immediately - probably waiting for Brian to speak.
Brian's eyes flicker to probably-Lisa, darkening further as they exchange a silent stare for a few moments before he looks back to you.
"She's fourteen. I'm her guardian. I have a right to know."
...okay, yes, he's right, but you can't tell him because he'll probably be killed for knowing and any more excuses means Lisa is definitely going to know something is up and might figure it out anyway because Thinker bullsh-poop!
Flip it, Taylor said basically everyone knows about this one...
You cast your gaze down at the table and sigh, long and tired because you are.
"How… much do you know about where Alchemicals come from?"
"Where you say you come from," Lisa snorts beside you, as if that's a completely different thing.
You glance sideways at Brian.
He's about as done as you are. "Lisa. Shut up or leave."
This close to her, you can feel her initial shock turn into a vibrating, desperate fury - enough so that you're this close to-
No. Calm.
Grabbing her and shoving her into your Safe Space - as deeply satisfying as it might feel - would look horrible, and wouldn't actually solve anything.
The first new fic you're writing is going to be Inquisition/Erasmus, though. And it'll be totally cracky and OOC and filled with wacky, impossible smut but it'll still exist.
If it exists on the Internet, at least one person will get off to it… and Lisa will be stuck with that realization, that memory... forever.
You turn your head to look at her, meeting her rapidly-paling expression of shock and disgust.
You smile.
It's a nice smile.
Except she knows that it's not.
You turn back to Brian, to explain how the impending death of your god will destroy the universe.
***
Since you're aiming to overload Lisa with sensory information in order to distract her from cluing in on Cauldron, you decide to go with the full display of your Vision for completeness' sake.
Which is how, when you fill up the room with your Radiant Iconography Array, you notice something… off.
You don't react - mostly because you're busy focusing on the presentation itself - but also because it only takes you a few moments to figure out what the feeling is:
Your illusion is trying to overlap on top of a human figure in the far corner of the room. Someone that shouldn't be here, and that neither you nor anyone else has noticed up until now. Worse, the moment you reflexively glance in that direction the figure moves and you lose track of them.
You don't say anything, of course.
You knew Cauldron would be watching for you to slip up.
Forcing that thought down before it creeps into your body language and presentation, you're able to finish out the rest of the Vision (in English, again) without any slip-ups, and then keep going - adding a new 'window' in the black void to show when Lord Iris took over Taylor's video conference screen to deliver his own terrifying, haunting monologue.
Then, sitting back down at the table next to Brian and Lisa, you let the imagery behind you fade away.
Your audience is suitably shocked speechless long enough for Lord Grasp to crawl up onto the table in front of you with Lisa's laptop in his off-claw and set up with the translator program again.
"I believe that was prudent, revealing the context provided by Lord Iris," he sighs, poking away at the keyboard experimentally. "I offer my own - tragically limited - insights on the matter as well, if you require it."
His murmuring breaks a few of the audience from his trance, most notably Lisa and Hannah - the latter once again looking similarly pensive as she did the last time, while the former snatches the laptop away from Lord Grasp and starts muttering to herself manically while searching through files and documents on the device. The ostentatious scorpion gives a small huff of displeasure ("How tactless!") before crawling over to cluelessly observe Lisa at work.
"Well… fuck."
You turn to Aisha, who has plopped down on the corner of the table to the left of Brian's seat at the head, placing herself within Brian and Hannah's personal space. Given by the way the two beside her startle in reaction to her expletive, she probably only just now started suppressing her power again.
"Uh… yeah," Brian mutters, shaking his head and blinking owlishly. His gaze drifts around the group, first looking over to where a similarly-stunned Amelia has seated herself at the opposite head of the table, then to Lisa's laser-focused, still-mumbling form. "Lisa? Did you-"
"Hold on," she blurts out, waving her right hand frantically for a second to stave off any other questions before bringing it back down to the laptop keyboard to keep typing.
Brian blinks once more, then just closes his eyes and sighs while leaning back and rubbing his face.
"Was…" he trails off, looking at the ceiling for a moment in thought before turning to focus back on you. "Was that black ball the same thing that Jack Slash showed off in his video?"
"I-I'm not-"/ "Yeah."
Startled, you glance at Lisa, but apart from her grumbled assent is still focused on her laptop. Looking back to Brian, you shrug and offer an apologetic smile.
"I haven't seen the video, but… I heard some news reporters talking about it when I was in quarantine."
"Oh," he grimaces, "right. Sorry. I… guess you've been out of the loop for a while."
You nod, sighing. Because even if Taylor brought you mostly up to speed earlier, you can't act like it yet. "Y-yeah."
"We've been helping in Philadelphia and Camden, actually," Amelia speaks up, half-smiling, half-wincing at the memories. "It's… bad, but Dragon and Taylor have really been making a difference."
"Really?"
"Mmmhm," Sabah hums excitedly from the chair she's dragged beside Amelia's. "Taylor can make her range huge now, and she's got those little eyeball-drone things so she's almost able to cover the whole city and point out where people need help or guide civilians around. Dragon even brought in some experimental building equipment to make a whole bunch of temporary houses on the waterfront."
You can't help but feel your eyebrows raise - Taylor certainly never mentioned any of that.
"She can even reach Camden?"
Amelia frowns, shifting in her seat uncomfortably. "Not… entirely, but… there's a villain from Boston that's moved into Camden that's working with the PRT and the Guild to help keep things under control. Have you ever heard of Accord?"
Right, gotta act dumb still, but in a way that doesn't set off Lisa. Just… use the parts that are actually surprising you.
"Ehh? You mean the Ambassadors are in Camden now? But… there's nothing there?"
Brian snorts. "Not much left of them. They got their asses kicked out of Boston so Accord threw in with the defense against the Nine."
"He wants to join your cult," Lisa mutters, sending you a flat glare over the top of her laptop's screen. "I'm sure he'd fit right in."
Shoot, she's watching you now - you probably can't fake her out when she's studying you like this. Need to put her on the defensive!
"W-why are you so against us?" you huff, using your actual frustration and confusion at her attitude to hammer in the guilt. "You're the one who kidnapped Taylor's dad, and then brainwashed him to get him to kill her! During the Behemoth fight!"
Even without your Background charm, you can just feel the temperature in the room drop as Lisa's face turns ashen - but you don't let her do more than open her mouth in shock before you're twisting the knife even further.
"And I remember seeing you at Clarendon before all of that!" you fume, clenching your hands on the table in front of you. "Taylor said you were trying to 'get help' for something, but then you turned around and stabbed her in the back! And didn't she save your life during the Behemoth fight?!"
"She saved us from the Siberian and Bonesaw, too. After she saved Aisha on the Island," Amelia mutters, making you lean back and glance at the rest of the table. Apart from Aisha, who is looking at Lisa like she just remembered the Thinker ran over her dog, the rest of the table is giving the lightly-freckled blonde distant, disappointed looks.
Lisa sees the looks too, her eyes flickering around the group in search for some kind of support. But when she finds none…
"I-I-..." she stammers, before finally letting her eyes fall down on the laptop again. There's a moment of silence as she stares distantly at the screen, but then you can almost see the spark in her eyes as her shame and humiliation begins to shift to righteous, desperate hope.
"L-Listen, I-..." she grits her teeth and glances away, balling her own fists as if it's physically painful to admit, "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know what Coil was going to do with her Dad, and… it was shitty of me to never apologize. I get it. But-"
You tip your head down, Glaring at her hard enough to draw her gaze again and interrupt whatever she's thinking.
"Are you going to?"
"I-..." she blinks hard, leaning back from the force of your stare before her shoulders sag and her gaze falls away. "Yeah. Sure. Just… okay, I guess I know it's not her fault."
You start to nod, then stop at that last part.
"'Fault'?"
"You're all brainwashed," she shrugs, as if it's just a matter of course, but you can see the light in her eyes again as she glances at you knowingly. "You literally can't see what's wrong, so… I shouldn't really hold it against her. Or you."
What.
"What."/ "What?!"
You and Aisha both say it (well, she exclaims it), but Lisa's attention is only on you - her grin growing devious despite the manic intensity of her eyes.
"Summoning an alien god from another dimension, one that enslaves humans to feed and worship him? Perfect robot copies that believe they're the real thing? It's like one of the bad movies from back in the eighties when capes first showed up… only it's actually happening."
You…
… well it's not…
… but he's…
…
"Oh Maker you're insane," you sigh, burying your face in your hands as you lean onto the table with your elbows.
"See! She's even programmed to curse differently now!"
You groan.
"Just… no," you sigh. "No."
You really don't want to spend the time and energy fixing this. Can you even fix it as you are now? This actually feels like something your Doom Spike is meant for - so you can see exactly what she's thinking and why, then just… well, you're still not really comfortable with the idea of altering her mind directly, so you'd just try to talk her down.
And there's absolutely zero chance she'd consent to getting treatment from your mind-control charm, so…
Ugh.
Well, there is one thing you need to straighten out before you shove this problem back to Taylor.
"We're not copies. I'm not a copy. It's…" you sigh, though it turns into more of a growl from the stress. Pausing, you concentrate long enough to make the skin on your forehead pull back to reveal your soulgem (and attached compass), then point to it indignantly. "That's not how it works: Autochthon puts the gem in your head so that you have an actual soul, then he takes the soul and puts it in a new body. It's… it's a brain transplant, just… better."
You can hear the other shuffling in their seats slightly, but your entire focus is on Lisa and how her gaze is growing distant again in thought. Her eyebrows twitch together and eyes narrow, as you can see her eyes track up to the gem, then back down to your own eyes… then back up…
"So you…" she frowns, harder, jaw set as she appears to be running through questions to ask you. "Okay. Were you awake-? Right, nevermind - your power, so you had to be. Then… do you remember... getting pulled in? There weren't any breaks or gaps in your memory there?"
"A-ah," you blink, then wince at even trying to dredge up the memories of that point. "I… I remember it-…"
PAIN.
You're pretty sure you've lost all the blood in your face, and the room's a little hazy with all the spots in your eyes. You also want to throw up, but you manage to hold it back.
"... it... hurt, yes."
When you're able to focus your gaze again, Lisa is looking a bit pale as well.
"Oh. Huh. And… you want Aisha to go through that."
…
Well, at least you're not woozy anymore. You're too busy being absolutely livid.
"Yes," you straighten up, Glaring at her as flatly as you can, "because it hurt for a few seconds, and now I'm going to be awesome forever."
There's a few snorts of humor around the table, Aisha snickering loudly enough for you to notice that she's also gaining some of her color back. Hmm.
Lisa rolls her eyes, sighing and leaning forward to cover her face with a hand while muttering under her breath for a few moments. Finally, grunting, she tilts her head just enough to meet your gaze again.
"Alright… even if - if - it's still… you… you still have to admit that it changed you."
Ugh. Yes, you-...
Oooh! You remember another great line, but this one from a Myrrdin/Mim (the leader of the huge 'magic' gang in New York) fic!
"Enlightenment always does," you smile primly.
She blinks, opens her mouth to say something, then just winces and groans into her hand again.
"Oh god damnit. Seriously? Stop thinking of porn!"
You cover your mouth in mock shock.
"It's not porn!" you protest, aghast. "It's art."
Lisa's whimpered groan is mostly drowned out by the laughter of the rest of the group. You even feel Aisha's hand on your shoulder in commisera-
Your Industrial Survival Framescreams in the back of your mind as it wards off some kind of distant, scraping pull that feels both alien and impossibly vast.
It takes every ounce of your composure to not leap out of your seat in fright, since that was probably just her power-
"Warden, what was that?" Lord Grasp hisses out, voice tense but confused. Your eyes dart from him to-
… Aisha is still sitting next to Brian. Both are still laughing.
You turn your head further.
There is… someone standing next to you with their hand on your shoulder - a young girl, giving you a puzzled, distant look through green eyes that glitter dangerously. Her outline is hazy and warped, the light twisting and fluctuating oddly around her body in a way that makes it difficult to look at her directly. Not that there's much to see, what with her entire form being covered in ragged, blackened strips of cloth to form some kind of shroud.
The young girl raises a pale, manicured hand from the mass of cloth, then holds an index finger up to delicate lips drawn in a slight frown.
Anyone who's studied parahumans would recognize that face. Bladedancer even used a picture of her when she started training you:
"No matter how strong you think you are, you always gotta be ready to run. Two reasons: there is always someone out there with the perfect counter to your power, and there is always someone just. Plain. Stronger."
...
Calm.
You look back the table quickly enough to make it seem like you were just thinking to yourself. Yes, you can't afford to panic right now - that would just get everyone killed… including you.
Because… this is happening right now. Of course. You should have expected this after what Taylor and Prayer told you earlier today. This is your life now. Oh Maker what-…
She… she has to be here for you. It's the only explanation. Except… wait did she just try to kill you?! What-
*"Warden!"*
You startle at Lord Grasp's voice in your mind, forcing you to turn to look at him on the table in shock - the cat-sized scorpion twitching with barely-restrained violence as he glares up at you.
*"Warden, what are you sensing?! I see nothing beside you!"*
"Saki? What's wrong?"
Lisa's voice cuts you off from whatever response you were trying to form for Lord Grasp, her puzzled tone setting off even more alarm bells in your head. As you turn to look at her, trying with all your might to keep your desperation from leaking into your expression, you see the Thinker looking at you suspiciously.
"Did… did you just feel-" her eyes start to get wide as she sits up in her seat in alarm "- something just attacked you? What's-"
The hand on your shoulder drifts away… in the direction of Lisa.
"I should go!" you exclaim cheerily, raising to your feet and sending your chair skittering backwards.
You don't shove your chair into the new girl's body, because you clearly don't see her and she wouldn't expect you to block her from killing Lisa. No, the shrouded girl just stumbles away as you rise to your feet to leave, caught up in your casual motion.
"Holy shit there's someone here!" Lisa gasps, flinging herself out of her chair towards Amelia and Sabah - causing Hannah to stand abruptly as well, apparently on reflex, though she's holding out a large pistol as her gaze scans the area. "Brian! Fill the room-!"
"No! Don't!" you shout, dropping your disguise completely in desperation as you fling your hands out to draw the attention of everyone scrambling to react-
-and then you douse everyone in cold water, this time complete with imaginary buckets (including a smaller one for Lord Grasp) that bounce away harmlessly and disappear as the water instantly evaporates.
Once again it causes a lot of shocked, indignant, and awkward screaming and flailing, especially from Sabah, but now everyone is looking back at you so-
"That was most unwise."
It is a chorus of voices that speaks - dozens, perhaps hundreds of different ages, genders, and intonations - but a single light, airy female tone manages to rise above the rest… dripping with the kind of distaste you'd expect a peasant would receive for staining the queen's most formal gown.
You turn, noticing that while Sabah, Brian, and Amelia are more guarded than alarmed, Aisha and Lisa are appropriately terrified. Hannah, however… has gone still as a statue.
Lord Grasp hasn't unfolded to his larger size yet, but his tail is glowing and his claw-blades are unsheathed.
"W-wha-... h-how-...?" you hear Lisa's strangled voice whisper behind you, as you turn to face the fully-revealed cape to your side.
As you watch, a ghostly figure unwraps itself from where it had been draped over the young girl and tangled up in her shroud, then is suddenly joined by another, and another, and another - each shade a semi-translucent humanoid figure vaguely shaped like a costumed cape but with their features… distorted.
A female figure but with jagged metal spikes protruding from all along its body and a solid-metal mask with a jack-o-lantern grin. A hulking male form with a single blue eye in the middle of its otherwise-featureless face. A tiny girl in a dress like Sabah's, but with no arms and a face entirely hidden by a cowl. The original, a male figure that constantly shifts and distorts like the effect you saw before, the body itself appearing as nothing more than a humanoid-shaped mixture of different sceneries.
The four figures flank Glaistig Uaine, the Fairy Queen of the Birdcage, as she stares at you, through you, with lidded eyes.
"In recompense for this affront, you will explain why you did not die when commanded, Warding Eye."
… uh.
What.
Wait shoot-
You quickly throw your Background charm over Lisa so that she doesn't mouth off to Glaistig Uaine - how is she even here she's supposed to be in the Birdcage aaaaaaaaahhhh - and get herself killed, while at the same straightening up primly in a way that shouts at everyone but the crazy uber-cape DON'T MOVE DON'T SPEAK LET ME HANDLE THIS.
...
You really, really don't want to handle this, but you're pretty sure if multiple teams of dozens of capes failed to kill her, and she's managed to stay alive in the Birdcage for nearly twenty years, talking is the only way your group is getting out of this alive.
Okay. Right. Time to act like you know what you're doing. Uh… Queen Cynthia from Roses are Ruby talked with fairies a bunch!
Remember how she acted and... go!
"Of course," you bow your head politely, clasping your hands together in front of you with palms together and fingers brushing the insides of the opposite wrist. "You are Glaistig Uaine, Queen of the Fae?"
Luminescent green eyes shine out from behind black tatters of thick cloth, briefly focusing on you before growing distant again.
"Correct," the chorus of voices echoes out, the leading female tone sounding only slightly more appeased then before.
Wait, okay… so, if what you've read is correct and she really does think she's some kind of Queen Mab, then… time to see if you can make all those weird coincidences with Creation and Earth work in your favor this time.
Also, you really wish you had one of Lord Grasp's dresses on right now.
"I am sworn to the Machine God, Autochthon - King of All Craftsmen, Titan of Industry, Principle of Dogma, Primordial of Innovation - and thus stand apart from the Fae Court and its chains of fealty."
You're just pulling fancy words out of your books and stories that feel right, praying that you're talking crazy enough to make sense to her.
Judging by the way her eyes focus back on you with a deeply-uncomfortable intensity, you at least got her full, undivided attention.
"The Dying God," she finally intones, though the echoing chorus is marginally quieter as she stares at you. "I see. He is the Warding Eye, the Usurper and the Doom. Who are you, then, if no longer the lucid dream of the fae?"
You are careful to control your expression, partly mirroring Glaistig Uaine's own distant, aristocratic mien… but with a touch more civility than the jailbird is showing.
Still… something about her question makes you feel like she's not just asking your name but your purpose? It feels like the question is still tied to what she expects from a parahuman, so… maybe give her the name of your parahuman-charm?
"Warden of Reflected Infinities, Keeper… of the Shard of Transcendental Imprisonment."
Glaistig Uaine blinks.
"Shard…" she recites, again and again murmuring the word in different tones and voices as her eyes unfocus... and the ghosts around her all turn to stare at you and freeze.
Calm.
You need to stay calm, no freaking out at the signs that Glaistig Uaine's power is looking at you like it wants to rip open your brain to get all the secrets inside. Need to snap her out of it!
"Might I inquire what brings you roaming, Faerie Queen?" you hum lightly, as if you chanced upon a fellow noble on the road. "You are quite far from your normal court, are you not?"
Sparkling green eyes snap back into focus, while the ghosts relax and resume observing the other occupants of the room.
"The Lord of the Court is troubled by recent events. He seeks answers."
You… okay, that… sounds like Scion, but that's because you know where powers come from now and know that he left Earth-Bet for a few days - probably to figure out what the heck Iris did to Jack Slash's shard. The problem is that everyone in this room is going to ask you later how you were able to figure that out and then Lisa will figure out Cauldron somehow and then everyone will die anyway. Aaarrggh!
You nod, as if that makes perfect sense, but then pause and tilt your head in curiosity.
"Your husband?"
Glaistig Uaine goes completely blank for a split-second, and all four ghosts freeze again, except this time… it's in… embarrassment? It's extremely subtle, but the micro-shuffle is there - not the 'ahhh you've figured out my crush' shuffle, but the 'ewww you said my dad is hot' shuffle.
The green-eyed girl slowly shakes her head, exposing a few strands of messy, pale-blonde hair.
"We are all but actors on this grand stage, arranged to entertain and arouse the fae in their slumber. I am granted nobility - Queendom - for my own role, as I am the caretaker of those fae whom await a new role to play... or those who wish to slumber 'till the curtain calls, and the fae are roused for war."
You blink, because… that made… sense? In a morbidly terrifying way, that is: she's… keeping the shard connections of dead parahumans (not ghosts or souls like people think) until the Entities finally decide to blow it all up and move on. But… can they not do that themselves? Maybe her power is the thing that lets them do that in the first place?
And now you actually want to sit down and talk with the Faerie Queen about all this stuff…
No! Ugh! That's Taylor's job! What is wrong with you?!
What is even your life?
"Why did you not seek out the others of my Assembly first?" you continue on, doing your best not to let your mental screaming break through your facade. "I am but days returned, unlikely to have been the source of your Lord's disquiet and still unlearned in many of my own Court's ways."
You had no idea you could talk like this. Is this really you? Well, okay, a lot of this is Queen Cynthia's lines just thrown together, but… no, gotta focus, don't want to accidentally say she's banging her father-figure... again.
Her eyes droop again, regarding you once more with a casual disappointment that you didn't just fall over and die when commanded.
"The humans talk, heralding the victories of the…" she tilts her head absently, considering for a moment before nodding, "the First of the Court of Order. They revealed the Lord of the Court studying the battlefield in distress, but when I went to seek the First out she had vanished from the land. In seeking out the Second, I discovered her within the House of White with the High Priest and Coruscant Knave."
Alright, so… Taylor gone? Ummm… her Invisibility charm, maybe? She's mentioned that powers can't find her like that, and if Scion is still hanging around Philadelphia she might be staying invisible as much as possible. Prayer is 'the Second', Coruscant Knave sounds like... Legend? No idea who 'High Priest' is, though, but you need to just roll with it.
"I see," you nod in acceptance, smiling at her 'wisdom' before offering a sympathetic sigh. "And your desired obfuscation so that you could return to your court without inciting alarm?"
The shade of the larger woman, the one with the metal spikes, begins to shuffle to the left but disappears into trailing smoke just as quickly as she first appeared. In her place, as if walking in from off-stage, a medium-sized ghost of a man in a faded jacket and pants appears - but his skin, face, ears, and hair all are constantly changing shape, size, and color.
"A handmaiden stands in my place," the echoing voice murmurs disappointedly, "but like all doubles the duplicity shan't stay uncovered for long."
Her gaze drifts from you to the others in the room, and you notice that everyone has largely remained frozen in spot. Well, except for Lord Grasp who is now as close as he can be to the table's edge without falling off.
"Royalty seeks royalty," she hums in only a few voices, before turning cold eyes on Aisha. "Lady Censor."
Wide-eyed at being called out, Aisha flicks her gaze to you in confusion before looking back at the cape that could probably turn her into a messy stain in a heartbeat.
"Ye-" she coughs, clears her throat, then tries again. "Yeah?"
"It is High Treason to forsake your court," she sneers, and the ghosts at her back shuffle into combat positions. "Worse, you would ensnare a noble dreamer in this treachery. I am within my rights to claim your fae for my own collection to spare it this fate."
Before the rest of the room can completely lose their minds because what do they think they can do against her, you throw out your arm to block the Faerie Queen's line of sight on the young Stranger.
"But you won't," your tone conversational, all while giving the rest of the room a side-eye that once again screams through your Body Language charm STAND DOWN STAND DOWN!
Turning back fully, you raise an eyebrow as you nod to the unamused murderer.
"Not to impose, but more that you do not sound convinced yourself that this is the proper course of action."
Looking up at you - she's… what? 5'4 under all that? - her expression grows distant again as she nods slowly and swivels to Aisha to study her for a long moment.
Pale but doing her best not to flinch, Aisha stares back until the Faerie Queen nods again and turns back to you.
"This process of which you speak... that allows one to flee the failings of their human shells and geas their fae to servitude to the Court of Order. I will observe, so that I may then bring my findings to the Lord of the Court."
You blink, because that is not where you expected this conversation to go.
Looking to Brian, you can tell he's just as confused as you are… but then he realizes what this means and you start to see the trails of smoke start to bleed off his skin-
Gracefully, you place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze with enough force to get him to look you in the eyes again.
Eyes wide and sorrowful, shaking your head slowly, you tell him with your charm in no uncertain terms:
SHE IS GOING TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN WITH YOU ALIVE OR DEAD
Because if he dies, then Aisha will flip and probably suicide-by-faerie, and then everyone else will suicide-by-faerie, and that would all be stupid and dumb because this is just accomplishing what you came here to do in the first place! Ugh!
Brian practically wilts in your grip as realization dawns, but to soften the blow you flick your eyes to Aisha and ask the silent question: were you really going to say no?
He winces, looks away for a moment, then shakes his head and sighs before looking up to the Faerie Queen with a firm, resolved glare.
She regards him not at all.
Instead, she turning to address Amelia across the length of the table with a polite bow. "I will not intrude upon your court for longer than I must, Shaper, and lament this discord that your Knight forced upon us all."
Amelia blanches, but straightens up and… well, it's sorta a half-curtsey, half-bow that Sabah mirrors while Lisa-
Oh, right, you're still muting Lisa judging by the arms-crossed glare the freckled blonde is leveling you.
Well you just give her a real Glare right back because I saved your damn life you ungrateful little loudmouth, which hits her so hard she has to take a step back to balance herself as she goes red in shame and embarrassment before sighing and nodding silently, looking as if she's suddenly feeling the effects of several sleepless nights.
Eh… you're pretty sure you're missing a lot of what's going on with her, so… yeah, just going to let that one slide.
"I-It's alright, Faerie Queen," Amelia manages, swallowing hard before offering a weak smile. "You… honor us with your visit."
One of her ghosts - the small girl in the dress - glides over and whispers something unintelligible in Glaistig Uaine's ear as she's bowing. Humming in wordless approval as she straightens up, the sound a mixture of dozens of voices making slightly similar noises, she crooks her head at the leader of the Wyld Hunt.
"Your kin presides over his own court in my realm. Do you wish to visit him?"
… What.
The remaining color drains from Amelia's face, but Lisa is quick to latch onto her arm and give her a wordless stare of warning. This seems to break the Striker of her fugue, quickly enough that she manages to a weak reply.
"N-No thank you, your grace… b-but I am thankful for your offer."
The shrouded girl beside you bobs her head again.
"I will pass on your regards, then, as repayment for this trespass of mine."
Amelia just tries to keep a smile on her face - a feat which she mostly accomplishes as Sabah and Lisa keep her steady.
Apparently satisfied, Glaistig Uaine looks to you with impatient, lidded eyes.
"Where does this ritual take place? We must be off."
Uuuuuhhhh…
… yeah... you suppose it'd be too much to ask her to wait until after your vacation.
You glance at Ashia, who looks like she's thinking of asking that exact thing, and give her a Glare that says DON'T EVEN THINK OF IT.
"Actually I-"
Wait wait wait no way can you do what you're thinking?!
"-Iiiii think," you manage to not falter too long as the idea hits you, "I can take us there directly, your grace."
You gesture with your right hand and open a portal in the air, a swirling vortex of black-and-white hexagons that thrums with power as it blatantly twists reality.
"The Cradle resides high in the air above the lake in Brockton… Crater," you wince, allowing that falter to show through your facade. "I can drop us off right where a drone can then ferry us up to it."
You're not actually certain if Glaistig Uaine heard any of that last part, as she is staring, silent and transfixed at the portal you're generating.
After a moment of silence, you cut the portal - which was mostly for show, since you were generating it by slowly transporting a few puffs of air at a time - which causes the Faerie Queen to startle ever-so-slightly and then frown at where it once was.
"I… could not sense it," she breathes, with only a handful of voices to echo her as she turns back to look at you curiously. "How do you ward your fae so completely from my Sight?"
Smiling wanly, you offer up your hands in humility.
"The Great Maker works in mysterious ways."
Of course Aisha has to snort in laughter, ruining your cool line!
Glaistig Uaine frowns in thought as she turns back to the young Stranger. "Come, Censor. The hour of treason is at hand."
Aisha blinks owlishly, realization that yes this is happening right now finally hitting her as she wildly looks between you, then Glaistig Uaine, then to her brother.
Brian looks like he's aged a few years in a few minutes, but he manages a weak smile and a nod.
"Fuck yeah!"
As Aisha fist pumps, then tackles her brother for a laughing, maybe-kinda-crying-in-joy hug and parting words, you and the Faerie Queen share a Look.
You're pretty sure you didn't imagine the ghost of a smile that crossed her face as she rolled her eyes, but it's gone before you can double-check.
Looking up to Hannah, you see that she's torn between wanting to say something... and not wanting to be casually obliterated by the imperious lunatic - you get the feeling that she understands that 'speaking out of turn' would be a quick way to add herself to the Faerie Queen's collection.
So, you give her the opening to talk by speaking to her yourself.
"Can you call Enduring Order Administrator and tell her to meet us at the Cradle? I haven't been issued a new phone yet."
Then you give her a thin-lipped smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes, quietly communicating GET EVERYONE.
Might as well have a backup if… when... this blows up in your face, because by the Maker is the psycho fairy going to be livid if this first part works.
Hannah, for her part, blinks a few times as the double-message registers, then nods.
"Her new armor should get her there quickly. Be safe."
"I'm always safe with Lord Grasp around," you grin, noticing how the mechanical scorpion perks up at his name.
Hannah looks down at the cat-sized gold-and-silver insec- no... wait, you now have a very pressing mental image of a set of frowning mandibles... um, arachnid? Okay that's better... - then looks back to you with a flat expression.
"Warden, I believe I only understood bits and pieces of that," Lord Grasp grumbles, his tail winking out and his claws re-sheathing as he bounds onto your outstretched hand, "but... I'm gathering we are… leaving to go deliver Miss Laborn to the Great Maker for Exaltation?"
"Yes, Lord Grasp," you sigh, turning back to the Faerie Queen as he perches on your shoulder. "But you should be ready for-"
"How curious."
CRAZY FAIRY IN YOUR PERSONAL SPACE!
You are very careful not to break out more of the martial arts charms that you definitely don't have to get Glaistig Uaine away from having her own face practically touching Lord Grap's mandibles. This close, you also notice that... she smells... like some odd mixture of several different flavors of incense.
It's actually kind of nice, but then it immediately makes you wonder why she smells like that. Do they even have incense in the Birdcage?
"Well hello, my dear," Lord Grasp muses warmly, but in a way that you instinctively understand means he's a hair's breadth away from blasting a hole in the fairy's head. Or… trying to, at least.
Then he extends a hand-sized, golden-sheathed claw to her and speaks in a smooth, oddly-accented (...a mixture of Spanish and Japanese?) English. "Lord Crushing Grasp."
In a way that both surprises you and is completely unsurprising, Glaistig Uaine offers what appears to be a genuine smile of humor in return, taking his proffered claw in a dainty hand and curtsying politely in return.
"Glaistig Uaine, Queen of the Fae," her echoing voice bubbles out, though she tilts her head in thought as she straightens back up. "What manner of wondrous creature would be so refined?"
Oh Maker you're glad he can't understand English because with an opening like that you'd never get him to shut up.
There is a sound of grumbling in your head, which reminds you that apparently privacy of thought is a thing of the past.
This then yields a mixed feeling of embarrassment in return... that you're just going to gloss over because you want to get impending disaster over with before the crazy fairy changes her mind.
Clearing your throat, you offer Glaistig Uaine a polite smile as she glances to you.
"I apologize, your grace, but Lord Grasp is still learning the local dialect. I will be honored to serve as a translator at our destination, however, as we will have a few moments to rest; we require Enduring Order Administrator's presence for the… ritual."
The small amount of humor fades from her expression, growing cold and lidded as you explain the cause for delay. She doesn't respond immediately, however - instead allowing her gaze to grow distant, somehow looking through you in a way that is deeply unsettling... but not in a way you can let show on your expression.
"Very well," she sighs, taking a step back, while at the same time causing two of her ghosts to fade out and be replaced by two more - the large cyclops for a masked woman with long hair alight in some unfelt breeze, and the distorted-image man for an ominous cloaked figure carrying a wicked-looking hammer. "The hour grows long. Let us be off."
Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Hannah flinch at the sight of the newcomers. As much as you want to ask about it, you clear your throat and interrupt the quiet brother-sister talk a few feet away.
"Right!" she grins, sniffing absently and wiping her nose and eyes with her sleeve in a careless shrug, before using the motion to slug him in the arm playfully as she backs up to your side. "Whatever, bro. Looks like there's gonna be a Laborn spot open on the field trip - you should go so you and Kinzey can start making all those babies Saki was talking about."
Brian manages to look sad, embarassed, and flabberghasted all at the same time, before he finally just covers his face in a large palm - strained grin still visible underneath.
"I'll-…" he sighs into his hand, "I'll see you in a week, sis."
You give one more look to Hannah, the two of you exchanging nods as you see her pull out a cell phone in her off-hand, before you place your left hand on Aisha's right shoulder, and your right hand on Glaistig Uaine's left.
Huh, the ragged cloth is softer than you were expecting.
"Ready?" you ask each, getting a cheerful nod and a stoic, 'try anything and you're dead' nod respectively.
In your own mind, you THINK VERY LOUDLY TO YOURSELF THAT LORD GRASP SHOULD BE READY TO FIGHT.
As starmetal legs tense on your right shoulder, you trigger your Shard of Transcendental Imprisonment and pull the four of you into your Safe Space with one solid motion.
For a split second, the world fills with black and white hexagons… then resolves into an empty horizon of black jade and empty white sky.
Glaistig Uaine collapses bonelessly and goes still.
You turn your head to a wide-eyed Aisha, then throw your head back and laugh like the very best ojou-sama you are.
***
END OF CHAPTER - CHARACTER SHEET CHANGES:
RED Intimacies have not been fully-established yet, and are not used for bonuses/negatives.
GREY Intimacies yield the normal bonuses/negatives until fully eroded.
WoRI - Intimacy GAINED: Brian/Kinzey (ONE BILLION BABIES) [Illusion] [3/3]
WoRI - Intimacy GAINED: Hannah/Miss Militia (So Cool She Forgot How To Be Normal) [Illusion] [3/3] WoRI - Intimacy STARTED: Brian Laborn (Tall Slice of Brotherly Beefcake) [Emotion|Thirst] [2/3]
WoRI - Intimacy STARTED: Glaistig Uaine (The Mad Queen, Enslaved) [Emotion|Dread] [2/3]
WoRI - Intimacy MODIFIED: Legend (Heroism Is Never Without Flaws) [Illusion] [2/3]
WoRI - Intimacy STARTED: Lisa/Inquisition (Sharp, Jagged, Broken) [Illusion] [2/3]
Lots to consider this time around, as we've got a chance to go in vastly different directions given what we know now and what/who has dropped into our lap.
The Faerie Queen, of course, is both our most pressing concern, and our concern with the most potential; potential for ill or good is to be seen, of course, but no matter what the ramifications are going to be large. At at the moment Saki basically has her dead-to-rights - a feat that has never been accomplished before on Earth-Bet, despite many attempts to do so - but perhaps more importantly is that Saki has put together some of the pieces from how GU was acting during that entire encounter. Namely: if Accord is vastly more mind-whammied than the normal 'natural' cape, then Glaistig Uaine is the example of when the human is basically a slave to their shard.
Saki is not a fan of slavery, or of people being largely trapped in their own mind.
(Also, Saki... kinda liked being able to talk all flowery with someone, as if she was living out the over-dramatic queens in her tawdry romance novels.)
However, Saki is not dumb, and is fully aware that if she just shoved GU back out then her own life expectancy could be counted in seconds. There's even the problem of what GU mentioned about Scion, and how "she" is basically on Team Entity at the moment - given "her" power(s), releasing her at all is a dangerous proposition since she'd potentially either go grab Scion or just go after the rest of the Assembly on her own. So, then, the only real option at the moment is to keep her locked up in Saki's Safe Space... at least for a little while.
Which is why I'm going to bring this back out to a more meta, narrative note: all of the potential Orichalcum candidates that will be in this story now have had screen time. I'm not going to name them all, because there are some who would work that people aren't considering and some that people are considering that wouldn't work. The presiding theme of the Orichalcum candidates is that they are all dangerous in their own way, and all of them have the potential to be a liability to the Assembly if not properly... well, "conditioned" is a heavy term, and none will ever truly be "smoothed out" because that goes against what would catalyze an Orichalcum... so, let's just say that they all need some "alignment adjustments." Because it is within our power to adjust any of our candidates within the time frame we're now dealing with, people should ultimately concern themselves with whom they want to see more of in the narrative, and what kind of role we want our Orichalcum to play in the story.
Bringing us down to current concerns, this means our vote for the Faerie Queen will be largely narrative: put her in cold storage and be done with her as a larger narrative player while we focus on what we've already got going for us (she'll be relevant again/occasionally, but not in a major way), or roll the dice and try to reform the crazy murder-fairy (this doesn't lock her in as Orichalcum, but rather starts the process of seeing if we can get her to switch teams [LEWD] and figuring out how to deal with her Shard problems).
Finally for Scary Fairy, we've got the matter of what the PRT is going to do/say. They're obviously going to note Glaistig Uaine somehow escaped the Birdcage, so how do we want to handle this? Obviously the Birdcage isn't going to hold her anymore, and they only got her there in the first place because she walked in of her own accord after entire S-Class response teams failed to kill her. Worse, this has now compromised the perceived infallibility of the Birdcage; more a problem for the PRT than for us, but it's something that's going to make many PRT higher-ups rather us 'accidentally' kill her and be done with it for the trouble she's set in motion (Saki, being Compassion-primary and actively fighting against being a Hard Woman Making Hard Choices, will deny them that option). Do we want to tell them that she's dead and gone (which, either way we decide, will be true in the metaphorical sense), or do we want to tell them the truth (what we decide to do with her in the option above)?
Next, we've got the matter of Aisha's exaltation. We've got permission, and everyone is basically expecting us to do it now, but we... don't actually have to, since we aren't being held at faerie-point anymore. Waiting would theoretically mean that Aisha and Saki could go on that field trip before Aisha's converted but that wouldn't happen immediately (since Saki is going to be busy with the PRT for the foreseeable future because whoops, got a faerie in my pocket!) Do we want to wait (and run out the Autochthon clock some more) to have some Vacation Hijinx, or actually get things moving along?
Still on the matter of Aisha's exaltation, we happen to have some Cauldron vials on-hand. Do we want to throw one of them in with Aisha when she's converted? Each Shard-Charm that Autochthon makes on takes ONE MONTH off of our remaining time left before the Cradle closes. The current "Three Months" I've been mentioning in-thread is taking into account that our remaining three candidates are all parahumans, so in actually we currently have Six Months left before the Cradle closes; giving Aisha a second vial (WHICH IS NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK, BUT WILL DEDUCT TIME REGARDLESS) will mean we have Four Months left before the Cradle closes. Also, note that the 'untriggered' nature of the vial's power means that Autochthon (read: me) has more room to work, but since it's a Cauldron vial it's going to be an amalgamation of existing Alchemical charms devoted towards a specific end. We currently have a Level 1 (think Gallant-level power) Thinker-primary (meaning its purpose largely slants it towards Thinker powers) and a Level 3 Trump vial... orrrr, if we want, we can call up Cauldron for a third vial in exchange for doing more work for them (Level of our choice, entirely my choice for power slant).
To see if this works, I will require a number of successes equal to the Level of the vial (7 or better on a 10-sided die, 10s count as 2 successes). We start with one die, and the quality of the Stunt increases number of die we get for the roll. You have officially been warned.
As a last note, while Saki got a whole heapin' helpin' of new Abilities and Specializations to buy, both Prayer and Taylor have a number of Abilities 'stuck' because they haven't been bought up to the next level, and everyone has some Backgrounds that are lingering. This was largely why I shifted the Ally (Defiant) from Taylor to Prayer, because in-story Ned has done a lot more with Prayer than Taylor at this point and is largely following our Adamant around instead of staying with Taylor - it makes more sense for Prayer to have had these dots all along. If you see an Ability or Background on the character sheets in ORANGE then it means I'm going to be removing it or knocking it down to 1/6 Training Intervals at the end of Chapter 9.7 because we clearly aren't interested in pursuing it right now.
Now, on to voting!
Fire and Ice:(Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Cold Storage (Glaistig Uaine is placed in stasis and kept there for most of the remaining story)
[ ] Slow Burn (Glaistig Uaine is kept in Safe Space but awake and interacting with the story's cast)
I've Got Something In My Pocket: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] The Queen is Dead (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine is dead)
[ ] Prison of Her Own Making (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine will be kept in Saki's Safe Space, since that's the only way to hold her)
Extended Vacations: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Exalt Aisha Now
[ ] Exalt Aisha After Everything Is Settled
Nothing Can Go Wrong With This Plan: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Don't send Aisha into the Cradle with a Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Send Aisha into the Cradle with the Level 1 "Thinker" Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Send Aisha into the Cradle with the Level 3 "Trump" Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Call Cauldron, Send Aisha into the Cradle with a Stunt-Chosen-Level Cauldron Vial.
NO FREE ACTIONS THIS VOTE, I'M RE-THINKING HOW THESE WILL WORK IN THE FUTURE
XP Expenditures should now be formatted as such:
[ ] NAME - ? XP - Item ●●●○○
[ ] NAME - ? XP - Item (Specialization ●●○)
VOTE DISCUSSION STARTS NOW
ACTUAL VOTING BEGINS:
Lots to consider this time around, as we've got a chance to go in vastly different directions given what we know now and what/who has dropped into our lap.
The Faerie Queen, of course, is both our most pressing concern, and our concern with the most potential; potential for ill or good is to be seen, of course, but no matter what the ramifications are going to be large. At at the moment Saki basically has her dead-to-rights - a feat that has never been accomplished before on Earth-Bet, despite many attempts to do so - but perhaps more importantly is that Saki has put together some of the pieces from how GU was acting during that entire encounter. Namely: if Accord is vastly more mind-whammied than the normal 'natural' cape, then Glaistig Uaine is the example of when the human is basically a slave to their shard.
Saki is not a fan of slavery, or of people being largely trapped in their own mind.
(Also, Saki... kinda liked being able to talk all flowery with someone, as if she was living out the over-dramatic queens in her tawdry romance novels.)
However, Saki is not dumb, and is fully aware that if she just shoved GU back out then her own life expectancy could be counted in seconds. There's even the problem of what GU mentioned about Scion, and how "she" is basically on Team Entity at the moment - given "her" power(s), releasing her at all is a dangerous proposition since she'd potentially either go grab Scion or just go after the rest of the Assembly on her own. So, then, the only real option at the moment is to keep her locked up in Saki's Safe Space... at least for a little while.
Which is why I'm going to bring this back out to a more meta, narrative note: all of the potential Orichalcum candidates that will be in this story now have had screen time. I'm not going to name them all, because there are some who would work that people aren't considering and some that people are considering that wouldn't work. The presiding theme of the Orichalcum candidates is that they are all dangerous in their own way, and all of them have the potential to be a liability to the Assembly if not properly... well, "conditioned" is a heavy term, and none will ever truly be "smoothed out" because that goes against what would catalyze an Orichalcum... so, let's just say that they all need some "alignment adjustments." Because it is within our power to adjust any of our candidates within the time frame we're now dealing with, people should ultimately concern themselves with whom they want to see more of in the narrative, and what kind of role we want our Orichalcum to play in the story.
Bringing us down to current concerns, this means our vote for the Faerie Queen will be largely narrative: put her in cold storage and be done with her as a larger narrative player while we focus on what we've already got going for us (she'll be relevant again/occasionally, but not in a major way), or roll the dice and try to reform the crazy murder-fairy (this doesn't lock her in as Orichalcum, but rather starts the process of seeing if we can get her to switch teams [LEWD] and figuring out how to deal with her Shard problems).
Finally for Scary Fairy, we've got the matter of what the PRT is going to do/say. They're obviously going to note Glaistig Uaine somehow escaped the Birdcage, so how do we want to handle this? Obviously the Birdcage isn't going to hold her anymore, and they only got her there in the first place because she walked in of her own accord after entire S-Class response teams failed to kill her. Worse, this has now compromised the perceived infallibility of the Birdcage; more a problem for the PRT than for us, but it's something that's going to make many PRT higher-ups rather us 'accidentally' kill her and be done with it for the trouble she's set in motion (Saki, being Compassion-primary and actively fighting against being a Hard Woman Making Hard Choices, will deny them that option). Do we want to tell them that she's dead and gone (which, either way we decide, will be true in the metaphorical sense), or do we want to tell them the truth (what we decide to do with her in the option above)?
Next, we've got the matter of Aisha's exaltation. We've got permission, and everyone is basically expecting us to do it now, but we... don't actually have to, since we aren't being held at faerie-point anymore. Waiting would theoretically mean that Aisha and Saki could go on that field trip before Aisha's converted but that wouldn't happen immediately (since Saki is going to be busy with the PRT for the foreseeable future because whoops, got a faerie in my pocket!) Do we want to wait (and run out the Autochthon clock some more) to have some Vacation Hijinx, or actually get things moving along?
Still on the matter of Aisha's exaltation, we happen to have some Cauldron vials on-hand. Do we want to throw one of them in with Aisha when she's converted? Each Shard-Charm that Autochthon makes on takes ONE MONTH off of our remaining time left before the Cradle closes. The current "Three Months" I've been mentioning in-thread is taking into account that our remaining three candidates are all parahumans, so in actually we currently have Six Months left before the Cradle closes; giving Aisha a second vial (WHICH IS NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK, BUT WILL DEDUCT TIME REGARDLESS) will mean we have Four Months left before the Cradle closes. Also, note that the 'untriggered' nature of the vial's power means that Autochthon (read: me) has more room to work, but since it's a Cauldron vial it's going to be an amalgamation of existing Alchemical charms devoted towards a specific end. We currently have a Level 1 (think Gallant-level power) Thinker-primary (meaning its purpose largely slants it towards Thinker powers) and a Level 3 Trump vial... orrrr, if we want, we can call up Cauldron for a third vial in exchange for doing more work for them (Level of our choice, entirely my choice for power slant).
To see if this works, I will require a number of successes equal to the Level of the vial (7 or better on a 10-sided die, 10s count as 2 successes). We start with one die, and the quality of the Stunt increases number of die we get for the roll. You have officially been warned.
As a last note, while Saki got a whole heapin' helpin' of new Abilities and Specializations to buy, both Prayer and Taylor have a number of Abilities 'stuck' because they haven't been bought up to the next level, and everyone has some Backgrounds that are lingering. This was largely why I shifted the Ally (Defiant) from Taylor to Prayer, because in-story Ned has done a lot more with Prayer than Taylor at this point and is largely following our Adamant around instead of staying with Taylor - it makes more sense for Prayer to have had these dots all along. If you see an Ability or Background on the character sheets in ORANGE then it means I'm going to be removing it or knocking it down to 1/6 Training Intervals at the end of Chapter 9.7 because we clearly aren't interested in pursuing it right now.
Now, on to voting!
Fire and Ice:(Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Cold Storage (Glaistig Uaine is placed in stasis and kept there for most of the remaining story)
[ ] Slow Burn (Glaistig Uaine is kept in Safe Space but awake and interacting with the story's cast)
I've Got Something In My Pocket: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] The Queen is Dead (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine is dead)
[ ] Prison of Her Own Making (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine will be kept in Saki's Safe Space, since that's the only way to hold her)
Extended Vacations: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Exalt Aisha Now
[ ] Exalt Aisha After Everything Is Settled
Nothing Can Go Wrong With This Plan: (Choose One, One Stunt Allowed)
[ ] Don't send Aisha into the Cradle with a Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Send Aisha into the Cradle with the Level 1 "Thinker" Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Send Aisha into the Cradle with the Level 3 "Trump" Cauldron Vial.
[ ] Call Cauldron, Send Aisha into the Cradle with a Stunt-Chosen-Level Cauldron Vial.
NO FREE ACTIONS THIS VOTE, I'M RE-THINKING HOW THESE WILL WORK IN THE FUTURE
XP Expenditures should now be formatted as such:
[ ] NAME - ? XP - Item ●●●○○
[ ] NAME - ? XP - Item (Specialization ●●○)
VOTE DISCUSSION STARTS NOW
ACTUAL VOTING BEGINS:
"In the land of Brass and Shadow, a broken bell will kill you just as surely as any blade or arrow."
QUIET GAUGE STYLE
There is no such thing as the Quiet Gauge Protocol. It is not an order for which seemingly-random Populat and Sodalites keep constant vigil, ever mindful of coming across an apparently-discarded gauge or meter with a new target's name inscribed upon its metallic surface. These Autochthonians would not understand that this target had been judged as an eventual threat not just to their own nation, but to the working of Autochthonian Society at large. Nor would they know that this judgement had been passed down by spiritual or Alchemical agents of the Divine Ministers, who most certainly are not themselves hidden throughout the populace of the Eight Great Nations. These Autochthonians certainly wouldn't have been selected for their fervent devotion to the Great Maker, above both City and Nation, and a great number of Adamant Caste Alchemicals (which also do not exist) do not have past lives that sacrificed themselves whilst carrying out a Quiet Gauge Protocol.
Quiet Gauge Style does not combine the mundane, monotonous movements of factory-line assembly motions with the structured, efficient behaviors that allow a Citizen to avoid drawing the attention of the Regulators. It does not allow its practitioners to channel corrosive essence in subtle, crippling ways to exploit known blind spots, expected rust-points, and observed fault lines.
The Protocol does not rely on its agents' use of this style to subdue and extract - or simply eliminate - its targets in plain sight, often under the nose of watchful Regulators. Targets of this non-existent Protocol do not stumble into exposed gears, feint into open pits, or trip off walkways, nor do they suddenly collapse from "exhaustion" or "over-working" and need to be taken "back to their barracks" by the dutiful and clearly-harmless Citizen near them. There have been no reported cases of paranoid, reclusive Sodalites suddenly succumbing to heart attacks in their sleep, or of dangerous insurgents suddenly suffering complete, fatal organ failure during a quick nap.
Students who are not learning this Smoke-aspected style do not believe in hiding in plain sight, nor do they slowly come to understand the wear-and-tear of everyday entropy that can reduce even the strongest support beam or hardiest constitution to fail at a critical, unforseen moment. There would be no purpose to learning how to walk over unbroken light bulbs or to practicing strikes against a nearby pillow while holding a conversation with their bunkmates. They are not guided by hidden mechanical spirits to perform public tasks that appear completely mundane to all observers, but devastatingly potent by the Student in retrospect.
Weapons and Armor: If martial artists did practice Quiet Gauge Style, they would treat the hand-needle and the garrote as form weapons. If anyone practiced this style, wearing armor would prevent them from achieving the proper blend of harmlessness and anonymity required to execute its charms. Complementary Abilities: A Student of Quiet Gauge Style would require at least two dots in Socialize and another two dots in Larceny, Presence, or Stealth in order to properly internalize its ways. Most Autochthonians chosen for the Quiet Gauge Protocol are selected specifically because they already possess these traits.
ASSEMBLY-LINE RACKET
Cost: 2m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: (Martial Arts) actions Prerequisite Charms: None
Factory-Cathedrals are the cornerstone of Autochthonian Industry, but the din of even the most well-lubricated and securely-fastened assembly line is what results in many factory workers becoming slightly deaf by middle age. While all Autochthonians are instructed to be attentive for sounds of failing machinery, it is sadly common that most ignore anything but the end-of-shift whistle. Attacks made while this Charm is active can directly pierce or touch the Essence in the target's chakras, enabling the attack to have adverse effects even while they inflict no damage. For the duration of Assembly-Line Racket, the character may choose to inflict no actual health levels of damage with any of his individual Martial Arts attacks—but the target can still suffer wound penalties and supernatural effects, including poisons, contamination and the powers available through certain Charms. Some effects use the number of health levels lost to determine their extent, and for such purposes, the damage done is zero. Targets of attacks made to cause no damage do not know that they have been affected by other effects.
SAME SHIFT DIFFERENT DAY
Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: (Martial Arts) actions Prerequisite Charms: None
Autochthonia is fraught with environmental hazards and Autochthonian life filled with grueling work hours to keep civilization functioning - a combination that has resulted in most Citizens being able to drearily wait in line next to bottomless pits, absently traverse railing-less stairwells, or even casually lean on pipes pumping deadly toxins. By adjusting their own behaviors to match the general banalities and attitudes around them, the character momentarily becomes "nothing worth noticing" and forgoes the usual +2 difficulty to make her attack unexpected. This Charm has no effect once hostilities have been recognized.
JOSTLED BY THE CROWD
Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 4) Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Assembly-Line Racket, Same Shift Different Day
The concept of "personal space" is alien to much of the Populat, and even Sodalites are familiar with the press of packed bodies that are a staple of Autochthonian mass-transit systems. Just as a shove or bump as people pass by is rarely worth noticing, a character with this Charm may pass off their movements as merely their unremarkable passage from Point A to Point B. Jostled By The Crowd replaces reroll Charms and cannot be used in concert with one. The martial artist may invoke it after seeing the quality of his attack in Step 3 of attack resolution but before comparing it to his target's DVs. His player rolls (Wits + Martial Arts) at a difficulty of (target's Perception + 1). If successful, attack resolution ends immediately. It is as if she never attacked, though observers with a Perception greater than the number of successes rolled know she tried something… odd.
QUIET GAUGE FORM
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Simple Keywords: Form-type Duration: One scene Prerequisite Charms: Jostled By The Crowd
Assuming this form is a matter of going about your own business as a typical member of... wherever you happen to be. There is nothing wrong, nothing hidden, and the character can hold up her end of a conversation even in battle. Such an unconcerned mien disconcerts foes in battle, taking one die from their dice pools when they try to attack her. The martial artist may also add a number of dice equal to her Essence to her Stealth or Larceny attempts to reestablish surprise by sacrificing an equal number of dice from any attacks that benefit from that surprise. Bystanders hesitate when they see or hear the disparity between the victim, fighting for his life, and the character, whose speech and posture indicate a helpful attempt to adjust a uniform or an exasperated comrade trying to get them home safely. Any attempts to Join Battle in response to seeing the fight suffer a -1 external penalty unless the individual witness has also mastered Quiet Gauge Form.
FALSE ALARM RESIGNATION
Cost: 2m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Quiet Gauge Form
By moving like someone just as resigned to what's going on as everyone else is, a master of this Charm can eliminate the danger of retaliation - or even awareness. This Charm supplements an unexpected attack. As long as the character's relevant Stealth attempts for an unexpected attack (see Exalted, p. 155) successfully prevent anyone from making Join Battle rolls and his attack inflicts no damage (or otherwise does not capture the target's attention), no one is aware of it, even if they were to examine the event in hindsight.
SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE
Cost: 2m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple Keywords: Combo-OK, Poison Duration: (Essence) actions Prerequisite Charms: Quiet Gauge Form
Constant vigilance is required in Autochthonia, for all it takes is a simple valve failure to cause an entire district to be filled with odorless, colorless toxin. So, too, must Citizens be mindful of their own health, as it is not unheard of for even the most popular Sodalites to suffer from a sudden stroke or heart failure. Manifesting this reality, the character focuses Essence on the tip of her finger or in her concealed needle. She imbues the needle with the corrosive understanding of the true fragility of the living body, then injects the unsuspecting target and waits for this knowledge to be absorbed. This taint affects whomever the character successfully attacks next, as long as she does so before the Charm ends. Single Point of Failure creates a poison with the following traits: Damage (Essence x 4)B/minute, Toxicity (Essence)L, Tolerance –/–, Penalty -0. As a supernatural poison, it has a few additional qualities. It does not take effect immediately, and the player of someone subjected to it makes no immediate Resistance roll. Instead, it settles into the target's body and waits an unknown period of time (at least one week, no more than three) before it causes either a heart attack, stroke, or other major organ failure. Until then, it is undetectable without supernatural means. It also never begins to kill until the victim is asleep in bed. Most never feel it and never wake up. Characters using this Charm can influence the poison's timing and deadliness. A (Wits + Medicine) roll, difficulty 2, allows the character to choose exactly when (from one to three weeks) the poison activates. Alternatively, a similar roll makes sure that it will not kill. Instead, the poison becomes dormant once the victim suffers his first wound in the Incapacitated level. It then kicks back in any time that health level heals, trying to keep the victim unconscious through repeated organ failure. The Quiet Gauge Stylist can inflict both these effects with a difficulty 3 roll.
TOTAL CASCADE FAILURE
Cost: 2m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple Keywords: Combo-OK, Sickness Duration: (Essence) actions Prerequisite Charms: Quiet Gauge Form
This Charm resembles Single Point of Failure, except it imbues the victim with a Sickness effect rather than poisoning him. If the martial artist can strike her target within the time limit, she infects him with a Second Circle spiritual disease (see p. 154 in the Appendix) with these traits: Virulence: (attacker's Essence) Incubation Period: (target's Essence) days Diagnosis: 3 Difficulty to Treat (Mundane/Magical): 3/1 Morbidity: 5 Treated Morbidity: 3
During the incubation period, the victim feels just a little bit off, maybe the result of a poor night's rest or a bit of bad food (or the epic equivalent for an Exalt). She suffers a -1 penalty to all actions. Once that period ends, the victim's condition worsens rapidly as parts of the body begin to shut down, forcing the victim's player to roll (Stamina + Resistance) for every hour the disease is active. On a failure, the victim suffers one level of unsoakable bashing damage and a penalty of -3 on all actions. (The morbidity roll is not an action.) The target of this sickness must succeed at three consecutive checks before she defeats it entirely. Exalted always use the Treated Morbidity difficulty. Dying of this illness causes the body to literally crumble apart, eventually sublimating the body and all non-Artifact possessions into a cloud of rapidly-dispersing, unremarkable smoke. Characters who use this Charm or Single Point of Failure often taint their needle with mundane delayed-action poisons to soften the target before the final blow.
DISABLE THE KLAXONS
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling Duration: (Essence) actions Prerequisite Charms: False Alarm Resignation, Single Point of Failure, Total Cascade Failure
This Charm functions somewhat like the two previous Charms: The martial artist sets the deadly Essence on her finger or needle, then must use it within the next few actions for it to take effect. When she hits someone with this attack, the Essence she injects into her target's body and the chakras she triggers force his body to ignore any poisons and diseases that are currently in his system. The body ceases to consider them threats, so it cannot react to them strongly, instead letting them run their course almost unhindered. To be sure that this Charm works, the character's player makes a (Dexterity + Martial Arts) roll at a difficulty of her target's Stamina. If she succeeds, the target's player subtracts an amount equal to the attacker's Essence from any rolls to withstand any poisons or diseases currently residing in the target's body. Obviously, a practitioner of this style will use this Charm after introducing other poisons and contaminants into the victim's body.
Sidebar: White Veil Style?
If Quiet Gauge Style actually did exist, passing similarities between it any equally-hypothetical styles in Creation would be entirely coincidental. There is certainly no metaphysical reason for the same culture to emerge in both the resource-opulent courts of the Dragonblooded Shogunate and the resource-starved polities of Autochthonia. Another possibility that such conjecture would imply is that there may be some force or entity capable of traveling between - and with influence in - both civilizations, despite the fact that the Seal of Eight Divinities cut off Autochthonia from Creation well before the Second Age began.
Gromweld, first you're doing a great job as a writer. Kudos and everything.
But secondly, this WoG doesn't clarify anything, it murks the affair worst. If there is objectively better and worst options, and you just said that there is, then shouldn't we try to go for the better options? Or do you mean any 'objective' choice should be secondary to narrative concerns, like what @Cassiemouse and @ChandraMagic wrote? Is that what you mean?
I honestly hate that whole argument because it feels like autistic nitpicking, but it is important. I thought until now that we should go for the efficient and useful choice - going for the flavourful one is an entirely different kind whatsoever.
I'll save everyone the long essay I could write on Narrative Theory, and instead try to answer your question as succinctly as possible:
- The root of Drama is conflict, challenge, and overcoming these difficulties.
- To build a Dramatic story you need make the lives of the character harder/worse, because it means the characters have to push themselves farther and thus grow as individuals while performing extraordinary feats.
- The options I present always come with some kind of hidden complication/plot points to keep things interesting, so if there appears to be an "objective best" that is almost never the actual reality since I need to keep things interesting. That is why I encourage people to vote for what you think you'd like our characters to try/do, rather than what you think will min/max our way to victory.
Radiant Iconography or showing the exaltation with POS will not give GU what she wants. She wanted to see it with her sight and other thinking powers, the actual exaltation is rather empty of all information - boom soul boom soul/face gone - so simply showing her the visuals will be worthless to her.
Saki showed GU her own Exaltation vision which again is not what GU was interested in. She cares about the process in which Autochthon "swears the Fae to his own court" and even with her sight and thinker powers I highly doubt she will too much standing there.
I don't really see why we would bother showing her how our puny human eyes see said process. I do agree that promises done under death threats are rather null in their validity.
I will confirm that Glaistig Uaine's shard-enhanced sight would reveal much different things than any of our current characters would be able to see during the conversion process.
Taylor could have gone through this story as the only Alchemical. In fact, that was my very first plan for the story! Before I realized that building an Assembly would be pretty cool, and something that I haven't seen done elsewhere, that is.
I chuckled, though I'll say now that already getting Dr. Yamada involved is beyond the scope of the next chapter. In addition, the soulgem is a big enough event that I think it's too much to simply gloss over as fait accompli - since there are two stunts that involve GU, if we want to Soulgem her now then one should be dedicated to that and the other to... whatever we want to do with Ciara.
TL;DR: (42 voters, 21 votes required for XP purchases)
- SLOW BURN (NO ENGLISH BOOKS MEANS CIARA GETS POP-UP PICTURE BOOKS INSTEAD)
- PRISON OF HER OWN MAKING (MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, GOOD WORK TEAM)
- EXALT AISHA NOW (PAPERWORK MAKES THINGS OFFICIAL)
- NO CAULDRON VIAL (SUZY IS DEAD. LONG LIVE SUZY.)
- EOA - 3 XP - Ally (Legend) ●●○○○ - EOA - 3 XP - Ally (Accord) ●●○○○
[X] Cold Storage (Glaistig Uaine is placed in stasis and kept there for most of the remaining story) No. of votes: 3 thamuzz, Chicago Ted, Arbit
I've Got Something In My Pocket:
[X] Prison of Her Own Making (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine will be kept in Saki's Safe Space, since that's the only way to hold her) No. of votes: 39 Daemir, Higure, tenchifew, HyperCatnip, thamuzz, uju32, Strayed, Chicago Ted, sainen, Evil Atlas, ItIncursDust, Shykta, Romv, Arbit, the DragonBard, KInruush, 1986ctcel, Algalon, I'llNameThisL8r, veekie, Jinnt, spudman, Idan Dor, Datakim, habrok, Twei, Hate Fish, Vesperian, wingnut2292, VNodosaurus, Yeangst, Versac, wingstrike96, No One, FunkyEntropy, , Funcio, Zcuron, Nicklance, tryingtobewitty
- [x] Stunt: Saki returns to the Crater, where what seems like half the Protectorate tenses at her arrival. "W-well, I…" she begins, before an idea strikes. "Tatsu, no!" she distantly hears Legend call out as the surroundings dim around her now heroic outline. Her foot perches on a caged fairy as she gazes into the distance beneath a banner proclaiming MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. No. of votes: 20 tenchifew, HyperCatnip, Strayed, Chicago Ted, sainen, ItIncursDust, Romv, Arbit, the DragonBard, 1986ctcel, Algalon, I'llNameThisL8r, veekie, Jinnt, Idan Dor, Hate Fish, VNodosaurus, wingstrike96, Nicklance
- [x] Stunt: The Wyld Hunt was huddled together, quiet. Hanna opened her cell. "This is Miss Militia. Get me Dragon. Emergency Authorization-" "Wait!" Saki stood where she left, Aisha next to her. "She's powerless now. Oh! I need to tell Lord Grasp what to do! Be right back!" And she was gone again. "Hannah?! It's Dragon. What do you need?" "My vacation." No. of votes: 13 Daemir, Shykta, spudman, Datakim, habrok, Vesperian, wingnut2292, Yeangst, Versac, No One, landcollector, Funcio, tryingtobewitty, Silently Watches
- [x] Stunt: Deputy Chief Director Reinhold stared silently through the black jade glass at the frozen Fairy Queen. Abruptly he turned and walked out of the mausoleum, followed by his retinue. As the rumbling doors sealed behind them, he turned to Saki. She's alive in there? Yessir. Alright. What do you need? Saki fumbled in her pocket Actually,I made a list ....(60 words) No. of votes: 2 uju32, Twei
- [x] Stunt: Legend stood - which was new for Saki - next to Taylor regarding Glaistig Uaine's still unconscious form. "I confirm the Fairy Queen is contained," he said officially. Then, to Taylor, "What now?" "Rehabilitation," the Assembly leader answered immediately. "You're confident in this?" "Well, sure," Saki answered, "Without powers, capes are just people. And people always have a chance to change." No. of votes: 1 KInruush
- [x] Stunt: Amidst the constant flash of press cameras and concerned onlookers in the packed gallery, Taylor leaned forward into the mic, "Correct, Senator. Glaistig Uaine has been relocated to max security alt-dimensional prison; the public is perfectly safe." A palpable wave of relief spread through the crowd. "In addition we have-" "Begun deprogramming," Saki interjected. The shocked silence was overwhelming. No. of votes: 1 FunkyEntropy, Cassiemouse
- [x] Stunt: Returning to the Hotelroom, there's a beat of silence as everyone turns towards you before breaking into a cacophony of questions. "I.. Let me.." you try before an idea strikes! Your surroundings dim, morphing into a stylized exemplar of heroism, foot perched upon a caged fairy as you resolutely peer into the distance beneath a banner proudly proclaiming MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. No. of votes: 1 Zcuron
[X] The Queen is Dead (Tell the PRT that Glaistig Uaine is dead) No. of votes: 1 Akuma-Heika
Extended Vacations:
[X] Exalt Aisha Now
No. of votes: 37 Higure, tenchifew, HyperCatnip, uju32, Strayed, sainen, Evil Atlas, ItIncursDust, Shykta, Romv, Arbit, the DragonBard, KInruush, 1986ctcel, Algalon, I'llNameThisL8r, veekie, Jinnt, spudman, Datakim, habrok, Twei, Hate Fish, Vesperian, wingnut2292, VNodosaurus, Yeangst, Versac, wingstrike96, No One, FunkyEntropy, , Funcio, Zcuron, Nicklance, Akuma-Heika, tryingtobewitty
- [x] Stunt: Reviewing the signed paperwork, Taylor passed copies back to Brian and Ms Militia. All complete. Resting his hands on the table, Brian glanced over his shoulder to where Lord Grasp was holding court to Aisha, Sabah and Amelia with a display of animated storytelling. He looked back to see Taylor staring at him sympathetically. "We'll bring her back safe. Believe it." No. of votes: 25 tenchifew, HyperCatnip, Strayed, sainen, Evil Atlas, ItIncursDust, Shykta, Romv, Arbit, the DragonBard, 1986ctcel, Algalon, I'llNameThisL8r, veekie, Jinnt, spudman, Datakim, wingnut2292, VNodosaurus, Yeangst, Versac, wingstrike96, No One, FunkyEntropy, Nicklance
- [x] Stunt: Reviewing the signed paperwork, Taylor passed copies back to Brian and Ms Militia. All complete. Resting his hands on the table, Brian glanced over his shoulder to where Lord Grasp was holding court to Aisha, Sabah and Amelia with a display of animated storytelling. He looked back to see Taylor staring at him sympathetically. We'll bring her back safe. Promise.(60 words) No. of votes: 2 uju32, Twei
- [x] Stunt: Reviewing the signed paperwork, Taylor passed copies back to Brian and Ms Militia. All complete. Resting his hands on the table, Brian glanced over his shoulder to where Lord Grasp was holding court to Aisha, Sabah and Amelia with a display of animated storytelling. He looked back to see Taylor staring at him sympathetically. We'll bring her back safe. Promise. No. of votes: 2 KInruush, Hate Fish
- [x] Stunt: Enough of this touchy-feely bullshit, bro! *sniffle* Time to up my Awesome! Aisha exclaims. Suppressing a sigh, you finally peel your reassuring hand from Brian's glorious... 'Focus!' Right. You still want to watch, Lisa? Mouth tight, she nods. Very well. Accepting Prayer's hand, you begin your twilight ascent to the Cradle on charcoal grey wings reminiscent of Valkyries of old. No. of votes: 1 Zcuron
[X] Exalt Aisha After Everything Is Settled
No. of votes: 1 Daemir
[X] Call Cauldron, Send Aisha into the Cradle with a Stunt-Chosen-Level Cauldron Vial.
No. of votes: 5 Higure, uju32, spudman, Twei, Zcuron
- [x] Stunt: Taylor grimaces as Saki begins Maybe you should sleep on it.... Aisha snorts as she leans forward, eyes intent. The freaking Fairy Queen jumped us in a hotel room, Saki. Ain't nothing and nowhere safe; no offence Lord Grasp. Make the call, Weaves; time's wasting.Taylor exchanges silent looks with Prayer before sighing. Okay. But we'll go with a weaker one.....(60 words) No. of votes: 3 uju32, spudman, Twei
- [x] Stunt: Hovering far above the caustic, smoldering crater as the sun sets Lord Iris! Taylor calls with a palm resting on the... god? spirit? The perfectly round ball of deepest black rumbles briefly before it glares at you, somehow. PURPOSE? Exaltation. Taylor states quickly, left hand firm on your shoulder, right hand extending a 'weak' Vial. Your assistance. (53) No. of votes: 1 Zcuron
[X] EOA - 2 XP - Occult (Souls ●●○) No. of votes: 2 Shykta, Algalon
[X] FPoP - 4 XP - Occult ●●○○○ No. of votes: 1 Arbit
[X] EOA - 2 XP - Socialize (Swarms ●●○) No. of votes: 1 No One
[X] WoRI - 2 XP - Martial Arts (Nothing To See Here ●○○) No. of votes: 1 No One
[X] or -[X] or[1/2/3/etc] (in the case of ranked voting). This means that if you try to put paragraph breaks in your stunts, nothing after the first paragraph will show up in the tally. This doesn't mean that Grom won't see it, of course, but it does mean he'll have to do more work, and he's already doing a fair amount anyway. Don't burden your GM with additional work. No. of votes: 1 (IRONICALLY-CAUGHT VOTE IS INVALID) (ALSO, SVVOTETALLYTKv3.21 IS GOOFY) (ALSO ALSO YOU NEVER ACTUALLY CAST A VOTE) Scify
