Thanks for the update!
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
Glad to hear you're recovering.
My condolences; that must suck. Take care of yourself man.
We can until your schedule clears so take all the time you need.
I'm pretty sure he never got a Strike Witch form; just the knowledge of that universe and a striker unit.
As for the plane, which one? He got a V/F-1A fighter/mech from Macross and a perfectly normal F-18 from Ace Combat.
You're gonna have to give more addendums there pal. Even perfectly normal isn't enough to fully describe an airplane from an Ace Combat series.
TBF, the insane missile capacity travels with Joe, it's not part of the aircraft. If anyone else flew it they'd be limited to the normal hardpoint/payload capacity. Probably.
- Location
- wethersfield,ct
Definitely possible, but if I understand it even then Trump powers are still rare, I was mostly focusing on the 'fix the immediate issue without helping the overall problem (or even making that worse)' part of powers.
Like, imagine being some citizen in Brockton Bay, you've got a job that covers the bills, but barely more than that and unless something big changes that's where you'll be for the next 20+ years, working a mind-numbing job and doing some mechanic work on the side for extra scratch once in a while.
But you're about to cause that big change, you've been accepted into a trade school, learning/getting certified in a good career that'll probably triple your take-home.
All you need is enough money to cover the tuition, certification fees, ect.
So you've spent most of your free time, and most of your spare cash, over the past 3 months scrounging/cleaning parts and putting together a motorcycle, it looks good, runs great, and you have a buyer lined up with a fair deal, enough to cover everything you've been stressed over...
And then the bike is destroyed in a cape fight right in front of you, everything you've worked for, your best chance for a decent, enjoyable living, gone.
And now you have a power, it lets you enhance any vehicle (sedan sized or smaller) you use it on, making it faster, tougher, handle better, but the moment you do you can feel the vehicle start breaking down somehow, it can't be seen visually, but the moment the timer runs out the vehicle crumbles into a pile of rust and ash, so you can't even sell an enhanced vehicle to make up for your loss.
There is also the weapon aspect of power. Straight enhancement of a vehicle probably wouldn't fit, but if you went with ZZ's Wheel of Fortune stand from Jojo Stardust Crusaders then in addition to the enhancement aspect it would also gain limited morphing for weaponization. Growing spikes and blades, turning a flaming exhaust pipe into a flamethrower, being able to fire off fluids or other pieces of the vehicle for projectiles, and thats just with a broken down rustbucket of a car. If the cape enhances something that already has weapons built in or tinker tech? Lots of possibilities there.
And the writer can turn that into a plot point for getting the PRT to move against the merchants. Capture Squeler, detox her, and put her to work building up vehicles. Let her do other parts, but the big thing would be producing a garage of heavily armed but disposable cars for endbringer fights.
EDIT: Clips for reference.
View: https://youtu.be/ldSGhYr8f1w?si=mMzj5BQaqH5NZyxY
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Admittedly, this would make for an awesome Worm AU fic in and of itself.
111.1 Interlude Brian
New
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
(Author's note: Between the busy holiday season and some recent poor health I haven't had as much time to devote to this story as I would have liked. I had hoped to cover these events in a single chapter, but had to cut the previous one down for time. Unfortunately, I've found myself in a similar situation, and was only able to cover about half of what I was aiming for in this chapter. The rest will be closed out after the holidays, but I wanted to give a heads up for anyone who would prefer to wait and avoid additional cliffhangers.
Every December I hope to be able to get some extra writing done as a gift to my readers, but just as consistently life managed to get in the way of my intentions. Even if I am unable to provide extra content for the holiday season, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has followed and supported the story over the past year. That incredible community has made this story what it is and I am extremely grateful for everyone's support. My thanks and best wishes to everyone, in the spirit of the season.)
111.1 Interlude Brian
Brian hadn't had an easy time squaring things with Alec. Really, things with Alec had been difficult since the mess with Bakuda. Even with the context that Lisa had been able to provide, it was hard to accept the mistake that had let her slip through their fingers. A mistake that only got worse and worse when the full consequences of Bakuda's escape presented themself.
Honestly, the mess he was trying to manage probably counted as part of that. If they had brought down Bakuda, if the ABB hadn't had her insane bombs, then the Ungodly Hour couldn't have happened, no matter how well March could have coordinated things.
Well, probably. There was a chance that Bakuda's tinker bullshit could have been replaced by Leet's tinker bullshit, or Toybox tinker bullshit, or any of the other hundred flavors of bullshit that March had apparently been capable of, as Alec had been happy to remind him.
It was hard to deal with Alec like this. He was never exactly easy to deal with, but since that incident he had changed, and probably not for the better. Then again, with Alec, it was probably a question of trading one type of bad for another.
He had been infuriatingly logical when Brian had confronted him about what had happened at the gym. As much as he might want to, he couldn't deny that playing into the assumptions that people had made had probably stopped them from jumping to the much more serious reality of what was happening. Of course, the fact that they had been out that night at all grated on him. Yes, they had been paying back their debt to Joe, but this was never something he had anticipated when dealing with that.
It almost made him wish they had been out in costume, even though that hadn't really been an option for them. His costume had been warped and shredded while Alec's was as badly burned as he had been. That was before Joe had just gifted them insane replacements. The best they could have done was wander around in damaged remnants or whatever crude mockups they could have pulled together at the last moment, and even then, being out in costume would probably have seen them run afoul of any of the other capes who had been out raiding the remnants of the ABB's holdings.
No, as much as he hated it, there was no real way for them to have avoided being spotted together in their civilian identities. Maybe if he had been faster on the uptake he could have headed off the entire misunderstanding, but apparently his worry and confusion had helped people fill in the blanks. Which Alec had happily continued to fill in without telling him.
And now he had another secret to dance around, not just with his father but with everyone from the gym. The entire situation made him want to beat Alec within an inch of his life, but they both were well aware of the strength of Joe's forcefields. It turned out the only thing more annoying than Alec was a version of Alec that knew he could pull whatever antics he wanted without risk of being hit.
Not that that was the best way of handling things, but after everything that had happened, Brian had wanted to hit SOMETHING. That was part of what drew him back to the gym. On top of hopefully managing some aspect of this mess, he was looking forward to a proper workout. A chance to go a couple of rounds in the ring, or at least take his frustration out against one of the punching bags.
That hadn't happened.
"Don't bother bringing that." His father had said about his gym bag when he arrived at the apartment to pick up him and Aisha. As statements went, it was beyond unprecedented. The gym was a place for boxing and training, not messing around. His dad always had no tolerance for anything else in that space, something Aisha had clashed with him over more times than he could count. He didn't know what could have changed his father's mind on something so fundamental.
His father used his cane with clear resentment as they made their way out of the apartment building. His dad clearly didn't like them seeing him in that state, but bore it with as much dignity as possible. Meaning he kept the cane on the opposite side of his body from them and masked any pain he was experiencing with grunts or muttered swearing.
He also wasn't in a state to drive, so that fell to Brian. Neither of them particularly appreciated Aisha's offer to drive, nor her insistence that she could "totally handle it". At least enduring Aisha's antics was a point of familiarity for the two of them, something Brian desperately needed right now.
Of course, he hadn't realized how short they would be on familiarity until he pulled into the unusually overcrowded parking lot and made his way into the gym building. Stepping inside, the place was nearly unrecognizable. Brian knew that things had changed recently, but seeing it for himself hit differently. It had always been a serious place, as serious as his father. A man who had taught him to box by going all out in the ring when Brian was barely a teenager. It was a place where people kept their heads down and focused on their training.
It was not a bustling center of… he didn't even know what to call it. Workout equipment that he would have sworn had been bolted in place had been shoved to the side to make room for the crowds of people circling through the gym, people who had nothing to do with boxing. In fact, the whole place seemed to be drifting further and further away from that image in his memories.
It didn't help that the atmosphere was so fundamentally different. It would have been bad enough if it were just this shift from grim determination to open support, but the way it was directed specifically at him was particularly hard to deal with. Everywhere he looked there were welcoming and understanding smiles, usually from people who he barely remembered. Often from people who he was pretty sure had left the gym before he had, but here they were, back and fully invested into whatever weird community outreach thing had sprung up.
Worse, he knew the reason for that particular flavor of friendliness. Everyone making a point to welcome him back, assure him of how welcome he was, and off-handedly mention how nice Alec was. It was particularly jarring when he ran straight into Mrs. Gartenberg. As tiny as the woman actually was, in his own mind he'd always see her towering over him, usually with a disapproving expression as she spoke to his parents… usually for good reason, but being able to recognize that in retrospect that didn't make the experience any less terrifying.
Only now he was being greeted with nothing but supportive assurances. In fact, the handful of people who seemed like they might be less enthusiastic about his 'circumstances' were sure to voice their support at the slightest glance from the woman. Their carefully worded and deliberately ambiguous support.
He could tell Aisha was immensely amused by the entire situation, but he was just left speechless. It was hard to wrap his head around the idea that, in the middle of a city-wide catastrophe, everyone he was even vaguely acquainted with at a gym he hadn't visited for years had somehow decided to band together in a show of carefully presented support for a 'lifestyle' that he didn't actually have, but somehow ended up with as the most convincing cover story available to him.
It seemed ridiculous that there would be time for that kind of story to spin from the rumor mill in wake of the recent disasters, particularly with everything else that the gym had taken on. Particularly when it was well beyond what he would have expected them to be capable of. Even with the good intentions of people like Doug and the reputation of Mrs. Gartenberg, it should have been a minor effort. A band aid on the problems of the area, helping out a few people from the neighborhood and some of the friends and family of dedicated members.
Instead he was looking at a community hub, a place that was both well supplied and apparently now also well-funded. That was what actually concerned him. The money from Garment's big charity show had already arrived and was being used to step up efforts and actually pay some of the volunteers for their time and effort. Which of course had caused everything to jump to another level as Brian's dad, Doug, and Mrs. Gartenberg had to manage the flow of cash.
It was another thing that should have been a mess, bringing out everyone who thought they could take advantage of the situation and turning any of the efforts to help into a grab fest where everyone tried to secure as much as they could. But that wasn't happening, and as much as he might want to attribute that to the hardline tactics of his father, Doug's immense personality, and pretty much everything about Mrs. Gartenberg, it went further than that.
He could see it, when he really looked. In between being welcomed back by every third person he made eye contact with and pointedly ignoring Aisha's smug enjoyment of his discomfort, he could see a pattern to things. A flow through the gym that was simply too smooth to have just happened. Something that couldn't have existed even with active management, but somehow it was like a thousand little systems had just sprung up that were carrying things for people, absorbing any missteps and bringing everything back on track in the face of the kind of minor disruptions that would have normally snowballed.
Nobody else seemed to notice it. Maybe it wasn't apparent if you were in the thick of it, or maybe they knew that something was happening and just didn't care. After all, who would really be concerned about things going overly well?
He was, and the reason for that concern hung over the gym's boxing ring. A beautiful woven tapestry of Garment ushering victims of the initial blackout to the safety of the gym. It was an impressive piece, but it also felt like a declaration of intent. Or ownership.
Garment had been able to pull together a world class event in a handful of days. Suddenly all of the little suspicions about her coordination powers weren't suspicions anymore. Garment was a thinker, and no one was really sure how far her powers extended.
At the very least, it was clear they had extended to the gym. Brian didn't know if this kind of coordination had been in place before she had started funding their charity efforts or if it was some kind of consequence of her affiliation with the place, but it worried him. That kind of subtle manipulation was always worrying, no matter how well intended it might be.
And worse, it felt like he couldn't even raise his concerns. Honestly, if he pointed out what was happening and highlighted every point of Garment's influence he could find, would anyone be concerned, or would he just further elevate everyone's opinion of her? Despite what that power could mean, what it meant she was capable of, it was likely that everyone would just be happy she was keeping things running smoothly.
Brian let out a breath as he nodded to yet another overly supportive well-wisher. He'd need to talk to Aisha about it, at the very least. Probably after he raised his concerns with Lisa. Everything that Aisha had suddenly been able to deal with, all the little improvements in her behavior and outlook, was that Garment as well? He'd been worried about her having triggered, but this could be worse.
Could be worse, but if it wasn't worse yet, would Aisha care? There were hundreds of stories about the nightmare that could come from thinkers, masters, and trumps. From powers that seemed too good to be true because they were. Garment was definitely helping Aisha, and Aisha actually seemed happy with the new direction her life was taking. It wasn't like she was some brainwashed minion. The way she had to hide a smirk whenever someone was overly sincere when welcoming him back was evidence enough of that. But there had to be a tradeoff, even if it was just a reliance on Garment's support.
His instinct would have been to burn bridges, cut ties, and avoid any possible risk of influence, but as it stood he couldn't even tell how far her influence went or how it worked. Lisa might be able to, but pressing her for this when she was juggling everything else on their plate would be a tall order. It made him feel helpless, like he was trapped in Garment's orbit.
Just like everyone else in the gym, with the exception being that they seemed perfectly happy with whatever influence they had found themselves under. Like whatever good was coming from the unnatural coordination was more than worth the possibility of some cape puppet master worming their way into your life.
Then again, it was possible that Brian was focusing excessively on the effects of Garment's thinker power in order to avoid needing to address the mess that Alec had landed him in. Honestly, he didn't know what he had expected to accomplish here. Really, he had just wanted to get a sense of how far this story had gotten, and possibly to rein it in before it got completely away from him.
But it had gotten away from him. It had gotten so far away from him that it had lapped him twice, forcing him to spend more time trying to figure out exactly what narrative people had built up for not just his association with Alec, but his entire reason for leaving the gym in the first place. Some kind of tale of a misunderstood youth living a secret life and forced to hide who he really was. Apparently, in his absence, people were prone towards filling in the blanks with as much melodrama as possible.
Maybe he could blame that on Garment as well. Not directly, but he was willing to bet that if everyone had been scrambling to deal with the aftermath of the disaster rather than working together like the gears of a Swiss watch then there would probably have been a lot less time to devote towards the rumor mill. Not that he would have wished that on anyone, he just would have preferred to have that kind of rampant speculation directed elsewhere.
Even people who normally would be the last to bring up that kind of rumor were still clearly talking around the subject. That was obvious when he found himself catching up with Vince.
And there was a lot to catch up on. He remembered back when Vince had first joined the gym. A skinny kid trying to deal with living in a neighborhood adjacent to ABB territory. Normally, the people who joined up to learn self-defense didn't tend to stick around, and Brian's memories of Vince had slotted him into that category, but apparently he had stuck things out. More than stuck them out, ending up as the gym's rising star who already had legitimate wins under his belt.
There was another layer to Brian's return. Specifically the fact that he had been the rising star before he left. There was just a hint of awkwardness from Vince over that, though not enough to overshadow the larger issue. Frankly he would rather have focused on the lost potential and opportunities he had missed from leaving the gym, rather than dealing with the extremely awkward experience of being treated with kid gloves. Like if they so much as spooked him over the subject he would bolt for the door.
Though frankly that was starting to sound like a better idea. It wouldn't actually solve anything, but it would save him from having to stiffly stumble through another non-conversation mostly centered around expressing support while avoiding mentioning exactly what you were supporting.
"Yeah, Alec was great." Vince said with a very supportive nod. "Really got on well with everyone."
"Uh-huh." Brian said stiffly, once again dearly regretting the fact that Joe's forcefields had prevented him from throttling Alec over this mess.
"The supplies he dropped off made a big difference. I mean, that was before all of this started flooding in, but that was when we needed it most." Vince continued, expressing the same sentiments that Brian had heard about a dozen times already. Sentiments that were so similar that he was starting to wonder if someone had handed out prepared statements.
Possibly Mrs. Gartenberg, as weird as THAT was to consider.
"That's good." Brian said, doing his best to cover his discomfort. Apparently not well enough, since Vince seemed to pick up on it. It was enough for him to back off, if almost certainly for the wrong reason.
"It's good having Mr. Laborn back in the gym." Vince said, looking over to where Brian's dad was tearing into one of the younger members over something while Doug looked on with an approving smile on his face.
Brian nodded to Vince. It was beyond weird that his father's injury was the more comfortable topic, but he'd take any break from the results of Alec's nonsense he could get.
"I know he's been going stir crazy at home." Brian said. "Honestly, I would have expected more problems on that front."
"Because of Aisha?" Vince asked. Brian just gave him a shallow nod. "Yeah." Vince agreed. "The stuff with Garment, it's lucky. Been really good for her."
"You think it will be okay?" He asked.
"What, because Garment's a cape?" Vince asked. Brian nodded. "I know that kind of stuff is trouble, but Garment doesn't play like a normal cape."
That was what worried him, but Brian didn't say anything. "What about on Aisha's side?"
Vince smiled. "I don't think you have to worry about that." He said. "If anyone can deal with Aisha's antics, it's Garment. Besides, it's better than her hanging around bothering new members."
Brian let out a breath, but had to nod at that. It was one of Aisha's more annoying habits, and that was already a fairly contentious category. She had always liked to see how far she could push things. It was bad enough with people who knew her and were willing to put up with it, but that just drove her to find fresh targets. Which made any misstep all the more concerning.
"I suppose." Brian said. He scanned across the gym, looking for his sister. Normally it would just be a matter of seeking out the nearest commotion, but fortunately Aisha had been sufficiently amused watching Brian endure the waves of misplaced support, at least until Meg had dragged her off for a chance to 'catch up'. And to compliment Aisha's outfit, which served as further evidence to the scale and variety of the wardrobe that Garment had given his sister.
He spotted Meg moving towards one of the exits, along with Casey who had picked up a few more tattoos since Brian had last seen him. He traced their path back and spotted Aisha standing next to a tall…
Joe. It was Joe. Joe was in the gym. Different from the last time Brian had seen him in civilian clothing. Very different from his last cape appearance, but it was Joe. Joe, standing in the gym and casually talking to his sister. Joe who suddenly paused and turned towards Brian, who had utterly failed to keep his stunned reaction from playing across his face.
"He has a girlfriend." Vince said quickly. Brian barely registered what Vince had said as the horror of the situation played out in his mind, and on his face.
"What?" He asked with a painfully neutral expression forced onto his face.
The single word was about all Brian could manage, but it was enough to send Vince into a fit of stammering. "Um, I mean, not that it's, what I'm saying is," Vince swallowed. "Alec is a really great guy."
Brian blinked and did his best to further school his expression, pushing past whatever extra layer of misunderstanding had just been fed into the rumor mill.
"Right." He said, desperately trying to find some kind of footing. So far all he could tell was that Vince knew Joe. That was almost as bad as Aisha talking to Joe… No, not even close. It was just a different kind of bad. "Who is he?" He asked in as calm a voice as possible, doing his best to not give any hints that could be misinterpreted. Not because he was worried about THAT. He was far, far beyond any concern over speculation about his dating life, but he needed to find out what the hell was going on. Why the hell was Apeiron here, talking to Aisha?
"That's Joe." Vince said casually, and apparently more than happy to move on from whatever perceived misstep he had made with his earlier assumption. "New guy, joined up around the start of the month. Has been in and out, helping out with things since everything happened."
Brian blinked. "What, he's been helping with food? Deliveries?"
"Mostly maintenance and breakdowns." Vince said. "He was in the engineering program at the college. Been a big help keeping things running."
Joe was… Joe had been doing maintenance at the gym. Apeiron had been doing maintenance at the gym. It was almost impossible for Brian to wrap his head around that alone, and it was only the tip of the iceberg. Made worse by the fact that Joe was talking to Aisha, or Aisha was talking to Joe. Not just bothering him, like she was prone to do, but talking like she knew him.
He tried to push through the waves of panic and figure out what was happening. "You know him?" Brian asked.
Vince nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Laborn's his coach." Brian just barely managed to keep the panic off his face at that. What's more, if his dad was Joe's coach and he had joined 'around the start of the month', then…
"You're worried about Aisha." Vince said, at once filling in the blanks while also presenting the worst of nightmare situations. "Don't be." He added and Brian almost allowed himself to relax.
"So Joe…" He began, but Vince cut him off.
"I mean, she messed with him a bit when he first joined, but he handled it better than most guys do." Vince assured him.
"Aisha. Messed with Joe?" Brian barely managed to force the words out.
"Um, yeah." Vince said, looking back towards Joe. And Aisha. Joe and Aisha. "I know how it looks, but it wasn't like that."
"How does it look?" Brian asked sharply. It was an actual question. He honestly didn't know what he was looking at.
"I mean, I guess Joe was kind of in a rough place when he joined?" Vince said.
"Rough?" Brian asked.
"Yeah, well, nothing like that." Vince said, inclining his head towards Joe. Brian blinked and tried to piece together what Vince was saying. "I guess you could tell he was dealing with some stuff, but no one really figured how bad it was until he pulled himself together."
"He…" Brian began, then trailed off. He worked to try to figure out what Vince was saying, based on the perspective Vince probably had on the situation.
Back at the start of the month, ages and weeks ago, Joe had been… normal. Well, more normal. That was before the sudden changes in build or that weird smoothness of motion or the way he just seemed to constantly find the perfect angle no matter who was looking at him.
He was downplaying things. Brian knew that. But Brian knew he was Apeiron. For anyone else, what would they assume? That the 'normal' state the guy they met was in was actually his lowest point? I mean, what other explanation could there be, especially once they began to 'pull themselves together' beyond the level any normal person could hope to reach.
Whatever Joe's powers had done to him, he wasn't concealing all of it in his civilian identity. Maybe he couldn't, but as a consequence everyone at the gym had seen a new member get progressively more… Joe as time went on. And without the context of an uncontrolled power expanding erratically, they assumed they were dealing with someone who had been an absolute wreck and managed to recover, and over the course of a crisis no less.
Which also meant that Aisha had been talking to the most attractive person in the gym. Which explained Vince's initial assumption, and his probable reasoning for Brian's current concern. And yeah, in the absence of all other issues, that would have been a concern for him, but right now it was absolutely dwarfed by the fact that Aisha apparently knew Apeiron's civilian identity.
Had Joe… it didn't seem like something he would do, but this couldn't be an accident. There was just no way Joe wouldn't have known. Why would he have, or did he…
He clamped down on the circular thoughts, reinforcing his calm exterior as much as possible. "When did he join?" He asked as casually as he could.
"I think it was the first Monday in the month, so like the fourth?" Vince said, then nodded as he appeared to work out the days for himself. "The fourth."
Brian took a breath. It seemed insane. It had to be insane. How in the hell could Joe have joined the gym, his gym, before they had even met? Coincidences like that just didn't happen.
It had to be… something. As hard as he tried, he couldn't imagine what. Seriously, what kind of secret plan could possibly involve Joe joining the gym when he had been at his least powerful then launching into the insane mess of escalation that even he didn't seem to have expected? It seemed like the kind of thing that would have to be a stupid mistake, a random accident, but that couldn't be it. Shit like that didn't just happen. Not at this scale.
And now Joe and Aisha were walking towards them. Brian tensed, his mind desperately trying to figure out how to get Aisha out of this situation, get her away so he could explain what she had been messing with.
Then his mind violently swerved as he filled in exactly what could happen if Aisha knew what she had been messing with. It was bad enough with her having access to Garment. Knowing about Joe, that was a disaster. Beyond a disaster. But there was no way he could come up with that would steer her away from this mess without inspiring her to dive deeper into it.
Hell, he didn't even know how deep it was already.
"You said she was messing with him?" He asked quickly. "How?"
"The usual stuff." Vince said, as uncomfortable with the topic as Brian was. "Teasing, flirting, trying to get a reaction. Like I said, it didn't land. Mr. Laborn had me do the twelve round thing the first time she showed up and Joe just rolled with it." Brian wasn't quite able to process THAT, so he just nodded and let Vince continue. "She backed off after Garment, and like I said, Joe's got a girlfriend. I know this kind of thing can get ugly, but that's not what's happening here."
Vince progressively lowered his voice as Joe and Aisha approached until he was nearly whispering, then seamlessly transferred into a warm greeting.
"Joe!" He said, stepping forward and giving Brian a second to recover. "Glad you could make it."
Joe smiled back at Vince. "Hey Vince. Thought I could help out a bit. Wasn't expecting this kind of crowd."
Vince nodded. "Things calmed down a bit after the event, but then the funding came through." He shrugged. "After everything yesterday, I figured you'd take today off."
It sounded like there was more to that than Vince was saying, but there was only one thing that registered for Brian. "You were at Garment's event?" He asked.
"Oh, Joe, this is Mr. Laborn's son Brian. I didn't realize you hadn't met yet." Vince offered.
"Looks like we missed each other." Joe said with no regard for how serious the situation was.
"Easy enough. Brian hasn't been around lately." Aisha said. "I practically had to drag him down here."
Brian looked at his sister's face and alarm bells started blaring in his mind. She knew. Aisha knew… something. She knew and SHE had set this up. He still didn't know what this was, but he could recognize his sister's antics when he saw them. She had a bad habit of playing with fire, but this was far beyond that. As practical jokes went, this was the equivalent of juggling nuclear bombs, and she seemed just as oblivious to the stakes as always.
Meaning it was going to fall to him to pull her out of the fire and clean things up. Nothing he hadn't done before, even if this was more serious than anything she had gotten herself caught up in before. Considering that included that led to her stint in juvie, for Aisha that was practically an accomplishment.
"Right." Vince said, then glanced down at his watch. "I've got to run. Brian, great to see you again. Really great. Don't worry about stopping by any time."
"Thanks Vince." Brian said a little more stiffly that he intended. Even with the disaster currently standing next to them, Aisha had the gall to seem amused by the exchange. He waved Vince off, then slowly turned towards the humanoid S-class threat that was standing far too close to his sister.
Then again, when it came to Apeiron, anywhere on the same continent probably counted as 'too close'.
Brian braced himself, noting a near complete lack of tension from Aisha. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. It could mean she had enough distance to not truly be involved with everything, or it could mean that she had badly underestimated the threat Joe represented. In a way he hoped that she was actually ignorant to what she was dealing with. The idea that Aisha was knowingly messing with Apeiron-level matters was too nightmarish to imagine.
Instead he turned to Joe. Joe who had changed so much in the past weeks, both mentally and physically, to say nothing of his place in the world. Or maybe it would be better to say the world's place in relation to him. Either way, in spite of everything that had happened, all those changes that sent Lisa into spirals of analysis, he was still the same person underneath it all.
At least Brian hoped he was. The common ground they had shared from those early interactions was just about the only thing that might let him get through this.
"Joe." He began. "What the hell?"
The remarkably normal looking impossible cape smiled back at him. "Would you believe I didn't know until now."
"Not really." Brian said. Then he saw Joe's expression. "You're serious?"
"I said I'd respect your privacy." He replied. Brian's eyes dropped to the watch Joe had given him, then back up to the tinker.
"If you didn't know then what the hell are you doing here?" Brian asked.
"Right now, or in general?" He asked. Brian just gave him a frustrated look. "Do you know what comes up if you do a web search for the most useful type of combat training for a new cape?"
Brian blinked. "That can't have been boxing." He said.
"It was in the top five." Joe said casually. "And the others didn't have a reasonably priced gym a block from my apartment."
Brian took in a sharp breath. "So you joined…"
"Right after I triggered." He said. Brian flinched at that, then looked around quickly. Thankfully there was no one close by. In fact, no one seemed to be paying much attention to them at all, which was something of a relief. Still, he turned back to Joe.
"Should you even be talking about that out here?" He whispered.
"It's fine." Aisha said, cutting in.
"Fine? Because… what?" He glared down at his sister. "How much do you know?"
"At this point, more than you." She shot back.
Brian frowned. "Not likely."
His sister just smirked at him. "Wanna bet?"
His frown deepened. "Aisha, this is serious."
"Yeah, I know." She quipped, then exchanged a glance with Joe.
Brian felt himself tense. Worse, despite how much effort he was putting into controlling his reactions, he knew Joe had seen him tense. Joe probably had a dozen ways to pick up on every breath, tick, and change in his heart rate. It was like dealing with Lisa, only a million times worse because Lisa could only be smug and annoying at him. The wrong move with Joe and a city could get wiped off the map.
Well, probably not from a single wrong move, but the fact that the stakes went that high was more than enough to justify Brian's spiking blood pressure.
He turned back to Joe, trying to put Aisha's antics out of his mind. "Even if you didn't know, I'd rather not have this dropped on me out of the blue."
"Yeah." Joe said with a nod. "I'm not exactly thrilled about it either." Aisha fell back slightly, so at least she had the sense to recognize some part of the stakes that were in play. Eventually.
"You seem to be taking it pretty well." Brian said. Then again, he had no idea if he was reading Joe right. Based on what Lisa had said, Joe could be completely on board at the start of a conversation, then pull a one-eighty from some growth and fluctuation of his power. It was stressful enough when dealing with it from the sidelines, but now his family was caught up in things. Things well and far beyond his control.
"I've had some time to work through things." Joe explained.
"What, in the last thirty seconds?" Joe just gave Brian a flat look and suddenly he was a lot less interested in pursuing that question. Quickly he looked around again. Thankfully, they were still being overlooked. Despite the crowd, no one was close to them or paying them any attention, but he had no idea how long that would last.
Luckily, Joe seemed to be on the same page. "This probably isn't the best place to have this conversation."
Brian felt a wave of relief. "Definitely." He said enthusiastically. "We should get out of here."
Relocate, probably back to the hideout. He could kick out Alec, then press Joe on what he knew about the situation. More seriously, what Aisha knew. It WAS possible that Joe had just joined the gym because it was convenient, and actually hadn't known about him, or about Aisha. Possible, but he had to be sure. And once he knew he could start working to fix things. This would be the biggest of Aisha's messes he'd had to deal with, but it was something he was good at. At the very least he could get her away from Joe before things got any worse.
"Good idea." Joe said. Brian was about to reply when suddenly the world bent and twisted. For a split second it was like he was being pressed from every direction, then suddenly, he was back.
No, he wasn't back. The world wasn't back. The world was different. He was in a different place. A fundamentally different place. Not the gym. In fact, the elaborate architecture and vaulted ceilings were about as far from the borderline industrial feel of the gym as possible. He didn't even have to ask what had happened. A single glance was enough to tell him who was responsible for the intricately decorated sitting room he had found himself in.
"We're in your workshop." He said. We. Him and Aisha. Apeiron had dragged his sister along too. With a single act he had torpedoed any hope of insulating her from his insanity.
"Well, Workshop adjacent." He said. "The security measures in my actual Workshop are a bit aggressive, and entry can be overly disruptive." He settled into a chair that was a combination of elaborately scrolled woodwork and intricately embroidered upholstery. The actual design probably had some significance, like neo-French or classic regency or some other nonsense he never had the time or inclination to figure out. "Please, have a seat."
"I don't want to…" Brian took a breath, doing his best to calm himself. "You can't just warp us out of there like that!"
"Please." Aisha said as she settled into one of the elaborate chairs. A chair near Joe, which put her facing Brian. "No one's going to notice."
That was rich coming from someone who had taken such pleasure in the rampant rumor that had sprung up from a handful of obscure details. If there was one thing the people at the gym were good at, it was noticing things.
But Brian actually had bigger concerns than a possibly compromised cape identity. He grit his teeth briefly before turning back to Joe.
"And why the hell did you bring my sister here?" He demanded.
Joe just looked across at him. "I wasn't going to leave her."
"Why not?" Brian said, clenching his jaw. "She isn't involved in any of this."
"Actually, I am." Aisha said, carefully crossing her legs as she smiled at him.
The motion, combined with the cut of her dress, made her look uncharacteristically sophisticated. The kind of thing she had picked from the comportment lessons she had taken before working with Garment. That he hoped were just from comportment lessons, and not a further sign of Garment's influence.
"Aisha, I know you used to mess with Joe or whatever, but this is different. It is beyond serious. Please, for once in your life, let me handle this."
"Seriously?" She said with a frown. "That's where you're going with this?"
"Aisha, not now!" He pleaded before turning back to Jow. "She shouldn't have anything to do with any of this kind of thing. What possessed you to drag her along?"
"What, I was just supposed to come on my own?" Aisha asked.
"That's not what I…" He began before the implication hit him. "You've been here before."
Aisha just smiled. "Followed him back to his lab."
Brian took a breath and sank into a chair that was probably worth more than he had earned since his trigger. "You knew he was a cape."
"Well, yeah." Aisha said proudly.
Because Aisha could be infuriatingly observant, but it seemed that kind of perception only came out when she was looking for ways to get into trouble. It hadn't taken Aisha long to figure out his identity after he had told her he was a cape. It was probably too much to hope that Joe would be able to keep anything hidden from his sister, particularly with how intrusive she could get when she was bored. And she was always bored when their dad dragged her to the gym.
"This has to stop." Brian said to Joe.
"I don't think that's up to me." Joe said, glancing at Aisha.
"I'm serious." Brian said. "You don't… I don't know what you think, but this is my sister!"
To his relief, Joe nodded in response. "I didn't know about that. I understand how serious this is."
Brian let out a breath. As unbelievable as it was, he was willing to accept that. Even if Joe was just paying lip service to the idea, he would take what he could get.
"Right." He said. "Aisha, we're going."
"What?" She said, raising her eyebrows.
"I can sort things out with Joe later, but we're getting you out or here." He said, standing up.
"Yeah, how about no." She said, also standing and crossing her arms.
"We're not doing this now." He said before turning to Joe. "I need you to send us back. I'll call you after-"
"Damn right we're not doing this now." His sister insisted.
"Aisha, please, just be quiet and let me fix this." He shot back before turning to Joe. "Just drop us behind the gym or something and I'll take things from there."
"I don't need you to 'Fix This' for me!" His sister yelled back as he did his best to ignore the building outbursts.
"You should probably listen to your sister." Joe offered as he climbed to his feet. It was said in a good natured and probably naïve way.
"Look, I don't know if you have sisters…" He began.
"Two." Joe said.
Brian nodded. "Right, but things with Aisha, they're different. You probably heard some stuff around the gym, but that's only the tip of the iceberg."
"You're seriously going to act like I'm not even here?" Aisha demanded. "No, it's worse. You're trying to get rid of me."
"I'm dealing with it." Brian said to her sharply before turning back to Joe and shifting slightly to cut her off from the conversation.
"Look, Brian, there's a lot here that we need to go over." Joe said in a placating tone while looking over Brian's shoulder. Brian could pick up flickers of motion from his sister as he shifted in his best attempt to keep her out of things.
"I get that." He said with forced calm. As much as he might want to explode, his best attempt was kind of meaningless when he was talking to a human atomic bomb, and even that comparison was probably badly underselling things. Which was all the more reason to carefully navigate this and, most importantly, get his sister out of here. "She shouldn't be involved in this."
"I'm already involved!" Aisha's voice came from behind his back.
Brian just shook his head. "She really isn't. Just let me-"
"YES I AM!"
Brian winced at Aisha's outburst, but this time the words carried a kind of physical impact. He could feel the frustration and anger bleeding off her in waves in a display of purple light that drew his attention towards her. Drawn it in a very literal sense, both physically and mentally. Some kind of unseen force dragged him to face her now glowing form as every thought was suddenly completely focused on the display in front of him.
The light trembled, then subsided and suddenly he could think freely again. He had been physically spun around to face his sister, and he was far from the only thing affected. That display had had a physical impact on everything in the room, pressing out while also somehow aligning things towards Aisha. Those immaculate chairs had been knocked back from their rows, but also shifted so that they were facing his sister, like she was the focus of some high brow lecture.
Aisha seemed both surprised and winded by the display, and both confident and confused by what had just happened, but her own surprise had nothing on Brian's.
"You're a parahuman." He said quietly.
"Well, yeah." She said, regaining her composure. "Was kind of trying to bring that up the entire time." She shifted to Joe, who seemed completely unaffected by what had just happened. "Sorry about the outburst."
"It's okay, I get it." He said. "You see your Aura levels?"
"I thought so, but…" Brian watched as his sister's eyes were suddenly covered by a blank blue glow, then just as quickly flickered back. "Fuck, that's it, right? Semblance?"
"Looks like it." Joe said with a smile. "So, Outburst?"
"I guess." She said, "Figures that my special talent is making a scene."
"I wouldn't underestimate that, especially in combination with everything else you can do." Joe replied.
Brian watched the exchange with building unease. He swallowed, still remembering that wave of emotion. Aisha's emotion, specifically how strongly she had felt in that exact moment, suddenly projected onto everything around her in a very physical way.
"How long have you been a cape?" He asked. He watched as his sister's excitement bleed away.
"Since dad." She said, "The night Bakuda attacked, when we got jumped on the way home."
The night he was dealing with the storage yard. With the team. The night he had flaked on taking Aisha out and left her with his father. Something he felt guilty enough about, before he knew that she had triggered.
It wasn't as much of a surprise as it should have been. He had suspected. With everything, all the changes, it made sense, but with everything that was happening, everything he had gone through and all the changes with the team, he hadn't asked. Hadn't wanted to ask. It wasn't something he was ready to deal with. Not yet. Not now. He had just hoped that things would stay that same. The same problems that he'd been working towards. The problems he had a chance of fixing, that he was close to fixing. Not these new problems, where his sister was an unknown parahuman that had somehow become associated with Apeiron.
"We still need to go." He said before turning back to Joe. "I get that there's a lot more going on, but I need to sort this out with Aisha."
"I think I've got it pretty well sorted." Aisha said with a smirk of unwarranted confidence.
"You don't." He said severely. "No matter what you think, you aren't ready for what's out there."
To his surprise, his sister nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't." And Joe was nodding as well. His sister shot him a frustrated look. "Yeah, I know." She said before turning back to Brian. "Diving into things without thinking is a recipe for fucking up. I get that."
Brian let out a sigh of relief. He didn't know where that mature attitude came from, but he wasn't going to complain. "Good. So you're ready to go?"
"Yeah, no." She said flatly.
Brian frowned. "But you said…"
"I said I get it. I get it because I've worked through my fuckups." She said, looking directly at him. "That's the way it goes. Screw up and learn from them just slightly too late to do anything about the problem you caused, right?"
"What fuckups?" He asked.
"Well, this was the last major one." She said, "Less of a mess that I thought it would be, but not exactly fun."
"Aisha, nothing about this is fun." He said.
"Yeah, I know." She shot back. "It sucks, but we have to deal with it."
Brian ground his teeth before replying. "What do we have to-"
"Aisha is Lethe." Joe said, cutting him off. It actually took a moment for him to realize what the man had just said.
"What?" He demanded.
"Aisha is Lethe." Joe repeated. "Which is probably what she was trying to say this whole time."
"Yeah, well, you know how well siblings communicate." Aisha said grimly. Joe just nodded, and there was another silent exchange that concerned Brian, but not as much as the impossible suggestion that he had just made.
"What do you mean she's Lethe?" Brian asked. "She can't be-"
There was a sudden flash and the sound of shifting metal and suddenly there was a suit of purple power armor where his sister had been standing. A very familiar suit at that, complete with ridiculous heels.
"The fuck?" Brian muttered, then the bottom portion of the helmet slid open, revealing a very familiar smile. It was followed by the entire helmet folding back into the suit. "You're Lethe?" He asked. "How the fuck are you Lethe?"
"Like I said, triggered with Dad."
"As the most powerful stranger on the planet?" He asked, his voice pitching up higher than he intended. His sister just shrugged.
"Wasn't as good with my powers back then. Probably wouldn't have worried people to the same level." She said flippantly, as if having PRT watch posts in every city monitoring for her power use was a minor detail.
"You were at the summit." He said, the full implications sinking in. Aisha just nodded. "How the fuck did this happen?"
"Told you." She said, "Followed Joe back to his lab."
With his sister apparently being one of the strongest strangers on record, suddenly that claim made a lot more sense. It still didn't address the absolute clusterfuck that was the fact that Apeiron had been taking boxing lessons from his father and enduring his sister's antics, but at least the later portion made sense.
"And he just made you power armor?" Brian asked. Even for Joe, that was beyond erratic and irresponsible.
"No, that was when I found out my powers don't work on Garment." Aisha said.
"Garment?" Brian asked. "What does she have to do with this?"
He looked from Aisha to Joe, both of which were giving him rather flat looks. He let out a breath. "Of fucking course. She's mixed up with this as well."
"I mean, technically we're in her studio right now." Aisha said. Brian raised an eyebrow and looked around the cavernous space.
"Expanded backrooms." Joe said, like that was an explanation. And for him it probably was.
"Right. Fuck, right. So you work with Garment? Like, she's associated with all of this?" He asked.
"Bit more than that." Aisha said. Brian raised an eyebrow. "She was at the summit as well."
"What?" He asked. "That's… no she…" He looked at his sister. His unbelievably powerful stranger of a sister. "Did you do some memory thing?"
"What, like Victor?" She shot back, and Brian suddenly remembered the way Lethe had held that sword at Othala's throat. Another point of concern for a very long list. "Please. She was right out in the open."
"Aisha…" Joe said. There was a long-suffering tone to his voice that Brian found very familiar.
"What, too much?" She asked.
Joe shook his head. "No, but if you're getting into team stuff, it might be better to deal with it in the Workshop."
Aisha's expression suddenly turned serious. "What, is there a problem? I thought Fleet had things covered?" Her eyes suddenly shifted to that opaque blue glow again while Joe shook his head.
"Not on that front, though it's a pretty big task. It would just be better to get this fully veiled." He looked at Brian. "And it would probably be good for you to have a chance to talk, privately."
Brian felt himself tense. Technically, this had been what he had been pushing for, a chance to bring Aisha to task, figure out how far things had gone, and start working to deal with whatever mess she had gotten herself into. He looked over at his sister, still with the extra height of her armor's heels. Joe had said if she was dealing with team stuff he wanted them to talk in the workshop. In his workshop. His base, and presumably Aisha's.
Considering he had been planning to drag her back to the hideout, it felt hypocritical to have a problem with the opposite circumstance, but given the scale of what they were talking about, he felt rather justified. The Undersiders' base compared to wherever Joe spun the insanity that he regularly unleashed on the world. There was no comparison. He had no idea what Joe's workshop was like, but based on the state of 'workshop adjacent', he was willing to bet it would be more than overwhelming.
"Probably a good idea." She said, looking at Brian. Aisha wanted to talk. She actually wanted to talk, and to explain herself. Willingly, and presumably truthfully, not under duress as she spun whatever story she thought would get her into the least trouble.
Because she was beyond trouble here. Fuck, Aisha was Lethe. The idea of Aisha even knowing Joe was a nightmare. He couldn't put into words the absolute disaster that would be Aisha having the power and resources of the world's strongest stranger, who apparently had more abilities than she was letting on.
Except there hadn't been any disasters. Well, no more than you'd expect from Apeiron. Lethe was terrifying, but she wasn't the source of instability that had everyone on edge. Somehow Aisha had gotten power beyond anything Brian could conceive and managed to be halfway responsible with it. Either Joe's team was keeping her on an incredibly short leash, or something had changed. And if it had, Brian needed to figure out what it was, even if it meant heading into the belly of the beast.
"Um, yeah." Brian said. "We should talk."
"Right." Joe said. "Do you need me to set up a room for you? Maybe the Aquarium?"
Aisha shook her head. "No, we'll be fine in my place." Joe nodded, but Brian gave Aisha a concerned look.
"You have a 'place' in Joe's workshop?" He asked.
"Yeah." She said shamelessly. "And unlike some people, it's not a clubhouse over an abandoned factory."
Brian blinked. "You've been to our base?"
"What, you think I followed Joe but not you?" She said, "My place also has less mopey teenagers and moldy pizza, so that's another plus."
Brian stared at her, then looked to Joe who just shrugged. Honestly, given what had apparently happened to Joe, even if he only had slivers of the story, he wasn't in a place to complain. And given the state his team was in after Bakuda's attack, it couldn't have made the best impression. In the wake of something like that, it was hard to blame her for not telling him about her trigger.
That felt like another point of failure. Not only had they launched themselves into a giant mess, multiple cape conflicts, and a mountain of debt, but he hadn't been there for his sister when she needed him. Someone had, but he was still trying to figure out if that was a good or bad thing.
"You ready?" Joe asked. "I can get it for you?"
"No, I'm good." Aisha said, her eyes flicking blue again. "Got to get used to the interface, right?"
There was another shared moment that made Brian feel like an outsider, then a sudden shock as a flickering gray portal manifested in front of them. The area through the portal was washed out and indistinct, but also big. Big and spacious, even compared to the room they were in. It was Apeiron's workshop, and his sister could apparently access it with a thought.
A new level to the entire situation suddenly came crashing down on him. After this, all the little points of separation he had worked to maintain between himself and Joe's team would go up in smoke. With Aisha actually on that team those points of separation were already meaningless, but that was still sinking in. Honestly, he didn't know if it would ever sink in, but even beyond that, this was huge. Beyond huge. This was the heart of Apeiron's operation, and he was being invited inside.
No, it was worse. He wasn't even being formally invited. He was just tagging along with his sister so they could hash out the absolute clusterfuck that she had found herself in. A clusterfuck fully beyond anything he could reasonably expect to be able to resolve. Probably bigger than he could even fully comprehend, because suddenly he was seeing the insanity from the inside.
He had liked that separation. That idea that he was working a degree away from whatever Joe was up to. He had his team and his job and his work to take care of Aisha. Except Aisha was in a situation beyond anything he had ever considered, and now he was forced to step into that world, if only to find out where she had ended up. Just that one step, it was more than he had ever considered. More than he imagined Joe ever extending to a member of the team. It weighed on him as he stood on the threshold of the portal. Once step where everything would change.
Or everything had already changed, and that step would let him realize how much. But either way you looked at it, there would be no going back. No leading the Undersiders on simple jobs or meeting with social workers for Aisha's custody hearings. Fuck, everything WAS different, and he just hadn't realized it yet.
He paused awkwardly while his sister looked over at him with an amused expression.
"What?" Aisha asked. "You nervous because you're realizing that the trust placed in you comes with implicit obligations that completely change your position in life and relationships with what you felt were hard and fast absolutes of your existence, meaning you can never go back to the way things were and have to navigate through a broader but largely uncertain future?"
Brian blinked as he looked at his sister's smirking face, trying to reconcile her frankly juvenile mannerisms with the weight of the statement she had just made. "Um, I guess?" He said. "Maybe?"
She snorted. "Yeah, responsibility sucks." She replied, smiling in a very 'Aisha' way. "Now come on, we've got a lot to talk about."
Brian nodded and braced himself as he stepped through the portal with his sister. Belly of the beast, rabbit hole, scales from eyes, however you wanted to phrase it, he needed to see this though. To figure out what was happening, and what was going to come after that.
Every December I hope to be able to get some extra writing done as a gift to my readers, but just as consistently life managed to get in the way of my intentions. Even if I am unable to provide extra content for the holiday season, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has followed and supported the story over the past year. That incredible community has made this story what it is and I am extremely grateful for everyone's support. My thanks and best wishes to everyone, in the spirit of the season.)
111.1 Interlude Brian
Brian hadn't had an easy time squaring things with Alec. Really, things with Alec had been difficult since the mess with Bakuda. Even with the context that Lisa had been able to provide, it was hard to accept the mistake that had let her slip through their fingers. A mistake that only got worse and worse when the full consequences of Bakuda's escape presented themself.
Honestly, the mess he was trying to manage probably counted as part of that. If they had brought down Bakuda, if the ABB hadn't had her insane bombs, then the Ungodly Hour couldn't have happened, no matter how well March could have coordinated things.
Well, probably. There was a chance that Bakuda's tinker bullshit could have been replaced by Leet's tinker bullshit, or Toybox tinker bullshit, or any of the other hundred flavors of bullshit that March had apparently been capable of, as Alec had been happy to remind him.
It was hard to deal with Alec like this. He was never exactly easy to deal with, but since that incident he had changed, and probably not for the better. Then again, with Alec, it was probably a question of trading one type of bad for another.
He had been infuriatingly logical when Brian had confronted him about what had happened at the gym. As much as he might want to, he couldn't deny that playing into the assumptions that people had made had probably stopped them from jumping to the much more serious reality of what was happening. Of course, the fact that they had been out that night at all grated on him. Yes, they had been paying back their debt to Joe, but this was never something he had anticipated when dealing with that.
It almost made him wish they had been out in costume, even though that hadn't really been an option for them. His costume had been warped and shredded while Alec's was as badly burned as he had been. That was before Joe had just gifted them insane replacements. The best they could have done was wander around in damaged remnants or whatever crude mockups they could have pulled together at the last moment, and even then, being out in costume would probably have seen them run afoul of any of the other capes who had been out raiding the remnants of the ABB's holdings.
No, as much as he hated it, there was no real way for them to have avoided being spotted together in their civilian identities. Maybe if he had been faster on the uptake he could have headed off the entire misunderstanding, but apparently his worry and confusion had helped people fill in the blanks. Which Alec had happily continued to fill in without telling him.
And now he had another secret to dance around, not just with his father but with everyone from the gym. The entire situation made him want to beat Alec within an inch of his life, but they both were well aware of the strength of Joe's forcefields. It turned out the only thing more annoying than Alec was a version of Alec that knew he could pull whatever antics he wanted without risk of being hit.
Not that that was the best way of handling things, but after everything that had happened, Brian had wanted to hit SOMETHING. That was part of what drew him back to the gym. On top of hopefully managing some aspect of this mess, he was looking forward to a proper workout. A chance to go a couple of rounds in the ring, or at least take his frustration out against one of the punching bags.
That hadn't happened.
"Don't bother bringing that." His father had said about his gym bag when he arrived at the apartment to pick up him and Aisha. As statements went, it was beyond unprecedented. The gym was a place for boxing and training, not messing around. His dad always had no tolerance for anything else in that space, something Aisha had clashed with him over more times than he could count. He didn't know what could have changed his father's mind on something so fundamental.
His father used his cane with clear resentment as they made their way out of the apartment building. His dad clearly didn't like them seeing him in that state, but bore it with as much dignity as possible. Meaning he kept the cane on the opposite side of his body from them and masked any pain he was experiencing with grunts or muttered swearing.
He also wasn't in a state to drive, so that fell to Brian. Neither of them particularly appreciated Aisha's offer to drive, nor her insistence that she could "totally handle it". At least enduring Aisha's antics was a point of familiarity for the two of them, something Brian desperately needed right now.
Of course, he hadn't realized how short they would be on familiarity until he pulled into the unusually overcrowded parking lot and made his way into the gym building. Stepping inside, the place was nearly unrecognizable. Brian knew that things had changed recently, but seeing it for himself hit differently. It had always been a serious place, as serious as his father. A man who had taught him to box by going all out in the ring when Brian was barely a teenager. It was a place where people kept their heads down and focused on their training.
It was not a bustling center of… he didn't even know what to call it. Workout equipment that he would have sworn had been bolted in place had been shoved to the side to make room for the crowds of people circling through the gym, people who had nothing to do with boxing. In fact, the whole place seemed to be drifting further and further away from that image in his memories.
It didn't help that the atmosphere was so fundamentally different. It would have been bad enough if it were just this shift from grim determination to open support, but the way it was directed specifically at him was particularly hard to deal with. Everywhere he looked there were welcoming and understanding smiles, usually from people who he barely remembered. Often from people who he was pretty sure had left the gym before he had, but here they were, back and fully invested into whatever weird community outreach thing had sprung up.
Worse, he knew the reason for that particular flavor of friendliness. Everyone making a point to welcome him back, assure him of how welcome he was, and off-handedly mention how nice Alec was. It was particularly jarring when he ran straight into Mrs. Gartenberg. As tiny as the woman actually was, in his own mind he'd always see her towering over him, usually with a disapproving expression as she spoke to his parents… usually for good reason, but being able to recognize that in retrospect that didn't make the experience any less terrifying.
Only now he was being greeted with nothing but supportive assurances. In fact, the handful of people who seemed like they might be less enthusiastic about his 'circumstances' were sure to voice their support at the slightest glance from the woman. Their carefully worded and deliberately ambiguous support.
He could tell Aisha was immensely amused by the entire situation, but he was just left speechless. It was hard to wrap his head around the idea that, in the middle of a city-wide catastrophe, everyone he was even vaguely acquainted with at a gym he hadn't visited for years had somehow decided to band together in a show of carefully presented support for a 'lifestyle' that he didn't actually have, but somehow ended up with as the most convincing cover story available to him.
It seemed ridiculous that there would be time for that kind of story to spin from the rumor mill in wake of the recent disasters, particularly with everything else that the gym had taken on. Particularly when it was well beyond what he would have expected them to be capable of. Even with the good intentions of people like Doug and the reputation of Mrs. Gartenberg, it should have been a minor effort. A band aid on the problems of the area, helping out a few people from the neighborhood and some of the friends and family of dedicated members.
Instead he was looking at a community hub, a place that was both well supplied and apparently now also well-funded. That was what actually concerned him. The money from Garment's big charity show had already arrived and was being used to step up efforts and actually pay some of the volunteers for their time and effort. Which of course had caused everything to jump to another level as Brian's dad, Doug, and Mrs. Gartenberg had to manage the flow of cash.
It was another thing that should have been a mess, bringing out everyone who thought they could take advantage of the situation and turning any of the efforts to help into a grab fest where everyone tried to secure as much as they could. But that wasn't happening, and as much as he might want to attribute that to the hardline tactics of his father, Doug's immense personality, and pretty much everything about Mrs. Gartenberg, it went further than that.
He could see it, when he really looked. In between being welcomed back by every third person he made eye contact with and pointedly ignoring Aisha's smug enjoyment of his discomfort, he could see a pattern to things. A flow through the gym that was simply too smooth to have just happened. Something that couldn't have existed even with active management, but somehow it was like a thousand little systems had just sprung up that were carrying things for people, absorbing any missteps and bringing everything back on track in the face of the kind of minor disruptions that would have normally snowballed.
Nobody else seemed to notice it. Maybe it wasn't apparent if you were in the thick of it, or maybe they knew that something was happening and just didn't care. After all, who would really be concerned about things going overly well?
He was, and the reason for that concern hung over the gym's boxing ring. A beautiful woven tapestry of Garment ushering victims of the initial blackout to the safety of the gym. It was an impressive piece, but it also felt like a declaration of intent. Or ownership.
Garment had been able to pull together a world class event in a handful of days. Suddenly all of the little suspicions about her coordination powers weren't suspicions anymore. Garment was a thinker, and no one was really sure how far her powers extended.
At the very least, it was clear they had extended to the gym. Brian didn't know if this kind of coordination had been in place before she had started funding their charity efforts or if it was some kind of consequence of her affiliation with the place, but it worried him. That kind of subtle manipulation was always worrying, no matter how well intended it might be.
And worse, it felt like he couldn't even raise his concerns. Honestly, if he pointed out what was happening and highlighted every point of Garment's influence he could find, would anyone be concerned, or would he just further elevate everyone's opinion of her? Despite what that power could mean, what it meant she was capable of, it was likely that everyone would just be happy she was keeping things running smoothly.
Brian let out a breath as he nodded to yet another overly supportive well-wisher. He'd need to talk to Aisha about it, at the very least. Probably after he raised his concerns with Lisa. Everything that Aisha had suddenly been able to deal with, all the little improvements in her behavior and outlook, was that Garment as well? He'd been worried about her having triggered, but this could be worse.
Could be worse, but if it wasn't worse yet, would Aisha care? There were hundreds of stories about the nightmare that could come from thinkers, masters, and trumps. From powers that seemed too good to be true because they were. Garment was definitely helping Aisha, and Aisha actually seemed happy with the new direction her life was taking. It wasn't like she was some brainwashed minion. The way she had to hide a smirk whenever someone was overly sincere when welcoming him back was evidence enough of that. But there had to be a tradeoff, even if it was just a reliance on Garment's support.
His instinct would have been to burn bridges, cut ties, and avoid any possible risk of influence, but as it stood he couldn't even tell how far her influence went or how it worked. Lisa might be able to, but pressing her for this when she was juggling everything else on their plate would be a tall order. It made him feel helpless, like he was trapped in Garment's orbit.
Just like everyone else in the gym, with the exception being that they seemed perfectly happy with whatever influence they had found themselves under. Like whatever good was coming from the unnatural coordination was more than worth the possibility of some cape puppet master worming their way into your life.
Then again, it was possible that Brian was focusing excessively on the effects of Garment's thinker power in order to avoid needing to address the mess that Alec had landed him in. Honestly, he didn't know what he had expected to accomplish here. Really, he had just wanted to get a sense of how far this story had gotten, and possibly to rein it in before it got completely away from him.
But it had gotten away from him. It had gotten so far away from him that it had lapped him twice, forcing him to spend more time trying to figure out exactly what narrative people had built up for not just his association with Alec, but his entire reason for leaving the gym in the first place. Some kind of tale of a misunderstood youth living a secret life and forced to hide who he really was. Apparently, in his absence, people were prone towards filling in the blanks with as much melodrama as possible.
Maybe he could blame that on Garment as well. Not directly, but he was willing to bet that if everyone had been scrambling to deal with the aftermath of the disaster rather than working together like the gears of a Swiss watch then there would probably have been a lot less time to devote towards the rumor mill. Not that he would have wished that on anyone, he just would have preferred to have that kind of rampant speculation directed elsewhere.
Even people who normally would be the last to bring up that kind of rumor were still clearly talking around the subject. That was obvious when he found himself catching up with Vince.
And there was a lot to catch up on. He remembered back when Vince had first joined the gym. A skinny kid trying to deal with living in a neighborhood adjacent to ABB territory. Normally, the people who joined up to learn self-defense didn't tend to stick around, and Brian's memories of Vince had slotted him into that category, but apparently he had stuck things out. More than stuck them out, ending up as the gym's rising star who already had legitimate wins under his belt.
There was another layer to Brian's return. Specifically the fact that he had been the rising star before he left. There was just a hint of awkwardness from Vince over that, though not enough to overshadow the larger issue. Frankly he would rather have focused on the lost potential and opportunities he had missed from leaving the gym, rather than dealing with the extremely awkward experience of being treated with kid gloves. Like if they so much as spooked him over the subject he would bolt for the door.
Though frankly that was starting to sound like a better idea. It wouldn't actually solve anything, but it would save him from having to stiffly stumble through another non-conversation mostly centered around expressing support while avoiding mentioning exactly what you were supporting.
"Yeah, Alec was great." Vince said with a very supportive nod. "Really got on well with everyone."
"Uh-huh." Brian said stiffly, once again dearly regretting the fact that Joe's forcefields had prevented him from throttling Alec over this mess.
"The supplies he dropped off made a big difference. I mean, that was before all of this started flooding in, but that was when we needed it most." Vince continued, expressing the same sentiments that Brian had heard about a dozen times already. Sentiments that were so similar that he was starting to wonder if someone had handed out prepared statements.
Possibly Mrs. Gartenberg, as weird as THAT was to consider.
"That's good." Brian said, doing his best to cover his discomfort. Apparently not well enough, since Vince seemed to pick up on it. It was enough for him to back off, if almost certainly for the wrong reason.
"It's good having Mr. Laborn back in the gym." Vince said, looking over to where Brian's dad was tearing into one of the younger members over something while Doug looked on with an approving smile on his face.
Brian nodded to Vince. It was beyond weird that his father's injury was the more comfortable topic, but he'd take any break from the results of Alec's nonsense he could get.
"I know he's been going stir crazy at home." Brian said. "Honestly, I would have expected more problems on that front."
"Because of Aisha?" Vince asked. Brian just gave him a shallow nod. "Yeah." Vince agreed. "The stuff with Garment, it's lucky. Been really good for her."
"You think it will be okay?" He asked.
"What, because Garment's a cape?" Vince asked. Brian nodded. "I know that kind of stuff is trouble, but Garment doesn't play like a normal cape."
That was what worried him, but Brian didn't say anything. "What about on Aisha's side?"
Vince smiled. "I don't think you have to worry about that." He said. "If anyone can deal with Aisha's antics, it's Garment. Besides, it's better than her hanging around bothering new members."
Brian let out a breath, but had to nod at that. It was one of Aisha's more annoying habits, and that was already a fairly contentious category. She had always liked to see how far she could push things. It was bad enough with people who knew her and were willing to put up with it, but that just drove her to find fresh targets. Which made any misstep all the more concerning.
"I suppose." Brian said. He scanned across the gym, looking for his sister. Normally it would just be a matter of seeking out the nearest commotion, but fortunately Aisha had been sufficiently amused watching Brian endure the waves of misplaced support, at least until Meg had dragged her off for a chance to 'catch up'. And to compliment Aisha's outfit, which served as further evidence to the scale and variety of the wardrobe that Garment had given his sister.
He spotted Meg moving towards one of the exits, along with Casey who had picked up a few more tattoos since Brian had last seen him. He traced their path back and spotted Aisha standing next to a tall…
Joe. It was Joe. Joe was in the gym. Different from the last time Brian had seen him in civilian clothing. Very different from his last cape appearance, but it was Joe. Joe, standing in the gym and casually talking to his sister. Joe who suddenly paused and turned towards Brian, who had utterly failed to keep his stunned reaction from playing across his face.
"He has a girlfriend." Vince said quickly. Brian barely registered what Vince had said as the horror of the situation played out in his mind, and on his face.
"What?" He asked with a painfully neutral expression forced onto his face.
The single word was about all Brian could manage, but it was enough to send Vince into a fit of stammering. "Um, I mean, not that it's, what I'm saying is," Vince swallowed. "Alec is a really great guy."
Brian blinked and did his best to further school his expression, pushing past whatever extra layer of misunderstanding had just been fed into the rumor mill.
"Right." He said, desperately trying to find some kind of footing. So far all he could tell was that Vince knew Joe. That was almost as bad as Aisha talking to Joe… No, not even close. It was just a different kind of bad. "Who is he?" He asked in as calm a voice as possible, doing his best to not give any hints that could be misinterpreted. Not because he was worried about THAT. He was far, far beyond any concern over speculation about his dating life, but he needed to find out what the hell was going on. Why the hell was Apeiron here, talking to Aisha?
"That's Joe." Vince said casually, and apparently more than happy to move on from whatever perceived misstep he had made with his earlier assumption. "New guy, joined up around the start of the month. Has been in and out, helping out with things since everything happened."
Brian blinked. "What, he's been helping with food? Deliveries?"
"Mostly maintenance and breakdowns." Vince said. "He was in the engineering program at the college. Been a big help keeping things running."
Joe was… Joe had been doing maintenance at the gym. Apeiron had been doing maintenance at the gym. It was almost impossible for Brian to wrap his head around that alone, and it was only the tip of the iceberg. Made worse by the fact that Joe was talking to Aisha, or Aisha was talking to Joe. Not just bothering him, like she was prone to do, but talking like she knew him.
He tried to push through the waves of panic and figure out what was happening. "You know him?" Brian asked.
Vince nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Laborn's his coach." Brian just barely managed to keep the panic off his face at that. What's more, if his dad was Joe's coach and he had joined 'around the start of the month', then…
"You're worried about Aisha." Vince said, at once filling in the blanks while also presenting the worst of nightmare situations. "Don't be." He added and Brian almost allowed himself to relax.
"So Joe…" He began, but Vince cut him off.
"I mean, she messed with him a bit when he first joined, but he handled it better than most guys do." Vince assured him.
"Aisha. Messed with Joe?" Brian barely managed to force the words out.
"Um, yeah." Vince said, looking back towards Joe. And Aisha. Joe and Aisha. "I know how it looks, but it wasn't like that."
"How does it look?" Brian asked sharply. It was an actual question. He honestly didn't know what he was looking at.
"I mean, I guess Joe was kind of in a rough place when he joined?" Vince said.
"Rough?" Brian asked.
"Yeah, well, nothing like that." Vince said, inclining his head towards Joe. Brian blinked and tried to piece together what Vince was saying. "I guess you could tell he was dealing with some stuff, but no one really figured how bad it was until he pulled himself together."
"He…" Brian began, then trailed off. He worked to try to figure out what Vince was saying, based on the perspective Vince probably had on the situation.
Back at the start of the month, ages and weeks ago, Joe had been… normal. Well, more normal. That was before the sudden changes in build or that weird smoothness of motion or the way he just seemed to constantly find the perfect angle no matter who was looking at him.
He was downplaying things. Brian knew that. But Brian knew he was Apeiron. For anyone else, what would they assume? That the 'normal' state the guy they met was in was actually his lowest point? I mean, what other explanation could there be, especially once they began to 'pull themselves together' beyond the level any normal person could hope to reach.
Whatever Joe's powers had done to him, he wasn't concealing all of it in his civilian identity. Maybe he couldn't, but as a consequence everyone at the gym had seen a new member get progressively more… Joe as time went on. And without the context of an uncontrolled power expanding erratically, they assumed they were dealing with someone who had been an absolute wreck and managed to recover, and over the course of a crisis no less.
Which also meant that Aisha had been talking to the most attractive person in the gym. Which explained Vince's initial assumption, and his probable reasoning for Brian's current concern. And yeah, in the absence of all other issues, that would have been a concern for him, but right now it was absolutely dwarfed by the fact that Aisha apparently knew Apeiron's civilian identity.
Had Joe… it didn't seem like something he would do, but this couldn't be an accident. There was just no way Joe wouldn't have known. Why would he have, or did he…
He clamped down on the circular thoughts, reinforcing his calm exterior as much as possible. "When did he join?" He asked as casually as he could.
"I think it was the first Monday in the month, so like the fourth?" Vince said, then nodded as he appeared to work out the days for himself. "The fourth."
Brian took a breath. It seemed insane. It had to be insane. How in the hell could Joe have joined the gym, his gym, before they had even met? Coincidences like that just didn't happen.
It had to be… something. As hard as he tried, he couldn't imagine what. Seriously, what kind of secret plan could possibly involve Joe joining the gym when he had been at his least powerful then launching into the insane mess of escalation that even he didn't seem to have expected? It seemed like the kind of thing that would have to be a stupid mistake, a random accident, but that couldn't be it. Shit like that didn't just happen. Not at this scale.
And now Joe and Aisha were walking towards them. Brian tensed, his mind desperately trying to figure out how to get Aisha out of this situation, get her away so he could explain what she had been messing with.
Then his mind violently swerved as he filled in exactly what could happen if Aisha knew what she had been messing with. It was bad enough with her having access to Garment. Knowing about Joe, that was a disaster. Beyond a disaster. But there was no way he could come up with that would steer her away from this mess without inspiring her to dive deeper into it.
Hell, he didn't even know how deep it was already.
"You said she was messing with him?" He asked quickly. "How?"
"The usual stuff." Vince said, as uncomfortable with the topic as Brian was. "Teasing, flirting, trying to get a reaction. Like I said, it didn't land. Mr. Laborn had me do the twelve round thing the first time she showed up and Joe just rolled with it." Brian wasn't quite able to process THAT, so he just nodded and let Vince continue. "She backed off after Garment, and like I said, Joe's got a girlfriend. I know this kind of thing can get ugly, but that's not what's happening here."
Vince progressively lowered his voice as Joe and Aisha approached until he was nearly whispering, then seamlessly transferred into a warm greeting.
"Joe!" He said, stepping forward and giving Brian a second to recover. "Glad you could make it."
Joe smiled back at Vince. "Hey Vince. Thought I could help out a bit. Wasn't expecting this kind of crowd."
Vince nodded. "Things calmed down a bit after the event, but then the funding came through." He shrugged. "After everything yesterday, I figured you'd take today off."
It sounded like there was more to that than Vince was saying, but there was only one thing that registered for Brian. "You were at Garment's event?" He asked.
"Oh, Joe, this is Mr. Laborn's son Brian. I didn't realize you hadn't met yet." Vince offered.
"Looks like we missed each other." Joe said with no regard for how serious the situation was.
"Easy enough. Brian hasn't been around lately." Aisha said. "I practically had to drag him down here."
Brian looked at his sister's face and alarm bells started blaring in his mind. She knew. Aisha knew… something. She knew and SHE had set this up. He still didn't know what this was, but he could recognize his sister's antics when he saw them. She had a bad habit of playing with fire, but this was far beyond that. As practical jokes went, this was the equivalent of juggling nuclear bombs, and she seemed just as oblivious to the stakes as always.
Meaning it was going to fall to him to pull her out of the fire and clean things up. Nothing he hadn't done before, even if this was more serious than anything she had gotten herself caught up in before. Considering that included that led to her stint in juvie, for Aisha that was practically an accomplishment.
"Right." Vince said, then glanced down at his watch. "I've got to run. Brian, great to see you again. Really great. Don't worry about stopping by any time."
"Thanks Vince." Brian said a little more stiffly that he intended. Even with the disaster currently standing next to them, Aisha had the gall to seem amused by the exchange. He waved Vince off, then slowly turned towards the humanoid S-class threat that was standing far too close to his sister.
Then again, when it came to Apeiron, anywhere on the same continent probably counted as 'too close'.
Brian braced himself, noting a near complete lack of tension from Aisha. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. It could mean she had enough distance to not truly be involved with everything, or it could mean that she had badly underestimated the threat Joe represented. In a way he hoped that she was actually ignorant to what she was dealing with. The idea that Aisha was knowingly messing with Apeiron-level matters was too nightmarish to imagine.
Instead he turned to Joe. Joe who had changed so much in the past weeks, both mentally and physically, to say nothing of his place in the world. Or maybe it would be better to say the world's place in relation to him. Either way, in spite of everything that had happened, all those changes that sent Lisa into spirals of analysis, he was still the same person underneath it all.
At least Brian hoped he was. The common ground they had shared from those early interactions was just about the only thing that might let him get through this.
"Joe." He began. "What the hell?"
The remarkably normal looking impossible cape smiled back at him. "Would you believe I didn't know until now."
"Not really." Brian said. Then he saw Joe's expression. "You're serious?"
"I said I'd respect your privacy." He replied. Brian's eyes dropped to the watch Joe had given him, then back up to the tinker.
"If you didn't know then what the hell are you doing here?" Brian asked.
"Right now, or in general?" He asked. Brian just gave him a frustrated look. "Do you know what comes up if you do a web search for the most useful type of combat training for a new cape?"
Brian blinked. "That can't have been boxing." He said.
"It was in the top five." Joe said casually. "And the others didn't have a reasonably priced gym a block from my apartment."
Brian took in a sharp breath. "So you joined…"
"Right after I triggered." He said. Brian flinched at that, then looked around quickly. Thankfully there was no one close by. In fact, no one seemed to be paying much attention to them at all, which was something of a relief. Still, he turned back to Joe.
"Should you even be talking about that out here?" He whispered.
"It's fine." Aisha said, cutting in.
"Fine? Because… what?" He glared down at his sister. "How much do you know?"
"At this point, more than you." She shot back.
Brian frowned. "Not likely."
His sister just smirked at him. "Wanna bet?"
His frown deepened. "Aisha, this is serious."
"Yeah, I know." She quipped, then exchanged a glance with Joe.
Brian felt himself tense. Worse, despite how much effort he was putting into controlling his reactions, he knew Joe had seen him tense. Joe probably had a dozen ways to pick up on every breath, tick, and change in his heart rate. It was like dealing with Lisa, only a million times worse because Lisa could only be smug and annoying at him. The wrong move with Joe and a city could get wiped off the map.
Well, probably not from a single wrong move, but the fact that the stakes went that high was more than enough to justify Brian's spiking blood pressure.
He turned back to Joe, trying to put Aisha's antics out of his mind. "Even if you didn't know, I'd rather not have this dropped on me out of the blue."
"Yeah." Joe said with a nod. "I'm not exactly thrilled about it either." Aisha fell back slightly, so at least she had the sense to recognize some part of the stakes that were in play. Eventually.
"You seem to be taking it pretty well." Brian said. Then again, he had no idea if he was reading Joe right. Based on what Lisa had said, Joe could be completely on board at the start of a conversation, then pull a one-eighty from some growth and fluctuation of his power. It was stressful enough when dealing with it from the sidelines, but now his family was caught up in things. Things well and far beyond his control.
"I've had some time to work through things." Joe explained.
"What, in the last thirty seconds?" Joe just gave Brian a flat look and suddenly he was a lot less interested in pursuing that question. Quickly he looked around again. Thankfully, they were still being overlooked. Despite the crowd, no one was close to them or paying them any attention, but he had no idea how long that would last.
Luckily, Joe seemed to be on the same page. "This probably isn't the best place to have this conversation."
Brian felt a wave of relief. "Definitely." He said enthusiastically. "We should get out of here."
Relocate, probably back to the hideout. He could kick out Alec, then press Joe on what he knew about the situation. More seriously, what Aisha knew. It WAS possible that Joe had just joined the gym because it was convenient, and actually hadn't known about him, or about Aisha. Possible, but he had to be sure. And once he knew he could start working to fix things. This would be the biggest of Aisha's messes he'd had to deal with, but it was something he was good at. At the very least he could get her away from Joe before things got any worse.
"Good idea." Joe said. Brian was about to reply when suddenly the world bent and twisted. For a split second it was like he was being pressed from every direction, then suddenly, he was back.
No, he wasn't back. The world wasn't back. The world was different. He was in a different place. A fundamentally different place. Not the gym. In fact, the elaborate architecture and vaulted ceilings were about as far from the borderline industrial feel of the gym as possible. He didn't even have to ask what had happened. A single glance was enough to tell him who was responsible for the intricately decorated sitting room he had found himself in.
"We're in your workshop." He said. We. Him and Aisha. Apeiron had dragged his sister along too. With a single act he had torpedoed any hope of insulating her from his insanity.
"Well, Workshop adjacent." He said. "The security measures in my actual Workshop are a bit aggressive, and entry can be overly disruptive." He settled into a chair that was a combination of elaborately scrolled woodwork and intricately embroidered upholstery. The actual design probably had some significance, like neo-French or classic regency or some other nonsense he never had the time or inclination to figure out. "Please, have a seat."
"I don't want to…" Brian took a breath, doing his best to calm himself. "You can't just warp us out of there like that!"
"Please." Aisha said as she settled into one of the elaborate chairs. A chair near Joe, which put her facing Brian. "No one's going to notice."
That was rich coming from someone who had taken such pleasure in the rampant rumor that had sprung up from a handful of obscure details. If there was one thing the people at the gym were good at, it was noticing things.
But Brian actually had bigger concerns than a possibly compromised cape identity. He grit his teeth briefly before turning back to Joe.
"And why the hell did you bring my sister here?" He demanded.
Joe just looked across at him. "I wasn't going to leave her."
"Why not?" Brian said, clenching his jaw. "She isn't involved in any of this."
"Actually, I am." Aisha said, carefully crossing her legs as she smiled at him.
The motion, combined with the cut of her dress, made her look uncharacteristically sophisticated. The kind of thing she had picked from the comportment lessons she had taken before working with Garment. That he hoped were just from comportment lessons, and not a further sign of Garment's influence.
"Aisha, I know you used to mess with Joe or whatever, but this is different. It is beyond serious. Please, for once in your life, let me handle this."
"Seriously?" She said with a frown. "That's where you're going with this?"
"Aisha, not now!" He pleaded before turning back to Jow. "She shouldn't have anything to do with any of this kind of thing. What possessed you to drag her along?"
"What, I was just supposed to come on my own?" Aisha asked.
"That's not what I…" He began before the implication hit him. "You've been here before."
Aisha just smiled. "Followed him back to his lab."
Brian took a breath and sank into a chair that was probably worth more than he had earned since his trigger. "You knew he was a cape."
"Well, yeah." Aisha said proudly.
Because Aisha could be infuriatingly observant, but it seemed that kind of perception only came out when she was looking for ways to get into trouble. It hadn't taken Aisha long to figure out his identity after he had told her he was a cape. It was probably too much to hope that Joe would be able to keep anything hidden from his sister, particularly with how intrusive she could get when she was bored. And she was always bored when their dad dragged her to the gym.
"This has to stop." Brian said to Joe.
"I don't think that's up to me." Joe said, glancing at Aisha.
"I'm serious." Brian said. "You don't… I don't know what you think, but this is my sister!"
To his relief, Joe nodded in response. "I didn't know about that. I understand how serious this is."
Brian let out a breath. As unbelievable as it was, he was willing to accept that. Even if Joe was just paying lip service to the idea, he would take what he could get.
"Right." He said. "Aisha, we're going."
"What?" She said, raising her eyebrows.
"I can sort things out with Joe later, but we're getting you out or here." He said, standing up.
"Yeah, how about no." She said, also standing and crossing her arms.
"We're not doing this now." He said before turning to Joe. "I need you to send us back. I'll call you after-"
"Damn right we're not doing this now." His sister insisted.
"Aisha, please, just be quiet and let me fix this." He shot back before turning to Joe. "Just drop us behind the gym or something and I'll take things from there."
"I don't need you to 'Fix This' for me!" His sister yelled back as he did his best to ignore the building outbursts.
"You should probably listen to your sister." Joe offered as he climbed to his feet. It was said in a good natured and probably naïve way.
"Look, I don't know if you have sisters…" He began.
"Two." Joe said.
Brian nodded. "Right, but things with Aisha, they're different. You probably heard some stuff around the gym, but that's only the tip of the iceberg."
"You're seriously going to act like I'm not even here?" Aisha demanded. "No, it's worse. You're trying to get rid of me."
"I'm dealing with it." Brian said to her sharply before turning back to Joe and shifting slightly to cut her off from the conversation.
"Look, Brian, there's a lot here that we need to go over." Joe said in a placating tone while looking over Brian's shoulder. Brian could pick up flickers of motion from his sister as he shifted in his best attempt to keep her out of things.
"I get that." He said with forced calm. As much as he might want to explode, his best attempt was kind of meaningless when he was talking to a human atomic bomb, and even that comparison was probably badly underselling things. Which was all the more reason to carefully navigate this and, most importantly, get his sister out of here. "She shouldn't be involved in this."
"I'm already involved!" Aisha's voice came from behind his back.
Brian just shook his head. "She really isn't. Just let me-"
"YES I AM!"
Brian winced at Aisha's outburst, but this time the words carried a kind of physical impact. He could feel the frustration and anger bleeding off her in waves in a display of purple light that drew his attention towards her. Drawn it in a very literal sense, both physically and mentally. Some kind of unseen force dragged him to face her now glowing form as every thought was suddenly completely focused on the display in front of him.
The light trembled, then subsided and suddenly he could think freely again. He had been physically spun around to face his sister, and he was far from the only thing affected. That display had had a physical impact on everything in the room, pressing out while also somehow aligning things towards Aisha. Those immaculate chairs had been knocked back from their rows, but also shifted so that they were facing his sister, like she was the focus of some high brow lecture.
Aisha seemed both surprised and winded by the display, and both confident and confused by what had just happened, but her own surprise had nothing on Brian's.
"You're a parahuman." He said quietly.
"Well, yeah." She said, regaining her composure. "Was kind of trying to bring that up the entire time." She shifted to Joe, who seemed completely unaffected by what had just happened. "Sorry about the outburst."
"It's okay, I get it." He said. "You see your Aura levels?"
"I thought so, but…" Brian watched as his sister's eyes were suddenly covered by a blank blue glow, then just as quickly flickered back. "Fuck, that's it, right? Semblance?"
"Looks like it." Joe said with a smile. "So, Outburst?"
"I guess." She said, "Figures that my special talent is making a scene."
"I wouldn't underestimate that, especially in combination with everything else you can do." Joe replied.
Brian watched the exchange with building unease. He swallowed, still remembering that wave of emotion. Aisha's emotion, specifically how strongly she had felt in that exact moment, suddenly projected onto everything around her in a very physical way.
"How long have you been a cape?" He asked. He watched as his sister's excitement bleed away.
"Since dad." She said, "The night Bakuda attacked, when we got jumped on the way home."
The night he was dealing with the storage yard. With the team. The night he had flaked on taking Aisha out and left her with his father. Something he felt guilty enough about, before he knew that she had triggered.
It wasn't as much of a surprise as it should have been. He had suspected. With everything, all the changes, it made sense, but with everything that was happening, everything he had gone through and all the changes with the team, he hadn't asked. Hadn't wanted to ask. It wasn't something he was ready to deal with. Not yet. Not now. He had just hoped that things would stay that same. The same problems that he'd been working towards. The problems he had a chance of fixing, that he was close to fixing. Not these new problems, where his sister was an unknown parahuman that had somehow become associated with Apeiron.
"We still need to go." He said before turning back to Joe. "I get that there's a lot more going on, but I need to sort this out with Aisha."
"I think I've got it pretty well sorted." Aisha said with a smirk of unwarranted confidence.
"You don't." He said severely. "No matter what you think, you aren't ready for what's out there."
To his surprise, his sister nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't." And Joe was nodding as well. His sister shot him a frustrated look. "Yeah, I know." She said before turning back to Brian. "Diving into things without thinking is a recipe for fucking up. I get that."
Brian let out a sigh of relief. He didn't know where that mature attitude came from, but he wasn't going to complain. "Good. So you're ready to go?"
"Yeah, no." She said flatly.
Brian frowned. "But you said…"
"I said I get it. I get it because I've worked through my fuckups." She said, looking directly at him. "That's the way it goes. Screw up and learn from them just slightly too late to do anything about the problem you caused, right?"
"What fuckups?" He asked.
"Well, this was the last major one." She said, "Less of a mess that I thought it would be, but not exactly fun."
"Aisha, nothing about this is fun." He said.
"Yeah, I know." She shot back. "It sucks, but we have to deal with it."
Brian ground his teeth before replying. "What do we have to-"
"Aisha is Lethe." Joe said, cutting him off. It actually took a moment for him to realize what the man had just said.
"What?" He demanded.
"Aisha is Lethe." Joe repeated. "Which is probably what she was trying to say this whole time."
"Yeah, well, you know how well siblings communicate." Aisha said grimly. Joe just nodded, and there was another silent exchange that concerned Brian, but not as much as the impossible suggestion that he had just made.
"What do you mean she's Lethe?" Brian asked. "She can't be-"
There was a sudden flash and the sound of shifting metal and suddenly there was a suit of purple power armor where his sister had been standing. A very familiar suit at that, complete with ridiculous heels.
"The fuck?" Brian muttered, then the bottom portion of the helmet slid open, revealing a very familiar smile. It was followed by the entire helmet folding back into the suit. "You're Lethe?" He asked. "How the fuck are you Lethe?"
"Like I said, triggered with Dad."
"As the most powerful stranger on the planet?" He asked, his voice pitching up higher than he intended. His sister just shrugged.
"Wasn't as good with my powers back then. Probably wouldn't have worried people to the same level." She said flippantly, as if having PRT watch posts in every city monitoring for her power use was a minor detail.
"You were at the summit." He said, the full implications sinking in. Aisha just nodded. "How the fuck did this happen?"
"Told you." She said, "Followed Joe back to his lab."
With his sister apparently being one of the strongest strangers on record, suddenly that claim made a lot more sense. It still didn't address the absolute clusterfuck that was the fact that Apeiron had been taking boxing lessons from his father and enduring his sister's antics, but at least the later portion made sense.
"And he just made you power armor?" Brian asked. Even for Joe, that was beyond erratic and irresponsible.
"No, that was when I found out my powers don't work on Garment." Aisha said.
"Garment?" Brian asked. "What does she have to do with this?"
He looked from Aisha to Joe, both of which were giving him rather flat looks. He let out a breath. "Of fucking course. She's mixed up with this as well."
"I mean, technically we're in her studio right now." Aisha said. Brian raised an eyebrow and looked around the cavernous space.
"Expanded backrooms." Joe said, like that was an explanation. And for him it probably was.
"Right. Fuck, right. So you work with Garment? Like, she's associated with all of this?" He asked.
"Bit more than that." Aisha said. Brian raised an eyebrow. "She was at the summit as well."
"What?" He asked. "That's… no she…" He looked at his sister. His unbelievably powerful stranger of a sister. "Did you do some memory thing?"
"What, like Victor?" She shot back, and Brian suddenly remembered the way Lethe had held that sword at Othala's throat. Another point of concern for a very long list. "Please. She was right out in the open."
"Aisha…" Joe said. There was a long-suffering tone to his voice that Brian found very familiar.
"What, too much?" She asked.
Joe shook his head. "No, but if you're getting into team stuff, it might be better to deal with it in the Workshop."
Aisha's expression suddenly turned serious. "What, is there a problem? I thought Fleet had things covered?" Her eyes suddenly shifted to that opaque blue glow again while Joe shook his head.
"Not on that front, though it's a pretty big task. It would just be better to get this fully veiled." He looked at Brian. "And it would probably be good for you to have a chance to talk, privately."
Brian felt himself tense. Technically, this had been what he had been pushing for, a chance to bring Aisha to task, figure out how far things had gone, and start working to deal with whatever mess she had gotten herself into. He looked over at his sister, still with the extra height of her armor's heels. Joe had said if she was dealing with team stuff he wanted them to talk in the workshop. In his workshop. His base, and presumably Aisha's.
Considering he had been planning to drag her back to the hideout, it felt hypocritical to have a problem with the opposite circumstance, but given the scale of what they were talking about, he felt rather justified. The Undersiders' base compared to wherever Joe spun the insanity that he regularly unleashed on the world. There was no comparison. He had no idea what Joe's workshop was like, but based on the state of 'workshop adjacent', he was willing to bet it would be more than overwhelming.
"Probably a good idea." She said, looking at Brian. Aisha wanted to talk. She actually wanted to talk, and to explain herself. Willingly, and presumably truthfully, not under duress as she spun whatever story she thought would get her into the least trouble.
Because she was beyond trouble here. Fuck, Aisha was Lethe. The idea of Aisha even knowing Joe was a nightmare. He couldn't put into words the absolute disaster that would be Aisha having the power and resources of the world's strongest stranger, who apparently had more abilities than she was letting on.
Except there hadn't been any disasters. Well, no more than you'd expect from Apeiron. Lethe was terrifying, but she wasn't the source of instability that had everyone on edge. Somehow Aisha had gotten power beyond anything Brian could conceive and managed to be halfway responsible with it. Either Joe's team was keeping her on an incredibly short leash, or something had changed. And if it had, Brian needed to figure out what it was, even if it meant heading into the belly of the beast.
"Um, yeah." Brian said. "We should talk."
"Right." Joe said. "Do you need me to set up a room for you? Maybe the Aquarium?"
Aisha shook her head. "No, we'll be fine in my place." Joe nodded, but Brian gave Aisha a concerned look.
"You have a 'place' in Joe's workshop?" He asked.
"Yeah." She said shamelessly. "And unlike some people, it's not a clubhouse over an abandoned factory."
Brian blinked. "You've been to our base?"
"What, you think I followed Joe but not you?" She said, "My place also has less mopey teenagers and moldy pizza, so that's another plus."
Brian stared at her, then looked to Joe who just shrugged. Honestly, given what had apparently happened to Joe, even if he only had slivers of the story, he wasn't in a place to complain. And given the state his team was in after Bakuda's attack, it couldn't have made the best impression. In the wake of something like that, it was hard to blame her for not telling him about her trigger.
That felt like another point of failure. Not only had they launched themselves into a giant mess, multiple cape conflicts, and a mountain of debt, but he hadn't been there for his sister when she needed him. Someone had, but he was still trying to figure out if that was a good or bad thing.
"You ready?" Joe asked. "I can get it for you?"
"No, I'm good." Aisha said, her eyes flicking blue again. "Got to get used to the interface, right?"
There was another shared moment that made Brian feel like an outsider, then a sudden shock as a flickering gray portal manifested in front of them. The area through the portal was washed out and indistinct, but also big. Big and spacious, even compared to the room they were in. It was Apeiron's workshop, and his sister could apparently access it with a thought.
A new level to the entire situation suddenly came crashing down on him. After this, all the little points of separation he had worked to maintain between himself and Joe's team would go up in smoke. With Aisha actually on that team those points of separation were already meaningless, but that was still sinking in. Honestly, he didn't know if it would ever sink in, but even beyond that, this was huge. Beyond huge. This was the heart of Apeiron's operation, and he was being invited inside.
No, it was worse. He wasn't even being formally invited. He was just tagging along with his sister so they could hash out the absolute clusterfuck that she had found herself in. A clusterfuck fully beyond anything he could reasonably expect to be able to resolve. Probably bigger than he could even fully comprehend, because suddenly he was seeing the insanity from the inside.
He had liked that separation. That idea that he was working a degree away from whatever Joe was up to. He had his team and his job and his work to take care of Aisha. Except Aisha was in a situation beyond anything he had ever considered, and now he was forced to step into that world, if only to find out where she had ended up. Just that one step, it was more than he had ever considered. More than he imagined Joe ever extending to a member of the team. It weighed on him as he stood on the threshold of the portal. Once step where everything would change.
Or everything had already changed, and that step would let him realize how much. But either way you looked at it, there would be no going back. No leading the Undersiders on simple jobs or meeting with social workers for Aisha's custody hearings. Fuck, everything WAS different, and he just hadn't realized it yet.
He paused awkwardly while his sister looked over at him with an amused expression.
"What?" Aisha asked. "You nervous because you're realizing that the trust placed in you comes with implicit obligations that completely change your position in life and relationships with what you felt were hard and fast absolutes of your existence, meaning you can never go back to the way things were and have to navigate through a broader but largely uncertain future?"
Brian blinked as he looked at his sister's smirking face, trying to reconcile her frankly juvenile mannerisms with the weight of the statement she had just made. "Um, I guess?" He said. "Maybe?"
She snorted. "Yeah, responsibility sucks." She replied, smiling in a very 'Aisha' way. "Now come on, we've got a lot to talk about."
Brian nodded and braced himself as he stepped through the portal with his sister. Belly of the beast, rabbit hole, scales from eyes, however you wanted to phrase it, he needed to see this though. To figure out what was happening, and what was going to come after that.
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Brian's whole world just went not only upside down, but into a whole different orientation in 5D space.
Look at how wise Aisha has gotten in the last 1 minute of subjective time. Also, she should really stop projecting, but that's a separate issue.
SiegfriedisOP
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Daaaaaammmnnn!!!
"We didn't know how bad Joe was doing till we realized him being ugly as fuck wasn't his normal state."