Didn't Scion think in his interlude that Broadcast is normally a chill Shard, and all aggression is 100% on Jacob?
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
- Location
- Right Where I Am
I don't recall that coming up at all.
I've got no idea. Never seen the Scion interlude.
That was a Wildbow WoG not a Zion Interlude.
I wish I was as smart as you, I did it in 2 and sacrificed sleep and some working hours (to my shame) my free weekends must have been like 45 hours of reading minimum
- Location
- Illinois
Thanks for the terrifying image of Missy second-triggering with a pissed-off version of Jack's power...
From what I've seen Wildbow really loves to buff Jack's power to make sure nothing can contradict his Jack Slash is unkillable WoGs.
That's still not really a threat to Joe or possible from what I know about second triggers.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
It was such a minor and passing demonstration of an ability, but I absolutely love the lava bird.
I imagine Joe/The Duplicates are going to make at least one Golem per room, both to practice with Titans blood and as some unneeded but appreciated security. Might even make a Milkshake Golem with Tybalts help
An animated milkshake bar golem sounds hilarious
I wonder how many people in Brockton Bay, especially the children, are praying directly to Aperion to make things get better, as a higher power that has been objectively proven to be able to deal with this kind of mess. How many of the conscripts are praying to him? They don't have many other hopes.
The ungodly hour does seem like the kind of thing to cause a short-term crisis of faith.
The ungodly hour does seem like the kind of thing to cause a short-term crisis of faith.
89.1 Interlude Neil
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
(Author's Note: Half-chapter this week, due to limited writing time. This was going to be the preamble for the next chapter, but I decided to post it as a short interlude, rather than miss a week.)
89.1 Interlude Neil
Neil launched himself over the streets of Brockton Bay in a way he never would have dared to before. Even with the dread of the upcoming meeting, it was hard to not feel exhilarated from the sheer freedom of cutting loose and flying through the air. Well, moving through the air. He wasn't really 'flying', at least not in a proper sense.
Still, it was close enough. All those times he'd felt twinges of envy while watching Sarah with the kids were suddenly put in a new perspective. It wasn't just missing out on the time with them, being unable to share a fundamental aspect of their lives. It was more basic. He had been trapped on the ground while they had the freedom of the skies.
People often wondered why brutes, at least non-flying brutes, didn't just jump when they needed to cover ground. He could still remember early enough in the debut of powers, back when people were desperately looking to the old comic titles for a frame of reference. They had called it 'Hulk Leaping', and really that name should have been enough of a reason to explain why it was a bad idea.
The physics weren't the problem. He had more power in his legs than in his upper body. Theoretically he would be able to jump further than he could throw something his weight. The problem was all the other mechanics involved with throwing something his weight.
Super strength was rarely paired with super accuracy. Brutes didn't jump for the same reason they didn't randomly throw un-aerodynamic objects and hope for the best. The jumping wasn't the problem. The problem was the landing. Even if you were lucky enough to touch down where you intended, you were coming down with as much force as you applied to send yourself up.
If you were lucky and had the right supporting powers, like he did, you could avoid cratering the street at the point where you jumped from, but that rarely helped the point of your landing. And if you were off target or, God forbid, heading towards someone, then all you could do was watch and flail and hope you didn't accidently kill someone.
There was a reason the 'mad leaper' stereotype was more associated with villains, and not particularly nice villains at that. Even then, unless you had very good supporting powers odds were that you were going to end up stuck in some twisted wreck at some point with no leverage needed to free yourself.
Neil didn't have good supporting powers. At least he hadn't. Not until the last week. A lifetime of careful power management, of knowing exactly how far he could push himself before he would cause more harm than good, was suddenly having to be reassessed. And all because his body was soaking up Apeiron's mystery particles like a sponge.
Lightning crackled around him as he moved through the air. Unlike normal electrical discharge, the bursts held a geometric shape, moving at sharp angles to each other, like they were being conducted by an invisible grid.
Because they kind of were. The entire problem with the blackout field could be tied to charged particles that bound themselves into an ordered arrangement. And Neil's entire power was based around charged fields bound into an ordered arrangement.
Okay, usually it was millimeters from his skin, not the mess that had been happening, but he could feel the way his power was working. Really feel it, in a way that never happened before. Or that he never paid attention to. Like moving a single joint on a pinky finger. Never considered and never practiced, until it suddenly developed unprecedented strength and overturned your entire view of the world.
Okay, it wasn't that excessive. Give him an ability like this twenty years ago and he would have thought it the most incredible thing to ever exist, but there was too much happening. Too many capes finding new applications for their abilities or breaking through limits. It was the kind of thing that was more than a little concerning, considering who had set things off.
Those were misplaced concerns. That is, he thought they were misplaced. There was no way to draw a line between every incident of a cape rising to a new level and Apeiron's actions. Not in a direct sense, at least. Still, having a suspected power tinker in the same city where that kind of thing kept happening was more than a little concerning.
At least he had oversight for the changes in his own powers. The little device he'd started wearing since Thursday night. Well, Friday night, after Gully's friend had rush delivered it to him. Having a tinker, even a Ward tinker, keeping an eye on things made him feel a lot better about the changes to his power. Almost enough to let him lose himself in the freedom of unrestrained movement.
He set those thoughts aside as he looked down towards his destination. A single point of light within the blackout zone that ran through the city. He focused, pushing off the energy that crackled around him. This was the part that made it safe for him to leap the better part of a block in one go.
Casting himself into blind leaps would have been reckless, but things couldn't have been more different now. The energy around him let him make adjustments. A big part of it was managing his alignment in the air, letting him keep perspective on where he was going, but he could also shift his direction. It was less like being shot from a cannon and more like an old game of Mario, where you had the ability to adjust your position in the air for some reason.
He had a reason, or he had been told a reason. Something about energized particles forming an effective surface, something solid enough to conduct reactive forces. It got into aspects of physics that were beyond his high school science classes, but they certainly seemed to enthrall the tinker community. The important thing for him was the fact that he could actually land where he wanted to.
And land properly. More than properly. He remembered Vicky having a bit of a problem with high impact landings. How she took to slamming into the pavement in the early days of her power. Great for intimidation, not so great for the purposes of urban civic works. He was pretty sure some of the potholes she had caused deeper in the Docks remained unrepaired years later. And if the city couldn't get around to maintaining basic roadworks outside of Downtown, how long would it take to come back from the damage of Thursday night?
His mind shifted from the aftermath of the attacks to what was somehow an even less happy subject. That thought of Vicky served to remind him of the mess that was waiting for him later tonight. The meeting he had pushed for, mostly out of necessity, but one he was dreading all the same. Everyone on the team in the same location. Everyone with frustrations and unaired grievances, just waiting to burst forth.
But it wouldn't come to that. Or at least, not to that level. Everyone had grown up with an awareness of how dangerous their powers could be. Not to the extent that was driven home for brutes, but enough to avoid the possibility of any accidents. Things might get heated, but a superpowered family brawl wasn't in the cards.
At least he hoped it wasn't.
He put that out of his mind as the ground rushed towards him. He could nudge his velocity slightly through the sparking expressions of his field. Mostly to maintain his speed against air resistance or to adjust his heading, but also to slow his descent. The force he could bring forth wasn't close to enough to fly, but he could reduce the speed of his descent to a level that wouldn't risk damaging the street.
That is, if he even needed to make contact with it.
The field of electricity spread out beneath him as he approached the ground. The force that was so minor in mid-air was amplified a thousand times with a surface to push against. He turned his drop into a slide, skimming across the ground before landing on his feet in front of the point of light.
"You're getting a lot better at that." A deep voice called out. The gravely nature wasn't concealed by the soft tone, but he could tell an attempt was being made.
"Thank Facetime for her advice on it." He said to Gully. "At least the parts of it I could understand."
The girl nodded. "So, another drop-off?" She asked.
"Daily module, as usual." He said, handing over Facetime's device. "You know, I could send these out. You don't need to keep taking care of it."
"I appreciate it, but no. Facetime is insanely specific about handling procedures. I've sat through more lectures than I can count. Unless you want a five a.m. call about how you've ruined the integrity of a sample, it's better to let me handle it." She explained.
When Gully was talking about her friends, or really about any part of her time in the San Diego Wards, Neil could see the layers of controlled behavior peel away. They would reassert themselves almost immediately, but it was clear there was something entirely genuine in her relationship with her teammates.
And something artificial in the rest of her behavior. Neil recognized the signs of excessive PR coaching when he saw it. Worse, he could understand the reason for it. He was past the point where any of the girl's peculiarities even registered for him, but he could understand why she's been instructed to play things the way she did.
He specifically understood the way people liked to push the 'gentle giant' idea for oversized heroes. Can't appear too big, too loud or too assertive. And he was only slightly over scale, without any of the problems Gully suffered with.
Something occurred to him. "Wait, five a.m.? Wouldn't that be like two in the morning for California?"
Gully let out a huff. "Don't get me started on Facetime's sleep schedule." She held up the tinker tech module. "She will be up until the rush delivery arrives, then she'll be up even longer working on the analysis."
"Well, at least it's bearing fruit." He said.
He wasn't the only one who had figured out new applications from the particles that made up the field. So far Apeiron's assurances of safety had held up, but even if they didn't, with an entirely new type of particle to analyze, there probably would have been just as much excitement.
They still had no idea how the particles were generated, but it was clear they could be collected and manipulated. He was one of the best examples of that and had apparently served as the proof of concept for a lot of attempts. Incredibly, the work wasn't limited to tinkers. The results could be replicated in completely mundane laboratory environments.
If they knew how the particles could be generated it would have changed the world. Instead, it was merely breaking new ground in fields of theoretical physics. And causing no end of headaches in terms of what the potential applications seemed to be.
"Yep, radiation shielding, force fields, and plasma containment." Gully said. The left side of her face crinkled as she smiled one of her rare genuine smiles. "In fact, just about everything they were used for in that cartoon is panning out."
Manpower let out a sigh. References to that Japanese 'Gundam' show had been floating around since the first appearance of the Celestial Forge mech, but they only seemed to get stronger as time went on. It was an idea that was unsettling enough for people who were just researching the effect, much less for someone whose power seemed to be hoovering up the particles every chance it got.
"Anyway, I'm done for tonight." He said, not specifically mentioning where he was off to. Gully had picked up on the details, but thankfully refrained from commenting on the matter, even to wish him good luck. "Are you alright out here?"
"I'll be fine." She said, shouldering her shovel. "I'm meeting with a team from the fire service. They want me to take a look at a few buildings, after what happened to the Montgomery Building."
Neil nodded. That was something of a sore point for Gully. He'd been with her when they'd cleared the structure. She'd assured everyone of its stability, then two days later it was a ruin. The fact that it was clearly taken down by some kind of tinker effect, one of Bakuda's overlooked bombs or something of the like, was little comfort to her. She'd been redoubling her efforts out of a kind of professional pride.
An anxious energy suddenly seemed to settle over Gully. After a moment of fidgeting, she explained what had brought it on. "Tecton and his team are going to have a look at the Montgomery Building tomorrow. Or what's left of it. Try to figure out where the effect came from." She sighed. "What I missed. So people can figure out any other buildings that might be at risk."
Neil nodded. "Have you talked to him yet?"
"Emails. A couple of texts, but we haven't met up." She explained. "He's going to be at the charity event tomorrow. Asked me to come." She shifted awkwardly, somehow managing to look small despite towering over him. "I mean, Garment invited me, but those kinds of things aren't really my thing."
From what he understood, Garment had invited everyone, including the whole of New Wave. The kind of thing that would normally have had Sarah making arrangements and working out precise agreements for personal appearances and photoshoots with the team had been cast to the side, completely forgotten under the weight of everything else they were dealing with.
"The PRT would normally have some kind of fundraiser showing when new capes came to the city." Neil explained. "Even visiting ones. They probably aren't in a place to set that up now, so Garment's event lets them show off without seeming like they're trying."
And meant that control would be entirely out of Director Piggot's hands. With the international attention they were attracting, that probably even applied to the media coverage of the event. National networks weren't keen to take content directions from a single regional PRT director.
The presence of national coverage was probably another factor in why Gully wanted to avoid the event. That and the presence of Tecton. She had mentioned the leader of the Chicago Wards a few times. From what he could tell, Tecton respected Gully. He valued her friendship, trusted her opinion, and cared about her as a person. What he probably didn't do was share any of the feelings the girl was clearly concealing with respect towards him.
It reminded him a bit too much of Crystal's early crushes. Pictures of actors or musicians plastered over her walls. Harmless before she triggered. Concerning after she got her powers and started having access to celebrity circles. Sarah had spoken with her about things, heading off any problems, but he did remember spending most of one fundraiser looming menacingly near the cast of one of the teen dramas that she had been obsessed with.
Gully's problem was probably from the other direction, but the source was the same, and not one he could do anything about. "You're avoiding him." He said plainly.
Gully dropped her head. "I know what he's going to say. I heard it all before I left San Diego." She muttered. "Too dangerous. Too much of a risk. That I don't NEED to do it."
That was the point. Other people deciding what was best for someone, where their priorities should be. The sense of unilateral decisions, made without the person they were affecting, held echoes of his own troubles.
New Wave was supposed to be a team. Well, no. It was supposed to be a movement, but when that fell apart they were left with a cobbled together version of what had worked from the Brigade, and even that hadn't been perfect. In a way, the fact that they were family made it harder. It was easier to assume everyone was on board, or that you were making the right decision.
Or that keeping something secret would be for the best for everyone involved.
Without that closeness, that assumption, they would have had to actually meet each other like adults. Talk things out and come to a group decision. Like, God willing, New Wave might be able to do that later that evening.
That was probably why Gully was dreading speaking with Tecton. He was closer than most of her other friends, but clearly not as close as Gully would have liked. Just close enough to hurt her with good intentions.
Gully looked up to the night sky with a sigh, then shifted her head and pointed. "Looks like your ride's here." She said, clearly happy for the distraction, on a couple of levels.
A red dot of light grew as it approached them, swooping over darkened streets before his daughter dropped down in front of them. "Hey Dad." She said, before turning to the west coast Ward. "Gully! Heard about you bridging that big ravine on Hanover Street. They haven't been working you ragged, have they?"
The girl flicked at a lock of hair hanging over face. "It was just an arch support span. Easier with the light traffic, and most of the fissures are unusually stable. Makes them easy to cross." She explained. "Though I have been getting a lot of practice with bridges."
"It's made a big difference." Crystal explained. Gully shrugged and looked up at her.
Crystal was doing that trick she enjoyed with him, floating just above his eyeline, or Gully's in this case. It started as a way to show off her control while flying, but it was actually easier not constantly talking down to people. Gully seemed to be enjoying the novelty of the experience if nothing else.
"Seriously, I don't know what we would have done without you." Crystal said.
"Probably just wait for Tecton." Gully murmured.
"Ah." Crystal said, floating back slightly. "The charity thing?"
Gully nodded. "I don't like those kinds of things in the first place, and I know he's going to try to…" She faded off, shaking her head. "I just don't want to get boxed in."
Crystal nodded. "I get it. Look, we need to run. Want to grab coffee tomorrow morning?"
"Sure." Gully said. "That quiet place, by the Mid Street station?"
"Sounds great. I'll text you." She said, taking to the air.
Neil gave her a nod as he prepared to follow. "I'll check in tomorrow. Thanks for taking care of things with Facetime."
The mention of the tinker seemed to briefly break Gully out of her funk. "Trust me, I'm doing both of you a favor with that." She seemed unsure of how to proceed, simply saying. "Good luck?"
"Thanks." Neil said, hoping he was able to keep the worry out of his voice.
He took two strides forward, blue lightning crackling around him. The sparks of his forcefield that used to only dance across his skin were rebounding off the ground as he began his run-up. Then, with a mighty leap, he shot into the sky, following the red trail of Crystal's flight.
His daughter adjusted her trajectory, falling in next to him. She matched the path of his long, floaty leap through the city. Without the ground to react with, the sparks around his body only crackled lightly, barely audible over the wind.
"Gully still having a hard time?" She asked. In a way he was proud of how quickly she had got along with the Case 53 girl. Just as often, he felt awful about seeing that as an accomplishment, rather than what should be the norm.
"She's doing well in some areas. Fire and Rescue practically worships her, but everything else is still a problem." Crystal nodded, then split off as the arc of his jump began to dip towards the ground.
He angled himself towards a long stretch of flat roof. His field cushioned his landing, allowing him to slide quickly into a few steps of a run, then a leap from the edge, taking to the sky again. Crystal dipped down again, matching his speed.
"You know, normally people would worry about a married man spending so much time with a younger woman, but I don't think anyone is going to have a problem with it." She said with a smile.
He understood her attempt at levity, with what they were headed into, but applying that to Gully just ran hollow. She saw his face and backpedaled quickly.
"I didn't mean… Gully's great, but it's complicated." She said, "It's always complicated, even without everything else involved."
Neil nodded. Considering he was headed into the aftermath of his own 'complicated' he couldn't really argue with that. And Crystal hadn't had the kind of luck in romance that Vicky had enjoyed. Well, maybe that wasn't the best way to put it, considering how often she and Gallant broke up and got back together. Maybe there was just something about being a cape that made it that much more difficult.
No, there were a lot of things about being a cape that made it that much more difficult. Too many to count. Gully just had an extra layer to her complications.
Well, he might as well begin to face the situation. He dropped away again, landing and launching once more. It wasn't a smooth way to travel, but it was miles better than trying to jog through the streets while craning his neck and watching for the dots of light that would indicate his wife and children.
"Thank you for coming to meet me." He said to Crystal. "I didn't want to just show up after everything. And how are things…"
He didn't want to probe too much. He had been able to push for this as a matter of business for New Wave. Dragging more family stress into things than absolutely necessary seemed like a bad idea.
"They're good… and not good." She said. He had to land and take another jump before he could hear her explanation. "Mom finally started going through messages once we got her on board for the meeting. She found… um, Aunt Carol's been liaising with the PRT, in an official capacity. Without records of what she's been going over."
That wasn't good. There were any number of things that could have been involved, but none of them were particularly encouraging.
"How did your mom take that?" Neil asked.
"She flipped her lid." Crystal said with a kind of tired resignation. "Tried to get her on the phone, then sent Eric over while she called and yelled at people from the PRT for most of the night."
Neil frowned. He hadn't been looking forward to seeing Carol, but the success of this was largely based on the idea that they had nothing to cover but a few decisions about the team. If this turned into some kind of interrogation session it could get exceptionally ugly even if powers weren't involved.
"Is that about Amy?" Neil asked.
He was as much in the dark as anyone as to the reason why his niece's containment had stretched for so long without any official announcement of results. Normally this kind of containment would mean an active Master effect, but that kind of thing would need a second wave of investigations, and there hadn't been any. And if there were master concerns regarding Apeiron, why wait so long to say or do anything about them?
"I'm not sure, but mom doesn't think so. Amy's apparently been in offsite holding for a while, but most of the contact Aunt Carol's had has been with the main office, not anything involving Amy's containment."
That was another layer of concern. Offsite holding was usually for the point after an effect had been identified, but still needed to be contained, though with minimal risk of danger or security breach. Not the kind of thing you'd use on someone brainwashed by a super tinker/master.
"Did Vicky know anything about it?" He asked.
"No." Crystal said. "She only called the one time, and she was trying to find out if we knew anything."
Neil nodded. Vicky… well she hadn't disappeared, but she'd been inaccessible and out of the public eye since Thursday night. He hadn't spoken with her personally, but it was clear she was hiding something. That something was being hidden.
First she was being treated for potential injuries sustained while rescuing Triumph. Then it was a debriefing of her actions during the Ungodly hour. Then overnight stays for observation. Then a transfer to New York, at one of the most advanced power testing facilities on the planet. But no mention of what they were testing for, or even if they were testing at all.
It was obvious that something had happened, but with Carol apparently handling everything and him even more out of the loop than usual he had no idea what. He doubted Mark knew much more than he did, particularly if Carol had indeed run off on her own initiative.
Mark was someone he was dreading coming face to face with. It was a different kind of betrayal than what he had done to Sarah. Not one he could even begin to make up for. Of course, Sarah's response to the news hadn't been to become the poster child for excessive cape powers.
Unfortunately, the meme was showing no sign of dying down, probably because, even in the face of that kind of publicity, Mark didn't see any need to start holding back. There were reams of footage of him turning the world into a warzone with a wave of his hands, all while completely unbothered by the carnage he was able to reap.
The word 'Flashbang' was becoming associated with ironic levels of excessive destruction across the internet, even finding its place into footage of Apeiron's fight against Lung. Even so, captioning the strike that finally killed the gang leader with 'High Altitude Flashbang' seemed in exceptionally poor taste.
Of course, he had more reason to be bothered than most people. There was no official announcement of what had happened within New Wave, but rumors circled the way they always did. It was no secret that the man with the most right to be furious with him had suddenly become associated with excessive violence.
Sometimes he wondered if it hadn't been the blackout or Apeiron's particles or the development of his powers. If maybe he had had a second trigger without noticing it at the idea of facing his offended brother-in-law and the bombing campaign he could summon at will. If he had evolved some kind of escape power for the purposes of basic survival.
"What about your Uncle Mark?" He asked Crystal, burying evidence of his concerns.
"I haven't seen him." Crystal said. "I mean, he hasn't come by, but nobody really has." Neil nodded. "Well, Uncle Mike has been checking in on everyone, and Eric saw him when mom sent him over to Aunt Carol's."
"Just your Uncle Mark?" He asked. Crystal nodded.
"Apparently Aunt Carol's been spending a lot of time at the office. Sleeping there some nights. But Eric said Uncle Mark was doing well." She said in an encouraging voice.
"Really?" Neil asked, feeling those concerns trying to come to the surface again.
"Really. They talked for a while. About his medication and other stuff, what he's been doing to manage things and make sure he doesn't miss doses."
That was surprising. Mark had always been… well, not so much 'private' as 'ashamed' of what he was going through. Maybe recent events had taken him past shame. Or maybe it was something else.
It was nice to think that a wakeup call was enough to change everything, but Neil had seen for himself that wasn't the case. There was no easy fix for problems that festered for years. Maybe something could jar you into action, but that was just the start of a long, long road.
"Anyway, after that Mom got fed up with the PRT and ended up talking with Uncle Mike for a while." Crystal explained after Neil set another jump. "For a long time. She was still going when I went to bed."
"It's good that she had a chance to talk with Mike." Neil said, and couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. Or that he was actually sincere about them.
Mike. He still couldn't believe that his wife's kid brother had swept in and managed to pull them together. Well, maybe not as dramatically as that, but he would have viewed Mike's presence as the last thing they needed in a time like this. Instead, it may have stopped them from completely falling apart.
Probably the worst thing was the lack of any desire for vindication for his past actions. Everything that Mike had proclaimed when he had left on bad terms with the group seemed to have come to pass. No, worse than that. It seemed to have been already present. Maybe that was why things had gone so badly. Mike had been pointing out things that people were keeping hidden, or things they had been afraid were true.
It wouldn't have taken much. Just a satisfied look coupled with the odd comment or reference, but there had been nothing. He hadn't been happy to be right, he'd been sad to have been proven correct. It was a level of maturity that made Neil wonder what the hell Mike had been doing all these years.
No, it made him wonder what he had been doing. If Mike had gone so far, then it seemed like the rest of them had been standing still. Stuck in old mindsets, old grudges and delusions. Just like the holding pattern the city had been caught in. Something that seemed like it was keeping things stable, while it just papered over the rot.
Until someone came in and knocked everything down. It was hard, so hard, not to blame Apeiron for what he had set in motion. Neil understood the appeal of thinking of the man as some master planner, but any honest look at the situation showed how fragile it had been.
He launched for one final leap, one that would take him onto the street he had considered home. Back to his wife who didn't want to see him and his children who could just barely tolerate him.
What was there before was gone. It had been upended and scattered, like it should have been years ago, before they put so much weight on something so fragile. Now came the question. Do they try to build something new, or do they walk away? No matter what else happened tonight, they needed to answer that question.
One way or another, they were going to start moving forward.
89.1 Interlude Neil
Neil launched himself over the streets of Brockton Bay in a way he never would have dared to before. Even with the dread of the upcoming meeting, it was hard to not feel exhilarated from the sheer freedom of cutting loose and flying through the air. Well, moving through the air. He wasn't really 'flying', at least not in a proper sense.
Still, it was close enough. All those times he'd felt twinges of envy while watching Sarah with the kids were suddenly put in a new perspective. It wasn't just missing out on the time with them, being unable to share a fundamental aspect of their lives. It was more basic. He had been trapped on the ground while they had the freedom of the skies.
People often wondered why brutes, at least non-flying brutes, didn't just jump when they needed to cover ground. He could still remember early enough in the debut of powers, back when people were desperately looking to the old comic titles for a frame of reference. They had called it 'Hulk Leaping', and really that name should have been enough of a reason to explain why it was a bad idea.
The physics weren't the problem. He had more power in his legs than in his upper body. Theoretically he would be able to jump further than he could throw something his weight. The problem was all the other mechanics involved with throwing something his weight.
Super strength was rarely paired with super accuracy. Brutes didn't jump for the same reason they didn't randomly throw un-aerodynamic objects and hope for the best. The jumping wasn't the problem. The problem was the landing. Even if you were lucky enough to touch down where you intended, you were coming down with as much force as you applied to send yourself up.
If you were lucky and had the right supporting powers, like he did, you could avoid cratering the street at the point where you jumped from, but that rarely helped the point of your landing. And if you were off target or, God forbid, heading towards someone, then all you could do was watch and flail and hope you didn't accidently kill someone.
There was a reason the 'mad leaper' stereotype was more associated with villains, and not particularly nice villains at that. Even then, unless you had very good supporting powers odds were that you were going to end up stuck in some twisted wreck at some point with no leverage needed to free yourself.
Neil didn't have good supporting powers. At least he hadn't. Not until the last week. A lifetime of careful power management, of knowing exactly how far he could push himself before he would cause more harm than good, was suddenly having to be reassessed. And all because his body was soaking up Apeiron's mystery particles like a sponge.
Lightning crackled around him as he moved through the air. Unlike normal electrical discharge, the bursts held a geometric shape, moving at sharp angles to each other, like they were being conducted by an invisible grid.
Because they kind of were. The entire problem with the blackout field could be tied to charged particles that bound themselves into an ordered arrangement. And Neil's entire power was based around charged fields bound into an ordered arrangement.
Okay, usually it was millimeters from his skin, not the mess that had been happening, but he could feel the way his power was working. Really feel it, in a way that never happened before. Or that he never paid attention to. Like moving a single joint on a pinky finger. Never considered and never practiced, until it suddenly developed unprecedented strength and overturned your entire view of the world.
Okay, it wasn't that excessive. Give him an ability like this twenty years ago and he would have thought it the most incredible thing to ever exist, but there was too much happening. Too many capes finding new applications for their abilities or breaking through limits. It was the kind of thing that was more than a little concerning, considering who had set things off.
Those were misplaced concerns. That is, he thought they were misplaced. There was no way to draw a line between every incident of a cape rising to a new level and Apeiron's actions. Not in a direct sense, at least. Still, having a suspected power tinker in the same city where that kind of thing kept happening was more than a little concerning.
At least he had oversight for the changes in his own powers. The little device he'd started wearing since Thursday night. Well, Friday night, after Gully's friend had rush delivered it to him. Having a tinker, even a Ward tinker, keeping an eye on things made him feel a lot better about the changes to his power. Almost enough to let him lose himself in the freedom of unrestrained movement.
He set those thoughts aside as he looked down towards his destination. A single point of light within the blackout zone that ran through the city. He focused, pushing off the energy that crackled around him. This was the part that made it safe for him to leap the better part of a block in one go.
Casting himself into blind leaps would have been reckless, but things couldn't have been more different now. The energy around him let him make adjustments. A big part of it was managing his alignment in the air, letting him keep perspective on where he was going, but he could also shift his direction. It was less like being shot from a cannon and more like an old game of Mario, where you had the ability to adjust your position in the air for some reason.
He had a reason, or he had been told a reason. Something about energized particles forming an effective surface, something solid enough to conduct reactive forces. It got into aspects of physics that were beyond his high school science classes, but they certainly seemed to enthrall the tinker community. The important thing for him was the fact that he could actually land where he wanted to.
And land properly. More than properly. He remembered Vicky having a bit of a problem with high impact landings. How she took to slamming into the pavement in the early days of her power. Great for intimidation, not so great for the purposes of urban civic works. He was pretty sure some of the potholes she had caused deeper in the Docks remained unrepaired years later. And if the city couldn't get around to maintaining basic roadworks outside of Downtown, how long would it take to come back from the damage of Thursday night?
His mind shifted from the aftermath of the attacks to what was somehow an even less happy subject. That thought of Vicky served to remind him of the mess that was waiting for him later tonight. The meeting he had pushed for, mostly out of necessity, but one he was dreading all the same. Everyone on the team in the same location. Everyone with frustrations and unaired grievances, just waiting to burst forth.
But it wouldn't come to that. Or at least, not to that level. Everyone had grown up with an awareness of how dangerous their powers could be. Not to the extent that was driven home for brutes, but enough to avoid the possibility of any accidents. Things might get heated, but a superpowered family brawl wasn't in the cards.
At least he hoped it wasn't.
He put that out of his mind as the ground rushed towards him. He could nudge his velocity slightly through the sparking expressions of his field. Mostly to maintain his speed against air resistance or to adjust his heading, but also to slow his descent. The force he could bring forth wasn't close to enough to fly, but he could reduce the speed of his descent to a level that wouldn't risk damaging the street.
That is, if he even needed to make contact with it.
The field of electricity spread out beneath him as he approached the ground. The force that was so minor in mid-air was amplified a thousand times with a surface to push against. He turned his drop into a slide, skimming across the ground before landing on his feet in front of the point of light.
"You're getting a lot better at that." A deep voice called out. The gravely nature wasn't concealed by the soft tone, but he could tell an attempt was being made.
"Thank Facetime for her advice on it." He said to Gully. "At least the parts of it I could understand."
The girl nodded. "So, another drop-off?" She asked.
"Daily module, as usual." He said, handing over Facetime's device. "You know, I could send these out. You don't need to keep taking care of it."
"I appreciate it, but no. Facetime is insanely specific about handling procedures. I've sat through more lectures than I can count. Unless you want a five a.m. call about how you've ruined the integrity of a sample, it's better to let me handle it." She explained.
When Gully was talking about her friends, or really about any part of her time in the San Diego Wards, Neil could see the layers of controlled behavior peel away. They would reassert themselves almost immediately, but it was clear there was something entirely genuine in her relationship with her teammates.
And something artificial in the rest of her behavior. Neil recognized the signs of excessive PR coaching when he saw it. Worse, he could understand the reason for it. He was past the point where any of the girl's peculiarities even registered for him, but he could understand why she's been instructed to play things the way she did.
He specifically understood the way people liked to push the 'gentle giant' idea for oversized heroes. Can't appear too big, too loud or too assertive. And he was only slightly over scale, without any of the problems Gully suffered with.
Something occurred to him. "Wait, five a.m.? Wouldn't that be like two in the morning for California?"
Gully let out a huff. "Don't get me started on Facetime's sleep schedule." She held up the tinker tech module. "She will be up until the rush delivery arrives, then she'll be up even longer working on the analysis."
"Well, at least it's bearing fruit." He said.
He wasn't the only one who had figured out new applications from the particles that made up the field. So far Apeiron's assurances of safety had held up, but even if they didn't, with an entirely new type of particle to analyze, there probably would have been just as much excitement.
They still had no idea how the particles were generated, but it was clear they could be collected and manipulated. He was one of the best examples of that and had apparently served as the proof of concept for a lot of attempts. Incredibly, the work wasn't limited to tinkers. The results could be replicated in completely mundane laboratory environments.
If they knew how the particles could be generated it would have changed the world. Instead, it was merely breaking new ground in fields of theoretical physics. And causing no end of headaches in terms of what the potential applications seemed to be.
"Yep, radiation shielding, force fields, and plasma containment." Gully said. The left side of her face crinkled as she smiled one of her rare genuine smiles. "In fact, just about everything they were used for in that cartoon is panning out."
Manpower let out a sigh. References to that Japanese 'Gundam' show had been floating around since the first appearance of the Celestial Forge mech, but they only seemed to get stronger as time went on. It was an idea that was unsettling enough for people who were just researching the effect, much less for someone whose power seemed to be hoovering up the particles every chance it got.
"Anyway, I'm done for tonight." He said, not specifically mentioning where he was off to. Gully had picked up on the details, but thankfully refrained from commenting on the matter, even to wish him good luck. "Are you alright out here?"
"I'll be fine." She said, shouldering her shovel. "I'm meeting with a team from the fire service. They want me to take a look at a few buildings, after what happened to the Montgomery Building."
Neil nodded. That was something of a sore point for Gully. He'd been with her when they'd cleared the structure. She'd assured everyone of its stability, then two days later it was a ruin. The fact that it was clearly taken down by some kind of tinker effect, one of Bakuda's overlooked bombs or something of the like, was little comfort to her. She'd been redoubling her efforts out of a kind of professional pride.
An anxious energy suddenly seemed to settle over Gully. After a moment of fidgeting, she explained what had brought it on. "Tecton and his team are going to have a look at the Montgomery Building tomorrow. Or what's left of it. Try to figure out where the effect came from." She sighed. "What I missed. So people can figure out any other buildings that might be at risk."
Neil nodded. "Have you talked to him yet?"
"Emails. A couple of texts, but we haven't met up." She explained. "He's going to be at the charity event tomorrow. Asked me to come." She shifted awkwardly, somehow managing to look small despite towering over him. "I mean, Garment invited me, but those kinds of things aren't really my thing."
From what he understood, Garment had invited everyone, including the whole of New Wave. The kind of thing that would normally have had Sarah making arrangements and working out precise agreements for personal appearances and photoshoots with the team had been cast to the side, completely forgotten under the weight of everything else they were dealing with.
"The PRT would normally have some kind of fundraiser showing when new capes came to the city." Neil explained. "Even visiting ones. They probably aren't in a place to set that up now, so Garment's event lets them show off without seeming like they're trying."
And meant that control would be entirely out of Director Piggot's hands. With the international attention they were attracting, that probably even applied to the media coverage of the event. National networks weren't keen to take content directions from a single regional PRT director.
The presence of national coverage was probably another factor in why Gully wanted to avoid the event. That and the presence of Tecton. She had mentioned the leader of the Chicago Wards a few times. From what he could tell, Tecton respected Gully. He valued her friendship, trusted her opinion, and cared about her as a person. What he probably didn't do was share any of the feelings the girl was clearly concealing with respect towards him.
It reminded him a bit too much of Crystal's early crushes. Pictures of actors or musicians plastered over her walls. Harmless before she triggered. Concerning after she got her powers and started having access to celebrity circles. Sarah had spoken with her about things, heading off any problems, but he did remember spending most of one fundraiser looming menacingly near the cast of one of the teen dramas that she had been obsessed with.
Gully's problem was probably from the other direction, but the source was the same, and not one he could do anything about. "You're avoiding him." He said plainly.
Gully dropped her head. "I know what he's going to say. I heard it all before I left San Diego." She muttered. "Too dangerous. Too much of a risk. That I don't NEED to do it."
That was the point. Other people deciding what was best for someone, where their priorities should be. The sense of unilateral decisions, made without the person they were affecting, held echoes of his own troubles.
New Wave was supposed to be a team. Well, no. It was supposed to be a movement, but when that fell apart they were left with a cobbled together version of what had worked from the Brigade, and even that hadn't been perfect. In a way, the fact that they were family made it harder. It was easier to assume everyone was on board, or that you were making the right decision.
Or that keeping something secret would be for the best for everyone involved.
Without that closeness, that assumption, they would have had to actually meet each other like adults. Talk things out and come to a group decision. Like, God willing, New Wave might be able to do that later that evening.
That was probably why Gully was dreading speaking with Tecton. He was closer than most of her other friends, but clearly not as close as Gully would have liked. Just close enough to hurt her with good intentions.
Gully looked up to the night sky with a sigh, then shifted her head and pointed. "Looks like your ride's here." She said, clearly happy for the distraction, on a couple of levels.
A red dot of light grew as it approached them, swooping over darkened streets before his daughter dropped down in front of them. "Hey Dad." She said, before turning to the west coast Ward. "Gully! Heard about you bridging that big ravine on Hanover Street. They haven't been working you ragged, have they?"
The girl flicked at a lock of hair hanging over face. "It was just an arch support span. Easier with the light traffic, and most of the fissures are unusually stable. Makes them easy to cross." She explained. "Though I have been getting a lot of practice with bridges."
"It's made a big difference." Crystal explained. Gully shrugged and looked up at her.
Crystal was doing that trick she enjoyed with him, floating just above his eyeline, or Gully's in this case. It started as a way to show off her control while flying, but it was actually easier not constantly talking down to people. Gully seemed to be enjoying the novelty of the experience if nothing else.
"Seriously, I don't know what we would have done without you." Crystal said.
"Probably just wait for Tecton." Gully murmured.
"Ah." Crystal said, floating back slightly. "The charity thing?"
Gully nodded. "I don't like those kinds of things in the first place, and I know he's going to try to…" She faded off, shaking her head. "I just don't want to get boxed in."
Crystal nodded. "I get it. Look, we need to run. Want to grab coffee tomorrow morning?"
"Sure." Gully said. "That quiet place, by the Mid Street station?"
"Sounds great. I'll text you." She said, taking to the air.
Neil gave her a nod as he prepared to follow. "I'll check in tomorrow. Thanks for taking care of things with Facetime."
The mention of the tinker seemed to briefly break Gully out of her funk. "Trust me, I'm doing both of you a favor with that." She seemed unsure of how to proceed, simply saying. "Good luck?"
"Thanks." Neil said, hoping he was able to keep the worry out of his voice.
He took two strides forward, blue lightning crackling around him. The sparks of his forcefield that used to only dance across his skin were rebounding off the ground as he began his run-up. Then, with a mighty leap, he shot into the sky, following the red trail of Crystal's flight.
His daughter adjusted her trajectory, falling in next to him. She matched the path of his long, floaty leap through the city. Without the ground to react with, the sparks around his body only crackled lightly, barely audible over the wind.
"Gully still having a hard time?" She asked. In a way he was proud of how quickly she had got along with the Case 53 girl. Just as often, he felt awful about seeing that as an accomplishment, rather than what should be the norm.
"She's doing well in some areas. Fire and Rescue practically worships her, but everything else is still a problem." Crystal nodded, then split off as the arc of his jump began to dip towards the ground.
He angled himself towards a long stretch of flat roof. His field cushioned his landing, allowing him to slide quickly into a few steps of a run, then a leap from the edge, taking to the sky again. Crystal dipped down again, matching his speed.
"You know, normally people would worry about a married man spending so much time with a younger woman, but I don't think anyone is going to have a problem with it." She said with a smile.
He understood her attempt at levity, with what they were headed into, but applying that to Gully just ran hollow. She saw his face and backpedaled quickly.
"I didn't mean… Gully's great, but it's complicated." She said, "It's always complicated, even without everything else involved."
Neil nodded. Considering he was headed into the aftermath of his own 'complicated' he couldn't really argue with that. And Crystal hadn't had the kind of luck in romance that Vicky had enjoyed. Well, maybe that wasn't the best way to put it, considering how often she and Gallant broke up and got back together. Maybe there was just something about being a cape that made it that much more difficult.
No, there were a lot of things about being a cape that made it that much more difficult. Too many to count. Gully just had an extra layer to her complications.
Well, he might as well begin to face the situation. He dropped away again, landing and launching once more. It wasn't a smooth way to travel, but it was miles better than trying to jog through the streets while craning his neck and watching for the dots of light that would indicate his wife and children.
"Thank you for coming to meet me." He said to Crystal. "I didn't want to just show up after everything. And how are things…"
He didn't want to probe too much. He had been able to push for this as a matter of business for New Wave. Dragging more family stress into things than absolutely necessary seemed like a bad idea.
"They're good… and not good." She said. He had to land and take another jump before he could hear her explanation. "Mom finally started going through messages once we got her on board for the meeting. She found… um, Aunt Carol's been liaising with the PRT, in an official capacity. Without records of what she's been going over."
That wasn't good. There were any number of things that could have been involved, but none of them were particularly encouraging.
"How did your mom take that?" Neil asked.
"She flipped her lid." Crystal said with a kind of tired resignation. "Tried to get her on the phone, then sent Eric over while she called and yelled at people from the PRT for most of the night."
Neil frowned. He hadn't been looking forward to seeing Carol, but the success of this was largely based on the idea that they had nothing to cover but a few decisions about the team. If this turned into some kind of interrogation session it could get exceptionally ugly even if powers weren't involved.
"Is that about Amy?" Neil asked.
He was as much in the dark as anyone as to the reason why his niece's containment had stretched for so long without any official announcement of results. Normally this kind of containment would mean an active Master effect, but that kind of thing would need a second wave of investigations, and there hadn't been any. And if there were master concerns regarding Apeiron, why wait so long to say or do anything about them?
"I'm not sure, but mom doesn't think so. Amy's apparently been in offsite holding for a while, but most of the contact Aunt Carol's had has been with the main office, not anything involving Amy's containment."
That was another layer of concern. Offsite holding was usually for the point after an effect had been identified, but still needed to be contained, though with minimal risk of danger or security breach. Not the kind of thing you'd use on someone brainwashed by a super tinker/master.
"Did Vicky know anything about it?" He asked.
"No." Crystal said. "She only called the one time, and she was trying to find out if we knew anything."
Neil nodded. Vicky… well she hadn't disappeared, but she'd been inaccessible and out of the public eye since Thursday night. He hadn't spoken with her personally, but it was clear she was hiding something. That something was being hidden.
First she was being treated for potential injuries sustained while rescuing Triumph. Then it was a debriefing of her actions during the Ungodly hour. Then overnight stays for observation. Then a transfer to New York, at one of the most advanced power testing facilities on the planet. But no mention of what they were testing for, or even if they were testing at all.
It was obvious that something had happened, but with Carol apparently handling everything and him even more out of the loop than usual he had no idea what. He doubted Mark knew much more than he did, particularly if Carol had indeed run off on her own initiative.
Mark was someone he was dreading coming face to face with. It was a different kind of betrayal than what he had done to Sarah. Not one he could even begin to make up for. Of course, Sarah's response to the news hadn't been to become the poster child for excessive cape powers.
Unfortunately, the meme was showing no sign of dying down, probably because, even in the face of that kind of publicity, Mark didn't see any need to start holding back. There were reams of footage of him turning the world into a warzone with a wave of his hands, all while completely unbothered by the carnage he was able to reap.
The word 'Flashbang' was becoming associated with ironic levels of excessive destruction across the internet, even finding its place into footage of Apeiron's fight against Lung. Even so, captioning the strike that finally killed the gang leader with 'High Altitude Flashbang' seemed in exceptionally poor taste.
Of course, he had more reason to be bothered than most people. There was no official announcement of what had happened within New Wave, but rumors circled the way they always did. It was no secret that the man with the most right to be furious with him had suddenly become associated with excessive violence.
Sometimes he wondered if it hadn't been the blackout or Apeiron's particles or the development of his powers. If maybe he had had a second trigger without noticing it at the idea of facing his offended brother-in-law and the bombing campaign he could summon at will. If he had evolved some kind of escape power for the purposes of basic survival.
"What about your Uncle Mark?" He asked Crystal, burying evidence of his concerns.
"I haven't seen him." Crystal said. "I mean, he hasn't come by, but nobody really has." Neil nodded. "Well, Uncle Mike has been checking in on everyone, and Eric saw him when mom sent him over to Aunt Carol's."
"Just your Uncle Mark?" He asked. Crystal nodded.
"Apparently Aunt Carol's been spending a lot of time at the office. Sleeping there some nights. But Eric said Uncle Mark was doing well." She said in an encouraging voice.
"Really?" Neil asked, feeling those concerns trying to come to the surface again.
"Really. They talked for a while. About his medication and other stuff, what he's been doing to manage things and make sure he doesn't miss doses."
That was surprising. Mark had always been… well, not so much 'private' as 'ashamed' of what he was going through. Maybe recent events had taken him past shame. Or maybe it was something else.
It was nice to think that a wakeup call was enough to change everything, but Neil had seen for himself that wasn't the case. There was no easy fix for problems that festered for years. Maybe something could jar you into action, but that was just the start of a long, long road.
"Anyway, after that Mom got fed up with the PRT and ended up talking with Uncle Mike for a while." Crystal explained after Neil set another jump. "For a long time. She was still going when I went to bed."
"It's good that she had a chance to talk with Mike." Neil said, and couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. Or that he was actually sincere about them.
Mike. He still couldn't believe that his wife's kid brother had swept in and managed to pull them together. Well, maybe not as dramatically as that, but he would have viewed Mike's presence as the last thing they needed in a time like this. Instead, it may have stopped them from completely falling apart.
Probably the worst thing was the lack of any desire for vindication for his past actions. Everything that Mike had proclaimed when he had left on bad terms with the group seemed to have come to pass. No, worse than that. It seemed to have been already present. Maybe that was why things had gone so badly. Mike had been pointing out things that people were keeping hidden, or things they had been afraid were true.
It wouldn't have taken much. Just a satisfied look coupled with the odd comment or reference, but there had been nothing. He hadn't been happy to be right, he'd been sad to have been proven correct. It was a level of maturity that made Neil wonder what the hell Mike had been doing all these years.
No, it made him wonder what he had been doing. If Mike had gone so far, then it seemed like the rest of them had been standing still. Stuck in old mindsets, old grudges and delusions. Just like the holding pattern the city had been caught in. Something that seemed like it was keeping things stable, while it just papered over the rot.
Until someone came in and knocked everything down. It was hard, so hard, not to blame Apeiron for what he had set in motion. Neil understood the appeal of thinking of the man as some master planner, but any honest look at the situation showed how fragile it had been.
He launched for one final leap, one that would take him onto the street he had considered home. Back to his wife who didn't want to see him and his children who could just barely tolerate him.
What was there before was gone. It had been upended and scattered, like it should have been years ago, before they put so much weight on something so fragile. Now came the question. Do they try to build something new, or do they walk away? No matter what else happened tonight, they needed to answer that question.
One way or another, they were going to start moving forward.
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- Location
- Somalia
- Pronouns
- He/They
this sentence is very confusing
What would be wild would be a Emulsion construct, just being a font of evolution and mutation, or possibly a Ragnite construct but what would have utility would probably be a Strike Witches Magic construct that could mantle Joes Familiar for him. Finally a way to avoid the fluffy!
Also I wonder whether he would be able to make a construct out of tidal force.
Narsauce
The Crucible Shitlord
- Location
- Here, there and everywhere
You know, I still really enjoy the fact that, despite Joe being preoccupied with about a dozen other things right now, he's still effecting the world in interesting ways.
Like with how Neil's power is adding the whatever-they-are particles to his range, which is a nice touch.
Like with how Neil's power is adding the whatever-they-are particles to his range, which is a nice touch.
Thanks for the chapter! Really Intersting to think about Niel's power's interactions with M particles, and just how much of that is the result of his shard loosening boundaries cause of the fancy new toys. Also interesting to note that the ultra Sechen range that Ape represents and the corresponding increase in power expression from all Capes affected is actually being noticed by others.
- Location
- United States
Are Neil's powers learning how to Warframe parkour?
Narsauce
The Crucible Shitlord
- Location
- Here, there and everywhere
Because Carol is a control freak and also Vicky Master sus as claimed by Apeiron.
I'm pretty sure that's it, at least.
- Location
- Germany
I really want to be a fly on the wall during that New Wave meeting. Hopefully that is going to be included in the next chapter, I want to see how they are going to react to the revelation of the potential long term effects of regular exposure to Vicky's Aura.
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Still waiting for Joe to get to Gully. She needs even more help than Weld.
On another point, I think half of Mark's improvement may be getting away from Vicky's aura hitting him everyday. My understanding was it was strongest against people that were not related to her. Which in that family was Amy and Mark.
On another point, I think half of Mark's improvement may be getting away from Vicky's aura hitting him everyday. My understanding was it was strongest against people that were not related to her. Which in that family was Amy and Mark.
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Since her biggest issue with her body is her appearance Gully might actually have better luck with Garment.
It is deliberatly comstructed that way, it implies he has supporting powers but there is some major issue with them. That kind of backwalk into a neutral position is a fairly common thing.
Narsauce
The Crucible Shitlord
- Location
- Here, there and everywhere
According to Lord, Mark is indeed Vicky's father in this story. He's also just depressed, and having Carol for a wife with no real means of letting loose, or any real forms of escapism for that matter, probably isn't healthy.