Maelstrom 2.3
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
MERRY CHRISTMAS FUCKERS (forgot this isnt QQ for a moment 
)
Special thank you to @hellgodsrus and @Takareer for being co-author and beta-reader!
BURN!
Maelstrom
2.3
-.-.-
It hurt.
I would make. Them. PAY.
-.-.-
Lisa woke with a start and a cough. A lot of coughing. Her lungs ached. Her whole body felt like it was coated in glass.
Given the way it felt like her skin cracked when she moved, she might have been right.
She groaned, trying to sit up, putting a hand to her head. It hurt.
"What - what happened last night?" she finally opened her eyes and almost shut them again immediately. Squinting. Yeah, that'd - that'd do. Kid Win was next to her, and they were surrounded by…
Oh. That had happened last night.
She gulped. One death by fire had been enough. She wasn't trying for a second by suffocation and-or crushing. "Hey. Hey, Kid Win." She jostled his armour gently. "You in there?"
No power. No idea if he was alive or dead or - no, he was breathing. He was alive. He groaned.
"Hey. Wake up."
"Fffuuuuucking hell - what happened?" he shook his head. "Crap. Slept in my armour again."
Lisa shook him gently. "Not slept. We got a building collapsed on us."
"Greaaat. How are we - how are we not crushed?"
Lisa looked at the concrete above her, waiting for her power to fill in the blanks based on the - wait, her power was gone. Motherfucker. "I don't have a fucking clue."
"Really. The amazing mindreader or whatever who knows things she definitely shouldn't has no clue."
"It's been a weird few days, okay?" Lisa shuffled into a crouch. "And I already said, I don't have my powers any more."
Kid Win grunted and tried to get into a less uncomfortable position, leaning forward and - "Gah!" he fell down onto his stomach with a nasty jerk on an exposed metal bar tearing his helmet off. "Fuck!"
"Stay still. Thrashing around might bring down the rest of the building." Lisa looked up - sure enough, a few pebble sized bits of debris and a whole lot of dust started shifting down. She wasn't sure if she should look at him - the wreckage had unmasked him, and the Unwritten Rules… "And, uh, your mask -"
"Fucking thing cut me -" he was grumbling. "Damnit. Damnit." He groaned, and rolled over. "How bad is it?" he asked, one gauntlet over his eyes. There was a red line down his cheekbone. Huh. The visor that had held back his hair now allowed it to flop forward more naturally. But it wasn't just the visor, there'd been something else, probably, but -
Stupid fucking no power. "Small cut. Nothing serious, as long as you get some disinfectant on it." She squinted. "Looks like it'll scar, without that though."
"Fuck." He grimaced and dropped his hand, looking away. Arms resting on his knees. "Well now I have to either build a faceplate into my visor or hope I can convince Panacea to help me before Pyre finishes killing everyone."
"What did she even do to us? Assuming that was her."
"Brought the whole street down on us." He gestured gently to the wreckage. It was day, that much she could tell from the weak light coming in - but that was it. Morning, night, no clue.
"How. Fire, the ice you mentioned, how."
"Why is that important?"
"I don't know. I just think it might be."
"Didn't get a good look, either way." He scowled. "Might have been… stone?" He shrugged and wearily shook his head.
"Elements…"
"I mean, she's a trump, though. So… I'm not sure how it would help."
"I don't think she's a power copier. It doesn't fit. And it doesn't fit with what old man cheese said either. Or this." She gestured a little with the staff. "Cycles through elements maybe? But why? Why did it take so long to move on from fire?"
"Well… I guess she didn't go ice until Bakuda turned her into a glacier…" Kid Win frowned. "If it's exposure - what would shooting her in the head do? If she was in civilian ID?"
"What makes you think I know?"
"You've built up a reputation for knowing things you have no right to. Humour me."
"I don't though. If we're going off the exposure idea… something with metal, maybe? Some of the older elemental models had that. I don't know. I can't - fuck - " Like missing a limb. She kept reaching, but there was nothing to reach with, nothing at all. No voice, nothing.
"Uh, Tattletale?"
"I'm trying to concentrate."
"I can see that." He pointed at the stick. The stick that was glowing. The carved heads filled with ethereal, golden light that gave off no heat.
She tried to pull back but while reaching she'd found something else, something of cheese and laughter that drew on her, down her arm -
Lisa let out a small, startled noise and dropped the stick, the light firing out and into the rubble, dispersing in a puff of smoke that… that…
Rattlerattlerattle -
One fell and hit her on the head. And then they all began to fall. Kid Win's hand shot out and grabbed his visor back before it was further broken by the -
Something crumbly trickled down the back of her shirt and scrambled, pushing away bone after bone after houseplant after - what?
She spat sand out of her mouth, and rubbed her shin where a houseplant had landed particularly hard. Used a small pile of bones to pull herself upright.
"What. The fuck." Kid Win had his visor on and was shoving bones out of the way by the armload. "Was that?"
Sunlight. Fresh air. And lots of screaming. Screaming? Oh. Civilians. Fuck.
She could faintly hear familiar laughter from somewhere in the back of her head. "Wabbajack."
"What the fuck is a wabbajack?"
"That stick." She held it up in a slight daze. Kind of dizzy. "The stick old man Sheogorath threw at me."
"The stick. The stick did that."
Lisa could feel a headache coming on.
-.-.-
It was hard, to let the armour walk for him.
But he had to do this.
The house was… his first thought was 'unassuming'. It was plain. A bit aged, but otherwise, nothing that gave off the impression of being in a bad neighborhood. No graffiti, the paint was in decent condition…
A quick glance at the file he'd constructed again. Taylor Hebert. Single child. Mother died in a car accident due to the other party texting while driving several years ago. Quiet, attended Winslow - likely hence the confrontation with Sophia, especially given her abrasive personality. Father was a lead figure in the dockworker's union, involved in numerous civil conflicts with the mayor and, earlier in his life, a few protest groups.
There was an unfortunate possibility that he would not respond well to an authority figure asking questions. But he had to take that chance.
The first step was rotten. It hurt to skip over it. Still recovering.
Deep breath. This wasn't like a job interview. He'd been through the questioning process plenty of times before.
They'd never had quite so much at stake, though.
Knock knock knock.
"Coming! I just got in, I'm on my way!" Muffled, from within the house. There hadn't been any police reports mentioning a Taylor Hebert; missing persons or otherwise. Perhaps he still expected her to come home? Did he know?
The click of a lock and the door swing open. "Hi, how can I…" the man blinked, mouth hanging open slightly. "I… uh… Armsmaster?"
Colin nodded and tried to put on a dashing smile - reassure the - target? Client? He didn't know how to think about him - but it came out more as a pained grimace. "Yes. Are you Daniel Hebert?"
"Uh… most people call me Danny. Can I help you?" A sudden frozen expression of pain. "Is this - are my workers okay? I tried to call the office when the alarms went, make sure they all evacuated. Or - is Taylor - "
He hated doing this. He'd hated doing it when he'd been riding along with Robert as a Ward, he'd hated it throughout his career. "No, sir. As far as I'm aware, none of your employees or coworkers are injured. I can't confirm that, of course - we're still totalling and attempting to work out Protectorate, PRT and civilian casualties, but that's not why I'm here." He wished he could reassure him about Taylor, but - that was why he was here. Rip it off like a bandaid. All at once. "I'm here because I suspect - and bear in mind, at this moment this is not a formal charge - that your daughter is the parahuman we have, tentatively, codenamed Pyre."
"I don't - I don't understand."
Armsmaster bit his lip. "Do you mind if I sit down? I'm still - recovering. And you might want to sit yourself."
The inside of the house was no different from the outside. No signs of abuse or conflict between Taylor and her father. The shelves and bookcases were stacked high with breakables, a clear sign that they didn't believe there was risk of them falling off. He mentally struck physical abuse as a trigger off the list - at least from her father; given her hospital stay it was possible some other figure was behaving violently towards her. A friend of the family, a bully at school… the list was near endless. A bit dusty, as though both of them didn't have the spare time for it. It made sense; a union figurehead and a highschool student wouldn't have much free time between them.
It was all so… infuriatingly plain. Good at removing certain possibilities, but giving no hints towards the correct cause.
He eased himself into the seat with a quiet groan. He felt - stretched thin didn't seem right, but felt accurate. Mr. Hebert sat opposite, before making a move - "Uh, would you like tea, or coffee -?"
"It's fine, Mr. Hebert." He sighed. Thought about how to break the news to him. Bandaid hadn't worked - it was possible the man didn't keep up with the news. Projected working hours would put him outside prime time news, and resting before the late bulletins. "We… believe that your daughter is a parahuman."
The man nodded. Good, he was following so far - no, that was too low an opinion of the man. He'd not explained well and - moving on.
"Specifically, the parahuman we've tentatively given the cape name of Pyre." Don't say it too slowly, but don't rush - he was overthinking this. "What do you know of Pyre?"
"Uh, honestly not much. I haven't caught the news in - a long time." Danny grimaced. "This sounds… bad."
Two options. Explain who Pyre is - was? - and risk Hebert clamming up for fear of his last remaining family member being hurt. Or asking about his daughter first - and not having the importance of the matter pressed in.
The truth would be better in a more objective sense - but the state it might put the man into… ask about Taylor first. "Your daughter… had she been acting at all strangely lately?"
"Yyyyes," Danny nodded, slowly. "How - far, is lately?"
"The last - four or five months. I know that's a long time to cover, but…"
The man nodded again with a sigh. "The last few nights stand out the most. She left in the middle of the night on… I think it was the eleventh? I heard her leave and - stayed up waiting for her. Almost nodded off before the - meteor shower, or whatever it was, woke me up again. She came in not long after, giggling and - I think she was st- high." Rambling a bit, but it was valuable information. "Winslow isn't the… greatest of schools, not by a long shot, but I didn't think - I hoped she hadn't joined the Merchants - well, I called Alan first, and he said the Merchants were the latest drug-peddling… gang, I guess -" he shook his head. "Things went downhill from there."
"Merchants?" Colin did a quick skim of the databases - oh, them. Small time criminals, remnants of a variety of smaller gangs that had coalesced around the dubiously charismatic figure of Skidmark.
"New gang, I think. Alan only heard about them from Brandish -"
"Alan Barnes?"
"Uh, yes. That's him." Danny nodded.
Colin repressed the urge to say interesting or the plot thickens or any one of the phrases that immediately sprang to mind.
"Carol Dallon -" no, no. He shook his head. "Sorry, getting sidetracked there. Please, continue."
"Right, uh. So I confronted her about that in the morning, and it… went badly. She's - been very aggressive lately, I think. I've never seen her like this before." Danny twiddled his thumbs, leaning on the table. "After she went to school, Alan and I - and Emma, Kurt, and Lacey - tried to stage an intervention. I didn't want her to - get any worse, you see."
Colin nodded. Increased aggression, not an uncommon trait among parahumans.
"And, well…" Danny sighed, his head drooping slightly. "That lasted about twenty seconds before she held Emma up against the wall trying to choke her out and… accused her of attempted murder."
Colin's eyes narrowed. "The hospital."
"I don't - I guess she was talking about that? We tried to talk to the school and they promised to look into it but… no real leads, and Taylor asked me to stop trying so I did, and I knew I shouldn't."
"I don't mean to bring up painful memories, but could you tell me what it was that got her hospitalized?"
Danny almost looked surprised. "You - they don't have that on file?"
"I'm allowed only slightly more lenience in hospital records than any normal public citizen. I could file a request through the PRT, but I - given the situation, I think that would take too long. I know she was in intensive care roughly three months ago, and was discharged almost a week later after a psychological assessment."
"That… sounds about right. So you don't know about the locker…?" Danny's face twisted in disgust.
Colin leant forward. "Tell me."
-.-.-
The winds shifted south.
-.-.-
The thing about his powers being so random was that sometimes they felt very tonally inappropriate.
Sitting on a cloud to fly felt like something light-hearted, Disney-esque - not something to do while surveying a city at risk of fiery destruction. Eidolon stretched out a little, feeling the cloud shift beneath him to support his weight, and ran his eyes over Brockton Bay again.
Initially, his power had suggested a kind of potential dynavision, looking for heat flare ups or losses that might match activity from Pyre, but the growing numbers of people turning lights on, using electricity - too much background noise. He'd discarded it but was letting the options cycle - some other kind of heat-based future vision, possibly with an offensive component, a kind of connection web and another, more abstract power jostled for position before he settled on the web, letting it spread across his senses, strings vibrating in response to events.
There were a number of disturbances, shivering threads. He traced a few back - a collapsed building, someone running, and something off. That probably was what he was looking for. A quick application of his macroscale photokinesis zoomed in on the area, the large pile of bones and plants and - two people.
Young. Teenagers - a young man, and a young woman. He wore armour - red and gold, with a visor over his eyes. The costume was clearly based on the Interference suit, on Hero. He swallowed a pang of sorrow. One of the local Wards? Yes. Kid Win.
The other… He could almost feel a headache forming, the longer he looked at her. Deathly pale skin - grey and sickly, not like an alabaster complexion at all - and with ashen-grey hair that seemed to almost be peppered with glowing embers. Green eyes, almost startlingly so.
The web connected with her but the connections were frayed, damaged. He didn't know the power well enough to know what that meant, but at a guess… she was new to the town, or new to the situation. Her appearance suggested contact with a Cauldron Vial, but that seemed wrong somehow - surely then there'd be a thread connecting the two of them as well. He pursed his lips.
There was a staff in her hands. She was clutching it to her chest like it was a lifeline. No threads on the staff. Threads seemed stronger from people than from inanimate objects, but… surely there should've been something.
Outside context, maybe. Mariner's Harpoon.
Eidolon narrowed his eyes and twisted his photokinesis again. Glowing lines, only shining towards the Ward. This is Eidolon. Don't speak, don't react. If you have a phone, take it out. Make sure the screen points skyward. Type your response.
The Ward pulled something out of his pocket - a phone, good. PRT issue. Hi wht can i help with
Monitoring the situation. Keep girl with staff AWAY from civilians - Eidolon paused. Then added - and PRT for now. Dangerous tinkertech device, possibility of detonation. Can't enter the city due to Pyre's presence, but keep me updated. Phone number here. He finished twisting the light into his digits, then waited.
A few moments later, he got a text. Where should i take her?
Away. Pier might be good. Long sight lines. Let PRT know your position and that you're in touch with me.
A small nod from Kid Win before he pulled the girl into a late turn. Subtlety was not his area of expertise, it seemed.
Eidolon took a deep breath and let himself take a moment to look out over the city. The damaged city with a clear trail of destruction, still bearing the scars from Pyre's first emergence. The trees leaned with the wind, leaves rustling gently. He should have checked the weather forecast - northerlies might bring in the right conditions for a storm to brew...
-.-.-
) Special thank you to @hellgodsrus and @Takareer for being co-author and beta-reader!
BURN!
Maelstrom
2.3
-.-.-
It hurt.
I would make. Them. PAY.
-.-.-
Lisa woke with a start and a cough. A lot of coughing. Her lungs ached. Her whole body felt like it was coated in glass.
Given the way it felt like her skin cracked when she moved, she might have been right.
She groaned, trying to sit up, putting a hand to her head. It hurt.
"What - what happened last night?" she finally opened her eyes and almost shut them again immediately. Squinting. Yeah, that'd - that'd do. Kid Win was next to her, and they were surrounded by…
Oh. That had happened last night.
She gulped. One death by fire had been enough. She wasn't trying for a second by suffocation and-or crushing. "Hey. Hey, Kid Win." She jostled his armour gently. "You in there?"
No power. No idea if he was alive or dead or - no, he was breathing. He was alive. He groaned.
"Hey. Wake up."
"Fffuuuuucking hell - what happened?" he shook his head. "Crap. Slept in my armour again."
Lisa shook him gently. "Not slept. We got a building collapsed on us."
"Greaaat. How are we - how are we not crushed?"
Lisa looked at the concrete above her, waiting for her power to fill in the blanks based on the - wait, her power was gone. Motherfucker. "I don't have a fucking clue."
"Really. The amazing mindreader or whatever who knows things she definitely shouldn't has no clue."
"It's been a weird few days, okay?" Lisa shuffled into a crouch. "And I already said, I don't have my powers any more."
Kid Win grunted and tried to get into a less uncomfortable position, leaning forward and - "Gah!" he fell down onto his stomach with a nasty jerk on an exposed metal bar tearing his helmet off. "Fuck!"
"Stay still. Thrashing around might bring down the rest of the building." Lisa looked up - sure enough, a few pebble sized bits of debris and a whole lot of dust started shifting down. She wasn't sure if she should look at him - the wreckage had unmasked him, and the Unwritten Rules… "And, uh, your mask -"
"Fucking thing cut me -" he was grumbling. "Damnit. Damnit." He groaned, and rolled over. "How bad is it?" he asked, one gauntlet over his eyes. There was a red line down his cheekbone. Huh. The visor that had held back his hair now allowed it to flop forward more naturally. But it wasn't just the visor, there'd been something else, probably, but -
Stupid fucking no power. "Small cut. Nothing serious, as long as you get some disinfectant on it." She squinted. "Looks like it'll scar, without that though."
"Fuck." He grimaced and dropped his hand, looking away. Arms resting on his knees. "Well now I have to either build a faceplate into my visor or hope I can convince Panacea to help me before Pyre finishes killing everyone."
"What did she even do to us? Assuming that was her."
"Brought the whole street down on us." He gestured gently to the wreckage. It was day, that much she could tell from the weak light coming in - but that was it. Morning, night, no clue.
"How. Fire, the ice you mentioned, how."
"Why is that important?"
"I don't know. I just think it might be."
"Didn't get a good look, either way." He scowled. "Might have been… stone?" He shrugged and wearily shook his head.
"Elements…"
"I mean, she's a trump, though. So… I'm not sure how it would help."
"I don't think she's a power copier. It doesn't fit. And it doesn't fit with what old man cheese said either. Or this." She gestured a little with the staff. "Cycles through elements maybe? But why? Why did it take so long to move on from fire?"
"Well… I guess she didn't go ice until Bakuda turned her into a glacier…" Kid Win frowned. "If it's exposure - what would shooting her in the head do? If she was in civilian ID?"
"What makes you think I know?"
"You've built up a reputation for knowing things you have no right to. Humour me."
"I don't though. If we're going off the exposure idea… something with metal, maybe? Some of the older elemental models had that. I don't know. I can't - fuck - " Like missing a limb. She kept reaching, but there was nothing to reach with, nothing at all. No voice, nothing.
"Uh, Tattletale?"
"I'm trying to concentrate."
"I can see that." He pointed at the stick. The stick that was glowing. The carved heads filled with ethereal, golden light that gave off no heat.
She tried to pull back but while reaching she'd found something else, something of cheese and laughter that drew on her, down her arm -
Lisa let out a small, startled noise and dropped the stick, the light firing out and into the rubble, dispersing in a puff of smoke that… that…
Rattlerattlerattle -
One fell and hit her on the head. And then they all began to fall. Kid Win's hand shot out and grabbed his visor back before it was further broken by the -
Something crumbly trickled down the back of her shirt and scrambled, pushing away bone after bone after houseplant after - what?
She spat sand out of her mouth, and rubbed her shin where a houseplant had landed particularly hard. Used a small pile of bones to pull herself upright.
"What. The fuck." Kid Win had his visor on and was shoving bones out of the way by the armload. "Was that?"
Sunlight. Fresh air. And lots of screaming. Screaming? Oh. Civilians. Fuck.
She could faintly hear familiar laughter from somewhere in the back of her head. "Wabbajack."
"What the fuck is a wabbajack?"
"That stick." She held it up in a slight daze. Kind of dizzy. "The stick old man Sheogorath threw at me."
"The stick. The stick did that."
Lisa could feel a headache coming on.
-.-.-
It was hard, to let the armour walk for him.
But he had to do this.
The house was… his first thought was 'unassuming'. It was plain. A bit aged, but otherwise, nothing that gave off the impression of being in a bad neighborhood. No graffiti, the paint was in decent condition…
A quick glance at the file he'd constructed again. Taylor Hebert. Single child. Mother died in a car accident due to the other party texting while driving several years ago. Quiet, attended Winslow - likely hence the confrontation with Sophia, especially given her abrasive personality. Father was a lead figure in the dockworker's union, involved in numerous civil conflicts with the mayor and, earlier in his life, a few protest groups.
There was an unfortunate possibility that he would not respond well to an authority figure asking questions. But he had to take that chance.
The first step was rotten. It hurt to skip over it. Still recovering.
Deep breath. This wasn't like a job interview. He'd been through the questioning process plenty of times before.
They'd never had quite so much at stake, though.
Knock knock knock.
"Coming! I just got in, I'm on my way!" Muffled, from within the house. There hadn't been any police reports mentioning a Taylor Hebert; missing persons or otherwise. Perhaps he still expected her to come home? Did he know?
The click of a lock and the door swing open. "Hi, how can I…" the man blinked, mouth hanging open slightly. "I… uh… Armsmaster?"
Colin nodded and tried to put on a dashing smile - reassure the - target? Client? He didn't know how to think about him - but it came out more as a pained grimace. "Yes. Are you Daniel Hebert?"
"Uh… most people call me Danny. Can I help you?" A sudden frozen expression of pain. "Is this - are my workers okay? I tried to call the office when the alarms went, make sure they all evacuated. Or - is Taylor - "
He hated doing this. He'd hated doing it when he'd been riding along with Robert as a Ward, he'd hated it throughout his career. "No, sir. As far as I'm aware, none of your employees or coworkers are injured. I can't confirm that, of course - we're still totalling and attempting to work out Protectorate, PRT and civilian casualties, but that's not why I'm here." He wished he could reassure him about Taylor, but - that was why he was here. Rip it off like a bandaid. All at once. "I'm here because I suspect - and bear in mind, at this moment this is not a formal charge - that your daughter is the parahuman we have, tentatively, codenamed Pyre."
"I don't - I don't understand."
Armsmaster bit his lip. "Do you mind if I sit down? I'm still - recovering. And you might want to sit yourself."
The inside of the house was no different from the outside. No signs of abuse or conflict between Taylor and her father. The shelves and bookcases were stacked high with breakables, a clear sign that they didn't believe there was risk of them falling off. He mentally struck physical abuse as a trigger off the list - at least from her father; given her hospital stay it was possible some other figure was behaving violently towards her. A friend of the family, a bully at school… the list was near endless. A bit dusty, as though both of them didn't have the spare time for it. It made sense; a union figurehead and a highschool student wouldn't have much free time between them.
It was all so… infuriatingly plain. Good at removing certain possibilities, but giving no hints towards the correct cause.
He eased himself into the seat with a quiet groan. He felt - stretched thin didn't seem right, but felt accurate. Mr. Hebert sat opposite, before making a move - "Uh, would you like tea, or coffee -?"
"It's fine, Mr. Hebert." He sighed. Thought about how to break the news to him. Bandaid hadn't worked - it was possible the man didn't keep up with the news. Projected working hours would put him outside prime time news, and resting before the late bulletins. "We… believe that your daughter is a parahuman."
The man nodded. Good, he was following so far - no, that was too low an opinion of the man. He'd not explained well and - moving on.
"Specifically, the parahuman we've tentatively given the cape name of Pyre." Don't say it too slowly, but don't rush - he was overthinking this. "What do you know of Pyre?"
"Uh, honestly not much. I haven't caught the news in - a long time." Danny grimaced. "This sounds… bad."
Two options. Explain who Pyre is - was? - and risk Hebert clamming up for fear of his last remaining family member being hurt. Or asking about his daughter first - and not having the importance of the matter pressed in.
The truth would be better in a more objective sense - but the state it might put the man into… ask about Taylor first. "Your daughter… had she been acting at all strangely lately?"
"Yyyyes," Danny nodded, slowly. "How - far, is lately?"
"The last - four or five months. I know that's a long time to cover, but…"
The man nodded again with a sigh. "The last few nights stand out the most. She left in the middle of the night on… I think it was the eleventh? I heard her leave and - stayed up waiting for her. Almost nodded off before the - meteor shower, or whatever it was, woke me up again. She came in not long after, giggling and - I think she was st- high." Rambling a bit, but it was valuable information. "Winslow isn't the… greatest of schools, not by a long shot, but I didn't think - I hoped she hadn't joined the Merchants - well, I called Alan first, and he said the Merchants were the latest drug-peddling… gang, I guess -" he shook his head. "Things went downhill from there."
"Merchants?" Colin did a quick skim of the databases - oh, them. Small time criminals, remnants of a variety of smaller gangs that had coalesced around the dubiously charismatic figure of Skidmark.
"New gang, I think. Alan only heard about them from Brandish -"
"Alan Barnes?"
"Uh, yes. That's him." Danny nodded.
Colin repressed the urge to say interesting or the plot thickens or any one of the phrases that immediately sprang to mind.
"Carol Dallon -" no, no. He shook his head. "Sorry, getting sidetracked there. Please, continue."
"Right, uh. So I confronted her about that in the morning, and it… went badly. She's - been very aggressive lately, I think. I've never seen her like this before." Danny twiddled his thumbs, leaning on the table. "After she went to school, Alan and I - and Emma, Kurt, and Lacey - tried to stage an intervention. I didn't want her to - get any worse, you see."
Colin nodded. Increased aggression, not an uncommon trait among parahumans.
"And, well…" Danny sighed, his head drooping slightly. "That lasted about twenty seconds before she held Emma up against the wall trying to choke her out and… accused her of attempted murder."
Colin's eyes narrowed. "The hospital."
"I don't - I guess she was talking about that? We tried to talk to the school and they promised to look into it but… no real leads, and Taylor asked me to stop trying so I did, and I knew I shouldn't."
"I don't mean to bring up painful memories, but could you tell me what it was that got her hospitalized?"
Danny almost looked surprised. "You - they don't have that on file?"
"I'm allowed only slightly more lenience in hospital records than any normal public citizen. I could file a request through the PRT, but I - given the situation, I think that would take too long. I know she was in intensive care roughly three months ago, and was discharged almost a week later after a psychological assessment."
"That… sounds about right. So you don't know about the locker…?" Danny's face twisted in disgust.
Colin leant forward. "Tell me."
-.-.-
The winds shifted south.
-.-.-
The thing about his powers being so random was that sometimes they felt very tonally inappropriate.
Sitting on a cloud to fly felt like something light-hearted, Disney-esque - not something to do while surveying a city at risk of fiery destruction. Eidolon stretched out a little, feeling the cloud shift beneath him to support his weight, and ran his eyes over Brockton Bay again.
Initially, his power had suggested a kind of potential dynavision, looking for heat flare ups or losses that might match activity from Pyre, but the growing numbers of people turning lights on, using electricity - too much background noise. He'd discarded it but was letting the options cycle - some other kind of heat-based future vision, possibly with an offensive component, a kind of connection web and another, more abstract power jostled for position before he settled on the web, letting it spread across his senses, strings vibrating in response to events.
There were a number of disturbances, shivering threads. He traced a few back - a collapsed building, someone running, and something off. That probably was what he was looking for. A quick application of his macroscale photokinesis zoomed in on the area, the large pile of bones and plants and - two people.
Young. Teenagers - a young man, and a young woman. He wore armour - red and gold, with a visor over his eyes. The costume was clearly based on the Interference suit, on Hero. He swallowed a pang of sorrow. One of the local Wards? Yes. Kid Win.
The other… He could almost feel a headache forming, the longer he looked at her. Deathly pale skin - grey and sickly, not like an alabaster complexion at all - and with ashen-grey hair that seemed to almost be peppered with glowing embers. Green eyes, almost startlingly so.
The web connected with her but the connections were frayed, damaged. He didn't know the power well enough to know what that meant, but at a guess… she was new to the town, or new to the situation. Her appearance suggested contact with a Cauldron Vial, but that seemed wrong somehow - surely then there'd be a thread connecting the two of them as well. He pursed his lips.
There was a staff in her hands. She was clutching it to her chest like it was a lifeline. No threads on the staff. Threads seemed stronger from people than from inanimate objects, but… surely there should've been something.
Outside context, maybe. Mariner's Harpoon.
Eidolon narrowed his eyes and twisted his photokinesis again. Glowing lines, only shining towards the Ward. This is Eidolon. Don't speak, don't react. If you have a phone, take it out. Make sure the screen points skyward. Type your response.
The Ward pulled something out of his pocket - a phone, good. PRT issue. Hi wht can i help with
Monitoring the situation. Keep girl with staff AWAY from civilians - Eidolon paused. Then added - and PRT for now. Dangerous tinkertech device, possibility of detonation. Can't enter the city due to Pyre's presence, but keep me updated. Phone number here. He finished twisting the light into his digits, then waited.
A few moments later, he got a text. Where should i take her?
Away. Pier might be good. Long sight lines. Let PRT know your position and that you're in touch with me.
A small nod from Kid Win before he pulled the girl into a late turn. Subtlety was not his area of expertise, it seemed.
Eidolon took a deep breath and let himself take a moment to look out over the city. The damaged city with a clear trail of destruction, still bearing the scars from Pyre's first emergence. The trees leaned with the wind, leaves rustling gently. He should have checked the weather forecast - northerlies might bring in the right conditions for a storm to brew...
-.-.-
